King of All the Dead

by Steve Lockley

  “Did you? Or was it just a cry for help?” Even as she asked the question she knew it had to have been much more than that. He would hardly have driven out into the middle of nowhere if all he’d wanted was to attract attention.

  He shifted in his seat so he could face her straight on. “Listen, I didn’t ask you to save me. It was none of your business. I don’t owe you anything.”

  “Now you listen to me.” Lisa was suddenly furious. “It is my business now, all right? And you do owe me. If it wasn’t for you, my sister –”

  She couldn’t go on. Her throat felt choked.

  “Your sister what?”

  “She’d still be alive,” Lisa said, blinking back tears.

  “Alive? What the hell are you talking about?”

  The world through the windscreen was a crystallised blur. Lisa pulled the van over and stopped it, wiping her eyes. Ben watched her, a grim look on his face.

  “We’d been out walking,” she said. “We found the van. I got in to see what I could do for you. Then this storm came out of nowhere. I saw Alison fall. No, not fall. It was like something, I couldn’t see what, picked her up and threw her at the van.”

  A film replayed in her mind, of Alison’s face striking hard metal, blood jetting as she was hurled away out of sight. If only Ben could watch the same movie. It would have been far easier than trying to express what she’d seen in mere words.

  “I know this sounds crazy,” she continued. “But I managed to get the van started and took off through the woods. And the storm, I swear, it came after me.”

  “Okay,” Ben said cautiously. “I believe you when you say something weird happened. Hey, I saw that fucking dog. But come on, storms don’t chase people.”

  “This one did,” Lisa said, keeping calm, knowing that raising her voice would not help her cause. She wasn’t even sure why she needed him to believe her. Maybe it was because she found the prospect of searching the woods alone a terrifying one.

  Besides, maybe he did have good reason for wanting to end his life. Until she found out what his reasons were, if she ever did find out, she shouldn’t judge him.

  “Lisa?” Ben asked. “Just what the hell is going on here?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish I had my sister back, too.”

  “Christ, what a mess,” he said softly.

  “Yeah. A real mess.”

  She put the van into first gear and moved off. There was no chance of locating the point where she had driven out of the woods, so instead she decided to find that part of the lane where she and Alison had entered it that second time, when they were trying to trace the sound of the engine. When they arrived at Holtford, the village, deserted and with all the house lights out, appeared an unsettlingly different place. Lisa toyed with the idea of going straight to the cottage and calling the police from there, and was immediately struck by a feeling of shame that she’d even considered it.

  When she reached the lane she eased off the accelerator until the van was just about crawling along. Even so it was quickly apparent that she was never going to find the right place. With just one light working it was impossible to tell one cluster of trees from another. As much as she hated to admit it, she would have to give up.

  Ahead of them something gleamed, picked out by the headlamp.

  “What’s that?”.

  “Not sure.” She brought the van in slowly, thinking about the dog and how its eyes had reflected the lights in that split-second before the van ploughed into it.

  Then Lisa could see what the headlamp had snared.

  “Black bags,” she said softly, remembering them from earlier. “Fly-tippers.”

  She brought the Transit to a halt, facing the trees.

  “That’s where we found you,” she said. “In there.” Her chest tightened and her stomach churned at the thought of entering that impenetrable dark wall. Somehow she would have to get the van through the woods. They needed the light; the moon was bright but, even so, without the torch they would not be able to see a thing.

  “You sure about this?” Ben asked. He sounded nervous.

  “I have to look. I have to know for sure.”

  You don’t have to come with me, she almost added. Yet she knew that if he did get out now her resolve would crumble; she could not go it alone.

  “Let’s get it over with then,” he said and Lisa could almost have forgiven him anything right then. Almost, but not quite.

  The trees were quite widely spaced as she eased the van in from the lane but the gaps quickly narrowed, as if they had sensed her arrival and were trying to get in her way. It was like driving through a tunnel. The single headlamp struggled to keep the darkness at bay and Lisa winced as branch after branch screeched along the metal bodywork. She could not bring herself to look at Ben.

  It was almost impossible to remember which direction she and Alison had taken. Even if she had known the route off by heart, she doubted she would have been able to pick it out now. The ground was terribly uneven. There was no way of telling whether she had found the hidden track or was just blundering through thick undergrowth. Instead she decided to trust to instinct and luck, turning the wheel at random in the hope that fate would guide her. And then, just when she thought that she was fooling herself and that her only choice was to swing round and head back, she found the clearing.

  Ben had sat in silence during the painstaking journey into the woods. Now she heard him take a deep breath, which he let out slowly. “This the place?”

  Lisa turned the key one notch to switch off the engine but not the headlamp, then tugged on the handbrake. “Don’t you recognise it?”

  “I just drove until I found a quiet place. Didn’t think anyone would find me.”

  “Yeah, well, that was our bad luck.”

  The engine pinged loudly, making her jump.

