The Darkest Corners (9 page)

‘The town then,' I said, looking out at that orange-tinted sky again. The hospital where they'd first taken my mum after she'd been attacked by the Crowmaster was in the next town. It was only a few miles away, but with the streets the way they were, it may as well have been on the moon.

‘We've got to try,' I said, speaking the end of that thought out loud. ‘We can't just leave him.'

‘Well, we could,' Ameena said, then she caught my expression. ‘No, of course we can't. What was I thinking?' She chewed her lip. ‘Why can't we leave him again?'

‘Because he's one of us. He's on our side. He's –' I stumbled over the words – ‘my friend.'

‘Well, alrighty then,' Ameena said. She gave a slight bow, then gestured towards the door. ‘After you.'

I turned and took a few steps towards the door. A familiar figure was creeping cautiously along the hall towards us.

‘Kyle?' she gasped. ‘What's going on here? Why are you out of bed?'

My legs became heavy and my heart dropped into my stomach. ‘Oh,' I whispered. ‘Hi, Mum.'

And then I closed the door in her face.

I
stood there with my forehead against the door for several seconds, listening to my mum knocking.

‘Kyle? What's going on? Let me in.'

‘Is she real?' I asked, not looking at Ameena.

‘No. Yes. Kind of. I don't know,' Ameena said. ‘She exists. You made her exist. But she's not your mum.'

‘She looks like her. She sounds like her.'

‘She's your
idea
of your mum,' Ameena said, and I did look at her then. ‘She's an impression of your mum as seen through your eyes.'

‘What's the difference?'

‘Well… everything. She doesn't think like your mum, she thinks like
you think
your mum would think.' She replayed the words in her head. ‘Yeah, that's right.'

Ameena stepped closer to me. Beyond the door, my mum continued to knock and talk.

‘Let me in, sweetheart. Open the door and let me in.'

‘You know those dolls where you squeeze its hand and it talks or burps or wets itself or whatever?' Ameena said. ‘They might look like a real baby. They might pee on your leg like a real baby. But they ain't a real baby. That's sort of what she's like.' She thought for a moment. ‘But, you know, without the peeing on the leg stuff.'

‘So… she's a doll,' I said. ‘She's not real. She's just a talking doll.'

‘Yeah. Pretty much,' Ameena said. Then she added, ‘Sorry.'

I sucked air in through my teeth. ‘Not your fault.'

She shrugged. ‘Well, at least that's one thing then.'

I stood back. Then I ran my fingers through my hair, straightened down my hospital gown and pulled open the door. My mum stood there, her hand raised mid-knock. She shot me an exasperated look and stepped through into the day room.

‘What's going on? Why aren't you in bed?' She looked around the room and settled on Ameena. ‘And who's this?'

‘That's Ameena.'

‘Who?' A frown wrinkled her forehead, as if she knew the name, but couldn't quite remember where from.

‘Ameena. The girl I told you about.'

‘What? No.' She smiled and looked at me as if I were kidding. When she realised I wasn't, her smile died away. ‘No, don't be silly. There is no Ameena.'

‘There is,' I said, as Ameena waved. ‘She's real. Well, more or less.'

‘But… she can't be. That was all a dream, that stuff. I mean, how can she be real? She can't be.'

‘But she is,' I said softly. ‘It was all real. Everything I said.'

‘No, but… you said… you said I died.'

‘Yes,' I said. My tonsils tightened, making my voice go up an octave. ‘I did say that.'

There was silence in the day room then, broken only by the scratching of a pen against a newspaper crossword. Even the sounds of battle outside had quietened, and I felt as if the whole world were listening in on this conversation.

I took her by the arm and led her over to the window. She stared down at the monster on the floor, but didn't comment.

‘Look,' I said. ‘Look out there.'

She peered through the blinds and I felt her whole body stiffen. I gave her arm a squeeze as silent tears began to roll down her cheeks.

‘N-no,' she whispered. ‘It can't. It can't be. This… this isn't happening.'

‘It is happening. And it's happening because of me,' I told her. ‘I did this.'

She stared at me in horror. ‘You?'

‘Not on purpose. He tricked me. He made me do it. My dad.'

She looked so like my mum. So perfectly, absolutely like my mum. I wanted to tell her this was all just some bad joke and that of course none of it was real. Of course she was still here, still with me, still alive.

But I couldn't. Because she wasn't.

‘He killed the person I loved most in the world,' I told her. ‘And even though I can't stop all this, I'm going to find him. I'm going to make him pay for what he did.'

Her eyes darted across my face, as if searching for some sign that I wasn't telling the truth. Finally, she stopped searching. Her face paled a few shades. Half a dozen emotions swept like a slideshow across her features. A hand came up and touched my cheek, but there was no warmth to it. No blood flowing beneath the skin.

