‘Daniels continued to run test after test, right through to my teens, in the hope that I would provide the key in caring for brain ravaging diseases. You know, like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or traumatic spinal cord injuries.’
‘And you lived at the institute all of that time?’ Evelyn asked.
Heven nodded and smiled again, this time with glazed eyes. ‘I prayed never to see a white wall again in my life, and I ended up here.’
‘I’m sorry, dear. I really am.’
Heven shrugged. ‘As Daniels took one step closer to a Nobel Prize, I became a human pin cushion, and my father barely noticed. He didn’t even notice when Daniels stopped looking after me properly. The professor became so obsessed with the work that he stopped seeing me as a person. I was just a test subject – a talking lab rat.’
‘How did you find out so much about the work Daniels was doing?’ Evelyn said.
Heven took the longest drag on the cigarette that his lungs would allow. ‘I read over his medical journals after I’d killed him. Most of it seemed like gibberish back then, but I kept them – read them again when I was older.’
Heven’s flippancy left Evelyn cold inside. She didn’t feel any fear, only pity.
‘I couldn’t hear Celeste back then – just seemed to do it on my own. He was about to stick me with another needle. I wished that he would drop down dead, and the next minute, he was having a brain aneurism. Ironic really, considering his profession. I thought it was coincidence at first, but we know better now, don’t we?
‘When they discovered how malnourished I’d become and the professor’s neglect was uncovered, my father came to collect me from the institute. He told me how sorry he was, what a mistake he’d made, and enrolled me into a private school. A few years later, Celeste started to speak to me and I understood that the professor’s death was of my making. Didn’t want to believe it until she convinced me to take my next victim – targets she called them. You see, I’m supposed to rise as the assassin in this great war.’ Heven half laughed, half coughed through the smoke. ‘It’s funny cause whichever way I looked at it, still felt like murder to me.’
‘And that’s when you decided to run away?’ Evelyn said.
‘I wanted to get away from Celeste, from the terrible things she made me do, but in a way, I was glad that it happened. It was the ultimate payback for the mighty Pascal Ramirez. Didn’t do his career a heap of good.’
‘Looks like he wants to make amends,’ Evelyn said.
‘Don’t be fooled. He wants me detained and out of his way, so I don’t continue to fuck things up for the great tycoon. Well, we both know the biggest surprise for him and everyone else is yet to come. All that fortune and power he’s spent most of his life building, years when he should have been taking care of his son, will all be turned to dust.’
Heven got up and left the room with a bitter smirk. Evelyn said nothing. He was right. Pascal Ramirez and all of his millions could do nothing to stop what was coming for them all.
Inseparable
1
Tylers Green, Buckinghamshire
The medical staff at the local hospital believed Kaleb’s story, that he’d tripped and fallen against a window. Fortunately, the cut had not gone deep enough to be serious, but did require seventeen stitches. They managed to slip out of the hospital and drive away without anyone asking any questions about their smashed window. Even as they journeyed the rest of the way to Tylers Green, they were at ease about the state of the car. One policeman stood at the side of the road as they passed and didn’t bat an eyelid, why would he with the rest of the chaos unfolding around them. The biggest worry was that the Ceron had picked up their scent again. The creature could be anywhere, or anyone. Kaleb decided to take as many country access roads as possible, avoiding the chaos on the motorway. The further they got to Tylers Green, the less cars and people they saw. Each small town seemed more deserted than the last.
Dusk had settled by the time they reached their destination, and the clouds displayed their notorious red glow with more clarity. The tinted light cast its bloody haze over the rooftops of every house, marking them with death. The silence was tempered only by the haggard bark of a dog in one of the backyards and the swirling breeze. Josie could smell something strong seeping in through the broken window. It reminded her of burning and left a strange metallic taste in the back of her throat.
Kaleb glanced over to the advertising board sitting outside the newsagents. When he read it, a chill took hold of him. The front-page headline from the local telegraph was of no importance. It was the date written above it – the 28th of June, just over three weeks ago. They were in a heavily populated area of the country. Why had these people disappeared? Kaleb allowed the car to crawl through the empty streets. After they had passed the village hall, he slowed to a halt outside the schoolhouse.
‘What? Can you see someone?’ Josie asked.
‘Not exactly. Just stay in the car for a second, though. I’ll be right back.’ Kaleb got out and walked to the school’s locked gates. The school sign sat in the grass a few feet away. It had the words, Tylers Green First School, circling a shield with what looked like a pine tree at its centre, and the letters T and G set either side of it. Kaleb peered through the bars of the gate, over to the main building. Its double doors had been heavily chained and bolted from outside, as if to keep something in as well as out. Behind the crisscrossed chains, someone had nailed a Keep Out sign to the door’s lower panel, and all of the windows in view were boarded up. The hairs on the back of Kaleb’s neck stood on end. He could sense someone right behind him and spun around. ‘Shit.’ He clutched his chest in relief when he realised Josie had not done as he’d asked.
‘Sorry I scared you, but you didn’t think I was going to stay in the car?’ she said.
