Darker

by Simon Clark

  Chapter 58

  Visions and Nightmares

  Snap!

  As Richard Young sat on the bus trying to hammer out what the hell he did now, the sound cracked through his head.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his head from side to side.

  Snap!

  The sound came again. Almost the same kind of sound you get in your ears when you’re going uphill or downhill in a car. The air pressure in the inner ear causes a pop as it equalizes with the outer air pressure.

  Snap!

  Similar but not the same. Anyway, the bus was travelling on a level stretch of road. He yawned, but his ears didn’t pop.

  Snap!

  The sound came from inside his head. Sometimes when people are under prolonged stress they develop a buzzing in the ears. Perhaps this was a similar manifestation. Christ knew he’d been through enough to send him giggling all the way to the nearest psychiatric ward.

  He looked out at the trees and Devonshire cottages. They seemed distant and unreal. The other passengers might as well have been images on a TV screen. One woman showed another woman a sweater she’d bought at the market. A child kneeled up on the seat in front of him swooping a toy helicopter. Across the aisle sat an old man with a black dog under his seat. The dog panted in the heat, its long pink tongue dripping spots of saliva on to the bus floor.

  Richard thought: Christ. What do I do now? Where do I go now? Where is Amy? Where is that bastard Michael taking them?

  The bus driver sounded the horn as a VW van overtook the bus, narrowly missing an oncoming motorcyclist.

  Snap!

  He closed his eyes. He couldn’t chase after them on the damn bus. He’d have to get hold of a car. With luck there’d be a car rental office in the next town. But then again, he had no money to pay for the thing. If he had no money, he’d have no car.

  But what was Michael going to do to his family? He had to find them. They needed him. But he would need a car …

  The conundrum circled around his head. A question with no answer; a damn’ riddle with no fucking solution.

  Snap!

  That sound again. Like some frigging numskull inside his head trying to turn a key in a lock.

  Snap!

  He clenched his fists; eyes tight shut.

  Snap!

  There was a pressure growing inside his skull. Maybe his blood pressure was so high one artery after another was giving way under the strain like over-inflated tyres.

  Snap!

  Maybe he’d scream and stagger down the bus, blood running like tears from his eyes; blood flowing like snot from his nose; blood bubbling from his ears.

  Snap! Snap! SNAP!

  The sound of the bus seemed distant. Something was happening to him. He didn’t know what. Maybe …

  Snap!

  The passenger behind him was leaning forward so close to the back of his neck he could almost feel their breath on his bare skin. He could sense eyes boring into the back of his head. Christ …

  He looked back, ready to start punching.

  No one there.

  In fact there were no more passengers sitting behind him.

  Jesus, what’s happening to me? Here I am, standing on the rock of sanity, but there’s a crack appeared beneath my feet, and it’s getting wider and wider and …

  The bus stopped to drop off the old man and his dog.

  Richard shut his eyes again, trying to hang on to his crumbling rationality. Again there was a sensation that someone sat behind him almost touching the back of his head.

  Snap!

  His face felt stiff and numb. But he was sure that was no longer the effect of the nettle sting.

  It was as if someone had got their finger inside his brain and had begun to stir. He felt so damn weird.

  Snap!

  Images bubbled up inside his head. They were so bright and solid he thought for one confused moment that he’d only dreamed he was riding the bus. That he really was sitting between Joey and Christine in the back seat of a car. Joey munched on a bread roll filled with bacon. Mayonnaise slicked his bottom lip white. He looked up at his wife to his right. Why did she seem so big? She gazed out of the window, twirling a length of her hair between her fingers as if lost in some problem.

  A little butterfly with wings as blue as the sky fluttered inside the car against the side window, then flew forwards towards the windscreen. Richard tracked it with his eyes as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. A hand came up and slapped it against the glass, grinding the beautiful blue wings to crumbs.

  Sadness surged up within him with a power that was as inexplicable as it was huge. A lump like an egg squeezed into his throat.

  The hand belonged to Michael. He was driving. His brown eyes looked different now. Concentration made them look fierce. He looked like a man who’d decided on some course of action; and he’d follow it to its bitter end.

  He looked down at his hands. He saw the Rosemary Snow doll, long black hair tugged by the breeze.

  Snap!

  He opened his eyes. A muscle beneath his left eyebrow twitched.

  The bus stopped. The boy with the helicopter followed his mother off the bus. A girl climbed on the bus. Paid the driver, and sat on the vacant seat in front of him. She had short ginger hair.

  Snap!

  He closed his eyes. An object felt as if it slipped through his skull. It felt almost the same as when you slide your finger inside your mouth to dislodge a piece of apple from beside your gum.

  Snap!

  What was this thing he felt inside his skull?

  Snap!

  A torrent of images erupted. All bright and vivid. But disjointed, making no sense.

  One second he was remembering what he saw in York Minster. The walls coming down. A roof timber shattering a statue. But he saw it from a different perspective. He felt the blind terror. But it seemed different somehow. He saw things that he hadn’t seen the first time around. A toppling statue of a saint pinned a fat woman to the floor. She writhed beneath it, clawing at the broad stone back in a parody of lovemaking.

