Maureen’s fingers finally found a firm boundary in her cramped vertical enclosure and scrambled at it, panicking for release from the nightmare as her veins burned and a great pressure bore down on her fragile chest with the lack of oxygen in her body. The pain pressed itself deeper into every nerve ending and her vision began to darken. She scratched at the pliable membrane that kept her sealed in.
Finally something gave way under her fingertips. With excitement she carried on digging and squinted through a brown haze that now filled her vision around her hands, her hopes turned to horror as she saw her skeletal fingers at the centre of the murk as the swirling tracks of her skin threaded away. Maureen withdrew her wasted hands from her work, finally accepting her fate as her strength left her and she gave into the consuming black vacuum within her chest as she starved of oxygen. Thick clumps of her own flesh broke away, dissolving as it drifted past her eyes as they closed to the world for the last time.
Rachel realised that although Cat had invited her into her flat she wasn’t going to be invited beyond the hall. Considering the damage the lounge had taken there probably wasn’t anywhere comfortable to sit anyway. The hall was narrow and it was hard being so close to Cat and not be able to pull her into a hug and have the reunion she desperately dreamed about. Cat’s sharp eyes, stern face and tightly crossed arms compensated for any closeness their proximity created. Rachel coughed through strangling emotions, knowing that any weakness of tears would be scorned. “You have been in a coma for a little over three weeks –.”
“Yeah I know. Old news.”
“While you have been in hospital a lot of bad things have been happening. People have been going missing with no explanation – from behind locked doors in some cases. Children,” she paused searching for a reaction, but if there was one she hid it well. “There have been strange happenings, with the lights and tricks of perception. Some violent deaths too.” Rachel rushed an explanation of how she had been drawn into the events. “But some weeks before Claire Chambers even called me and I found out about you being in hospital, a stray kitten made its home with me. When your neighbour let me in I realised it was your cat.”
“Psychic-fucking-lassie?”
Cat’s invective caused Rachel to blink. “I thought it might be a sign that you needed me.” Rachel added.
“But, I don’t need you.”
Rachel tried to swallow against the constriction of her throat from Cat’s words but they didn’t go away. “You wanted help.” Rachel justified her conclusion by relaying the events at the hospital with the plea for help within the coffee and the waking nightmare she had experienced. “You may not need me on a terrestrial level, but on a spiritual level, whether that was subconscious or not I think you were willing to take any help you could get. Because what happened to you seems to be linked to what is happening in this building I wanted to talk to you to find out if you had any insight that could help us in our investigation.” Cat stared at her, apparently waiting to see if Rachel had finished.
“I don’t have any insight,” she said roughly. “I could check the tea leaves or look at chicken entrails a bit later and get back to you.”
Rachel studied her loafers. Cat’s damage and bitterness wouldn’t allow her to help even if she could. Rachel was surprised she didn’t feel anger; just pity: here was a girl selfish enough to put her own petty position in an ongoing standoff in the way of helping others. “You heard about Harry I take it,” she found herself saying, purely for something to say. She saw the sudden change of direction confused Cat.
Cat grinned spitefully and pointed through the lounge doorway to the large plastic covered windows. “Yeah, he ran about twenty feet in that direction.”
Rachel could play her game. She adopted the clipped tone she reserved for disciplining children. “Yes, that’s right. He jumped off the roof. About five minutes after you told Craig that there was something in the flat with Harry.” Rachel saw she had struck Cat’s guard aside.
Cat looked everywhere but in Rachel’s direction. “I don’t remember that happening.”
“Crap,” Rachel stated bluntly. Cat looked stunned by her uncharacteristic curse and her comfort in its delivery. It was good for Cat to see that she had a hard side. Rachel took full advantage of Cat being dumbfounded by Rachel’s change of tact. “We have established your antagonism towards me. Now get over it for the moment. I’m not here to ask for reconciliation. I just want to talk to you about what’s been going on and if you have any insight. If not we can sort out returning your cat and key and I will go.” It was agony to be so firm when all she wanted to do was repair the rift between them, but despite the guilt she had stayed strong.
Cat’s mouth was open, her jaw set forward and firm, her eyes staring away at an angle. “When… When I got back here after the hospital I could feel something was wrong with the building. Something bad. I didn’t know where or what it was, but as I walked I just knew I was getting close to whatever it was.” Cat uncrossed her arms and planted her hands on her hips. She looked unhappy with herself for talking to Rachel. Close to tears. “I went to Harry and Craig’s floor and I just knew that whatever that badness was it was with Harry in the flat, playing with him – Taunting him. I think Harry was like the guy at the hospital, being controlled by something. Except this time Harry was being Harry again, fighting back. It knew Harry was lost, so it made Harry run – and he kept running, until he ran out of ground. Then it let him go…”
Rachel needed time to process what she had heard but she knew she couldn’t lose Cat. “And what of you Cat? What happened to you for you to end up in the hospital? Do you know that?”
Cat turned away, she knew.
