Harvest

by Steve Merrifield

  Mary’s hands suddenly burned. The grapefruit juice found the cracks in her dry skin with wasp stinging fire. She would have to moisturise. Her thoughts collapsed in upon herself, her mind a ruin as she found her hands were gloved in crimson blood. Tiny nicks and cuts to her knuckles and fingers announced their presence beneath the blood with flaring pain.

  Too much blood. More than to be expected for her sudden small flesh wounds. The knife was gripped in her hand with a firmness that crushed all sensation of its presence, as if it was a part of her, an illusion supported by her hand and knife being a solid colour of red.

  She dropped the knife, its clatter dulled as the knife fell into a slick of blood on the worktop. Mary jumped back from the alien grotesque before her, and her feet kicked out from underneath her as she failed to grip the tiled surface. She clutched at the sink to steady herself and her awareness expanded, discovering her feet were planted in puddles of red with her slips tracked into them from her averted slide. Mary gingerly transferred her weight back to her feet and heaved dryly, gagging for a moment but not being sick, she watched thick blood ooze from her soaked fleecy slippers as if squeezed from a sponge. She tried to understand her situation, to understand what would cause the nightmare, unable to offer herself any sense or action.

  The large archway into the lounge crisply framed the view of Roger lying supine on the table. His arms and legs hanging limp from each side of the table. He stared emptily at the ceiling, his jaw part-open as if in speechless shock. The oblivious morning brilliance streamed into the flat with tactless promise of a beautiful day, the brightness burned the details into her mind with crisp clarity the second it was processed. The blood streaked down the bright white tablecloth. His chair overturned. Rogers’ chest wrenched open. The grapefruit squashed on the floor, as if underfoot. The gaping hole travelling from gullet to groin. The plate unbroken and upturned on the floor. Shattered ribs pried open like double doors. Mary stumbled forward and the light glittered on Rogers’ staring still eyes, and dazzled on the pool of blood within the empty cavity. He lay spread-eagled like a star hollowed out at its centre.

  Mary Collapsed backwards against the wall and slipped clumsily to the floor scattering picture frames and clutter from the sideboard beside her, her mouth open in a silent wail, her voice absent with shock. She seated herself roughly and the wetness instantly soaked through her pin-stripe skirt and lacy underwear onto her skin in a sickening syrupy touch. Her voice broke free in a howl of revulsion and horror as she scrambled to the kitchen to escape the blood filled carpet, only to slip and slide in the trails of blood in the kitchen that led to the first puddle she had found herself in.

  The pain of her hands, the discarded knife, the wash of blood and Roger’s butchered body coalesced into a realisation that crashed down on Mary. She thrashed and writhed on the floor, fighting against the very world for the cruel reality that had fallen upon their perfect relationship. The clock ticked apathetically: 9.16am.

  It watched from above, circling her, predatory, observing, not just understanding the body, but also the mind. Satisfied.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Jason reached the top floor. His legs ached from the long climb, yet he wanted to keep moving, so he drifted aimlessly down the corridor. The bright sun streaked through the window at the end of the hall, igniting the white walls in the warm yellow glow of morning. The hazy light made him think of lazy summer days that promised to stretch endlessly before him, and he hoped today would be one of those days. He wanted a long distance between him and nighttime. ‘It’ would come for him in the night while he slept and was vulnerable. That was when monsters came out. He was sure It would wait until then, but fear was still with him, haunting him when he lingered in any one place.

  His mum had left early that morning after telling him that his granddad had been taken ill and she would have to go and see him in hospital. Alone. Her insistence on going alone told him his granddad’s condition had deteriorated and this hospital admission was serious, but Jason had pushed this from his mind, he couldn’t take in this new anxiety with fear stalking his every moment.

  He was grateful for her having to leave him, if she had been home all day at the flat she would not have allowed him to loiter and wander the corridors, and without the twins he had little excuse to leave home. He would have gone crazy being cooped up in the flat, waiting for the something to come for him.

  After the events of the last few days his paranoia had heightened. He couldn’t feel safe at home. He had seen the lights, the lights he had recognised from within Amy’s drawings. Pictures she had labelled eerily and simply as ‘Mr Sparky’. That ‘thing’ had come to Emily and Amy and now they had both gone. Jason had glimpsed enough of the mysterious lights or auras around his home to convince him that whatever It was, was now looking for him. Mr Sparky would come for him.

  Only fear provided answers as to what It was, and why the thing would want him. All the monsters that had ever haunted his imagination and nightmares had been flesh and blood; not made of lights. And more importantly, as frightening as they were, they had never been real. As the thing was light, he toyed with the idea of a mirror being able to reflect any attack, yet he doubted it would work as he knew solid things like doors and walls were no barrier. Facing the light was not something he wanted to think about either.

  He had noticed something strange seemed to happen to lights and electrical equipment before the appearance of the dancing light, maybe as it reached invisibly into his home looking for him its energy affected electrical things? He had to be aware of these signs, a lamp switching itself on, the picture on the TV going snowy or his X-box controller rumbling when a game wasn’t being played. Maybe this was a sign that it may take time for it to build up enough energy to physically attack. If he kept moving then perhaps he could outrun it. Yet night was inevitable, and he would have to return home unable to explain his fears, and eventually he would have to sleep, and that would make him easy prey.