  Then he saw a figure racing towards him along the aisle out of that boiling mist of dust and debris.

  To his astonishment he saw it was himself. As if he was watching a video of what had happened to him on that day.

  Or that he was watching through someone else’s eyes.

  Snap!

  Most made no sense. Night-time. He was in his garden at home. Two brutish-looking men were standing by the house. One struck the other with a hammer across the back of the head …

  … running through a field of yellow flowers. A moonlit night. It follows. The Beast cutting through the yellow crop like a speedboat …

  … a hospital room. A mirror. In the mirror a face surrounded by a mat of long black hair. The face is shockingly wounded …

  Snap!

  He opened his eyes as the bus pulled into the station. This time his head felt clear. He didn’t know if he’d actually slept on the bus, but at least the rest had helped.

  Even so, his legs were shaky as he climbed off the bus.

  He left the station looking for a café. First he’d drink a couple of black coffees, then he’d start looking for a car.

  Richard sat at the table in the café. Traffic rumbled by outside. The radio on the counter played ‘Unchained Melody’. The place smelled of freshly brewed coffee. The few customers had occupied the window seats.

  Preoccupied, he let his gaze rest on a fly walking round and round on the red tablecloth. The coffee mug steamed in his hand.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  Almost startled, he looked up. A girl in her late teens with long black hair and a stark white face looked down at him. He glanced round at the empty tables and understood.

  He grunted, ‘I’m not interested.’

  The audacity of the whore. In a quiet café, in the middle of the day.

  As if she hadn’t heard what he said, she sat oppos
ite. He began to stand, intending to move to another table.

  She grabbed his forearm with a surprising strength that bordered on the ferocious. Then, in a low voice, she said, ‘My name is Rosemary Snow.’

  Chapter 59

  Snow

  When he didn’t reply straight away, she repeated, ‘I’m Rosemary Snow.’

  He stared at her so hard that she broke eye contact self-consciously and pulled her hair across her cheek to hide the crust of scabs that ran down the left side of her face.

  At last, he replied simply, ‘I know.’

  Her eyes widened, surprised. ‘Michael told you about me?’

  ‘No. My daughter. My four-year-old daughter.’ Richard fought to keep the crack of insanity closed beneath his feet. He breathed deeply and took a deep swallow of coffee.

  ‘So, I did get through to Amy.’ In something like triumph, she slapped her hand down on the table, causing the café’s diners to turn and look.

  Richard said, ‘Amy talked about you a lot; she even named a doll after you.’

  ‘Listen. This may be hard to take in, but for the last few days I have been able to see through your daughter’s eyes. It started about a fortnight ago when —’

  Wearily, Richard held up a hand. ‘You don’t have to explain. I know what happened, or at least I can guess what happened. You’ve spent some time with Michael?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then that thing that’s following him nearly killed you?’

  Again a nod.

  ‘Then …’ Feeling almost drunk, he put his finger to his head. ‘There were changes in here. You start seeing things. You think at first they’re dreams, or … or some kind of hallucination?’

  ‘Yes. But they’re real. Sometimes it’s not clear. But I’ve seen you riding in a car with Michael, and then there’s a heavily built man, lank hair —’

  ‘That’s Joey Barrass, my brother-in-law.’

  ‘And a woman – your wife?’

  ‘Christine. Yes.’

  ‘And the little girl, Amy?’

  ‘Amy.’ He nodded, feeling a weight against his neck.

  ‘Where are they now?’

  Shrugging, he stood up, walked out of the café and headed across a car park. Rosemary Snow followed, limping slightly.

  ‘Wait. Richard. Where are you going?’

  ‘Where am I going? I don’t know, Rosemary Snow.’

  ‘Wait, just a moment.’

  ‘I can’t wait any longer. I’m going to find a car.’

  ‘Where?’

  He shrugged. ‘Steal one.’

  ‘Believe me, Mr Young, it’s harder than you think.’

  ‘Any suggestions?’ He winced at the bitterness in his voice.

  ‘I’ve got a van. Use that.’

  He stopped his furious march through the car park and looked back into her eyes. There was a gentleness and compassion in there, as well as pain. He sighed and let his shoulders drop. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘Christ, I’m behaving like a right bastard … I didn’t mean to …’ He shrugged, words failing him. ‘Sorry. It’s been a hell of a morning.’

  She smiled, raising her brown eyes to meet his. ‘It’s been a hell of a week.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can start again. I’m Richard Young.’ He held out his hand.

  ‘Rosemary Snow.’ She shook his hand. ‘When I saw you get off the bus I parked in a side street by the café.’

  ‘You’ve been following me?’

  ‘For a long, long way.’

  He looked down at the girl who was so slightly built he could have believed a summer’s breeze would float her away. ‘I think we’ve got some stories to swap, don’t you?’

  This time her smile was warm. ‘I think so, too.’

  Chapter 60

  Square One

  Richard wanted to drive straight to the address Michael had originally given him. But it seemed obvious now, in view of Michael leaving him to be pulped by the Beast, that the address would be false. Rosemary suggested that they find the nearest library, check the telephone directories, then do some phoning.

