Run!: He's coming for you

by K Leitch

  Run!

  A Witches of Glory Woods Novel

  By K. Leitch

  Copyright ©Kay Leitch 2016

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the author.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First published as an ebook January 2016. Second edition.

  Cover photo from depositphotos.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1 - Ten months ago, Brixham, Devon

  CHAPTER 2 - CAULDRON MEETING

  CHAPTER 3 - Ten months ago

  CHAPTER 4 - PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER 5 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7 - MAGGIE

  CHAPTER 8 - HELEN

  CHAPTER 9 - Ten months ago

  CHAPTER 10 - Present day

  CHAPTER 11 - CAULDRON MEETING

  CHAPTER 12 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 13 - Three months ago

  CHAPTER 14 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 15 - MAGGIE

  CHAPTER 16 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19 - MAGGIE

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21 - MAGGIE

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26 - TRACY

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 31 - MAGGIE

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40 - CAULDRON MEETING

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48 - TRACY

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51 - TRACY

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57 - CARLA

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59 - MAGGIE

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63 - CAULDRON MEETING

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65 - MAGGIE

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67 - Two weeks later

  CHAPTER 68 - CAULDRON MEETING

  A NOTE FROM KAY

  PREVIOUSLY...

  PROLOGUE

  She lay alone in her bed, eyes wide with fear, ears on stalks as she listened out for every sound. Whimpering she buried herself even deeper under her covers…her breathing hitched…icy tendrils of dread crawled up her spine… oh God…yes, there it was again…someone was downstairs! 78 year old Flora Metcalf swallowed down her terrified sobs and closed her eyes tightly…she must keep as quiet and still as possible…if she kept quiet maybe they’d go away.

  Her eyes flew open again a moment later at the sound of drawers being opened, kitchen drawers by the sound of it…oh God, oh no… she put a shaking hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming…there were knives in those drawers! Someone was in her kitchen getting a knife, she was going to be killed or raped…oh God, oh God what should she do. She could hide…no, no, no… she needed help…she’d get help…yes that was it, she’d get help.

  She reached out one trembling hand from her cocoon of bedding and felt around desperately for the phone which sat on her bedside table. Grasping it as firmly as she could with arthritic fingers, she dragged it back under the covers with her, trying to control her shaking as she dialled 999.

  ‘Emergency services, which service do you require…hello…hello, are you there…do you need help….’ the voice of the operator seemed to reverberate around her bedroom, she quickly put the phone under her pillows to muffle the sound.

  ‘Yes…yes please help me,’ Flora whispered with desperate urgency into the phone, burrowing even further beneath her bedcovers, ‘Pleeeasse…they’re in my house…someone’s downstairs, I can hear them… they’re going to kill me…help me please,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Okay try not to panic sweetheart,’ the operator said calmly, ‘you need to tell me your name and where you are calling from…can you do that?’

  ‘You must come NOW…oh no…I can hear them whispering…they’re downstairs…you must come…pleeaasse I’m on my own,’ Flora wailed again curling herself into a tight ball

  ‘Yes, but we can’t help you caller if we don’t know where you are…now listen carefully I need your name and address…can you hear me sweetheart?’

  ‘Yes…yes, I’m in Fernley Crescent…please send someone…I can hear them...’ Flora held the phone as close to her mouth a she could, ‘they’re on the stairs! Oh God, oh no…oh no they’re coming…they’re coming… pleeaassee,’ she begged again, too terrified to listen properly to the operator.

  Tears streaming down her face, she held herself ridged hardly daring to breathe. She listened, petrified, to heavy footsteps, walking along the uncarpeted landing, coming closer and closer until they stopped…. Someone was standing on the other side of her bedroom door...she could hear them breathing. ‘Oh no…oh please no…they’re here…they’re right here,’ she rasped into the phone.

  ‘Ok caller we are sending a car to Fernley Crescent…but I need to know your number…now listen to me sweetheart, concentrate on my voice… what number do you live at?’

  ‘Yes, yes…it’s number 7…please hurry…plea…oh no…iieeee!’ Flora screamed as the door handle began to turn ‘…NO…YOU GO AWAY…YOU LEAVE ME ALONE…I’VE CALLED THE POLICE…JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!’

  Muffled whispers and cruel laughter came from beyond the closed door and the door handle rattled loudly again, before an eerie voice whispered loudly through the keyhole.

  ‘Don’t close your eyes you old bitch…we’re watching you, we’ll always be watching!’

  CHAPTER 1 - Ten months ago, Brixham, Devon

  Jack Guppy walked slowly up the steep hill that led away from the harbour and towards the tiny flat above the launderette that he called home. Behind him he could still hear music and laughter coming from “The Old Ship” the pub where he’d spent the evening. He smiled to himself and turned to look back down the hill. From here he could see the lights that hung round the harbour and their twinkling reflections in the dark of the water. He loved this view, he’d lived here all his life, working on the fishing trawlers almost as soon as he’d left school and there wasn’t anywhere else in the world he’d rather be. He sighed and let out a loud belch before turning to carry on up the hill. He’d had more than his usual four pints of bitter this evening, but then it wasn’t every day that your best buddy became a granddad and it would have been churlish to refuse the whiskies that Len had been pressing on him.