‘I… I feel like your mum,' she whispered. ‘I look at you and I see my boy. I see my little boy.'

She lowered her hand. ‘But I'm not, am I? I feel like her, but I can also feel it's not right. I can feel
I'm
not right.'

Both hands came up this time. She cupped them round my face and held me. We were both crying now, tears flowing down our faces before falling to the bare wooden floor.

‘She loved you, your mum,' she whispered, pulling me in until our foreheads met. ‘I know she did because
I
love you, Kyle. So, so much.'

‘I love you too, Mum,' I said, but the words just barely made it out. ‘I loved her too.'

‘She would be so proud of you,' she said. ‘So proud of the man you're becoming. My boy –
her
boy – all grown-up.' She clenched her jaw and glanced away.

I threw my arms round her and sobbed against her shoulder. She wasn't my mum, not really. I knew that. But she was the closest thing I'd ever have to my mum again.

‘Please,' she whispered. ‘You have to go.'

Ameena put her hand on my arm. Reluctantly, I stepped away from this ghost of my mother and saw that the ends of her hair were already becoming hazy and faint.

‘There's a man out there who killed your mum. I know what she'd tell you to do if she were here. She'd say not to go after him. She'd say it's dangerous and that she'd never want you putting yourself at risk for her sake. She'd say she wasn't worth it.'

She was right. That's exactly what my mum would have said.

‘But we know different, don't we? We know she
was
worth it. Your mum would say not to go, but I'm not your mum, and I say – go get the son of a bitch.'

‘You hear the lady, let's go,' said Ameena. I resisted as she began to steer me towards the door, but in my heart I knew I couldn't stay. I couldn't watch my mum – even this version of her – fade away into nothing.

I grabbed one final look at her before Ameena pulled the door closed between us and the day room. Then I strode with renewed determination back to the room I'd woken up in, and tore through the cupboards until I found my clothes.

Twice. He had robbed me of my mum
twice
.

He had hurt or killed or corrupted everyone I had ever really known.

He had turned me into a weapon that was responsible for the Apocalypse that was now taking place all across the world.

And now – now that I finally had nothing left to lose – he was going to pay for it all.

‘Whoa! Some warning next time before you go flashing your butt cheeks at me,' Ameena said. She turned away as I slipped my jeans on.

‘I wasn't flashing anything. I'm wearing boxer shorts.'

‘Whatever. Some warning next time, please.'

I finished pulling on my clothes. They weren't the same ones I'd had on earlier, which was a bit of a relief. I'd been wearing those ones for weeks. The smell of them alone would have warned my dad I was coming.

The clothes I wore now were uniformly dark. Black jeans, black jumper with a black T-shirt beneath. My trainers were also black, but with a silver tick on each side. I tied them in a tight double knot because the last thing I needed was for one to come flying off in the middle of battle.

Battle
. The thought made me hesitate. I looked at Ameena, then down at myself. Were we really going to do this? Were we really going to go out there into the chaos and the monsters and who knew what else?

‘You scared?' she asked, as if reading my thoughts.

‘Terrified. But then I've been terrified since Christmas,' I confessed. I took a deep breath. ‘This is the end, isn't it? One way or another.'

‘One way or another,' she nodded, then she straightened her shoulders and pulled off a textbook salute. ‘It's been an honour serving with you.'

‘Whatever,' I said, but inside I smiled. How, after everything, could she still make me smile?

‘What's the plan now then?'

‘We head to the hospital,' I said. ‘We find Billy.'

She looked doubtful. ‘Sure that's such a good idea?'

‘Yes,' I insisted. ‘We don't sell out our friends.'

‘Ouch. You're never going to let me forget that, are you?'

‘Doubt it,' I admitted, then we headed down the stairs and threw open the door to Hell.

E
arlier, when the streets had been filled with screechers and beasts, the world had looked like a very scary place. Now it was their turn to flee in terror as things bigger and angrier than they were, ran riot through the village.

Everywhere was dark. The streetlights were out, the few houses that had had lights on were now in darkness, and a thick layer of cloud had covered the night sky. The only glow came from the fires that crackled in buildings and consumed the cars that lay scattered across the roads like discarded toys.

I realised then that it was smoke covering the sky, not cloud. Smoke that was becoming thicker with every home that burned.

We kept low, tucked into the shadows by the door. Grotesque, inhuman shapes moved through the streets, revealed in silhouette whenever they passed the flames. The sounds of screaming and roaring and squealing and growling were all around us. Other sounds too, sounds without description. Sounds I wished I could somehow unhear.

