by Peter Laws
‘Mm-hmm. That something much more horrible was controlling me … controlling him and her and all of it …’ He opened his hand. His finger and thumb looked like they’d been completely dipped in motor oil. ‘Like it was controlling me just now. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’
‘Perry, you’re mad,’ Matt said, starting to ease Nupa off his legs. ‘You just didn’t want your affair found out and so you goaded her husband to kill her. And you went along with all this TV crap, because it just played into your claims. That demons are real and drive people to murder. When the only real demon here is … is you.’
‘What a silly thing to say. I’m innocent …’ He pressed a finger against his temple, hard enough to turn the tip white. ‘And I’ll be better soon. I’ll pray for the demon to leave me and exorcise it. You’ll see. Just not yet. There’s one more task to do, then I’ll be free of him.’
‘What task?’
‘No one can know about the box, or the doorbell.’
‘Free of who?’ Claire snapped it at him, pushing herself up. ‘Dammit, free of who?’
He frowned. ‘Baal-Berith, of course. This is his party, isn’t it? And I’m sorry, but he’s made it very clear just now that I’m the one who has to walk out of here. I’ll tell the world what happened. How we were overrun with the possessed tonight. That’s not a lie, is it? … I mean I didn’t kill anyone till just now and … hey, I just thought. They’ll see the possessed on the cameras. They’ll see Richie, for sure. It’ll just go to prove that these people are capable of murder. That Tom was controlled by a …’ He trailed off, realisation dawning.
Matt, eager to rub it in, said what Perry was suddenly realising. He lifted a finger and pointed up into the corner of the room. ‘And they’ll see you too. They’ll see what just happened in every detail. They’ll see you smashing the windows. Calling them in. Give them a wave, you prick.’
Matt stopped talking when Perry rushed forward in a hot panic. He bounded to the corner of the room, slipping over debris and clambering up onto a sofa. He started leaping up for the fixed cameras, yanking the cord down from the beam. The camera fell and smashed into a spray of plastic and metal on the floor.
Perry scooped it up in a bundle of pieces, and came towards Matt. He threw it on the floor in front of him. ‘Here’s your camera. Ha!’ The pathetic triumph was short-lived, because Matt just glanced across at the opposite end of the lobby. Perry flicked his eyes there too, and he saw the other camera high up on the beam. His face crunched.
‘Say cheese,’ Matt said.
Perry darted in the direction of the other camera, but stumbled to an abrupt stop. Claire had fully unfurled and had now stood up. She was standing directly under the second camera, leaning against the wall, one foot against the wallpaper. She was curling her finger towards him.
Come here, she mouthed. Come here.
Perry stared up at the camera above her, then he started a slow and deliberate stalk towards her. His face split into what was supposed to be a friendly smile. The Devil’s type of friendly. ‘Petal, please. Let your husband through.’
She curled her finger again. Come here.
Matt got to his feet, broken camera still in hand. ‘Claire. What are you doing?’ He started walking towards Perry.
‘I’m your husband.’ Perry took slow steps. She was still at the other side of the room. ‘Remember you took vows. You need to submit. Now move.’
She laughed at that. ‘Come here. Let me give you something.’
‘Claire,’ Matt called over. ‘Be careful.’
Perry lifted the knife. ‘You should let me through …’
When she still didn’t move, his creepy smile finally fell away. His eyes glazed over. ‘Baal Berith … he’ll kill you, you know, Claire? He’s the god of murder, after all. And so you can’t expect him to listen to me. He’ll just do it.’ He took a hideous marionette step forward. Then the knife went up. ‘Move, ya fuckin’ frigid sow. Move!’
Matt bolted forward.
Perry heard him coming, and so his feet also exploded into movement. He barrelled at her like a hurricane, but Matt was faster. He still had the broken camera in both of his hands, so he lifted it high into the air. He smacked it down against the back of Perry’s head, and leapt onto his back, dropping him to the floor in a tackle. For a moment, the only sound was the grunts and gasps of two men rolling across the carpet. Matt felt an elbow cracking into his jaw, and he fell away. But when Perry went to run again, laughing, Matt just grabbed his ankle. He fell forwards, arms windmilling as he stumbled headlong towards a large glass coffee table.