  Bloody hell it only seemed like yesterday that they’d been hanging around on the “red rec” together after school, leering at all the girls and choking on the fags that Len had pinched from his mum’s handbag…he shook his head sadly, where had the time gone? They were both on their own now. Oh Len had his daughter Melanie, of course, who lived just around the corner, and now a new little grandson to bounce on his knee. Jack and his wife Hillary hadn’t been blessed with any children, it had been a constant source of disappointment to bot
h of them, and then Hillary had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Jack swore to himself and spat on the ground, no need for such gloomy thoughts on such a fine night.

  He got as far as the corner of Haleigh Drive, when the four pints of beer and who knows how many whiskies finally worked their way through his body and he was overtaken by an urgent need to pee. Spotting a convenient hedge up ahead he turned himself away from the road and unzipped his trousers. He was mid-flow when something or someone came careering round the corner and knocked him almost off his feet, causing him to wee all down his trouser leg.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he exclaimed, shaking his wet leg and turning angrily to the figure, who was now crouched over with one arm hanging on to a lamppost for support. Whoever it was must have had even more to drink than he had, he zipped up his trousers and went over to the prone figure.

  ‘You need to slow down mate…you nearly had me over,’ he started angrily. As he got closer however, Jack began to realise that all was not as it seemed. For a start it wasn’t a drunken man that had knocked into him, it was a young woman, a very badly injured young woman by the look of it. Jack smothered an exclamation of horror as she slowly turned her face towards him. Terrified eyes stared out between rivulets of blood, which were streaming down from a nasty wound on the top of her head, and from the way that she was swaying around it appeared that she was only just conscious.

  He hurried over to where she had propped herself against the lamppost, seemingly trying to gather her strength so that she could carry on walking.

  ‘Are you okay luvy?’ Jack asked as he approached her, he shook his head at himself, stupid question of course she wasn’t.

  ‘Bloody hell, what’s happened to you sweetheart…here lean on me while I call for an ambulance,’ he said putting a hand out to pull her towards him. At his touch, the girl suddenly seemed to become aware of him and jumped back in terror, flapping around with her one good arm ineffectually as if to push him away. The effort of doing that must have been too much for her though and she began to lose consciousness slumping down so that Jack had to catch her and lower her to the ground. He struggled out of his jacket and put it beneath her head, then pulling out his mobile he called for help.

  Jack was even more appalled at the state of the girl close up, her face was covered in blood, one of her eyes was swollen and closing fast, her nose looked broken, her lips were split and bleeding and her left arm was hanging uselessly down at her side. All the time that he held her while waiting for the ambulance, she was drifting in and out of consciousness, moaning and trying to talk….

  ‘Shh love,’ Jack kept saying, ‘help will be here soon, do I need to call the police, who did this to you luvy?’

  ‘Katy,’ the woman whispered through swollen lips so quietly that Jack had to put his head down near her mouth to hear what she was trying to say, ‘He’s got Katy.’

  ‘What…who’s got what? Sorry love I can’t hear you…try not to talk sweetheart…listen I can hear the ambulance, we’ll soon have you safe don’t worry.’

  But the girl seemed to be getting more and more agitated the louder the sirens became. She turned to Jack and grabbed him making him look at her. ‘Katy,’ she said again, ‘tell them he’s got Katy…Katy my baby…’

  Jack looked at her properly then for the first time and realised that he knew her. ‘Bloody hell, Lucinda…it is you isn’t it, Lucinda Hibbard…oh my God did he do this to you? He did, didn’t he? Fucking animal he needs putting away, I’m calling the police.’

  At this Lucinda began to squirm about shaking her head and moaning, ‘No…no, no…please it wasn’t him… my fault, all mine… no police… accident… PLEEEEASE,’ she clung onto him desperately.

  ‘Accident my arse,’ growled Jack, ‘Listen love, you need help…we all know, you know. All these “accidents” you keep having…the man’s not right love, he never was…mean little bastard he was, even as a child and that mother of his spoilt him rotten…that’s who I blame.’

  Jack continued to rant on, not realising that he had lost his audience as Lucinda had finally lost her battle with consciousness. The ambulance arrived a few moments later and Jack relinquished his charge to them and after giving them his name and address, carried on his way home shaking his head in disgust as he thought about bloody Trevor Hibbard and what he’d done to that sweet little wife of his. Once inside his flat he pulled his phone out of his pocket and rang the police…he wasn’t going to let Trevor get away with it again, no matter what Lucinda had said about accidents…load of rubbish, the poor girl was just shit scared of him, well it was about time the fucking bastard got what was coming to him.

  CHAPTER 2 - CAULDRON MEETING

  At the Bull Pub, Kenley Green.