This was the Darkest Corners as I had first seen it, way back on Christmas Day. A place filled with monsters and evil. A place I had mistaken for Hell itself. Or maybe it hadn't been a mistake at all.

‘What's the plan? How do we get to the hospital?' Ameena whispered. She'd come from the Darkest Corners too. She'd seen all this stuff before. But her eyes were wide and her hands were shaking with fear.

‘We could make a run for it,' I suggested.

‘I was kind of hoping not to die, though,' she replied. ‘So that rules that plan out. We could try to sneak there.'

‘Sneak three miles? That'd take hours. We don't have hours.'

‘He could be dead already, you know?' she whispered. ‘Just saying.'

‘I know. But I have to try. I left him. It's my fault.'

‘And you're sure your magic powers are gone?'

I nodded. ‘It's the Darkest Corners. I don't have my abilities here.' Just in case, though, I concentrated and tried to bring the sparks rushing through my head. Nothing happened. ‘Any other suggestions?'

A thunderous
boom
knocked us back into the doorway. A fireball rose up inside the church, destroying the roof. A cloud of shattered slates and charred wood was lifted into the air with a
whoosh
. As we watched, the pieces began to rain down like missiles, scattering the monsters and leaving the street directly ahead of us clear.

‘Running it is then,' Ameena shrugged.

‘Police station. There was a car out back earlier,' I said, aiming us in roughly the right direction. The fog made it impossible to see more than a metre or two ahead, which was both good and bad. Good because we couldn't see any of the horrors roaming around, and bad for exactly that same reason.

Shapes moved in the cloud ahead of us, forcing us to change our route. The dust and the smoke were blinding. I had my face buried in the crook of my arm, trying to stop the stuff getting into my lungs. A coughing fit now would be very bad.

The church was still burning, casting an orange glow across the fog. I used it to get my bearings and we hurried on towards the police station.

After a few minutes of running, stopping, dodging and creeping through the fog, Ameena asked the obvious question. ‘What if the car's not there?'

‘Then we're probably going to die.'

‘Right. Just as long as I know.'

The dust was beginning to settle and the smoke was starting to lift. We could see throngs of the creatures through the thinning fog. So far, at least, it appeared they hadn't seen us, but how long that would last was anyone's guess.

We zigzagged down low until we reached the police station. There were still screechers hanging about on the roof. They were the lucky ones. The broken bodies of others lay scattered around the base of the building. We had no choice but to tiptoe through them as we headed for the car park at the back. The fog was almost completely gone, so we picked up the pace, the need for stealth replaced by an overwhelming urge to move quickly.

Ameena stifled a yelp and I spun round to check on her. A screecher lay on the ground. Or part of it did, anyway. It was a legless torso, with a string of black, poisoned intestines spilling out like spaghetti below its waist. It had both hands on Ameena's leg. The screecher's dark eyes sparkled as it opened its jaws wide.

Her boot crunched against the side of its head. Once. Twice. The screecher lost its grip and we hurried away from it. Out of rage, or frustration, or just plain spite, it let out a scream. The sounds of the darkness changed as everything within earshot turned and looked in our direction.

‘Run,' I said, racing for the car park. Ameena was faster. She pushed me on as dozens of creatures of all shapes and sizes began darting and lumbering and leaping after us.

We turned the corner and I almost cried with happiness. A police 4x4 was parked there, pristine and untouched by the chaos.

Ameena reached it first. She pressed her face against the glass of the driver's door, then let out a whoop of delight. ‘Keys!' she cried. ‘It's got keys!'

She hauled the door open, then leaned over and opened the passenger door too. I slid awkwardly on to the seat just as the first of the things darted into the car park.

The creature was small but fast. It bounded in frog-like leaps across the car park, closing the gap between us in three long jumps.

Ameena turned the key and the engine spluttered nervously. Then the car gave a throaty roar and lurched forward. Ameena was wrestling with the handbrake when the frog-like thing landed with a soggy
splat
on the bonnet. We both screamed, then she floored the accelerator. The 4x4 lurched forward, stopped, then lurched forward again, tossing me around in the seat.

‘What are you doing? Just drive!'

‘I'm trying,' she snapped. The entrance to the car park was now swamped with
things
. I was panicking too much to focus on any details. All I could see was the world's ugliest mob, and the near-certain death that awaited us at their hands. Or claws. Or whatever.

Ameena crunched down a gear and tried the pedal again. The car shot forward, the tyres leaving melting rubber on the tarmac. The thing on the windscreen clung on like a limpet as Ameena aimed for the exit.

‘Smaller ones, smaller ones, look for the smaller ones.'

‘There,' I said, pointing towards something that looked a little like an angry Ewok. Ameena hauled the wheel to the right. The Ewok blinked in the glare of the headlights, and then it vanished beneath the wheels with a meaty
crunch
.

