Desperation Point

by Malcolm Richards

  Aaron looked up, saw the beam of the lighthouse illuminating the sky. He smiled.

  I’m sorry, Taylor, he thought. I’m sorry for everything.

  Then there was only the roar of the sea. Then there was only darkness and light.

  48

  CAL SHOT THROUGH BRIAR Wood like a demon. Jacob had lied to him. He had never intended to save his mother. He had intended to let her die all along.

  And why? So that he could control Cal just like Grady Spencer had tried to control him. It was all anyone had ever tried to do: control him.

  But Cal could not be controlled. He was a force of nature. A hurricane. A flood. He was lightning, striking everyone in its path. An erupting volcano, raining death and destruction on all in its path.

  All except his mother. Because she was his humanity, he could see that now. She was his last shred of compassion, of empathy and love. He’d been clinging on to it for so long now that only a thread remained.

  And now Jacob was trying to tear it away.

  Cal ran; down the hill, past the cars, past the houses in which people slept, oblivious to the horrors outside, down past Grady Spencer's house, the final resting place of lost souls, down and down, until he came to Clarence Row.

  Cal slid to a halt. There was a police car outside. The house was in darkness. Ducking down behind parked vehicles, he crawled on his hands and feet through the shadows until he was opposite his childhood home.

  He reared up, checking the police car. No one was seated inside. He checked the garden. Panic gripped him and refused to let go.

  There was a body on the path, lying face down, hand reaching for the garden gate.

  Moving quickly, Cal bounded across the road for a closer look. It was a man. A police officer. He was lying in a pool of blood, his eyes open and staring lifelessly at the lawn.

  In one fluid movement, Cal swung himself over the gate and landed on the path. He skirted around the body and headed for the front door. It was ajar. He smelled death creeping out in tendrils.

  In an instant he was a child again, frightened and alone. In an instant, he longed to be picked up, to be rocked in his mother's arms, to listen to her soothing voice until he fell into peaceful dreams. What if she was dead inside? What would he do? What would become of him?

  Shouldering open the door, Cal stepped inside the house. He scrabbled along the wall and found the light switch.

  A dark pool of blood lay at the centre of the hall, just in front of the living room door. A duffel bag sat in it. There were signs of a struggle: a broken ornament, an upturned side table.

  Cal raced forward into the kitchen, then doubled back and entered the living room. It was empty. The curtains closed.

  He ran upstairs, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints. He checked the bathroom, then his mother's room, finding them both empty. He burst into his own room and stood, staring wildly at his old collection of toys still sitting on the windowsill.

  Memories of his old life flooded in. He swept them away.

  There was only one room left to check.

  His breaths heavy, Cal pushed open the door of Melissa's bedroom. He hovered on the threshold, staring at the wall, where he had spilled his grandmother's blood. He knew there was a body on the floor. He could see it from the corner of his eye.

  Suddenly, he couldn't breathe.

  He knew she was dead. But he couldn't bring himself to look. He fixed his eyes on the wall, on the blood. The stench of death was all around him, drowning his senses, smothering his lungs.

  Cal drew in a breath. Then he made himself look.

  It wasn’t her.

  The body on the floor belonged to another police officer. A woman.

  Cal stumbled back, overcome by confusion and rage. He raced downstairs and into the kitchen, throwing open the back door. The yard was empty. His mother was not here.

  And now he could hear the wail of police sirens. They were getting louder. Filling his ears until they hurt.

  Cal turned and ran along the side of the house. He made it to the gate in time to see the blue and red flashes of police sirens as two patrol cars turned onto the street.

  Adrenaline pumping, Cal leaped over the gate and into the road. He hit the ground running, hurtling away from the police cars, away from his childhood home. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know where reality began and the nightmare ended.

  All he knew was that he was going to kill Jacob and destroy the Dawn Children. He wouldn't stop, until they were all gone. Until the world was in ruins. Until there was nothing left but fire.

