Something of the Night (19 page)

Its jaws opened in a colossal
yawn and four enormous fangs glinted as slivers of white lightning ran from
pink gums to the very tips of the canines. Unlike the twisted madness of the
vampires’ fangs, these teeth were the work of a creative sense and purpose:
evolution.

Jacob closed his eyes. Better
to play dead, for now. He waited for what seemed like an eternity before the
beast moved away. He opened his eyes and watched as it ambled away. It appeared
to be searching for something. It stopped a few feet away, turned with the
grace of a tank, then padded back in his direction.

He shut his eyes quickly.

When he reopened them, it had
moved over to the opposite doorway. It stopped. For a few seconds it remained
there with its head angled slightly upwards. Both nostrils flared. The scent of
something pulled the beast over to the table where the assault rifle had
disappeared. In a performance of awkward coordination, it reached underneath
and retrieved the weapon.

Jacob lay very still. He had
the bizarre notion that the beast was about to point the weapon at him. But
then, in an act of confusion, it turned the muzzle up towards its own eye and
began to look curiously down the dark barrel. His sudden fear about a
re-enactment of
Planet of the Apes
was temporarily over.

The beast’s thick fingers
worked their way down to the trigger guard. They fumbled around, dangerously
close to catching the firing mechanism. Satisfied that the barrel held no
secrets, the beast jammed it into its mouth and then began to suck on the
weapon as if it was some sort of lethal banana.

Jacob groaned. The thing’s
stupidity was wrecking his nerves. Although he didn’t want to feel its fangs,
he felt deeply sorry to see it die in such a stupid manner. The predictability
of the situation forced him to turn in the opposite direction. He squeezed his
eyes shut and waited for the inevitable. After only a couple of anxious seconds
it came. The weapon discharged with a burst of triple fire. He heard a
deafening crash as the beast fell heavily to the floor.

He felt a deep well of pity
for the animal’s death. Nonetheless, it had been its own doing. Pushing his
remorse to one side he climbed to his feet. A wisp of smoke rose lazily from
the end of the assault rifle. Looking beyond the weapon, he saw that the
secured door had been burst open. The loud bang had not been the beast falling,
but rather the sound of the door breaking off its hinges.

Quickly, he retrieved the M16
and then cautiously headed for the door. His heart pounded in his chest. All
compassion for the beast had vanished in an instant. Instead, his thoughts had
turned to his own self-preservation. He pulled the weapon into his shoulder and
silently stepped through the dark threshold.

The stairwell beyond offered
a choice of two directions: upwards or around to the right. He turned right and
found himself in front of an open shaft. Like the lobby below, the brass doors
had been torn off their hinges. As they were nowhere in sight his guess was
that they’d probably disappeared downward, possibly finishing in the same
place, and state, as the elevator itself.

He backed away from the
shaft. This was neither the place nor time for a second confrontation. “I’ll be
seeing you,” he whispered into the darkness. Then he returned to the office and
quickly crossed over to the opposite stairwell. He descended mostly in darkness,
this side of the building in total shadow, and reached the floor below
unscathed.

He pushed open the door.
Something jumped out before him. For a second he thought the beast had
descended on the opposite side to catch him here unawares. But in the next
instant, he recognised that this particular hairy face belonged to Ben. The
huge Browning dropped away from his head. The gunner stepped back to assess his
friend.

“What the hell happened?” Ben
asked.

A shadow shifted slightly and
Lieutenant Hutson appeared from behind an overturned desk. “Are you okay?” she
asked. The meagre light from outside barely illuminated her worried-looking
face.

“I’m fine,” Jacob reassured
them.

“Did you kill it?” Ben asked
anxiously; he’d almost died from worry with all the thunder that had gone on
above his head. “C’mon, tell us what happened.”

Jacob moved deeper into the
room, followed by his eager audience.

“For the love of God, tell us,”
Ben moaned.