  Jason used the lift button, and the car rumbled up the shaft at his calling. Brilliant light glared painfully in one of his eyes, he turned sharply, shielding his eyes from the blaze that came from the other end of the corridor. The light lost some of its intensity and Jason saw that it was reflected sunlight in the square of glass within the out-of-bounds fire escape door. The door opened further and the reflection reduced. He was relieved that the light had a natural cause, but there was a dark ragged shape beyond the door, motionless and poised for some unknown purpose half-in view between the door and the doorjamb. Watching.

  Wind howled from the staircase Jason had scaled, and rattled at the window that capped the corridor behind him. The hairs on his body bristled and icy dread anticipation settled upon him. He fingered the lift button again as calmly as he could manage. The fire door moved in the shape’s grip.

  The lift arrived with a sharp squeal and Jason darted between the two doors and randomly stabbed a floor button, he didn’t risk waiting for the doors to close automatically but pressed the door close button. He pressed himself flat against the rear wall as far out of reach as possible, he had seen enough scary TV programmes and movies to know that something could still get at him while the doors wobbled shut. They closed, but the films had also shown him that he still might not be safe.

  At least in the lift he could rest in one place and use the lift car to keep moving.

  Jason didn’t see or hear the roof panel lift open above his head.

  He attempted to regulate his breathing to calm himself, only to have his breath knocked out of him by a great weight slamming into his shoulders and back sending him crashing to the floor. The car shuddered under the impact. He instantly realised his prone position and struck out as viciously as he could against his attacker. His flailing fist swung out to full extent but failed to hit a target. Mikey Kent sat in a crumpled heap at his feet. Although Mikey was one of the kids from school that picked on him Jason was relieved it wasn’t the ‘thing’. A str
ange smell accompanied Mikey like engine grease and burnt dust at the back of the TV set.

  “Sorry about that,” Mikey said, although it was clear from his tone that he wasn’t.

  Mikey was in his year, although he was twelve, a year older than Jason. He had the same slim build as Jason but muscles flexed in his arms as he pushed himself into a sitting position against the wall of metal and plastic panelling. Muscles Jason didn’t have. Mikey ran nimble fingers through his messy brown hair and wiped a veil of sweat from his forehead. He eyed Jason with a look of wariness and surprise. “That was a good swing.” He suddenly smiled with a menace that Jason recognised from the playground at school. “Lucky you didn’t catch me with that punch or I might have had to plant one or two back on you.”

  Jason was glad he had failed to make contact. He had been at the end of Mikey’s shoves and general buffeting. The thought of an actual aimed punch was a painful thought. Although some of the fear that Mikey had represented seemed lost. It failed to come as it should in such an enclosed space with no witness or person to call to. He and David Renshaw were partners in bullying and had both made the playground, the corridors, dining hall and assembly room at school a place of jibes threats and embarrassment, and because they lived in his building he normally dreaded bumping into them, but fear was reserved for monsters now – not playground bullies. There was another expression on Mikey’s face that was hard to read. An edge of respect for his instinctive defence of himself?

  The lift came to a halt and the doors opened. Mikey raised himself to his full height. He was tall for his age, an intimidating four inches taller than Jason. The second lift car rolled noisily past and came to an abrupt stop a few floors above their heads. Mikey strolled the small distance to the lift control and closed the doors before punching a button that took the car back up two levels to the eighth floor.

  The lift lurched abruptly as something slammed against the roof of the car. The cables slapped together with a twang and a shivering echo as the sound of the impact ricocheted through the shaft. Jason scrambled across the floor that trembled beneath him. His stomach flipped, sickeningly aware of being suspended eight floors up. As the vibrations subsided he dragged himself cautiously to his feet as if he didn’t trust the ground he was on and shot a wide-eyed stare at Mikey, who braced himself against the wall but seemed unconcerned by the impact.

  The lift shuddered again as a second body fell from the open lift hatch. David Renshaw landed awkwardly on his feet in the corner. He wiped sweat from his forehead leaving streaks of dark grease in its place on his tanned skin. He also smelled of the warm dusty engine smell. David was Jason’s age but Mikey’s height. He let out a whoop and shook his head as if his unfashionable curtain cut hair was wet. “That was fun.” he commented breathlessly. David’s voice trailed off and his face tightened as he saw Jason. “What’s he doing here?”

  “He was riding the lift when I came in.”

  “Not at home with mummy?” He taunted. “She aint left you too has she?” David’s soft blonde hair and innocent blue-eyes masked the cruelty of his mind and tongue. While Mikey was the muscle, David could inflict verbal wounds with ease.

  Jason ignored the sting from David’s lash of spite. Jason remembered the day he had cried in class because he knew that his dad had left. His dad had thrown his mum across the room in a blind-rage; the climax of weeks of discrete rows and unhappiness when they thought Jason was asleep or out of sight and earshot. The morning after his mum had an unusually made-up face, but it didn’t cover the cracked lip or puffy eye. His mum and dad had yet to get back together and Jason doubted they would. David and Mikey had always aimed jibes at him, he didn’t know why, maybe it was because he was quieter and more studious than most. After the day he had cried in class David and Mikey had focussed and stepped up their torment of him. As if they had sensed his weakness that he was easy prey. He had been. It didn’t take too many comments about his mum and dad to get him close to tears or into a state of stupefied numbness.

