“Where was she when you last saw her?”
“Here. I went upstairs for a nap. Alison said she might go for a walk. When I woke up she was gone.” Real emotion shook her voice as she spoke. The words may be untrue but there was no denying the fact that Alison had been attacked and was still missing. “I don’t know where she could be at this hour. I’m really worried about her.”
The sergeant must have noticed the quiver in her voice because his own tone softened. “It’s probably nothing, Mrs Morgan. People stay out later than intended for any number of reasons. She’ll probably turn up at any time. But I’ll arrange for someone to call round to see you just as soon as we have an officer free.”
“Thanks,” she said, almost collapsing with relief. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t mention it,” the sergeant answered. “Stay where you are in case your sister does return home. Oh, and try to keep the phone free. She might try to call.”
“Of course. And thank you again.”
The line went dead. Lisa replaced the handset in its cradle, then began to tremble. Everything that had happened tonight had been a nightmare. Deep down she had been waiting for that moment when she woke from it. But the very fact that the police were now involved somehow hammered home the point that, as surreal and as downright impossible as it seemed, it had happened. The storm in the woods, the assault on Alison, the appallingly sickening scenes in the hospital, the dog … all of it was real. As much as she wanted to, she could no longer deny that.
“You look terrible,” Ben said softly. “Maybe you’d better sit down.”
Lisa could not answer. She simply nodded, then half-sat, half-collapsed into the big leather chair in which she spent most of her nights watching TV or reading.
“That was quick thinking,” she heard Ben say. “What you told the police. As long as they don’t find out you were at the hospital. Might take a bit of explaining.”
“I had to think on my feet,” Lisa said distractedly.
“Hey, wait, I wasn’t criticising –”
Lisa looked up, stared straight into his bloodshot eyes. Alison had loved life but for all Lisa knew she could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere. And before her was a man who had wanted to die, yet was not only still alive but looking too healthy to be true. The unfairness of it struck her as grotesque. “Why?” she demanded. He’d sidestepped the question earlier. Now she wanted an answer.
“What?” He looked momentarily foxed by the question. Then realisation dawned and he turned away, breaking eye contact. “I made a mistake.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Lisa fired back, sounding meaner than she’d intended. “But most people don’t try to kill themselves because of it.”
Ben glared at her, the look on his face somewhere between guilt and anger. “When most people make mistakes, others don’t die because of them.”
He pushed himself off the sofa and began to pace the room. “If you really must know I was a spark. An electrician. The firm picked up a huge contract. Council job. They wanted us to rewire one of their housing estates.”
Ben laughed once, a harsh and bitter sound, then dropped back onto the sofa.
“The boss put in a low tender to get the contract. Way too fucking low, as it happened. Couldn’t make a profit. So we had to cut corners. Strip out the old stuff, bung in the new, and don’t bother to test it. That was what the boss ordered and we all jumped.”
He drifted into silence, lost in a reverie.
“And?” Lisa prompted.
“Can’t you guess? There was a fire in one of the houses I wired. Five people died. An entire family wiped out, including three kids. Three fucking kids.”
“I’m sorry.” And she was, truly. “Did you get blamed for it?”
He shook his head. “Nobody knew. It was months after we’d finished the contract. Just one of those things, they reckoned. I kept my mouth shut, even though I hated myself for it. I’d have lost my job and I had a wife and kid to worry about.”
Somehow Lisa hadn’t imagined him as a family man. He didn’t seem the type.
“So I dealt with it the only way I could. The booze became my best buddy. I’d go out and get pissed every night. Didn’t make me feel better but it made me forget.” He ran his hands through his hair, then shrugged. “So she left me. The wife. Took our boy with her. Can’t say I blame her. I must have been a bastard to be with. I lived in the back of the van for a couple of nights, then I just … I don’t know … snapped.”
“I guess that would have been today,” Lisa said. Only a few minutes ago she’d been furious with him for rejecting what she wanted most dearly for her sister. Now she sympathised. Whether or not he’d been guilty of causing those deaths was not really the point. That he’d blamed himself and had made himself pay, that was the point.
Hadn’t she been doing pretty much the same to herself?
“Yeah. If you hadn’t come along …”
He left the sentenced unfinished. Lisa knew how it ended. If you hadn’t come along, I’d be dead. But was he grateful or resentful for her intervention?
“I need a coffee,” she said, easing herself out of the chair, feeling that doing anything was better than sitting around dwelling on what might have happened. “Why don’t you go upstairs and have a shower? I haven’t anything clean for you to wear but I could soak that shirt for a while, then put it on the radiator to dry out.”
She’d given David’s clothes to a charity shop. All she had kept was one of his baggy old casual shirts, which she wore to bed on the nights she missed him most.
“Thanks,” Ben said, nodding. “I’ll take you up on that. But coffee first.”
Lisa crossed the living room to pull the curtains, not liking the way the night seemed to press against the glass. Then she went through into the kitchen, turning on the light and taking the kettle across to the sink to fill it. When she caught sight of her reflection in the window the shock of it almost made her gasp. The light was bright but even so she looked startlingly white and washed out. Little wonder, she thought, as she took the kettle back to its base and switched it on. At least she was keeping her mind occupied with something, even if that something was as mundane as making coffee.