  “Jesus Christ,” she hissed. If she was that jumpy now, what would she be like once she was outside the van and exposed to anything that might be lying in wait?

  “Want me to go and look?”

  “No.” How tempting to say yes. “But I wouldn’t mind some company.”

  “Are you sure you really saw what you think you saw?”

  “Absolutely. I swear I’m not making this up.”

  “Could have been a rainstorm, kids throwing stones at the van, anything.”

  “Ben,” she said slowly and deliberately. “I know what I saw. Got it?”

  “Got it.” He opened his door and stepped out.

  Lisa opened her own door and jumped down, the springy undergrowth cushioning her feet as she landed. It rustled distractingly as she hurried to the front of the van, where Ben was waiting. “See anything?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “But then I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

  Lisa took a couple of hesitant paces forward. The headlamp cast a narrow beam of light through the near-darkness surrounding them. A few yards ahead she recognised the spot where the van had been parked when they’d found it earlier. Ahead of it a trail of broken tree limbs indicated where she had plunged deeper into the woods to escape the unnatural storm. Beyond that she could see nothing.

  A loud crack like a branch snapping brought her head up sharply. She turned back towards Ben. He had not moved from in front of the van.

  “Hear that?” she called softly.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, but his eyes were wide. “Just an animal.”

  Maybe it was an animal. The question was, living or dead?

  Lisa stood still, ears straining for any other noises. A cold breeze rustled the branches but, as there was nothing unnatural about that, she put it from her mind. She thought she heard something move around in the undergrowth. It could have been right next to her feet or on the other side of the clearing, but the mu
ffled acoustics of the place meant she had no way of telling how close it really was.

  She really wished Ben hadn’t dropped that wheel brace.

  Right then a scream, loud and piercing, ripped the night apart.

  Lisa slammed a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream of her own.

  She stumbled backwards. Her foot caught in something and she fell.

  An airborne shape soared across the clearing. Lisa pushed herself backwards on her elbows, trying to get away from it as it rushed towards the ground where she lay.

  At the last moment it veered away, racing upwards, passing through the headlight beam as it did. Lisa caught sight of a fluid movement of wings and then with another shrill cry it was gone, disappearing into the obsidian sky. An owl, she realised, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Then she felt Ben grip her hand, pulling her to her feet. “That frightened the shit out of me,” he said.

  Lisa said nothing. Her mouth had suddenly gone sandpaper dry.

  It had been nothing, just an owl. And it had frightened the shit out of her, too.

  Did that mean Ben was right? That there was a logical explanation for what she had seen that evening? For all she knew, stumbling across a man apparently barely alive may have had a more traumatic effect on her than she’d been aware. While the physical scars of her accident had healed, she knew the mental scars had not. Could it be that thinking about David, thinking about death, more often than was good for her, had left her in such a state of mind that she had seen what was not there?

  No. That didn’t feel right. The storm could be explained away, at a push.

  But not what she’d seen in the hospital.

  Her mind was not so fucked up as to have imagined that.

  “Don’t see much point in staying,” Ben said. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Just give me a couple of minutes. There’s something I need to do first.”

  Before she had time to think through what she intended to do, and so before she could talk herself out of it, she set off across the clearing towards the damaged trees. Again she thought she heard a rustling noise echoing the sound of her own passage, as if some unseen stalker was walking close by. That she put down to nerves.

  When she reached the point where the van had originally been parked, she crouched and peered at the ground, trying to discern if there were any bloodstains on the track and the greenery around it. There was nothing. Around her the trees creaked and groaned, swaying in the wind as if beckoning to her to come in and look. But she knew it was a trap, a siren song that she had to resist. Satisfied there wasn’t even the slightest trace of her sister to be seen, she turned and walked back to the van.

  Only then did it occur to her that she had no idea what she would have done if she had found Alison. She closed her eyes briefly, holding on to the thought that the absence of any visible sign of Alison being dead or badly hurt made it much more likely that she was alive.

  Ben hadn’t waited for her to get back before getting into the Transit. As she drew level with the windscreen Lisa saw an orange flare burst into life behind the glass. It was so suddenly bright against the darkness of the woods that it briefly blinded her, leaving her helpless. She blinked her eyes furiously, trying to clear the after-image away, and sniffed at the sudden smell of smoke. Her first thought, remembering the warning light that had briefly flashed on earlier, was that the van had caught on fire. Then she saw a small red glow hover momentarily in front of Ben’s face before swinging away out of sight.

  “Those things are no good for you,” she said as she climbed into the van.

  Ben drew deeply on his cigarette, then blew smoke in a steady stream out through the open window beside him. “Yeah, they could kill me.”

  “I didn’t realise you smoked.”

  “First real chance I’ve had. Anyway, I thought I deserved one.”

  Lisa decided to spare him the lecture. Although he tried to look calm she reckoned he must be as spooked as she was. She couldn’t begrudge him a cigarette. Had she been a smoker herself she would probably have joined him.