  49

  THE SUN PEERED OVER the edge of the horizon as Cal entered Burnt House Farm. Shadows shifted across the field. Death hung in the air. He stood, staring at the house, hell burning inside his chest. His mother was gone. Now, he would destroy everything.

  He would tear it all down.

  Moving silently, Cal cut through the yard. The barn doors were shut now. He wondered if the man was still inside. He should have felt guilty, but the fire had burned away the last morsels of his conscience.

  Rounding the corner of the house, he came to the laundry room window and loosened the board. A minute later, he was inside, standing in the shadows, listening to the early morning quiet. He used to find solace in this time; the time when the world was still sleeping.

  Now, he felt nothing at all.

  He exited the laundry room and stole through the hall, past the meeting room, and into the kitchen. Pulling open a drawer, he took out a large steak knife. Then he headed back toward Jacob’s office.

  Until now, he would never have dared to enter without permission. But that was before Jacob had lied to him. He turned the handle and pushed the door open. The room was empty. Cal moved inside and around the desk. He sat down in Jacob’s chair, staring at the book shelves covering the walls. More books sat on the desk, including Hitler’s Mein Kampf, post-it notes sticking out from the pages, and Aleister Crowley’s Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4.

  Cal swept them from the desk and watched them topple off the edge. He jumped to his feet and flew into a rage, tearing books from shelves, until the shelves were empty and the floor was a graveyard of words. Then he pulled the shelves over, too.

  Chest heaving, Cal left the office and went upstairs.

  The children’s bedroom door was open. He stood on the threshold, looking at the small shapes buried under blankets and sheets, listening to the rise and fall of tiny breaths.

  He turned and peered into the adjacent room, where the older teenagers and young adults slept. Sometimes Jacob spent the night, tangled among the women. But he wasn’t here now. Neither were Heath and Morwenna. Tightening his grip on the knife handle, Cal stalked to the next room.

  Cynthia was awake, the baby nestled in her arms. She looked up with startled eyes, squinting in the shadows.

  “Who’s there?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Jacob, is that you?”

  Cal’s fingers twitched. He watched Cynthia set the baby down on the bed, then push back the blankets and get to her feet.

  “Cal? What’s going on? Where’s Jacob? Has he come home?”

  He wanted to cut her. To open her up and watch her bleed. And he would. But first, he wanted her to see Jacob die.

  Before Cynthia could reach the end of the bed, Cal darted away and headed back downstairs. He heard her calling after him, her voice twisted with fear and worry.

  Where was Jacob?

  There was one place left to try.

  Moving quickly, Cal headed for the basement. Above him, he heard Cynthia emerge on the upstairs landing and head for the stairs. He heard other voices, some of the older ones waking up.

  Cal opened the basement door. Familiar cold rushed up to greet him. He descended into darkness. Cynthia was still calling to him, her voice getting louder as she hurried through the hall. Cal rushed forward, until he came to the end of the corridor.

  He threw open the door, and with the knife pointed in front of him,
he charged inside.

  There was light. Electricity. A single naked light bulb hung from the ceiling. The room was large, its walls lined with shelves filled with indiscernible clutter, and sitting against the far wall, half hidden in shadows, were cages.

  Cal froze. For a moment, he was overcome with a dizzying sense that he had been here before. For a moment, he wondered if he’d ever left Grady Spencer’s basement, if the last few months had been a terrible dream.

  But this was no dream.

  Heath and Morwenna were here, entwined together on a thin mattress. Cal stalked toward them, the knife pointed at their throats.

  The drug-fuelled confidence that usually dripped from their pores had evaporated. Now, they looked frightened and confused. Now, they looked just like children.

  Heath sat up and raised his hands. “Cal, what are you doing?”

  Morwenna stared at the blade. “Jacob’s not with you?”

  She had blood on her clothes. His mother’s blood. Cal advanced on them, lips curling back from his teeth.

  Heath flashed a nervous glance at Morwenna then turned back to Cal. “Listen, we only did what we were told, okay? We were only following Jacob’s orders.”

