by Peter Laws
‘You did the right thing. And the rest? The … possessed?’
‘The clients? They came with us. Most of them freaked out at first, but once we calmed them down they’ve been as shit scared as us.’
Matt leant to the left and saw even more figures, back in the depths of the forest. Their shapes, now visible in the flickering light. He felt a sudden and profound wave washing across his entire body. Something unexpected … it was guilt. How quickly he’d assumed these people could turn into a horde of psychotic zombies. He shook his head in shame. ‘You’re saying there was just one of them who turned violent?’
‘Richie, yeah, but Pavel was acting weird too. We found him out here in the woods, hiding. When he saw us, he just started singing and ran back into The Reed. We couldn’t stop him … hey, what’s wrong?’
‘We thought … we thought there was a whole bunch of them out here who must have gone crazy. It’s why we never came out. It’s why we stayed in there. I saw Pavel. He killed Kissell.’
‘Jesus …’ Suzy said.
‘And Abby over there … we have to keep an eye on her.’
‘What a mess. Oh, and we saw Reverend Perry. He started smashing the windows, telling us all to come back inside. We stayed put. He’s loopy …’ She trailed off, and frowned. ‘Did you see Nupa in there?’ Her voice cracked on the name. Maybe she could tell.
‘She didn’t make it. And Ethan too.’
‘Ethan?’ This whisper of his name made Suzy’s mouth fall open, and she seemed to lose her footing. He caught her and held her up.
Matt turned back to The Reed, an inferno now. The first time he’d seen it, it looked like a mushroom, but now, filled with fire, and plumes of thick smoke, it looked terrifyingly nuclear. Like something straight out of the cold war.
He looked across at the others. The survivors.
Sensing it was over, they’d come out from the woods, and were looking up at the final conclusion of what had turned out to be an eventful slice of TV. He wondered if the mournful screech of bending metal might be all those cameras, perishing in the flames. He knew the footage was being streamed to off-site hubs as well as here. So the fire wouldn’t ruin it. And that footage would be helpful, if they wanted to make sense of this night. But if this was the funeral for all those cameras and lenses, and this entire attempt to make TV history, he was happy to dance at its cremation.
The flames had reached down to the lobby now, and he could see the curtains licking the air, desperate for escape. And as the smoke belched up and out of the broken windows, he thought he saw a figure rise up, just for a moment. He thought he saw Perry walking calmly through the flames.
No wait … he wasn’t walking any more. Matt squinted and took a step forward. Perry was dancing in happy, twirling circles. And the crackle of the fire sounded like his laughter, filling the hot air. Matt pressed his finger and thumb into his eyes, and when he looked again, he saw flames and only flames.
So they all just stood there, watching and waiting, tilting one ear to the sky in the hope that they might soon hear the sirens from the promised help. Some of them even sat on the ground, like this was bonfire night. Though obviously without the cheers or the clapping hands. Sobs and whimpers were the only real human sounds here.
‘I think you can put that down now,’ Suzy said.
He hadn’t even realised he was still holding the oar in one hand.
He went to let go, but he was too afraid to put it down. Too confused at what could happen. Like this entire clan were just waiting for him to drop it, and then as soon as he did, their eyes would roll over white and they’d tear him apart. And if he turned to see Abby, he wondered if he might see her hovering over the waters, toes cutting a line in the surface as she drifted towards the shore.
Such thoughts made him groan in self-disgust, but he still didn’t throw it away. ‘I better keep it. In case she does anything.’
He turned back to see where Abby really was. She was still in the water, but she was no longer crying. She’d turned back round, and had joined with the rest of them, and together they watched The Reed groan, scream and die, and the flames were simultaneously frightening and beautiful, and very, very bright.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Professor Matt Hunter, in a white shirt, jacket and dark blue tie, sat in a single black chair, floating in space. Around him was nothing, a pure black void. He heard a voice murmur somewhere in the darkness, and then a mechanical click echoed through the TV studio.
Boom.
A pure circle of bright light lit him up with a buzz, and he had to squint at first and hold up his hand to block out the glare. Like a farmer blinking into the beam from a flying saucer.
This was exactly how they wanted it. No audience, no backdrop. Just each of the guests, one by one, alone in a chair. Simple and discreet, they called it. Stripped down and raw. Spooky and mysterious was the core intention, he knew that.
No matter. He wanted to speak. He had to speak.
He shifted in the chair, blinking his eyes as the spotlight beam grew more diffused, more gentle. He saw a barely visible shape moving through the abyss. The black shadow of a producer, whispering. Then the shape lifted its arm up and a new light, a red light, blinked into life under the camera.
The hand dropped down, and there was a long, elongated moment of quiet.
Matt just sat there, waiting, aware that his body and face were being captured in every minute detail. By now, that really didn’t bother him. He was happy to just sit now. Just him, the chair, the lens and the alien mothership light.
A voice broke through the black and empty universe.
‘Professor Hunter,’ she said. Freya Ellis again, hidden in shadows. ‘Thank you for joining us.’
He nodded.
‘Tell us. In your opinion … what do you believe happened at The Reed last Saturday night?’