Rachel pointed at the carnage of the lounge. “You’re one angry girl, but even you couldn’t do that much damage. It came for you. A ball of green light. It lifted you up and then it poured itself into your head. Why did it do that? Do you know?”
“How do you know what happened?” There was fear in Cat’s jade eyes, but also a renewed anger that burned like green fires.
“I had a vision when I was here. I sensed something like it in the Chambers’ homes.”
“What happened? Do you know?”
“No.”
“You do. What happened at the hospital, with Malik? Please tell me.” She realised her voice had been desperately insistent and as Cat stiffened and disengaged she knew she had pushed too hard. She could hear the desperation in her voice, and realised the depth of her own despair; what was happening in this building had turned her world upside down – she needed Cat to tell her anything she could so she could rebuild her understanding and confidence in the spiritual world. Without the spirit world what would she be? A lonely old woman? Most of her friends were from the spiritual church she attended and communed for or were linked to her paranormal interests. If she found that world too frightening to engage with, even on an investigation level what would she have? Her part-time job at Sainsbury’s and her tipples. How small and lonely life would get. She would have to start out again. “Please Catherine.”
“I don’t remember and I don’t know anything.” Cat stated bluntly.
Rachel channelled a frustrated sigh into a slow exhalation and spoke calmly. “I think you do, and I think what you do know frightens you.”
Chapter Thirty Two
Kelly strained to read the lines of her book with aching eyes. They felt small and deeply set as tiredness tightened the muscles around them. She leaned forward out of her warm duvet cocoon and sat the unsatisfying book down on the table and rubbed at her weary eyes that were ready to give in to sleep. She ran her fingers through her hair and let it fall about her head and face. How long had it been since she had felt someone else’s fingers in her hair?
Craig groaned lightly in his sleep and Kelly squinted at Craig’s huddled form on the sofa in the darkness. He moved. Maybe he was uncomfortable? Kelly stepped out of the duvet and padded over to Craig.
She had always thought t
hat people looked younger when they slept, but strangely Craig looked older than his twenty-four years. Twenty-four! His age didn’t bare thinking about.
His face was pale and drawn. Something wasn’t right; it was like looking at the face of a corpse. Fear ran like spider-legs scuttling across her pounding heart. Was he breathing? She wanted to shake him, shout at him, get him to react to show he was alive, but also didn’t want to panic him, or make him think she was a crazy woman. She withered down onto her knees and felt the form of his still body through the duvet and gently nudged him.
Craig’s body snapped upright into a sitting position, and she yelped and fell away from his wide and mad eyes. The spark was back and he had the glow of life about him, but his reaction to her waking him was as if she had brought him back from the brink. The wildness faded from his eyes as he tore his way back into consciousness and became aware of his surroundings and Kelly. He cursed several times, ran his hands up over his face and back down again, he looked panicked and uncertain.
“Craig? Craig what’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?”
“People being killed and taken. Lots of them.” Craig leapt up and climbed into his tee-shirt and jeans, threw on his trainers and began thumbing through his mobile. “Kelly, get dressed we have to get out of here.”
Kelly could only mouth the start of several different sentences. What was going on?
“Quick, go get some clothes on. I’m calling Rachel. I have to warn her. She and Cat are in danger.”
“Get out. Get out, Rachel.”
Rachel ended the phone call, her stomach lined with lead. Shaken by Craig’s warning she fumbled to end the call, placed the phone back in her bag and tidied the contents around it, giving herself time to process his demand and decide how to explain it to Cat who strangely looked scared and ready to break into a run already. “Cat, that was Craig. I know you aren’t going to believe me, but I ask you to think back to the time when you did trust me. He has told us to get out of the building. He thinks were in danger…”
“Danger?” her tone was incredulous, her eyes wild, but only a moment ago she had looked scared.
“Yes. Please trust in me. Let’s leave. Now. Quickly.”
“Go? I’m not going anywhere…” she reiterated with less conviction. “Not with you.”
“I will happily give you a head start if it gets you out that door and away from danger.” Rachel bit back her angry humour and attempted to calm her voice. She was trembling, torn between Cat and the door, aware that every second wasted in argument could be a second closer to being taken and whatever fate that may lead to. Could she leave her? “I know it sounds stupid… Can’t you just humour an old woman? If it’s nothing then – then it probably confirms that I’m a silly old bitch and you can laugh at me! or…”
“Or what!” Cat objected defiantly in a contrary hysterical half-laugh.
“Or maybe, the thing you’re afraid of in this building won’t stop at putting you in a coma this time!”
Cat’s hand was suddenly in hers and the contact created an overwhelming mixture of grief, gratitude and hope swell within her, but she was distracted from the moment and any meaning it might have for her by Cat tugging her to the front door. Cat pulled the door open, losing her grip of the door several times in her clumsy panicked haste. It seemed that she needed no more convincing.
Outside the door the corridor had been replaced by a fluttering darkness. The fluorescent light that lit Cat’s section of the corridor was going the same way as the one Rachel had noticed earlier. Standing in the doorway she saw that all the lights to the right of Catherine’s door had failed, the whole corridor in that direction was lost to shadow and blackness. Rachel’s instinct was to turn back and shut the door, but what good were doors and walls now?