  Cal wanted to scream at them, to bellow at the top of his lungs. But it had been so long since he’d uttered a word, he couldn’t remember how.

  “Where’s Jacob?” Morwenna asked him. “Cynthia told us you both went after some guy. What’s going on? Why hasn’t he come home with you?”

  The knife trembled in his hand. The fire in his chest sparked and burned. Cal moved closer.

  “Something’s wrong,” Morwenna said to Heath. “Something’s happened to Jacob.”

  But Heath wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the blade. Slowly, he reached around to the back pocket of his jeans. “Relax, Cal. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  Cal raised the knife. Slowly, Heath pulled a small torch from his pocket and showed it to Cal. He flipped a switch and a thin beam of light bounced off the ceiling.

  “See, Cal?” he said. “Do you see?”

  He pointed the torch beam at the cages. Cal followed his gaze. The fire in his chest flickered and died. Curled up in a foetal position, her hair spilling over her closed eyes, was his mother.

  She was alive.

  He lowered the knife, watching strands of her hair flutter as she slowly exhaled, noticing the bloody bandage that dressed her upper arm.

  “Jacob told us to bring her back,” Heath said. “He told us that sometimes a boy needs his mother, that you needed her so you could lead us along the path to glory.”

  Cal stared at his mother. He moved over to the cage and sat down on his haunches, watching her sleep. Seconds later, voices filled the air and Cynthia entered the room, followed by a few of the older Dawn Children.

  “What is going on here?” she demanded. She turned to where Cal was sitting, to where Carrie slept, curled up inside the cage.

  “Who the hell is that?” she cried. “Why can’t anyone tell me what’s happened to Jacob?”

  As the others argued and panicked behind him, Cal reached out a hand and gently brushed the hair from his mother’s face. He tried to smile, but he’d forgotten how. But it didn’t matter; he was with his mother. They were together again.

  50

  A DAY PASSED. POLICE and news crews swarmed over Porth an Jowl, shattering the quiet, sealing the town’s fate as forever being known as Devil’s Cove. Nat had watched it all unfold with mounting horror. Two police officers were dead. Carrie Killigrew was missing. Aaron Black was missing. His car had been found abandoned on the road just outside Briar Wood, next to another unidentified vehicle. The amount of blood found inside had suggested he would not be found alive.

  Now, a large-scale manhunt was underway. A young man had been seen running from the scene of the crime. Bloody footprints had been discovered all over the house. All evidence pointed at Cal Anderson, who had earlier broken into the Killigrew residence and brutally stabbed Carrie’s mother.

  The press was still unclear as to how the author Aaron Black fitted into the deadly puzzle, and police had so far declined to comment at such an early stage of the investigation. But Nat knew. She knew exactly how he fitted in.

  Now, as she stood in the backyard, sucking furiously on a cigarette and fighting the nausea that was clawing at her stomach, she stared at her phone screen. He’d called her in the early hours and she’d ignored him.

  But he’d left her a voicemail.

  She had almost deleted it. She hadn’t wanted to listen to the man who’d treated her like dirt and tossed her aside. But then she’d changed her mind, deciding to wait until the next morning when she was sober. Because maybe, just maybe, he was phoning to apologise. Maybe he was going to admit that he’d been wrong to treat her like an employee and not his equal.

  Now, Nat’s thumb hovered over the voicemail key. Now, she was terrified of what she might hear. But she had to listen. She had to know what was on there, because Aaron Black was probably dead and there was a chance she could have saved him.

  Her body trembling, she pressed the phone to her ear.

  At first, she heard nothing, just crackles and static. Then she heard his gasping breaths and what sounded like running.

  “Nat!” he said. She heard pain in his voice. Terror. Exhaustion. “Nat, you asshole, pick up!” More ragged breaths. A loud rustling, like branches. Then his voice once more. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I treated you badly. But you need to help Carrie. They’re coming for her. You need. . .” Crackles. Static. “Oh God! Nat, you need to get her out of there. . . They’re coming! I’m up at Desperation Point. Tell the police to go to. . .” More static. Pops. The sound of the ocean. Then nothing. Silence.