While she waited for the water to boil she busied herself with finding two clean mugs – the sink was full of dishes that she and Alison had left to soak while they went out on their walk – into which she dumped two heaped spoons of instant coffee and a little extra for good measure, wanting it as strong as possible. Now the adrenalin was no longer rushing through her system she could feel herself starting to tire, and she wanted to be awake and alert when the police eventually arrived.
The kettle bubbled nosily, then clicked off. Lisa poured the water over the coffee powder, stirred in milk but no sugar without asking Ben how he took his, and then carried the mugs into the room.
“If you want sugar I can –” she started, and then broke off. Ben was asleep. He had slumped against the back of his sofa, head resting on his shoulder. His mouth was half-open, his breathing deep and steady. Lisa looked down at him almost enviously. What she wouldn’t give to be able to curl up and rest her eyes even for a moment or two. But she was worried that, if she did, she would fall into a sleep so deep that she would not hear the phone if Alison called, or the police at the front door.
She put Ben’s coffee on the mantelpiece then sat in the big chair with hers, holding the mug with both hands and sipping the hot drink slowly. It felt good. When she had finished the coffee she held on to the still-warm mug and sat staring into space, stomach churning, wondering how long it would be before the police showed.
As a distraction she studied Ben. Sleep had washed the haunted look from his face. In his relaxed state he seemed just like any other man. Better than average looking, for sure, but ordinary nonetheless. Yet the more
she thought about it, so the more Lisa became convinced that he must have been holding something back from her.
Fatigue fuzzed her mind and made her eyelids feel unbearably heavy. She closed them for a moment, satisfied that she was still too hyped up to lapse into sleep.
It couldn’t have been coincidence that the craziness had started after they’d found Ben in the Transit. Couldn’t have been. Nothing like it had ever happened to Lisa in her life. Neither, to the best of her knowledge, had anything like it happened to Alison. Ben, regardless whether or not he knew why – and she was certain now that he did not – was somehow the catalyst. And seeing as there were no obvious rational explanations, the answer must be irrational. Lisa had never given much thought to the paranormal, so had never formed an opinion about it either way. Now she wondered.
What she had witnessed in the last few hours was awful beyond belief but there was no denying it had happened. And Ben had to be the key to it all. She’d let him sleep, but once he woke, she would get the truth out of him one way or another.
He owed her that much. Owed Alison, too.
Small scratching sounds made her open her eyes and sit up.
Lisa could barely breathe. Her heart had suddenly gone berserk.
She waited and waited, not daring to move. But there was nothing.
Maybe she’d imagined it. No, wait – there it came again, a metallic scratching from the direction of the hallway, as if someone were trying to force the lock.
Or open it with a key, struggling to see in the darkness.
Lisa pushed herself out of the chair and advanced cautiously, nerve ends tingling. The skin on her arms and the back of her neck prickled. She wanted to run to the front door and fling it open but caution held her back. It could be Alison out there, dazed and hurt. But equally, Lisa told herself, it might not. The spare key she had given her sister could now be in a stranger’s hands. “Ben,” she said, as loudly as she dared.
The door leading from living room into the hallway was wide open. Lisa crossed to it and pushed it closed. “Ben, wake up!” He didn’t stir. Whoever – whatever – was out there, she had to face this alone. And if it were an intruder, then she would scream herself hoarse and hope that Ben heard her.
The key slid into the lock, and turned. Lisa heard the front door slowly open, followed by a rustle of cloth. She bit back a whimper and edged away from the closed door towards the sofa. She had barely taken a step when someone murmured her name. An oddly familiar voice, but not Alison’s. A male voice, deeper than Ben’s. A quick glance confirmed that Ben was still fast asleep. Lisa’s mind raced. She’d had only the one spare key cut, the one she’d given to Alison. There was only one other who’d had a key to the cottage. And he was –
The hallway door swung open. “I wondered if you’d still be up,” David said as he strode into the room, looking fit and healthy and nothing at all like a man whose body had been crushed and face smashed beyond recognition, a man whose corpse could be formally identified only from his dental records.
Lisa stumbled backwards. A roaring sound filled her head.
This was impossible. David was dead. But hadn’t the others been dead too, the boy and the young woman? Dead, yet not dead. The difference was that they had displayed the gory signs of their demise, while David was intact. Lisa shook her head wildly, refusing to accept it even though the evidence was right before her eyes.
David frowned. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Lisa backed further away, not knowing how she’d react if he followed.
“Did you fall asleep in the chair again?” he asked, and that familiar lopsided smile appeared on his face, deepening the laughter lines around his eyes. “Don’t tell me. You fell asleep in the chair and had a bad dream. So what was this one about?”
“You.” Lisa hadn’t intended to answer. “I dreamed you were dead.”
David gave her a concerned look and stepped towards her, arms outstretched.