Matt stared into the light.
‘Professor? Would you like us to rephrase the—?’
‘I believe what happened was what I dreaded would happen. What I warned would happen. Only, it was much worse than I expected.’
‘You’ve said the security level was not as you’d hoped.’
He raised an eyebrow at the understatement. ‘It was way off, and I still feel partly responsible for that.’
‘Even though you repeatedly asked for more security? We have your footage of that.’
He shook his head. ‘They said it’d be at least twelve. I should have double-checked the actual numbers when I turned up, but I didn’t.’
‘Do you know how many there actually were there?’
‘Three. There were three security guards. I was naive …’ He shook his head and glanced off into the darkness. ‘No, actually. I was foolish.’
‘And two of those security personnel died.’
Matt looked back at the camera and nodded. He shifted in his seat again. ‘It wasn’t just the security that was the problem. The medication issue was a massive factor.’
‘Can you explain that? For the viewers?’
‘Oh, okay. We’ve since learnt that for the week leading up to the event, most of Pastor Kissell’s clients had voluntarily refrained from taking their medication.’
‘And that turned them violent?’
‘Not all of them. For most it just left them more vulnerable. More confused. Throwing them into a traumatic situation like that must have been an absolute nightmare for them. It certainly was for the rest of us. But yes, for a handful of Kissell’s clients, the lack of meds led to violence.’
‘You’re referring to Richie Gregor and Pavel Basa. They were the main source of the killing that night.’
‘That’s right, but there’s Abby too. But I have to say, the amount of strain she was under, and the lack of med—’
‘You haven’t heard?’
Matt blinked into the lens. ‘Heard what?’
‘The footage from the external camera?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand
.’
‘Then watch …’
The inky black space around him changed, when a bright, glowing rectangle suddenly flicked on. He hadn’t been able to see that screen before. Now it just looked like a floating window into another world.
His eyes adjusted, and he saw footage from two of the fixed cameras, with a rolling time code beneath it. The angle kept switching between one and the other. The first was near the lift. Looking out onto the path that led to the boating lake. And then click … the other must have been attached to one of the lamp posts, high up, because it looked directly down on the shore, where several boats lay in the lapping water, waiting to be boarded.
He thought he could see the dull pulse of light on the shore. That’d be the disco lights from the dining hall.
‘Keep watching,’ she said.
The image flicked every five seconds.
path, click, shore, click, path, click
It looked like a pair of creepy, unwelcome postcards, sent from inside his subconscious. But then two figures were strolling from the building. Ethan and Abby, fresh from the dance floor, heading for the lake.
Matt put up a palm. ‘I don’t want to see this.’
‘You ought to. Keep watching.’
‘Turn it off. Turn it off or I’ll leave right …’ He trailed off.
‘Keep watching,’ she said.
He saw it just as the camera changed from shore back to path. The split-second glimpse of another shadow. Not coming from the lift, but from behind one of the concrete struts.
Click.
Ethan and Abby were now at the shore, looking out across the water. Pointing and staring up at the sky. Ethan leant over one of the boats. It looked like he was saying they should climb in. He started shoving the boat into the water, laughing.
Click.
Bare feet running along the path.
Matt felt his chair press into his back.
Click.
Abby was in the boat now, and Ethan was climbing in. Then suddenly he saw Richie Gregor, naked and wild, lunging into shot with both arms raised. Richie who had, thank God, died of blood loss, and not from the whack of his chair. In the video, he had black crab claws sprouting from each hand – the shards of mirror he would soon kill the others with. The fists hit Ethan, who spasmed and tumbled forward into the boat. Matt saw the rippled shoulders and bare backside of Richie leaning over Ethan. Hefty arms hacked and dragged in frantic, arching circles. Matt had been deliriously relieved when it was confirmed he hadn’t killed Richie, after all. But watching this right now made him think he’d have gladly run this guy down with a truck.
There was no sound to this footage. And the silence of it was both helpful and hideous.
Click.
A five-second reprieve showed nothing but the path by the lift, except for some sort of animal springing across it from one shrub to another. He knew what animal it was. Then it clicked back, and Richie was gone. Whether he’d pushed the boat into the water, or she had, it was impossible to tell. But Matt just saw the edge of it bobbing out into the water, with Abby sitting up in the boat, and Ethan lost in the murk of shadows and blood. His hand kept frantically reaching out over the side, trying to climb out.
The screen clicked off, and Matt blinked himself out of its reality.
Oh, he thought. I’m here … and not standing there. I’m here … and she’s innocent.
‘So as you can see, you were wrong. She didn’t kill him. In fact, she didn’t kill anybody. She was in a post-traumatic trance for most of the night.’
He waited for a while, letting it sink in. There was no rush to comment, or answer. They could edit out dead air. As the seconds ticked by, he happily felt the corner of his mouth go up. ‘Well, I am delighted to be wrong.’
‘With that in mind, can you explain these pictures?’
Two video clips flicked up on the screen simultaneously. One had Richie Gregor sitting on the lobby sofa, and the other had Pavel Basa standing in the corridor of his room. In both shots, Abby Linh was whispering into their ears.