The tracker turned back and a
huge grin had split his face in two. He shook his head then laughed out loud,
partly a release of tension, partly a cry of amused wonder at the bizarre
confrontation he had just had.

“What is it?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, what the hell happened
up there?” Hutson prompted.

Jacob’s amusement subsided,
leaving him feeling drained. Eventually, he regained his composure, took a deep
breath, and said: “I think you’d both better sit down… ”

Chapter
Thirty-Two

Shutters thumped noisily against the window frame.
Alice
shivered. She and Squirrel were huddled together at the back of the toy store.
The mechanic had one arm around her shoulders and his free hand clutched at the
pistol in his lap. They had spent the last six hours waiting in the
near-darkness, feeling cold and miserable.

“We must have missed him,”
Squirrel announced, through a plume of frosted breath.

Alice
sighed and another white trail filtered out before
them. “Let’s give it another hour, and see what happens.”

We’ll have frozen our butts
solid, Squirrel thought, but he remained quiet. He could see how anxious she
was getting. Elliot should have passed through here by now. “Maybe he’s
bypassed Glen Eagle completely,” he remarked.

Alice
shook her head. “Why would he have? It’s on the main
route to Ezekiel’s
northern territories
.”

“Perhaps that’s why. Perhaps
he’s taken a different path. Even kept to the forests, maybe.”

“In this?”

Squirrel turned to the
window. The shutters had thankfully stopped banging. The wind outside had taken
a much needed break. Through the crack he saw dark snowflakes fall past the
window. Since leaving the underground they had travelled northwards, non-stop,
in the hope of finding Elliot. Squirrel had allowed
Alice
to guide
them through the endless twists and turns of the abandoned highways, her
knowledge of the outside world infinitely keener than his. He’d taken the trip
slowly, not wanting to push the old vehicle too hard, and so far his caution
had paid off. The suspension had held, just. The open side windows, though, had
offered absolutely no protection against the harsh conditions outside. Luckily,
however, the heater from the engine had been able to blow a constant warm
draught over them, which had just about stopped them from freezing solid. Twice
Squirrel had asked
Alice
to stop and find shelter. Twice she simply ignored
his request and focused her attention on the darkness ahead. After three long
hours, they eventually reached the outskirts of town. On arrival, they had made
a beeline for the toy store. Inside,
Alice
had immediately noticed that some of the provisions
and most of the weapons had been taken. Jacob Cain had been here, they agreed
on that. A good thing in itself – at least he had made it this far, but why had
he taken most of the weapons? In all, he had enough firepower to stop a small
army. “Perhaps that’s exactly what he has in mind,” Squirrel had suggested.

Alice
blew a long breath into her hands. “So cold,” she
said.

Squirrel rubbed his hand
against her shoulders. The hand holding the gun had turned a slight shade of
blue. Between them, its lamp set to low, sat a battery-operated beacon. Worried
about attracting unwanted attention, they’d decided to do without the heat or
comfort of a real fire.

Until now.

Squirrel handed the weapon
over to
Alice
.

“What is it?” she asked, as
he climbed gingerly to his feet.

“We need heat,” he said.

“No. What if we’re spotted
from outside?”

Squirrel moved to the open
window to look out. The world had become a drab landscape of greys and blacks.
The snow, if that’s what is really was, fell in grey blobs, covering everything
in a sickly hue.
Alice
stood and joined him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Squirrel told her.
“But we need to warm up or Elliot will arrive to find two icicles sat here
waiting to greet him.”

Alice
grinned, despite her worry. Squirrel was doing a fine
job at keeping her anxiety from boiling over. “Okay, I agree. But we’ll need to
keep it small.”

“I’ll keep it small, I
promise,” he said.

Alice
looked around them. “What should we use?”

Squirrel scanned over the
contents of the room. There were plenty of cardboard boxes, and the shelves
that held them were made from thin plywood, which would burn easily, if they
could find a suitable accelerant. “Break some of that up,” he said, pointing to
the shelves. “And rip those cardboard boxes into thin strips.” He headed for
the door.

