Satisfied there was nothing in this room, my eyes caught sight of the staircase, which led further down. I began to follow it around the inside of the circular tower, ever wary that the further I went, the greater the chance of coming across one of the demons.
As I descended further still, I came to another room. This was also empty, but a small window allowed me to look outside. The fog was nearer now, and as the light from the lighthouse cut through it, I shuddered at the sight of the dark figures that appeared to ride the fog as it glided across the ocean. I stepped away from the window and continued down the stairs to another floor. This room was larger, but again seemed to be void of any recent use.
Hesitating at the top of the stairs, I crouched down and listened for any noise. I was almost at the bottom now and was beginning to wonder whether the coffins were even here. If they weren’t in the room below, then where else could they be? They have to be here, I thought. If Charlie and Nellore are here, then so, too, should the coffins. And if there wasn’t anything to hide and protect, why would Charlie be standing outside guarding the door? The coffins had to be here.
Keeping low to the floor and placing one foot at a time as silently as possible, I edged my way slowly down the spiral stairs. The door into the lighthouse was closed.
Hesitating on the lower stair, I peered about the room. Thick cobwebs hung from the corner of a window and swung from a dirty, discoloured lampshade. The glass panes in the window rattled from the force of the wind and the gusts pushed through under the old door. Dust blew across the stone floor, stirring up the smell of damp and mildew, and I held my nose to stop myself from sneezing.
There were no coffins. No demons. I spun around on my heels and noticed another door. It was tucked away in the shadows of this forlorn, decaying building. It had once been painted red, but now its faded paint had almost flaked away.
I listened quietly. First at the door that led outside. There was no sound other than the roaring wind that charged at the lighthouse and the hideous noise of the foghorn. I couldn’t hear Charlie and I couldn’t hear Raven.
I stepped away and headed over to the other door. Pressing my ear up to its flaky red paint, I waited briefly, wondering what I would find on the other side. Feeling sick and consumed with fright, I took hold of the wooden doorknob and slowly turned it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ben
The path cut into the side of the cliff led us up, way above the ocean. The spray caught in the wind from the waves covered my clothes and my face, and I shoved my hands into my trouser pockets, hunched my shoulders forward, and braced myself against the pounding gale. I stared ahead as the lighthouse came into view. Frowning, I stopped in my tracks, causing Jude to bump into me from behind.
“What is it… what’s wrong?” asked Jude, looking over my shoulder.
“I’m not sure… I think… I’ve,” I stopped again and searched my memories. But as usual, my head was full of shadows and clouds. Turning, I faced Jude and said, “Have you been here before?”
Gazing across the island, Jude shook his head and said, “It’s not my idea of a tropical island… can’t see myself coming here for a holiday.” He grinned, and then seeing me look so serious, he said, “I don’t think so. Why…have you?”
“I don’t know… it just feels like I have,” I said, feeling uneasy. “This island… it makes me feel sad… like… I lost something here… like something was taken from me.”
“Look,” spoke Jude, cupping one hand to the side of his mouth so as to block out the roaring wind, “you couldn’t have been here and neither could I. We’ve never left Cruor Pharma for long enough to have made it here. And why would either of us come to this place? Our work… or Quint’s and Eras’s work… confined us to the hospital wards. My job was to persuade the volunteers to stay—yours was to inject them. There would be no reason for us to have visited Gallows Island.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said, staring up at the lighthouse. But still, I couldn’t shake that feeling of being here before, and the feeling it seemed to stir in me. I didn’t like it. I felt scared. Like a child sensing danger and digging his heels in. I wanted to turn and run—hide.
I looked round at Max and Robert. Their eyes were wide as they stared up at the looming lighthouse. As we stood and gaped at the daunting building, the wind pushing us this way and that, I looked at the black clouds that swarmed over the island. And suddenly, as if the decrepit building had woken up from its dying sleep, a bright beam shone from its top and circled its light out across the sea.
I felt Max jump as he stood beside me. The lighthouse did indeed seem to come to life. A horn, so loud that it overpowered the sound of the wind and waves, boomed from the building.
We stood, transfixed, our eyes pinned to the lighthouse. Then, all of a sudden, my eyes fell away from the building, catching the stare of Jude as we both realised what the horn was for.
Together, we stared out across the sea. The sight of the fog, as it glided over the ocean, at first looked like sea foam travelling on the waves. And for anyone who stood this far away with no knowledge of what it actually was, would have thought the same. But of course, we knew what it was. It was a prison for the dead—a torturous hell for the victims of the Cleaners. And as the fog neared, I knew they were looking for more to confine within their hold. And of course, a greater prize awaited them here. The volunteers.
Pushing between Jude and myself, Robert continued along the path. He turned and shouted over his shoulder, “We have to get moving. Time is running out. We must find the coffins!”
As if waking from a trance, I gazed out toward the fog. I began to run. I knew Jude and Max followed close behind, I could hear their footsteps and their breathing. And as I caught up alongside Robert, I felt my left arm fling out to the side and shove Robert out of the way. Quint may have been quiet, but he was still here, still watching, listening, and still in charge.