‘We have no footage of Abby doing this to anybody else,’ the interviewer said. ‘So why do you think she’s speaking in secret to the two clients who would kill that night?’
He stared at the clips. They’d put them in a loop. With a shrug he said, ‘This means nothing. Move on.’
‘Twitter is lighting up with these shots today. They’re saying she goaded the two men into violence. That perhaps the demon was in her, after all. Thoughts?’
Matt shook his head. ‘How could they possibly know that? Plus, I’m not convinced that Twitter is the place for truly nuanced argument. Are you?’
‘Very well, Professor. Who would you say holds the most blame for what happened that night?’
His smile slipped away, then he sat up straighter. ‘All of us, in our own way. But if you’re asking for the lynchpin, it’s obvious.’
‘Can you say his name? Say his name, Professor.’
‘Simon Perry.’
He heard a slight rustling of papers, and after a shared whisper she said, ‘But what about Pastor Bernie Kissell? Don’t you see him as the main cause of all this?’
‘He certainly didn’t help, but his motivations … they were different to Perry’s. Kissell was playing with fire, but … I do think his intentions were genuine. I think he wanted to help.’
‘Does motivation matter, after what happened?’
‘I think motivation always matters. But Perry? He convinced a mentally ill man into thinking he was possessed. Then he pushed that man, through tricks and lies, into psychosis, so he could blame him for murder. And all to cover up an affair? That motivation is as cold and as calculated as it gets, don’t you think?’
‘Would you use the word “evil”, to describe such deception?’
‘I think that’s an extremely unhelpful word.’
‘I see … and Perry’s claim to have been possessed at the time?’
Matt started chuckling. ‘Don’t. Please. You’re hurting my side.’
‘Are you relieved that Reverend Perry survived the fire? That he was rescued in the end?’
Matt waited. Then he waited some more.
‘You’d rather he died?’
‘I’m relieved that he has to stand trial, put it that way. I’m relieved that if a jury has any sense, they’ll put him away for a very long time. Because—’
‘Are you aware of what he did in his cell, last night?’
Matt opened his hands. ‘Nope. But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
Click.
The white hovering rectangle returned for a moment. Then a photograph appeared. He was about to tell them they’d screwed up. That they were showing him a shot he’d already seen days ago. The photograph of Tom Riley’s carved midriff that started all of this off. But this belly was different, more hairy, and a little more curved. This was Simon Perry’s body. And his body said, ‘Baal-Berith’.
‘Is this evidence that the demon in Tom Riley has moved to Simon Perry?’
Matt winced at it, then laughed. ‘All this proves is that Perry is either bat-shit crazy, or he’ll go to extreme lengths to shift people’s focus. And do you want to know something? My bet’s on the latter. In fact, I think this entire disaster happened precisely because Perry wanted to shift the focus from his affair. That was in his mind, right up until the end.’ Matt frowned for a moment and looked back at the picture. ‘How did he carve that, by the way? If he’s in a police cell? What did he use?’
‘He says he didn’t carve it at all. He says a tall animal figure with a claw wrote on him as he slept.’
The screen clicked off, and the void returned.
Matt thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘Probably prised a bit of metal off his bed. Anyway, I know you TV people like a baddie, and while we’re all responsible for what happened, in our own way, Perry started this. And remember he was the one who insisted they stop taking their meds.’
‘Why
do you think he did that? Do you think he wanted the event to go wrong?’
‘Yes, I do. He wanted those people acting in ways the world could call demonic. That fitted into his plan. Maybe he was worried people were going to dig into what happened to Justine.’
‘And you believe he was the one who killed her in the end? With his own hands?’
‘That’s what he told me, but then I guess we might never know what really happened. But at least the world’s been reminded … that exorcism is a very dangerous game to play, precisely because it’s unreal.’
‘So after all you’ve seen, you’re still an atheist?’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘But what about Abby Linh? She passed your holy water test with flying—’
‘I’ve explained that already. The temperatures must have been different … and that’s my bad.’ He opened his palms. ‘But of course I’m still an atheist. How could I not be?’
Another whisper came from the dark, and then the screen was back.
‘What now?’ Matt said.
‘Keep watching.’
Still photographs started flicking up. Cycling from one to the other. All of them showed Matt at various stages of the filming. There was one of him standing at the airport, waiting for Kissell. Another at the prison gates, just after Tom’s exorcism.
Matt laughed. ‘What are these? My best bits?’
‘These screenshots were taken directly from the footage in the show.’
‘So?’
‘Keep watching.’
Another shot appeared, of him speaking to the group at the test he ran at the university. And then a few of him at The Reed. Chatting to clients, sipping a coffee on the sofa. As he watched them cycle through, his bemused smirk started to falter a little.
‘Can’t you see them?’
‘See what?’ He knew full well what she meant.
‘The shadows, in the shot.’
He leant forward in his chair, looking at a picture of himself standing in Tom Riley’s front garden at night. He was digging a shovel into the ground and looking for that wooden box. He counted seven people in that image. Two women, five men. And only one of them had the strange black smudge, standing next to him.