His arm went through first. A wide palm shattering the glass. He screamed, and fell through it, his other hand gripping the knife. The ragged edges of glass dragged up the skin of his arms, leaving widening, gaping trails. Then he spun around midway down, and his back hit the glass-covered carpet beneath it.
Matt scrambled over and grabbed Perry’s wrist. He slammed the back of his hand against the floor. His fingers unfurled and the knife skittered across the carpet.
Perry’s shining eyes watched it bounce away from him like a long-adored lover, leaving for the very last time. His shoulder wound gaped, and Matt looked away when he saw the clear white of bone.
Claire dropped at his left. Matt saw her knee crack into glass, but she didn’t care. She started to stroke her hands across her husband’s sweat-soaked hair and down the sides of his freckled cheeks.
‘I said I had something for you,’ she said.
‘Is it forgiveness, love?’ Perry’s voice seemed to bubble.
‘It’s this …’ She suddenly shoved her fingers into his mouth and yanked his jaw down.
She had something in her hand, and she stuffed it quickly between his lips. She made no sound when he bit down hard on her fingers. She just pulled her hand away and stood up, holding her bleeding knuckles.
She looked down at Perry, whose lips were painted with her blood. He was choking on whatever she’d shoved in there.
‘May God, never, ever, ever forgive you,’ she said. Then she burst into tears and ran towards the lift.
Perry arched his back and turned his head, watched her step inside and press the button. The doors closed before Matt could even stand.
Head on the side, Perry vomited out a smooth, stone pebble. Matt recognised it from the chapel upstairs. From the holy water fountain. Once it was out, Perry’s eyeballs slid in the sockets and found him, and he grinned towards the lift as the lights above it counted down. ‘I’ll chase her, Matt. Just watch. And I’ll chase you, too.’
‘If you think this demon bit’s going to help you in court, you really have lost your—’
He laughed, ‘You do know this isn’t Perry talking, don’t you? What’s my name?’
‘Simon Perry.’
‘Try again. My name is …’
‘Your name is selfish murderer.’
‘Mmmm. That’s closer. But you know my name. You know it deep in the crack of your calcified bones. I’m Baal-Berith. And I’ve been hard done by, Matt. I’ve been vilified by the Christians and the dopey demonologists, but really you’ll find that I’m a perfectly reasonable chap. And I’ve been standing with you for a long, long time. Ask your dad.’
‘You’re pathetic.’ Matt looked at him. ‘And if you want to survive this, you really need to save your breath.’
‘Oh, I’ll survive. Daddies need to be respected … don’t you think?’
‘I’m going.’
‘And mamas too. Yup. Your mama especially. She neeeeeeeds to be remembered? Don’t you think?’
Matt stared at him. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said … mama neeeeeeeed … your respect.’
Matt stomped towards him. ‘Stop talking or I’ll make you stop.’
‘Ooooo. Gonna punch me over and over on the carpet? Huh? Huh? You like that, don’t you?’
Matt swallowed. ‘Perry, Baal, whoever you are. Would you answer a question for me?’
&nb
sp; ‘Fire away, friend.’
‘Claire said you went back to the house that night.’
His eyes shone, and he smiled with excitement. Pride even. ‘That’s right.’
‘And she said you prayed on the drive for a long time, before going in. Then she called and demanded you come home.’
He was nodding. ‘That’s right … that’s right. What’s your question, though?’
‘Did you go inside the house?’
His grin started to grow.
‘Did you go in there and kill her, with your own hands? Did you make Tom believe it was him?’
His chest started to bounce in rapid laughter. ‘Well, aren’t you a clever boy? And I’ll do the same with you … watch.’
The room suddenly exploded with the shrill sound of a siren. Matt immediately flung his hands to his ears and winced.
For a cruel second, he thought it might be the police, but then the constant, ear-splitting drone became clear, just as soon as his nostrils started to fill with the acrid smell of smoke.
