by Amy Cross
Epilogue
Six months later
“That's quite an... unusual claim,” the lead investigator said as he stood before Elly in the courtroom. “Are you sure you don't want to think about your answer a little more?”
“It's what happened,” Elly replied. “I...”
Pausing for a moment, she looked over at the members of the panel, and then at the gallery where a few members of the public had shown up to watch proceedings. For a few seconds, she felt as if everyone doubted her, as if they were all assuming she was either a liar or a fantasist. Part of her wanted to curl up and say whatever was necessary to make them leave her alone, but at the same time she wanted to tell the truth.
She had to tell the truth.
“A survey team examined the damage at the former Lakehurst site extensively,” the investigator continued, clearly not particularly amused. He brought up several slides on the screen, showing various shots of the vast pit. “They said that the sinkhole that opened up is entirely explicable. There was a cavern beneath Lakehurst, left behind after the copper mine closed, and although that cavern wasn't on any of the previous reports about the site, sometimes these things are missed. Is it not the case, Ms. Blackstock, that you're inventing all these wild claims to cover up something else that was going on there?”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Where is Kirsten Winter?”
“I told you -”
“Yes, she jumped into a giant pit to talk to a disembodied voice.”
Behind him, some of the panel members were unable to stifle laughs.
“And where,” the investigator continued, “is Thomas Clay Lacy? As you're no doubt aware by now, there are some very serious allegations that he needs to face.”
“I told you -”
“Oh, yes,” he said, interrupting her, “that's right. His body burned up and he, too, fell into the pit.” He paused, eying her with suspicion. “Are you aware, Ms. Blackstock, that you could face criminal charges for aiding and abetting the absconsion of a fugitive? Are you also aware that a number of bodies were pulled from the ruins of Middleford Cross, and that at present you are the only suspect? Spinning this kind of fantastical yarn doesn't exactly put you in a good light.”
“I told you what happened,” she replied. “If you don't believe me, that's not something I can control.”
“And you're sure about the claims you've made here today? You don't want to think about them? Maybe you've made a mistake, or maybe you've got things a little muddled?”
She paused, but although she was already starting to doubt herself again, she quickly realized that she had to stand her ground.
“I told you the truth,” she said finally, despite all the disbelieving looks of the people around her. “If you think I'm mad or that I'm hiding something, I can't change that. If you think I'm lying, I can try to persuade you but... This is what happened. I was there, I survived it somehow, and there's nothing you can say that will make me tell you anything different.” She took a deep breath, and she could tell that the investigator wasn't quite sure how to proceed. “Do you have any more questions,” she continued finally, “or am I done here?”
***
“Therefore,” the head of the panel said finally, as he reached the end of his announcement, “we have no choice but to accept that some aspects of the Lakehurst and Middleford Cross incidents might never be clear. If and when Kirsten Winter or Thomas Clay Lacy are apprehended, the panel will reconvene, but for now we have decided to call a halt to these hearings, since the only witness has proven to be...”
He cast a brief, unimpressed glance at Elly, before turning back to face the rest of the audience.
“Unreliable,” he continued. “Copies of our final report will be distributed on Monday, but for now, ladies and gentlemen, I think we need to draw a line under this whole sordid matter.”
As everyone got to their feet and headed to the exit, Elly lingered for a moment. She knew that they all thought she was a liar, a fantasist or a lunatic, but she also knew that she'd told the truth throughout the investigation. He attorney was sure that the possibility of criminal charges was fading, that no prosecutor in the state had any stomach for touching such a complex case, and that the police were acting on the assumption that Kirsten Winter and Thomas Clay Lacy were out there somewhere, waiting to be apprehended. Elly, they'd apparently decided, had been dragged along, forced to help out and eventually fooled into believing several crazy stories.
Therapy had been offered. She'd turned it down.
Making her way to one of the side exists, she figured she could just slip away and get home, and then prepare for her night shift at the new job she'd recently started at St. Michael's. She also had an invitation to join some of her new colleagues for drinks at the weekend, and although part of her didn't want company, another part of her wanted to at least try.
And then she saw her.
Up ahead, keeping away from the crowd and heading toward one of the other doors, there was a vaguely familiar figure. Elly had spotted her in the audience earlier, but she hadn't been able to give the matter much thought at the time. Now, however, she began to follow the figure until they both reached the steps at the rear of the court building. Stopping for a moment, Elly watched as the figure quickly made its way down to the lobby and over toward the far door.