Taking the lead, I continued to race along the path until it began to turn to the left. Suddenly being faced with the full height of the lighthouse towering over me, I felt that fear again, eating away inside of me. To the right was a jetty with a large boat moored to it. That was the direction I really wanted to go for—not toward the lighthouse. But my legs continued forward down the sloping path toward the tall building. And as I pushed on, I could hear the voices of Mathew and Adam screaming inside my head. Their cries terrified me and sent chills right through my body. Their screams were of pain and terror. And although I couldn’t see them, it was enough to make me yell out and beg Quint to stop.
“I don’t want to hear it, Quint,” I shouted, coming to a stop. “Why are you doing this?”
Quint seemed to stutter—gasp inside my head as if he had something stuck in his throat, then he spoke… voice broken. I can’t stop them… I… can’t push them away… it’s like a broken record that won’t stop playing. And why shouldn’t you hear it, too… why!? I have to suffer it every day… their cries… their pain… their lives being taken… I hate it, too.
Feeling shaken, I said, “So you do hear Mathew… he hasn’t gone… he’s still inside… still pleading for his life!”
He never left… he’s always been in here, whispered Quint. And now, we’ve come back.
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling nothing but panic. “What are you saying?”
Gallows Island, said Quint. I’ve been here before. This is where I rose from hell. Gallows Island was where I began. This is where I took Mathew’s life and this is where his body is. He knows it. He can feel it. He wants peace. Mathew wants to be reunited with his body.
I turned and looked at Jude. His face was pale and eyes dull. He stood silent as he stared up at the lighthouse, a look of shock across his face. He was remembering—he was feeling and hearing the memories of Eras and probably the screams of Adam. He looked at me and swallowed hard as if the memories were too sickening to know.
“We have to do something,” whispered Jud
e. “We need to end this now. I can’t go on like this.”
And as I stared at him, Jude’s eyes turned black and his body almost seemed to flicker dark shadows all around him.
“It’s time for our revenge,” hissed Eras. “It’s time to kill Doshia and our uncle. We do it for us and we do it for Adam and Mathew.”
Stepping forward, I felt my arm lift up and wipe a tear from my eye. Quint came forward and yet it wasn’t him who spoke. It was Mathew. “Yes, brother. The time is now.”
And although I no longer had control over myself, I could still hear and see what Quint was thinking and picturing inside my head. He wanted revenge, I could feel it. But his thoughts returned to Etta and it was her that ruled his heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Kassidy
Surprised to see what was on the other side of the old wooden door, I stood and stared at the cold stone walls. I had half expected to find more damp and musty rooms like these inside the lighthouse. But it seemed that although this corridor was connected to the lighthouse, it wasn’t really a part of the same building.
The corridor had been cut into the large cliffs that surrounded the lighthouse. And from the outside you would never have known of its existence. It wasn’t very wide and as I tiptoed along, my arms scraping across the rough stone wall. It was cold and dark, and the further I went, the harder it became to see where I was going. I could tell that I was descending. The path sloped down, and after I had been walking for a time, I had already hit my head several times on the low-hanging rocks. I could feel my teeth chatter and my skin turn icy cold as I carried on along the passageway.
Everyone’s gonna die, came the voices. Just like your father… your mother… your friends will suffer such misery… you, too.
The voices seemed to swell inside my head. They hurt. I stopped walking and held both hands to my head. The noise they made was crushing and I felt like my skull would shatter. They began to laugh and jibe and scream such obscenities that it made me feel sick.
Feeling faint, I reached out and rested my hand against the wall. The voices continued to scream all at once, and then they melted into one, and I could now hear the male’s voice once again.
Coffin number seven, he screamed, coffin number seven. The body has been switched.
“What?” I whispered, still clinging to the wall.
Destroy coffin seven first, it now contains the body of Doshia, the man’s voice cried.
Feeling confused and dizzy, I called out to Etta. “Etta, speak to me… Etta?”
Shaking my head and feeling overpowered as all the voices screamed and shouted all at once, I reached into Father Williams’s satchel and wrapped my hand around his bible. Then reaching up, I pulled out the crucifix from under my top and held it tightly.
“Go away!” I shouted. “Leave me alone!”
The voices melted away into a low murmuring until suddenly they fell quiet, leaving just the tail end of the man’s voice laughing. It echoed in my head and lingered for a minute more until fading away into the troubled depths of my mind.
I let go of the bible and the crucifix. With my nerves frayed, I staggered forward, using both hands against the cold, damp walls to guide me. My heart pounded loudly. I had to move. I had to speed up and find the coffins, but now my thoughts were all mixed up—tangled together in a chaotic mess. Had the voice spoke the truth? Had Etta’s body been swapped and now placed into one of the other coffins? Why wouldn’t she speak to me—guide me? I was alone now. Raven was no longer with me. Why wouldn’t Etta talk—why the silence? I glanced over my shoulder. I was sure I could hear whispering. But could I? Wasn’t it just the muffled voices inside my head? But they seemed so real—so close. I faced front again, sure that I could hear the voices just ahead of me now. If only there was some light. It would help to calm my nerves—get rid of the disorientated feeling that was making my head swim.