“Wait,”
Alice
called.
“Where are you going?”

“We need fuel to start it,”
he told her.

Alice
frowned slightly. She moved to the first rack of
shelves and touched the wood. It felt cold and damp and spongy. Years of harsh
weather had turned the wood into soggy pulp.

“Will it burn?” she asked.

“Yeah, but we’ll need fuel
from the truck to get it started.”

“Okay, but be careful.”

He pulled his collar up and
then stepped through the cluttered corridor to the front of the store.

Outside looked cold and
bleak. He pulled the door open and a small bell rang out above his head. The
enthusiastic ring made the dark street seem less foreboding somehow. He stepped
into the sleet with only his thin jacket and hope to keep him warm. Hunching
his shoulders against the cold bite of wind, he made his way along the deserted
sidewalk. He reached the street corner and headed down the next avenue. As he
turned into it, the wind picked up unexpectedly and pushed him back, the street
acting as a natural funnel, channelling the current of air into a powerful
slipstream. He bent forwards. Pushed against the wind and slowly lurched over
to the truck. It was parked between the shell of a dispatch van and a twisted
wreck that could in all honesty have been anything.

He reached the truck and took
refuge in the lee of the van. He bent and started to work free one of the small
tanks that had been packed hurriedly in the back of the truck. After a brief
struggle the tank came away and Squirrel heard liquid slosh about inside. He
smiled. They would be toasting marshmallows in no time at all. The thought made
him turn back towards the main street.

“Nah,” he said to himself.

The idea began to eat at his
brain. What the hell, he thought, and started back in the direction of the
sidewalk. With his back to the wind, he re-entered the main street in a hurry
and had to skid to a halt before the force of it pushed him all the way back
down Highway 63. He found a torn canopy over the front of the toy store.
Another striped awning, further along, hid the front of a second store.

He grinned and his belly
rumbled with anticipation. What the hell, he thought again, he’d only be five
minutes. He trod through the wet sludge and stopped outside the store. The
window had been smashed long ago and the once decorative front was now just an
empty row of trays, offering sweet memories. Still, his hunger made him try the
door at his side. The thing was as tight as a drum. He shrugged and dropped the
tank at his feet. Then, in a performance of awkwardness, he climbed through the
open window. Glass crunched underneath his feet. He breathed deeply once he
stepped inside. He took another breath and filled his lungs to capacity. A
distinct scent of something sweet and sugary found its way inside the
mechanic’s nostrils. The essence of candy drew Squirrel deeper into the old
sweetshop. He looked from one counter to the next, but they’d been picked
clean. Now, countless trays with layers of dust were left, which were in stark
contrast to the colourful and tempting offers that had once been their original
load. He breathed again and the sweet scent had diminished somewhat.
Disappointed, he returned to the window.

He took one last hopeful look
around, in case he’d missed something, and then with slumped shoulders he
reached out for the windowsill. The sole of his boot peeled itself off the
floor. He froze. It was then he discovered the smell of sugar was at its
strongest. He stood back from the window. For a second he stood confused. He
lifted first one foot and then the other. His face broke into a colourful
smile. His feet made loud tearing noises as they pulled themselves free from
something sticky. What he had first thought to be broken glass was actually a
carpet of sweets and candy, and just waiting to be eaten!

He dropped to his knees and
the wave of sugar almost made him dizzy. His mouth opened and a drop of saliva
pooled onto his chin. Using his fingers, he pulled up a tile of the squashed
candy and took a huge bite.

Sweet God in Heaven!

A thousand taste buds cried
out in ecstasy. He chomped eagerly and his tongue revelled in the different
flavours: lime, strawberry, orange, lemon and mint, all mixed in with a
grouting of chocolate. Within minutes he devoured the entire lot. His fingers
returned to the floor and another tile came away. He folded it over and shoved
it inside his pocket. For a couple of minutes, he spent his time either filling
his pockets or filling his face. Eventually, neither his pockets nor his belly
could hold any more. He stood and reached for the windowsill. He’d pulled
himself half out when one of his hands slipped. Something grabbed a hold of him
by the front of his jacket. Surprised, Squirrel look up and found he was
staring into the empty folds of a hood.