“Annie?” she called out.
The figure kept walking.
“Annie Radford?”
The figure stopped for a moment, and finally turned back to look at her with fearful eyes.
“It is you, isn't it?” Elly continued, making her way down the steps. “I saw a photo of you once.”
Annie looked around to make sure that no-one could overhear them, before turning back to Elly.
“We thought you were dead,” Elly explained as she reached her. “Kirsten found your grave, there was a body in there. One of the last things she said before she vanished was that she wished you'd been with her.”
Annie paused, as if she wasn't quite sure what to say. There were dark rings under her eyes and her hair was straggly and unkempt, while her pale features hinted at some underlying sickness.
“You know it really happened, don't you?” Elly said finally. “I know no-one else in that room believed me, but you do.” She waited. “Don't you?”
They stood in silence for a moment, before finally Annie nodded.
“Sometimes I even doubt myself,” Elly continued. “At night, when I can't sleep, I find myself wondering if the whole thing was some kind of crazy dream. I mean, why me? I get why Kirsten took Thomas Lacy, and I sort of get why she took Jonathan in Rachel's body, but...” Her voice trailed off. “Why me?”
“She always had a flair for the theatrical,” Annie replied cautiously, her voice sounding harsh and frail, as if she wasn't used to speaking much anymore. “I don't know why she took you with her, maybe she just wanted an audience, or maybe she wanted someone who'd tell other people what had happened.”
“No-one believes me.”
“That doesn't matter. You still told them.” She paused. “She'll be back, you know. She's not dead.”
Elly paused, before nodding.
“And when she returns,” Annie continued, “you need to be... We need to be...” She paused. “I knew it wasn't over. I knew all along. Kieran thought... He thought it was finished, but I knew it'd all come back, I knew it wasn't finished. I waited as long as I could for Kirsten to find me, eventually I had to send her a message, but Mary was coming and I had to get out of sight. I'd worked out the way down to the chamber beneath Lakehurst. Kieran and I figured it out together, and we knew we had to be careful so that... The only person I trusted to go down there was Kirsten. I figured the coffin... I figured Kirsten would find the coffin eventually, and that way she'd...” She swallowed hard. “It's been a long time since anyone called me Annie. I don't go by that name anymore. I change my name every six months, just so that no-one can track me down. It
works.”
With that, she turned to walk away.
“How can I get in touch with you?” Elly called after her. “If she comes back, I mean.”
Annie turned back to look at her. “I know your name,” she said after a moment. “I'll contact you. We need to be ready for when she returns, because when she does, I think she might be... different. She's got what she always wanted, and that might make her dangerous, but... It had to be this way. Someone was going to find their way down there eventually, I figured Kirsten was the only one who might be able to handle it. Better her than someone like Mary.” She paused. “You should pack a small bag and keep it by the door, in case you ever need to disappear in a hurry. You should also...” She frowned. “Well, like I said, I'll be in touch.”
“But -”
“Don't follow me. I'll find you when the time is right.”
Elly opened her mouth to ask more questions, but instead she simply watched as Annie hurried to the door and disappeared out into the parking lot. For a moment, not quite knowing what to do, Elly simply stood on the steps, listening to the sound of people nearby. After a few seconds, however, she was able to ignore the chattering and the sound of footsteps on the marble floor, and silence seemed to fall all around her. She waited, worried that she might start to hear something else in her mind, a voice or an idea or some kind of presence. Nothing came, and finally she began to make her way down toward the door, ready to go and catch the bus.
Hearing a faint laugh in the distance, she turned and looked over her shoulder. The laugh had already stopped, but it had seemed familiar, almost as if...
She paused, before heading outside, into the busy street where the noise of traffic drowned out everything else.