  “I’ll put it out if you really don’t like it,” he offered.

  “That’s okay. Finish it. Just don’t throw it out the window. You’ll start a fire.”

  He smoked it down almost to the filter, then stubbed it out in the ashtray.

  Their journey back was as painstakingly slow as the trip into the woods. By the time she could see the lane ahead Lisa felt drained. Sweat ran in uncomfortable rivulets from under her arm and down her side, soaking her shirt. She felt hungry and sick at the same time, and as thirsty as hell. If there was a god, Alison would be waiting there for her at home, wondering where she had been.

  Failing that, Lisa would do nothing else until she had called the police.

  She could not make up her mind up about Ben. The sensible thing would be to send him on his way once she was back at the cottage. After all, she knew nothing about him and, whatever the explanation for the evening’s horrific events was, he was somehow at the heart of it. On the other hand she had been grateful he was there when she’d driven into the woods. There was every chance she would be just as glad of his company while she waited for the police to arrive.

  At some point everything she had seen in the last few hours was going to catch up with her and when that happened she had real doubts she would be able to cope.

  “Do you have somewhere you can go?” she asked.

  “Only the back of the van. That’s where I’ve spent the last few nights.”

  “You might as well stick with me for now.”

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  Lisa almost laughed aloud. Wasn’t that the understatement of the year.

  A few minutes later she reached the narrow lane that branched off from the road and led up to the cottage. The place was set slightly apart from the rest of the village, surrounded by fields rather than other houses, and that was just the way she liked it. She’d grown up in the city and truly appreciated the sense of open space.

  At the head of the lane was a wide turning area, where she swung the van round so that it was facing back towards the road. Lisa cut the engine, opened the door and got out, pulling her keys from her pocket as she raced across the lawn.

  But she knew the cottage was empty even as she was opening the front door and hurrying into the hall. The place was as silent as it was dark. Even so, she could not help calling out her sister’s name as she dashed through to the living room, flicking the light switch as she rushed across to where the phone sat on a small table beside the sofa. Behind her she heard Ben push the door shut.

  “You might as well sit down. I’m calling the police.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “No. Thanks. I can deal with this.”

  The leather sofa creaked noisily as Ben lowered himself into it. Lisa picked up the handset and tried to punch in three nines but her hand trembled so badly that she kept hitting the wrong digits. It took her three attempts before she got it right.

  Please God, let someone answer this quickly.

  But she heard nothing other than the ringing tone for several long minutes. Her heart thumped rapidly and there was a swishing sound in her ears. Her stomach was as tight as a clenched fist. The cottage had felt chilly when they’d walked in but now it seemed stiflingly hot, as if the heating were on full blast. Lisa’s hands were slick and she tightened her grip on the phone in case she dropped it.

  “Emergency operator,” a woman suddenly announced. She sounded harassed, as if the last thing she needed was another call. “Which service do you require?”

  “Police.”

  “Hold the line.”

  There came a click followed by the ringing tone again. Lisa could have smashed the receiver against the wall in frustration. It seemed po
intless having an emergency number when it took so damn long for someone to take the call.

  “West Dorset Police. Sergeant Robinson speaking.”

  “Oh. Yes, hello.” The words suddenly dried up. Now that, after long last, she finally had the opportunity to ask for help she had absolutely no idea what to say. “I don’t know how to go about this, but I want to report a missing person.”

  “Can you give me your name and address?”

  Lisa obliged. She also gave him the name of her sister when it was requested.

  “How old is Alison?”

  “She’s thirty-nine.”

  “And how long has she been missing?”

  “Since earlier this evening.”

  There was a short pause. “I’m sorry, Mrs Morgan, but we don’t class people as missing after only a couple of hours. Unless you feel she is in any danger, or perhaps intends to harm herself, there’s not a lot we can do at this moment.”

  He sounded eminently reasonable, and deep down Lisa knew that his words made good sense. But that didn’t mean she had to accept them. Whatever the sergeant said, she knew her sister was in trouble. Alison certainly had not intended to harm herself but something intended to harm her, if it hadn’t done so already. There was no way Lisa could simply wait until the police felt she had been missing long enough actually to sit up and take notice. Telling them what had happened tonight was a waste of time. They’d think she was a lunatic. “There was this man,” she blurted out.

  From the corner of her eye she caught Ben’s startled look. It was nothing next to her own sense of astonishment at how easily she’d blurted out the lie.

  “Man?” she heard the sergeant ask, as if from far away. “What man?”

  Her mind raced. She’d committed herself now and she had to think fast.

  “My sister’s been staying with me for the last week. A couple of times she mentioned noticing this man driving along the road, staring at the cottage.”

  “I see. Can you describe the man? Or the car he was driving?”

  “No. I never saw him,” Lisa said quickly, afraid to make her story overly complicated in case she was asked to repeat details only to get them wrong. “But Alison was really worried. And she’s not the type to make something like that up.”