The face inside was shrouded
by darkness.

A mystery.

***

Alice
had now
amassed a generous pile of kindling, which she’d piled at the centre of the
room. She’d had also ripped some of the cardboard boxes up into thin strips and
weaved them between the lengths of wood. All she needed now was a light.

All that remained of the
shelf was a flat base, too big to use on the fire. Two other flat panels lay
beside her, which had originally been the top and middle layer of the shelf.
She took the sheet of wood and then propped it up in front of the open window.
The barrier acted in two ways: one, it stopped the wind from getting in; and,
two, the flames would not be able to reach beyond these four walls. That only
left one problem - the smoke.

How was she going to dispel
the smoke?

She looked up at the cracked
ceiling. It was a patchwork of chipped plaster, slats of decaying wood and a
scattering of holes that looked like open sores in a layer of rotten skin.
Although the holes were numerous, they were small in size, little more than
pinpricks in a mouldy canvas. But if she could enlarge one or two, then that
would be sufficient enough to draw the smoke up and away from the occupants
below.

Picking up the
battery-operated beacon, she stepped out of the back room and searched along a
narrow passageway. At the very end, she found a dark staircase. She began to
climb them step-by-step. About half way up, her foot stepped down onto open
air. She reached out and her hand found the support of a banister. She regained
her balance and then began to carefully prod ahead with her foot. The step
directly in front had all but gone, years of neglect had eaten it away, but the
next one seemed okay, so with added caution she stepped onto it. A slight groan
of protest sounded underneath her boots. Quickly, she skipped from step to step
and arrived at the top unscathed.

Her breath caught in her
chest.

A whole floor of toys
appeared before her. Row upon row of cardboard boxes reached from floor to
ceiling. Most of the boxes were bleached of colour, but their designs were
still partially visible on some.
Alice
made her way towards the first rack of toys. She took
the first box and tilted it until the faint picture on the front revealed
itself. It showed a family: mum, dad, and two beaming children, sitting around
a complicated-looking contraption. The thing in the centre was made up of
scaffolding, pulleys, tables that tilted and a trap or net at the centre; and
it looked to be anything but fun. It must have taken an age to build the thing.
Alice
shrugged. Perhaps that was the point. She brushed some of the dust away from
the top and read the two words printed there.

Mouse Trap!

Strange, why would anyone
want to trap a mouse? What good were
they
for eating? A rat? Maybe?
Rat
Trap!
But she was sure of one thing, nobody would be smiling – they both
tasted like shit. She put the box back and moved to the next.

The next box stole her
breath. It was smaller than the first and it had a picture of something that
she could only describe as… beautiful. A horse with someone strapped to its
back, both jumping over a wooden gate, filled the picture in a blaze of colour
and action. Although the barrier looked real, its settings did not. Instead of
an expected field, the gate was situated in an open arena. The person, a woman,
looked silly. She wore a small, round hat pushed tightly over her head, a red
jacket and a pair of ridiculous pants, which ballooned out over her thighs. She
appeared to be clinging onto the animal with her knees.
Alice
turned
her attention away from the woman and focused on the beast she rode. It was
huge and powerful-looking, with a long, slim, majestic head, a dark mane of
hair that ran from the back of its head to two muscular shoulders, four legs,
two of which had a wrap of white cloth around their lower half, and a tail
decorated with brightly coloured ribbons. Its two front legs were folded
towards its long body and the moment of drama had been captured brilliantly.
Alice
bent her
knees, sprung up and said, “Gee up, Boy,” willing the beast to clear the gate.
She heard something slide about inside. She squatted and rested the box across
her knees. Then, delicately, she lifted the lid.