‘Don’t fear the fire, Matt,’ Perry said. ‘Fire’s good. Fire purifies. It needs to be respected and loved … like me.’
Matt spun back towards the stairwell door they’d all come through. The one that led to the upper floors. It was laying open, so he could see the steps. But he didn’t see fire. Not at first. He saw something else.
Those bare feet again were slowly and shakily moving down each step.
‘Oh crap.’ He sucked a breath in, and he heard Perry starting to laugh hysterically.
Matt grabbed Perry’s knife and ran a little closer. He saw Abby, standing on the staircase, dressed in nothing but that thick and long jumper of hers that hung down as far as her thighs. Only the mid-section had a darker patch of blood, from where she’d cut her stomach before. She wore nothing else. He saw a few crusted red lines, snaking down her skinny legs, but not much. Maybe she hadn’t cut deep.
In the floor above he saw the faint wisps of smoke. She had two hands wrapped tightly around the chapel candle, pulling it so close towards her chest that a small circle in her clothes was already starting to ignite.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
‘Abby,’ Matt shouted at her, which made her blink. ‘Blow it out.’
‘I’m …’ She swayed on the step, halfway up.
‘Blow it out. Help’s coming.’
‘What have I done? … Matt? I’m scared.’
He took a few steps forward, not wanting to scare her off, but keen to get close enough to at least blow the flame out.
‘I should burn.’
‘No …’
She closed her eyes and pressed the candle towards her heart. He heard a very small whoop as the fire really caught this time. Had she doused herself in something? The flames instantly flared up her shoulder.
He scrambled up the steps and slapped the candle away. She barely noticed him do it. He caught a split-second glimpse of the flames trying to lick her cheek, yet she stood there horribly calm. He manically looked around, and saw a fire extinguisher on the wall, a few steps up. He yanked it from its holder and turned to blast her, but she was already walking calmly down to the lobby; her black hair was catching, now. He could smell it burning. He could hear it sizzling.
‘Stop,’ Matt shouted. ‘Please.’
He cleared three steps and fell into a stumbling run, rushing in front of her. He opened the valve and then Abby was lost in a thick white mist. It made her stagger to the side, but at least when she dropped, the fire was out. She fell against a chair clutching her shoulder in a dawning agony.
Something boomed upstairs.
It was so loud that it made him duck. When he looked back at the stairwell, the staircase walls were now flashing with an orange glow. He could see smoke billowing down from the highest floors. She’d torched the chapel, he just knew it. She’d taken those candles and burnt it down.
His ears throbbed with the alarm. Heck, he could feel the rattling pulse of it in his bones, in his skeleton, but he still turned to her and tried to help her up.
She kept blinking. ‘What did I do?’
‘We have to get out. Best avoid the lift … the kitchen has a door …’
‘I don’t remember anything.’ She winced in pain.
‘Just don’t let go …’ He slipped his hand into hers, always conscious that she might flip into something savage at any moment. But he grabbed her all the same and took one last look at Nupa. She was lying in a blood-black lake, which was slowly being covered by a mist of smoke.
He groaned and turned to Perry, who was still collapsed on his back. His usual pink skin was now as white as milk, and he was twitching from the waterfall of blood from his shoulder. But he was doing something else too. He was looking straight at Matt and giggling.
Matt was conscious that he should probably drag this guy out of here and yank him down the fire escape. Make him face the police and a court and a life behind bars. But as he took a step towards him, Perry smiled and said, ‘Hey, neighbour, why don’t you lie on top of me?’
A belching gasp of thick smoke suddenly bloomed into the lobby from the staircase, and he heard the ominous creek of joists upstairs. Something collapsed in the stairwell. Shit. He broke into a run, darting through the lobby and dragging a dazed Abby with him. As he went he was doing everything he could to blank out the sight of Perry’s face. Of those bulbous green eyes staring with blazing fury at him and that ginger jaw and those thick pink lips and worst of all the long, lolling, licking tongue from a mouth that had once so gently kissed the lips of Justine … and yet was now mouthing the silent, but furious words of Baal-Berith. ‘Mama neeeeeed … mama neeeeeed … a good bit of tongue in her mouth.’ All mixed with a terrible, bestial laughter.