Lisa could not move. So she closed her eyes as he reached her, afraid to see what her mind simply could not accept as real. She felt his strong arms embrace her and pull her to his chest. He felt like David, even smelled like David, that unmistakably familiar musky aroma that was uniquely him, smoky from the cigars in which he occasionally indulged. Despite her fear, Lisa found herself responding. It had been a long time, too long, since he’d held her like this and she’d forgotten how wonderful it felt. She pushed her face into his shoulder and breathed deeply. “I missed you,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he said softly, putting one hand under her chin and raising her head gently. Lisa looked up into his liquid brown eyes. “I missed you too, babe.”
He lowered his mouth to hers and they kissed, tentatively at first, then with a blaze of passion so strong that Lisa could hardly breathe. His stubble was rough on her skin but she didn’t mind it. She drank in the taste of him and moaned deep in her throat when his searching tongue pushed into her mouth to touch hers. She curled one arm around his back and dropped the other to his crotch. He became instantly hard at her touch. Now it was his turn to moan as she gently massaged his erection.
Over his shoulder Lisa could see Ben, still sleeping. Right then she didn’t even care if they woke him. She felt David lower his hand, and pressed it against the front of her shorts. Breathing raggedly, she opened her legs. A moist warmth flooded through her as David responded to her invitation by sliding one hand under her waistband. Lisa gasped. His touch against her skin was cold, like ice.
Suddenly the taste of him turned fetid. Lisa gagged at the foulness of it and she tried to break off the kiss but his hand on the back of her head was too strong. His tongue shrivelled to the size of a worm and his lips beneath hers now had the texture of jelly. The dissolving skin slid wetly away until her mouth was pushing up against bone. Lisa screamed. The sound was muffled. Vomit shot up her throat but there was nowhere for it to go. She felt herself start to choke. Panic-stricken, she put both her hands on his shoulders and shoved him away. Terror must have lent her additional strength, for David stumbled violently backwards and tripped over something, falling with a heavy thud. As he went down, Lisa saw that the flesh of his lower face was missing and realised with a groan of revulsion that it was stuck to her own.
Her body jack-knifed as vomit gushed from her mouth. She straightened quickly, spitting out the last dregs of bile and wiping furiously at her mouth and chin. Strips of rotten skin fell to the floor but she barely noticed them. Her eyes were only on David as he struggled to sit up. It wasn’t easy for him because now the rest of his body was decaying. His skin had started to stretch and tear, exposing muscle and veins beneath. Even these had started to putrefy, oozing out in a thick blue-black pus that formed an oily slick on the carpet around him and revealing glimpses of bone. The reek of it was worse than anything she had ever known.
David suddenly stopped struggling. His head turned towards Lisa. It was now a skull wreathed in shreds of papery skin, connected to his torso by a crumbling spinal column and a few shrivelling strands of sinew. His eyes were empty black sockets, yet when his jaw worked Lisa could hear his words as clear as day.
“Coming for you.”
She raised a hand to block him from her sight, and saw that the flesh was peeling away from her own fingers, unravelling like thread pulled from a cloth.
Now David’s voice sounded clogged with soil. “The King of all the dead.”
He fell back to the carpet. Bone exploded into a cloud of dust.
When it cleared, he was gone.
Lisa stared at her hand. The white bones of her fingers were clearly visible. Raising the other she saw that it, too, was losing its flesh. A crack echoed around the room and she collapsed backwards into her chair. Glancing down, she could see two skeletal limbs emerging from her shorts, ending in a pair of trainers that flopped a
round comically. It took the space of several heartbeats for her brain to catch up with the fact that she was looking at her own legs. The left was broken, twisted to one side at an impossible angle. Her mouth opened and closed, trying to form a scream, but all that emerged was a faint whistling. Her sight began to fade. The world turned black.
Then it was filled with searing white light.
Something gripped her and shook her violently.
“Lisa!” The rough force shook her again. “Wake up, dammit!”
Her eyes flicked open and she stared around in confusion, with no idea where she was or what she was seeing. A blurred face was staring down at her and for a moment she thought David had returned to her again. “You’re dead,” she said.
“Not quite,” responded a voice that was not her husband’s. “Thanks to you.”
Lisa blinked, then wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. It was only when her vision had cleared that she realised with a sense of profound relief that the hand was intact. As, a quick glance at her legs confirmed, was the rest of her. She squinted up at the light and saw that Ben was bending over her.
He straightened up quickly as she looked at him.
“Jesus Christ,” Lisa said. A spasm of pain in her lower back made her wince as she shifted in the chair. “You frightened the life out of me, Ben.”
“I frightened the life out of you?” Only now could Lisa see that his face was deathly white. “That must have been one hell of a nightmare you were having there, Lisa. You were thrashing around and screaming so loud I thought you were dying.”
Lisa said nothing for a moment. Part of her still felt lost in the dream, if indeed it had been a dream. It had felt real. Even now she could still sense David’s presence in the room. “Sorry,” she said. “You’re right. It was one hell of a nightmare.”
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