‘I guess not,’ Kaleb exhaled. ‘Something definitely happened here. Maybe if we can get inside, it will give us some clue about where everybody went.’
‘What are you waiting for then? Give me a foot-up.’ Josie stood up against the gate, reaching up to grab the pointed tips of the railings. They both climbed over with relative ease and headed for the main entrance. Kaleb caught hold of the large padlock at the centre of the door and rattled the chains against the wood.
‘Feels weird saying this, but we could really do with Heven right now,’ he said.
‘Unless you can see any bolt cutters lying around, we need to find another way inside,’ Josie said.
Kaleb proceeded to check every window and eventually came across a loose board. Josie helped him pull it away from the frame so the glass was visible again.
It took Kaleb three strong kicks before the glass gave way and shattered on the classroom floor. They clambered inside and began to wander the cold, empty corridors. There were books and bags still at desks, sentences half written on blackboards. In the canteen, food had been prepared in the kitchen and now lay rotting. They followed the corridor all the way through to the assembly hall. The only shafts of light crept in between the slender gaps behind the boards covering the windows and the fire escape.
Josie groped her way towards the stage, laying her hands on the school’s piano. She ran her fingers over the dusty keys. She pressed down on a sharp and the note vibrated through the hall like it was the last sound on earth.
Kaleb appeared behind her, running his hands down her upper arms.
‘Cradleworth was here, Kaleb. I can still feel him.’
‘I know.’ Kaleb gazed over her shoulder to the sheet music, which rested open on the music rack. He found it hard to make out the song’s title in the failing light, but there were a collection of words familiar to him. ‘Frere Jacques – the last thing that was played here, maybe for music practice – with the kids up on stage.’ Although the curtains to the stage were open, there was certainly no evidence of any practicing, only silence, and darkness.
‘Then what happened next?’ Josie said.
Kaleb noticed another loose b
oard on one of the windows to the left, and moved from the piano to pull it away.
‘Whatever happened here took place weeks ago,’ Josie added.
Kaleb yanked the loose board free, allowing the dull red light to spill in like blood through a cut.
‘Do you think he has them trapped in the matterless somehow…Kaleb?’
Transfixed, Kaleb peered through the gap in the window.
‘Kaleb, what is it? Answer me.’
‘Perhaps Tylers Green isn’t as deserted as we thought. I’ve just seen a light go on in the medical centre across the street,’ he replied.
The medical centre sat a few hundred yards away, but just like the schoolhouse, the door was locked. Kaleb knocked on the glass as loudly as he could. They both stepped back for fear of what might greet them on the other side. There were a couple of whispered voices, then a key turned and bolts were drawn. The first thing to emerge was the double barrel of a shotgun.
Kaleb instinctively held up his hands.
‘Who are you? Why are you here?’ The owner of the voice appeared– a rather dishevelled looking woman in her mid-forties. The green knitted hat pulled down tight onto her head made her seem even more masculine under the sweat and the dirt. She adjusted her aim from one to the other, hands constantly shaking.
‘Calm down, miss. We don’t mean you any harm. We just want to help,’ Josie pleaded. Realising Josie was blind disarmed the woman enough for her to lower her weapon slightly.
‘I suggest you leave the way you came.’ The woman flicked the gun barrel in the direction of the main road leading out of the village.
‘I think we might be able to help,’ Kaleb said.
‘You have no idea what is happening here,’ she replied.
‘Maybe not, but we think we know what’s making it happen,’ Kaleb said.
The woman paused. ‘You think it’s the red cloud?’
‘No,’ Kaleb said.
‘Are you from the government?’
‘Definitely not,’ Josie said.
The woman studied them for a moment, noticing the way they held themselves and the weariness in their expressions.
‘Okay,’ she finally spluttered. ‘You better come inside. You’re letting the cold in. The weather’s been like this for weeks, ever since…well, are you coming or not?’
Josie and Kaleb stepped up cautiously and entered the medical centre.
When they reached the waiting room, Kaleb stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Jesus!’ he said. His distress and disbelief was tangible enough to stop Josie too.
‘Do I want to know?’
‘They’ve turned the medical centre into some kind of triage ward. There are makeshift beds covering the floor, and each bed has an elderly person in it. Some have their faces covered.’
Josie did not require any more detail. The smell of death, the crying and the coughing completed the picture of what stood before them. Kaleb could see a doctor and nurse tending to bed after bed; both looked like they would keel over from exhaustion if they stopped to think about what they were doing. Beside each bed, there was at least one man and one woman, varied in age, trying to comfort their sick and dying loved ones, trying to comfort themselves. The work on the medical centre had been fast and messy. Kaleb noticed someone had knocked an interior wall down to make more space. Some bricks close to the ceiling remained, jutting out crudely from the join.
‘It gets no better the longer you look, believe me,’ the woman said, as she pushed past them.
‘What happened to all of these people?’ Josie asked.
‘The devil took them,’ she replied, lips quivering. Josie and Kaleb knew exactly what she meant by that.