Coming Soon
ASYLUM 3
OTHER BOOKS
BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE
Horror
3AM
The Farm
The Scream
Tenderling
The Haunting of Emily Stone
The Girl Clay
The Prison
Asylum
American Coven
The Night Girl
Devil's Briar
Ward Z
Ward Z: Revelation
The Last Priest
The Devil's Photographer
Fantasy / Horror
Dark Season series 1, 2 & 3
The Hollow Church (Abby Hart 1)
Vampire Asylum (Abby Hart 2)
Dead Souls volumes 1, 2 & 3
Lupine Howl series 1 to 4
Grave Girl
Graver Girl (Grave Girl 2)
Ghosts
The Library
Journey to the Library (The Library Saga 2)
The Ghosts of London
The Werewolf's Curse
Thriller
Ophelia
The Dead City (Ophelia 2)
Fallen Heroes (Ophelia 3)
The Girl Who Never Came Back
The Dead and the Dying (Joanna Mason 1)
The House of Broken Backs (Joanna Mason 2)
The Pornographer's Wife
Dystopia / Science Fiction
The Shades
Mass Extinction Event series 1 to 4
Also by Amy Cross
ASYLUM
After killing her younger brother, Annie Radford is sent to Lakehurst Psychiatric Hospital. But Lakehurst hides some dark secrets. Patients are regularly subjected to 'special treatment' in the basement, while the cruel Nurse Winter rules the hospital with an iron fist.
As Annie struggles to retain her sense of identity, she finds herself being drawn deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Lakehurst. Suffering under the horrific conditions imposed on her at Lakehurst, Annie starts to doubt her own sanity, especially when she once again starts to hear the voices that plagued her when she was younger.
Who is the strange old man in the attic? What does Jerry keep in a jar in the basement, and why is he so keen to continue with his macabre and vicious experiments? Where did the husks come from? And how is this all linked to mysterious radio signals being monitored in a forest hundreds of miles away?
Also by Amy Cross
THE NIGHT GIRL
When she starts her new job as a night shift assistant, Juliet Collier has no idea that she's about to meet a mysterious entity that lurks in an abandoned part of the building.
Soon, Juliet finds herself granted a gift that means she can kill indiscriminately, and apparently without consequences. Meanwhile, eleven years earlier, a young Juliet makes a terrible mistake that sets her on a dark course.
The Night Girl is the story of a girl whose decisions lead her to a devastating end-point, as she struggles to reconcile the voices in her head with the reality in front of her eyes.
Also by Amy Cross
DEVIL'S BRIAR
In the remote wilderness of Colorado, Bill and Paula Mitchell discover an entire lost town.
Devil's Briar was abandoned many years ago, and has fallen into disrepair. But it soon becomes clear that the town contains some special and highly unusual qualities, and that elements of the past are seeping through into the present. As she tries to get to the bottom of the mystery, Paula finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into the bizarre time loop that keeps the entire town trapped in eternity.
Soon it becomes clear that nothing in Devil's Briar will ever be the same again, and that two time periods are merging with horrific consequences.
Also by Amy Cross
WARD Z
It began with a strange new kind of cancer, born on the other side of the world. Eventually, it erupted on a British hospital ward...
When a new cancer patient is brought into his care, Dr. Andrew Page assumes it'll just be another case of battling against the odds. Soon, however, he realizes that this new patient has been infected by a type of cancer that shows signs of intelligence. As the ward is put into lock-down, Dr. Page struggles to understand the nature of the disease. More and more people start to become sick, until finally Dr. Page has to face the horrific truth: a new strain of cancer has emerged, taking control of its victims' bodies and turning them into zombie-like creatures.
For Dr. Page, this is a terrifying but fascinating new development. For the military, however, it means only one thing: the ward must be sealed, and the entire building - including everyone trapped inside - must be studied, observed... and then killed.
Ward Z is a medical horror novel about a deadly new disease that emerges from a particularly virulent form of cancer. Also available - Ward Z: Revelation, in which the deadly infestation spreads to a holiday camp.
Also by Amy Cross
AMERICAN COVEN
He kidnapped three women and held them in his basement.
He thought they couldn't fight back.
He was wrong...
Snatched from the street near her home, Holly Carter is taken to a rural house and thrown down into a stone basement. She meets two other women who have also been kidnapped, and soon Holly learns about the horrific rituals that take place in the house. Eventually, she's called upstairs to take her place in the ice bath.
Over time, however, Holly learns about a mysterious power that exists in the basement, and which the three women can use as they struggle to escape. When they finally manage to get through the metal door, however, the women have no idea that their fight for freedom is going to stretch out for more than a decade, or that it will culminate in a final, devastating demonstration of their new-found powers.
/div>