  ‘Oh come on you can’t knock it,’ Tracy was saying, ‘the woman’s made a fortune. I bet she doesn’t give two hoots what the critics say about it. I know I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Yes, but what I was trying to say before you interrupted me Tracy,’ Maggie said, giving Tracy a look, ‘was that the reason for its success, I think, is because when you get right down to the bare bones of it, it is essentially just another Mills and Boons romance with titillating scenes of bondage and spankings. I mean what’s not to love? Girl meets incredibly handsome, mega rich man, who yes, wants to control her, but is obviously very mixed up himself and needs someone to make him better. It’s every woman’s fantasy, of course it’s sold millions,’ she said, taking her drink from Carla who just been on a bar run. ‘Thanks hun…no I didn’t say it was bad Tracy, I just said there wasn’t much of a story to it.’

  ‘You’re not still on about Fifty Shades are you Tracy?’ Carla said, ‘Bloody hell I can’t believe you’ve only just read it. I mean there are fuck knows how many sequels out there now, not to mention the film.’

  Tracy took a sip of her drink, ‘I just never got round to it and I don’t care how much you slate it Maggie, it has changed my life. Things have got a lot more interesting in the Burton bedroom of late I can tell you.’

  ‘Well I’ve never been able to understand what anyone gets out of bondage and all that S&M stuff,’ Helen put in. ‘I’ve never had any desire to hurt someone or to be hurt myself and as for walking over someone wearing high heels…I mean what’s that all about? How could that possibly turn anyone on?’

  ‘Oh that’s not the weirdest though love, not by a long way,’ Tracy said warming to her theme, ‘didn’t you see that documentary about those men that like to be locked in a cupboard for hours…no it’s true,’ she exclaimed at Helen’s look of disbelief. ‘This Madame was making a fortune just by locking her clients in cupboards and keeping them there for hours…and,’ she went on excitedly, ‘she also had some other men that would clean her house from top to bottom and they’d pay HER for letting them do it!’

  ‘Bloody hell I’d do that,’ Carla said, ‘I don’t mind locking some old geezer in my downstairs loo for the morning while his mate does my ironing and what’s more I don’t think James would mind either,’ she added with a rather drunken laugh. ‘Actually I think he’d be pleased because at least then I’d be at home being a good little wifey,’ she finished somewhat acidly.

  Helen and Maggie shared a look, Carla was well on the way to being drunk again. Ever since her close brush with death last year, Carla seemed to be on a mission each time they went out, a mission to get herself as paralytic as possible. It was becoming fairly obvious from the way Carla was talking, that things weren’t going so well between Carla and her husband, James, at the moment. Carla, who had never before been known to criticise her husband was doing just that an awful lot lately and even though more often than not she would make a joke of it, the other girls had noticed that whenever she spoke about James these days it was either with sarcasm or just downright spite. This was a very new and disturbing development, Carla and James had always been a strong couple, whose love for each other had been very easy to see. But something had definitely changed, hopefully it was something and noth
ing, a bad patch that would sort itself out with time. The most worrying thing as far as the other girls were concerned though, was that this time Carla seemed to be shutting everybody out…even the witches.

  Once a week the four friends (or “Witches of Glory Woods” as Maggie’s ex-husband Greg had named them, after the plotting, scheming witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth) Maggie, Carla, Tracy and Helen would get together at the local pub. Far from being offended by Greg’s nickname the girls had embraced it, even going as far as dubbing their weekly get togethers as their “cauldron meetings”, and despite the fact that these meetings sometimes ended up as rollicking drinking sessions, each girl knew how important they were to her in helping them to cope with whatever problems life had to throw at them. And let’s face it, over the last few years’ life seemed to have been using them for target practice.

  ‘I would make a brilliant dominatrix,’ Carla was now saying loudly to anyone who’d listen. ‘I wouldn’t mind thrashing the backside off some ponced up, boarding schooled prat, why not? If they get a kick out of it…actually I wouldn’t mind having a go at that gorgeous little cherub over there,’ she added in an undertone, indicating a rather red-faced young man who was sitting with a group of his friends at the table directly opposite the girls.

  ‘Carla!’ Tracy said shocked, ‘he’s young enough to be your son…and he obviously heard you because he’s gone bright red,’ she added in a half whisper.

  Carla giggled and gave the poor unfortunate man a leering smile, he turned away excruciatingly embarrassed. By now the young girl sitting next to him (who appeared to be his girlfriend) had obviously noticed Carla’s inappropriate attentions and was giving Carla some filthy looks herself.

  ‘Oh my God Carla,’ Maggie said laughing, ‘if she comes after you babe you’re on your own, she looks like a right psycho.’

  ‘Hey Carla,’ Helen said, eager to change the subject. ‘I saw Frank and Linda yesterday evening, they were in the same restaurant as Maya and me. It was all looking very romantic, he’d bought her a lovely bunch of flowers and they were holding hands across the table…you don’t think he’s going to propose do you?’