‘Why are they all crammed in here with their children?’
The woman shook her head at Josie. ‘You really have no idea what’s going on, do you? You have it the wrong way round. The parents aren’t dying. They are kneeling at the bedsides of their children.’
2
Woburn Road, Bedfordshire
The two unmarked cars transporting the captured first-born were well on their way to the police station. Sitting in the back of the second car, Jerrico looked over to Kate, hoping to see some signs of clarity in her eyes, but her head was down. Her lank, unwashed hair hung over her face. He wanted to reach across, brush it aside and touch her cheek with his hand. The rain began to beat against the window next to him so hard and fast that he could barely see the brake lights from the front car, carrying Martha and Vladimir.
A little further along, the cars slowed. The young, plain-clothed officer on the passenger side peered into the back and looked at Jerrico. ‘We had a report of an accident up ahead, so we are making a short detour. Just stay calm – it will only add ten minutes to our journey.’ The ringing of his mobile phone interrupted him, and he reached into his jacket to answer it. ‘Hello. Yes, sir. We are almost there…That’s correct, we have Flynn and Meadows. We found them with two of their – erm – colleagues. One’s a female. Looks like a brunette, but she’s dyed her hair red. Medium height – sounds American. The other one hasn’t spoken yet. He looks eastern European maybe – long black hair tied in a ponytail. Big guy.’ The officer leaned forward in his seat, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Scary guy.’ The officer remained silent when interrupted again. ‘Erm, yes, sir – of course, sir. I will call just before we arrive.’ As soon as he took the phone from his ear, he looked to the officer who was driving. ‘Gaffer says the Chief Inspector’s on his way down.’
‘Bloody hell!’ the driver said.
The other officer pointed at Jerrico. ‘If it weren’t for these clouds, you’d be one of the most famous people in England right now.’
‘Hold up,’ the driver said, slowing down.
Up ahead they could see that the front car had stopped altogether. A bullet grey haulage truck had turned on its side and lay prostrate in a pool of its own glass and oil. The male and female officer from the front car got out, gesturing back to them to stay put. As the officers approach the vehicle, steam hissed from its underbelly, briefly illuminated by its flickering taillights. Quickly, they disappeared from view around the other side of the lorry as they searched for survivors.
The two officers fidgeted in their seats, wondering if they should get out and assist, given that they had two sets of prisoners to keep an eye on. Five minutes went by before anyone spoke. Jerrico felt the tension in the air.
‘How the hell has a lorry flipped like that? Can you see another car, Steve? Cause I certainly can’t.’ The officer in the driver’s seat tapped his palms against the steering wheel.
Steve shook his head. ‘What’s taking them so long?’ he said. The rainfall was deafening, it drowned out the sound of the engine, like a thousand crow’s beaks hammering against the car’s roof.
‘That’s it – something’s wrong. Stay in the car.’ Steve was about to get out, when there was a thud from something large above them. The centre of the roof indented and the suspension dipped. ‘What the fu—’ Steve did not have time to finish his sentence. The windscreen imploded. Something entered the front of the vehicle, moving at an unbelievable speed, and was so feral in its motions it was hard for any of them to tell what it was.
Jerrico and Kate pressed themselves into their seats, holding their cuffed wrists up in the vain hope of protection. The creature bit and tore through the flesh of Steve’s neck, turning its attention to the driver before he’d had time to cry out. It was only then, when the creature stopped dead to sink its filthy thumbs into the officer’s eye sockets, that Jerrico realised he and Kate were in no danger.
Clover lifted its head from the bloody mess it had created, peering into the back of the car through its buttons. A rotten smile broke from its lips, and with one sickening crack, it split the officer’s skull, showering its tormented master with his brain blood.
The other two officers rushed back to their car. Their investigation had revealed one lorry driver, still slumped in his cabin, sporting a fre
shly torn throat. When they saw the smashed windscreen and the blood over the car behind them, they sprinted towards it. Clover crawled back through the opening onto the bonnet. The male officer reached the car first. Once he got close enough to see Clover’s face, he hesitated, giving Clover time to bounce from the vehicle and hurl its cruel blade into the rain. The knife struck the officer dead centre of his forehead. The wound opened his head like a cracked walnut, and he bled from his eyes before hitting the wet tarmac.
The female officer stayed close behind her partner, but decided to flee once the knife struck its target. It took seconds for Clover to catch up to her.
Jerrico sat up to watch the take down and kill. It reminded him of something you might see on the Discovery Channel. Clover only fed enough to make sure she was dead. Well, maybe a little more than that.
Kate was gazing around the dripping wreckage of the car, as if woken from a dream.
‘You okay?’ Jerrico asked.
‘I think so,’ she replied, tentatively. She saw the officer’s blood running down Jerrico’s face, and for one, awful second, thought it belong to him. She reached out toward him, retreating when Clover came bounding back through the front of the car. She screamed, putting her hands up to shield herself.
Infanticide (Fallen Gods Saga Book 2) Page 11