Feeling overwhelmed, I began to speed up. I ran. My arms cut and sore as they caught the rough edges of the rocks. And then as the passageway seemed to open up, someone stepped out from the shadows.
I skidded to a stop—stepped back as the figure blocked my way. I opened my mouth to say something, but my body lifted up off the ground and I was hurtled back, hitting the rocky walls. But I didn’t fall back to the ground. Instead, my body stayed pinned to the cold wall. I looked down at my feet as they dangled a few inches from the rocky pathway. I wanted to move. I struggled, but it was useless. With no control over my limbs, I couldn’t fight back. And what would be the point? I had nothing to fight against. There wasn’t anything I could see that was holding me flat to the wall. The figure had no need to use their hands or legs. They had a power that only demons had, and I had nothing that could ever win over that.
“We meet again, Kassidy,” said Doctor Wright, stepping from the gloom. She glanced at the wall to my right and I narrowed my eyes as a torch lit up. The flames flickered shadows across the rock. “I knew it wouldn’t be long before our paths crossed again.”
She came forward until she stood right in front of me. Her blonde hair, with its grey roots, shimmered in the light from the flames, yet, her wrinkles remained deep and shadowed. She still wore the white doctor’s jacket from Cruor Pharma, only now it was discoloured and stained with dried blood.
I stayed silent—waiting—wondering what she had planned for me. She reached up with a gnarled old hand and ran one finger along one of the black veins that travelled down my arm.
“Well,” she smiled, “looks like our drug trial was a success. And even after escaping, you’ve come back. Back for more. Doctor Middleton will be so pleased to have one of his volunteers so keen to take the next step.”
Doctor Wright moved back a few paces and looked me up and down. “Hmmm, such a shame your mother was such a useless volunteer. The poor thing suffered, you know.”
Finding my voice, I smiled back sweetly and said, “I know all about my mother and my father, thank you. So you needn’t waste your breath anymore. Eras filled me in on the details, and so did Ben.” I continued to match her stare, and although I knew I was in danger, the mere mention of my mother and father enraged me. But I wouldn’t show it. I wouldn’t let this evil bitch see how her words affected me. So instead, I smiled back and enjoyed the little flicker of annoyance in her eyes at the mention of Eras and Ben.
Regaining her composure, Doctor Wright, a glimmer in her eyes, said, “Oh, dear. It appears you’ve been sucked right in, Kassidy. You haven’t been going along with Eras and Quint, believing every word they’ve said, have you?” Shaking her head, she chuckled and continued to talk to me like I was a silly child. “Have they been filling your head with stories of woe and how hard done by they are? Let me guess, I think I can see what’s happened. Silly girl… all alone in the world with no parents to love her—or perhaps I should re-phrase that—dead parents who never loved her… falls for sob story by two guys who promise her their protection as long as she helps them by destroying the coffins of the bad guys. Am I on the right track?”
I refused to answer her. Instead I held my smile.
“Haven’t you ever heard of how guys will tell you anything just to get their own way?” continued Doctor Wright, leaning into me. “You’re here for the Cleaners—nothing else—Eras and Quint know that. They’ve been fooling you all along.”
“You’re lying!” I snapped, finally losing my fake smile.
“Am I?” asked Doctor Wright. She made a move toward me. She was no longer smiling, the glimmer in her eyes gone. “No one’s on your side, Kassidy. No one.”
Unable to move my arms or legs, I peered down at my top, hoping the crucifix was on show. But I felt my hopes drown as it remained tucked underneath my clothing.
Cutting into my thoughts, Doctor Wright carried on talking. “When you become nothing more than a hollow shell—a dwelling for a Cleaner, you will know me as Nellore and you will never be yourself again. You will pave the way for more of our servants to come throug
h and you will stop at nothing to get—” She broke off suddenly, came closer, and narrowed her eyes.
Seeing confusion across her wrinkled face, I said, “What? What is it?”
With her face almost pressed up to mine, her eyes suddenly widened and she let out a sharp gasp. Stumbling back, she swayed on her heels as I dropped to the ground. Doctor Wright appeared to have lost her hold over me.
I clambered to my feet, seizing the moment of freedom while I could. And before I could run, I found myself gripping Doctor Wright by her hair and flipping her over as if she were made of nothing.
Smacking into the rock wall, Doctor Wright came back at me as if the collision hadn’t caused her any pain at all.
With my arms pin-wheeling as my feet left the ground again, I was met with a sharp pain in my side as I collided with the hard rock. With my heart beating fast, I braced myself for the next onslaught as Wright began to take on her true self—Nellore. I scrambled to my feet and watched in horror as her face seemed to contort and stretch out of shape. Her fingers lengthened and her skin began to look like rotten meat—a sickly green tinge covering her flesh.
Flinging my arms out in front of me, I watched as I seemed to direct the burning torch on the wall to fly across the passageway. It hit Nellore in the chest.
She screeched and hissed as the clothes she wore caught alight.
Stunned, I stood frozen for a moment, and then, as if something inside me was willing me on, I raced forward, knocking Nellore to the ground with my shoulder. I didn’t stop to look back. I rushed down the passageway, knowing it wouldn’t be long before she came after me again.
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