  Nat’s body went cold. Tears spilled down her face. He’d called her. He’d begged for her help. She’d had the power to intervene. And now he was dead and Carrie was gone.

  The cigarette dropped from her fingers. She stumbled, falling back against the house. Growing numb, Nat glanced across the yard at the tall trees of Briar Wood on the other side of the fence.

  She had to do something. Tell the police. Find him.

  But it was too late. She had heard it in his voice. Aaron Black had known he was going to die. Barely feeling the cold now, Nat turned to face the house. She could see Rose through the kitchen window, her face grave as she sat at the kitchen table, clutching a glass of port.

  Nat turned back to Briar Wood. He’d been at Desperation Point. He’d been metres away while she’d sat upstairs, drunk and high on vitriol, drawing pictures of him being murdered by Cal.

  She had to destroy the sketch, before anyone could see it. She had to stop this awful feeling of guilt that was now consuming her from the inside. She had to get out of here.

  Before she knew what she was doing, she had crossed the yard. Now she was jumping up, hoisting herself over the fence, and landing heavily on the other side. Now, she was running blindly through the trees, heading for Desperation Point.

  She heard voices all around Briar Wood—the police maybe, or a search party looking for Carrie—but she kept running. She didn’t know why. All she knew was that Aaron had called her and he’d been up at Desperation Point.

  The trees parted. The soft ground gave way to grass and rock. All she could see was the vast, charcoal sky as the afternoon slowly turned dark. Nat stumbled forward until she was metres away from the cliff edge.

  Why was she here? What was she looking for? Not Aaron Black, she knew that. Aaron Black was dead.

  Movement caught her eyes. Nat spun around to see Ben Ward, the lighthouse keeper coming out of his house, a pipe hanging from his mouth. He paused as he scratched at a dark stain on the door.

  Nat ran up to him, caught him by surprise.

  Ben was old and salty, his skin lined and tanned from years of coastal weather. He tipped his head toward Nat as he walked to his Range Rover.

  “Afternoon,” he said, giving her a wary look.
<
br />   Nat said nothing, just stared.

  He reached the Range Rover and unlocked the door.

  “Something I can help you with, girl?”

  Nat blinked. Shook her head. Then she said, “Didn’t you hear anything last night? Didn’t you see anything?”

  Ben wrinkled his eyes, a look of confusion on his face.

  “Old Ben don’t hear much these days,” he said, tapping his left ear. “Deaf as a post. What was I supposed to have heard?”

  Nat stared at him incredulously. “I take it you haven’t switched on the news today.”

  “Why would I do that? The news is all doom and gloom. I get enough of that staring at the sea.”

  He tipped his head again and climbed into the Range Rover.

  Nat stood, numbly watching as the vehicle growled to life, then turned a half circle. Ben Ward drove away, pulling onto the dirt road that led through Briar Wood, back to civilisation. Rain started to fall. Nat looked over her shoulder at the dark, wide ocean that churned and heaved, all the way to the horizon.

  I should go home, she thought. I should tell Rose everything. I should—

  She looked down.

  Lying on the ground, where the Range Rover had been parked, was a mobile phone. A shiver ran through Nat’s body from head to toe. She stooped and picked it up. She tapped the screen. The lock screen image flashed up. Nat caught her breath. It was a black and white photograph of Aaron Black; a professionally taken shot of his head and shoulders. His hands were tucked under his chin, his eyes staring enigmatically at the camera.

  Nat found herself smiling. Then the gravity of what she’d found hit her like a gust of wind. Perhaps there was something on the phone, something that could help the police track down Cal, and whoever else was involved. Perhaps there was something that would help them find Carrie. Maybe even find her still alive.

  Running as fast as she could, Nat headed back toward Briar Wood, back toward Rose and her home.