‘There!' I pointed again, this time to another of the frog-like things. It burst with a
pop
beneath the front tyres. Ameena shuddered, the wheels slipped, but then we were out of the car park and skidding on to the main road.

My head thumped against the side window and I quickly clipped on my seat belt. ‘Can you even drive?' I asked, and my voice betrayed my terror.

‘Yeah. That time when Mumbles was after us.'

‘That was for, like, fifteen seconds!'

‘Yeah, but it was a police car, so I reckon this is more or less the same.'

She dodged round some burning debris, then powered through a group of dog-like creatures, scattering them. The 4x4 rounded another few corners, tore down one monster-infested straight, and then we were out of the village and heading for the town.

We sat there, not speaking, just staring straight ahead through the windscreen. Neither one of us dared to look back. Ameena eventually broke the silence.

‘He's quite off-putting, isn't he?'

I nodded. The frog-thing was still clinging to the windscreen with its sucker-like fingertips. Its bulging eyes flicked back and forth between us.

‘Yeah. He is a bit.' I knocked on the glass. ‘Oi, mate. Hop it.'

‘You sure you can't just magic him away?'

I shook my head. ‘I'm powerless now.'

‘Yeah, but are you
sure
? This isn't—'

‘I can't do it, OK?' I snapped, and that seemed to be the end of it.

‘Oh, wait,' Ameena said. She felt around the sides of the steering wheel, then flicked a lever. There was a
clicking
and a light on the dashboard began to flash. ‘No, that's indicators,' she muttered.

She moved another lever. The windscreen wipers arced up, taking the frog-thing by surprise. It lifted its hands and leaned back. Ameena slammed on the brakes and the creature rolled off the bonnet. It turned in time to see the 4x4 take off towards it.

It tried to jump out of the car's path, but Ameena threw open her door. It connected with the monster mid-leap, sending it rolling messily across the road. She swerved the car. There was another
pop
, then she pulled back over to the left side of the road and drove on.

‘You could've just left it,' I said.

‘Had a bad experience with one of those once,' she replied, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘Tried to kiss me.'

‘Really?'

‘Or maybe eat me. It's hard to tell.'

I looked round into the back seat, then down at the dashboard, searching for anything that might be useful. There was a police radio in the car, but it had been switched off. I flicked the switch to turn it on and the 4x4 was filled with screaming and sobbing and the crackle of radio static. A dozen signals all tried to push through at once.

‘Help us. Too many of them. Too many to—'

‘—happening? What the Hell's happening? Someone—'

‘—dead. All dead. Please help me! Something's coming. God, someone help me—'

I turned the radio off again and we continued down the road in silence for a long time.

‘We could just keep driving, you know?'

I turned to Ameena. ‘What?'

‘Just follow the road, see where it takes us. We could make a go of it. Find somewhere we could, I don't know, survive.'

‘Survive?' I said. ‘With all those things around?'

‘People have. People do,' she shrugged. ‘I did.'

‘You had my dad to look after you,' I said coldly.

‘And now I've got you. And you'd have me.'

I stared ahead. ‘We go save Billy, then we go find my dad.'

Ameena nodded and we both fell silent again. There was an envelope sitting in a hollow above the glove box. I picked it up and read the name on the front. Then I read it again, just to be sure.

‘This is for me,' I said.

Ameena glanced down at the square envelope. ‘Open it then.'

The flap wasn't stuck down. I pulled out a handwritten note. ‘“Enjoy the car,”' I read. ‘“One final parting gift. Joseph.”'

I stuck the note back in the envelope. Even from beyond the grave, Joseph, the mystery man, was still somehow helping me out.

‘He must've left it for us. That's why the keys were in it,' I realised.

‘That was nice of him.'

I looked long and hard at her. ‘Do you know who he was?'

‘Not a clue,' she shrugged. ‘I know he was starting to get on your dad's nerves a bit, the way he kept interfering, but he didn't have a clue who the guy was. No one did.'

‘He was the policeman back at Christmas, remember?'

‘Yeah, course I remember.'

‘I thought he was an idiot, going on about me pulling his cracker with him, but even then he was helping us. First the message in the cracker itself, then the car parked out back. I bet he planned all of that.'

Ameena drew in a sharp breath and I turned to follow her gaze.

‘Whoa.'

The village had been bad, but the town was worse. Fire was spreading through houses and shops. It spread through gardens. It licked across the ground. Even inside the car, we could feel the heat of it on our faces.

Off to my right I could see my school. All the windows were lit up with orange and yellow. I'd dreamed of seeing it burn to the ground since first setting foot in the place, but the sight of it left me hollow. Every last part of my old life was gone.