There was something standing in that deep black well, less than two metres from them, just out of reach from the intermittent flashes of light from the fluorescent line above them. Rachel found herself yanked into the corridor and pulled after Cat who was breaking into a run for the lit section of corridor.
“The stairs…” Cat instructed firmly.
The line of light over their head failed as they ran, and Rachel heard herself yelp in fear as the great darkness hauled itself on to their heals. The idea of the blackness being on top of them was all Rachel needed to spur her into matching Cat’s speed, and seconds later they made it into the light of the next fluorescent.
Around twelve metres away at the other end of the corridor the opening to the stairs was suddenly replaced by a closed door. It snapped shut with an ear-jarring boom that rolled down the corridor and back several times. Rachel could hear creaking coming from its direction and could see the square of glass twitching and scattering its reflections and didn’t understand what was happening, but the fluorescent that had just passed overhead became her prime concern when it began to flicker and dull. If that went then there would only be five lights between them and the dark.
In a cacophony of trampling footfalls they reached the fire escape door, and as Rachel feared; it would not move. She ran her fingers to the seams and found the door was bloated to the jamb, and she then understood the creaking noise that she had just heard. “It’s jammed. It’s fused shut!”
Rachel and Cat exchanged desperate glances then in unison they both worked at pushing the door, banging their fists, kicking it. The safety glass in the door was toughened and laced with metal mesh and offered no weakness. The noise was terrible but that could draw people out of their homes to help them. Although, with everything that had been happening maybe they wouldn’t come. The residents might be too scared. Might not want to get involved. Some might already have been taken. She screamed and balled and punched and slumped against the door in fits of fear, frustration and resignation.
A light died, and the darkness swallowed another section of corridor, leaving only eight metres of light between them and the dark. The fourth light began to flicker almost immediately. Rachel grabbed Cat and spun her round to witness it.
“We can’t get back to my flat. I’m not going through that.”
“Walls are useless against it anyway; it can just come through them and get you.” Cat looked like the terrified little girl Rachel had read stories to during thunderstorms. The light flashed and died. Three lights and six metres of light. Rachel stepped back and became flush with the door. Cat balled her fists up ready, like a boxer ready to spar.
Rachel heard something. She hushed her body, and over the sound of her rushing blood and pounding heart was a sound. Footfalls. Slow even footsteps coming from the darkness. Something was walking slowly towards them within the encroaching dark.
Two lights and four metres of light. Doorframes and walls disappeared into the void. The light from the stairs the other side of the door dimmed flickered and fizzled out, robbing them of any light that might permeate the encroaching wall and help them see what might be coming for them.
One light and two metres of light. Utter uselessness descended upon Rachel. The world flickered, faltering in and out of existence, and then the last few metres of corridor collapsed into nothing and the darkness consumed them.
Chapter Thirty Three
Craig had quickly found a routine for climbing the stairs that involved leaning heavily onto the banister and pushing himself forward, using his bad leg for a little spring and his good leg for some serious leverage. It was uncomfortable, but the sound of a door being frantically pounded drove him on. Someone was in trouble, and from his nightmare he just knew that it was going to be Rachel and Cat.
Craig had decided it would have been impossible to use the crutch the hospital had given him to climb the stairs so he had left it at Kelly’s as he rushed to Rachel and Cat. Fortunately rushing as best as he could meant his foot had less time on the ground and his tendons spent less time extended which didn’t seem to cause as much discomfort as walking.
The lights on his flight of the stairs suddenly failed and he was pitchin
g himself into complete blackness. He should have been able to see some light from the corridor of Cat’s floor but there was none. He didn’t like the idea of searching Rachel and Cat out in the darkness, but he was getting closer to the terrible desperate banging. He reached the landing and the banging pounded into his ears.
He gave his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dark, and was able to pick out the details of the landing from what little light soaked into the dark from the lights on the staircase below him. He hobbled forwards, his hands held before him and just discernable from the dark, and felt his way to the door. The door trembled under his hands with the fists that were pounding it. His eyes adjusted as best as they could to the dark and he could see the door and the wall it was set within, and could just make out the window in the fire escape door, and through it the grey shapes of the people at the door.
“Rachel? Rachel is that you?”
“Craig? Craig. Help us! Oh God, Craig help us!”
Craig shielded himself from a blast of air and a storm of shrapnel. The wooden door disintegrated in a roar of splintering twisting timber that echoed and screeched as the fire door shredded and concertinaed unnaturally against the wall. Cat fell through the hole with Rachel stumbling after her attempting to break her fall. Craig dove to Cat’s side and could tell by her weight and he limpness that she was out cold. Rachel was tugging at her and pulling at him, throwing terrified glances over her shoulder at the darkness she had just escaped from.
There was no need for words. He dragged Cat up his kneeling body then, slumping against the wall for balance, he forced all his strength into his good leg and pushed himself up. Now standing he scooped a limp Cat into his arms and hobbled for the stairs.
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