When they pushed through the glass doors, and then through the corridor to the dining hall, where they’d all been dancing before, the disco lights were pulsing again. Pretty rainbow colours, flashing up the floor. But at least there was no music playing. That was good. Hearing ‘Crazy Frog’ right now would flip Matt’s sanity completely over the edge. As he tugged her through the swirling colours she slowed down, whimpering for a moment. He turned to her, and it was the only time he considered pushing her away and leaving her for the fire.
It was the strobe light. It was making her head move in strange, mechanical movements. And when she slowly opened her mouth, he saw her form an ‘m’ and he was convinced that if she said the same thing that Perry was saying, Matt would leave her completely.
But she said, ‘M … m … my shoulder … oh God, it hurts …’
Something else boomed and they both instinctively went to duck. Matt looked up at the ceiling and saw steam misting down from the plaster.
‘Quickly,’ he said.
They pushed on, smashing into the kitchen and then straight to the back door, which lay wide open now, wedged with a heavy pot on the floor. Perry must have done that earlier, when he’d called the possessed back inside to kill them. He rushed out onto the fire escape and drew in a breath of night air. It lacked any of the biting cold he’d felt earlier; it felt the opposite in fact, because now the sky was filling with fire. His right cheek burnt as their feet rattled down the rickety metal steps, handrail shaking like it might snap off completely.
As they hurried downwards, he looked out across the woods. Tree trunks were flickering and swaying in The Reed’s glow. He thought of old Disney cartoons, where the forests came alive. It was only when he hit the last few stairs before the ground that he dared look fully to his right, and into the scorching blaze.
The top two floors of The Reed were a swirling cauldron of flames and Matt saw thick black smoke rising and funnelling high up into the night, blocking out the stars. Another sound of glass shattering made them both duck, as another one of the windows up there shattered. He saw glass, glittering like confetti, from a top floor room, scattering into the air, and vanishing into the smoke. A moment later, it crackled as it fell onto one of the upper level
roofs.
Abby moaned in pain and lost her footing. So he linked her arm and helped her make the last step.
Their feet hit the gravel, but Matt kept them running, getting them clear of The Reed, which might teeter on its stalk and collapse at any second. He headed for the boating lake, and even though his lungs screamed for rest, he didn’t stop until their crunching shoes crashed into the bitterly cold water.
Abby flung herself into the black, quaking mass, wincing at the coldness of it. But it seemed to soothe her shoulder. God, he thought, how bad was she burnt? Then he saw her turn away from him to stare across the lake … out where Ethan must be … right now.
Something else caught his eye. Things were moving in the forest. Figures. Just one or two at first. He sucked in a breath and grabbed one of the oars from the boats. Just as multiple black shadows came seeping out from the trunks.
I can’t do this. It’s too much. I can’t handle this, he thought, but then he felt that same burst of relief that he always felt, whenever he swam up from the bottom of a swimming pool, and broke back into air. Because all those shadows were crew members and just a few of Kissell’s clients. They all had their palms across their foreheads in shock and awe and tears of trauma too. Staring at The Reed as it lit up the sky.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
‘Jesus. I thought you were dead …’ It was Suzy, running over and hugging him. She squeezed hard, and he squeezed hard back.
He glanced at the five or six others over her shoulder. ‘Is this everybody?’
‘No. Most got away, thank God. They got in their cars and drove off. But they say he rushed out into the car park, smashing everything up. So everybody else just ran into the woods.’
‘Who?’
‘That Richie guy. He went absolutely berserk and lost it. I think he might have killed some more people in The Reed. He tried to get into the toilet where I was hiding, but after a while he just stopped trying. I think he must have heard you guys in the Ash Suite. I heard him running over there, and then the commotion. So I just got out and ran.’ She looked at the floor, started to cry. ‘I’m sorry I left you in there, Matt. I’m so—’