  “Aw, that’s right; you don’t have your little girlfriends to play with.”

  David was a master at torment, only his second comment had found a weakness in Jason’s resolve. Jason simmered with his fists clenched while twitching on his toes as if he were loaded in a catapult straining to launch him at David. David’s height dropped a few inches as his body sagged into a springy defensive stance that would prepare him to counter any move Jason might make. Jason knew he didn’t stand much chance in a fight and he had hesitated too long, losing the element of surprise that might have afforded him at least one blow.

  Mikey moved between them. “Leave it! That’s not called for. Don’t bring them girls into it.”

  David maintained his glower and his boxing posture throughout Mikey’s intervention. He curled his lips up into a cruel smile. “Brave aint ya.” David lowered his defences but his muscles stayed firm and threatening compared with Jason’s wiry frame. “Why you defending him anyway? You’re not going queer on me are you?”

  “Fuck you!” Mikey beamed, joining in with David’s laughter and shoving him playfully. “We need someone to push the buttons don’t we? Save waiting for someone else to come in.”

  David’s smile mirrored Mikey’s conspiratorially before he addressed Jason. “You hear that? All you gotta do is press the buttons, up and down,” he pointed to the ceiling and then to the floor in emphasis of the directions. “You think you can manage that fuckwit?”

  The lift came to a stop, and the doors rolled aside. Jason was a fast runner; he could make a break for it. He could probably get back home too, but then he would have to stay there and face being trapped in the flat where that ‘thing’ knew to find him. If he stayed with Mikey and David there was a sense of safety in not being alone. They would probably be satisfied that they had bullied him into doing something he didn’t want to do, and Jason got to continue his constant moving around within the lift. Jason nodded that he would do it.

  David’s face flushed with a menacing darkness. “Homo-geek thought he had a fucking choice.” David shoved Jason roughly to the controls and stepped up on the handrail and sprung himself up, he caught the lip of the lift hatch, grabbed at it with his other hand and hauled himself up into the dusty blackness beyond. Mikey followed in a similar fashion and Jason soon heard their footsteps scuffing heavily on the roof of the car and echoing through the shaft.

  David shouted down a command to send the lift upwards and Jason responded by pushing the button for the fourteenth floor. The machinery squealed high above, and the lift roared upward. The air washed over Jason’s face from the hatch and he breathed in the warm dusty smell like that of the underground and found himself taking grim comfort in the familiar role of being bullied.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Sixteen-year old Danny Jenkins strode into the room he shared with his younger brother Kevin, who sprawled on the top bunk listening to music through his headphones. Danny nodded a greeting to him then swept his sports cap off and flung it on the swivel chair at the computer before he crashed out on his own bunk.

  He ruffled his hair that had been flattened by his hat and closed his eyes and let his body relax into the softness of his bed. He heard the springs of the bunk above him vibrate and tense as the weight of his brother shifted, telling him that Kevin was staring down at him over the edge. Danny kicked his foot hard against the underneath of his mattress.

  “Fuck off you cunt,” Kevin laughed.

  Danny asked where their parents were, and found they had gone shopping.

  “So what you been doing? You came home well late last night – then you shot off out really early?”

  “I know I got a bollocking from mum last night.” Danny opened his eyes and tried to control a wild smile. “I was with Leah last night.”

  “Dirty bastard.”

  Danny flinched as Kevin reached down to thump him playfully but found he couldn’t reach. Danny swatted his hand away.

  “What happ
ened?”

  Danny couldn’t control his smile any longer and it curled his cheeks so tightly they ached. “We did it.” He ducked away as Kevin cursed at him and tried to hit him again. Kevin clung to the side of the bed waiting for the details. Danny closed his eyes and thought back to it. “Leah didn’t want to be on her own last night, so we stayed out as long as we could. Her family’s having loads of trouble with her younger brother; he’s gone a bit nutty by the sounds of it, says he’s been seeing things in their flat, I think he’s like it ‘cause people have been going missing.”

  “Yeah, that’s why mum and dad were freaked out last night; I think they were worried something had happened to you too.”

  “Shit, yeah,” Danny gave into his mistake of not even calling home. When they had called him he hadn’t answered. He had been doing other things. “Anyway, we just walked, all round the green outside, then when it got colder we came back and just wondered the corridors. We ended up at the very top of the staircase, outside the door to the roof. It was locked so we just huddled up there. She got really upset, started crying about everything, especially about Sarah going missing,” he thought of the girl that had somehow gone missing on her way from her flat to meet up with her friends outside. “I mean we weren’t great mates with her but she was in our crowd.” He didn’t mention that he had cried too, didn’t admit the fear to his brother. He focussed on what came next, the burning heat, his fantasies that were unexpectedly made real. “We were kissing and cuddling, just playing about and then things started getting hot.”