  It would be faster than driving all the way to Norfolk only to find Middleton Hall didn’t exist.

  As they drove they talked quickly. Rosemary told Richard what had happened to her; that at first Michael had seemed genuinely interested in her, as if she could be of use to him. Then, when the thing had come tearing through the farmhouse to pursue her across the field, he’d realized she was of no use to him after all – and simply abandoned her.

  To Richard the pieces of information fell into place. Michael’s interest in Amy talking about Rosemary Snow. At first Michael must have assumed Rosemary was dead. But then, when Amy started talking about her, he must have realized that she was still alive. And worse, for him, Rosemary was tracking him down.

  Richard guessed Rosemary’s aim had been to warn them about Michael. Because now he clearly planned to use Amy in the same way he’d tried to use Rosemary. Just how – and why – wasn’t clear. But it must have something to do with his recapturing this entity he called the Beast.

  As the realization of this sank in, Richard felt his agitation return and he chewed a knuckle, wishing the damn’ van could grow wings and fly them to wherever Michael had taken his family.

  Rosemary pulled into the library car park, but it was another twenty minutes before they left the van. They sat face to face, talking intensely. Rosemary’s eyes flashed in a way that suggested to Richard that finding Michael had become something of a holy quest to her.

  At last they went into the library. Richard guessed the quickest way to find out if there was such a place as Middleton Hall was to phone the library nearest to Middleton and ask if anyone had heard of it.

  The idea was so simple it was brutal. And Richard was already afraid to hear what the answer would be.

  At the same time, fifty miles away, Michael pulled into a garage, telling Christine he would buy some sweets and a drink for Amy.

  Once out of sight he pulled the mobile telephone from his pocket and dialled.

  ‘Hello? Spiro? It’s Michael. Listen. I’m on my way back to you now. Have the team got everything ready? Good. Because I want to get this over and done with by tonight.’

  The voice at the other end of the telephone began, respectfully, to protest some point. Michael cut in. ‘I’m not interested in that. It’ll work this time. I know it will. Now … I’ve been staying with the Youngs at Glebe Cottage at Banwick. I want you to get some people across there as quickly as possible. They’ll find the area around the barn in … a bit of a mess. Tell them to make the place tidy. Got that? Also, have you had any news about the girl Rosemary Snow? Well, keep looking. When you find her, send her to the farm. Right, Spiro, get to it.’

  He pocketed the telephone, bought the sweets and drink, then returned to where he’d parked the car in the shade of the tree.

  Joey was pacing up and down beside it.

  ‘About time, Michael. We can’t sit around here waiting for that thing to come back.’

  Michael smiled warmly. ‘Don’t worry, Joey. It’s still a long way off. You’ve got nothing to worry about at all.’

  By midday they’d made a single telephone call that had sent Richard to the kerbside where he sat slumped with his head in his hands.

  A librarian at Middleton and District Library had told them that Middleton Hall had been demolished ten years ago; the site was now a public park.

  Rosemary sat down beside him. Hesitantly, she put a reassuring hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find them.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘I was able to find you.’

  ‘Do you see anything now?’

  She shut her eyes. ‘No. Nothing. But —’

  ‘Try harder.’

  ‘I am trying, Richard.’

  He rubbed his face. ‘Sorry. But all I want to do is get Amy and Christine away from that man. Before he …’ He couldn’t finish the sentence.r />
  ‘Come on,’ Rosemary said, ‘let’s go back to the van.’

  Richard looked at the passing cars, in a crazy way expecting to see Michael’s car with Amy, Christine and Joey in the back.

  He stopped suddenly. A sudden idea that was as surprising as it was frightening had hit him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Rosemary asked.

  ‘Michael. When I find him I’m going to kill him. Honest to God, it’s not a figure of speech, I’m actually going to kill him.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ She said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘I am.’

  He watched her climb into the driving seat of the van.

  ‘Where now?’ she asked.

  ‘Back to the cottage. There might be some clues on how to find Michael.’

  As she pulled out of the car park, Richard found himself watching her in wonder. She wasn’t like any teenage girl he’d met before. Her dark eyes locked on to the road ahead like a hunter’s. And there was that matter-of-fact way she said she would kill Michael. And somehow he had no doubt in his mind that was what she intended to do – or die trying.

  Chapter 61

  Glebe Cottage Once More

  The cottage on the side of the valley was as Richard had left it. He caught sight of where the barn had been and where Isaac still lay, crushed beneath the debris.

  As they drove down the track to the cottage he thought the sight would have filled him with horror. But now he only wanted to smash his way into the cottage and pull the place apart until he’d found what he wanted.

  ‘Well, they haven’t come back, anyway,’ Richard said.

  ‘Did you expect them to?’

  ‘No.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘I’m just starting to hope for a miracle.’

  ‘Do you have a key?’

  ‘No, but it shouldn’t be hard to force a lock.’

  She drove fast, the van crashing across potholes so violently that Richard expected it to crack an axle or at least pop a shock absorber or two.

  ‘Careful you don’t wreck your van,’ he told her.