Authors: Craig Saunders
Even
below the inferno the heat was immense, uncomfortable.
It
was dark down there, thrown into deep shadow by the light of the fire and the
sweeping blue lights on thick smoke. The long heels on her sandals stuck in the
dirt, but there was no way she was going on barefoot. She imagined all the
discarded things littering the embankment. Broken bottles, twisted cans and
twisted pieces of wreckage. She strained to see, but it was pointless. She had
no choice but to cover the distance blind.
She
shook, even though it was hot. Life never seemed to matter until you saw real
horror. Shoes, clothes,
things
- they seemed important. But all of those
could be replaced. Being able to buy whatever she wanted wasn't the point.
The
woman was cut in half...like a carriage, decoupled. Choo.
She
thought this as she put her foot down and landed on something softer than the
grass. The softer thing cried out, but the cry was little more than rushing
air.
Francis
yelped. Already panicked, she kicked out and was rewarded by another muffled
shout.
Right
then, on the border of the kind of terror that made people hurtle headlong
until they ran out of breath, she figured fuck the dark and fuck the mud and
fuck the fire; stumbling over person hiding in the trees below the embankment
was incentive enough to get her running again.
Her
gym-trained muscles bunched and tightened, ready to hit the incline, when she
heard the person call out. The voice was weak, but the words were unmistakable.
'Help?
Help me?'
Whoever
it was, they didn't sound mad enough to shit on old women who tried to bite
people with their stinking yellow dentures.
He
sounded plain old scared.
You
sure, Francis? How sure are you that the insane aren't cunning?
Then,
another thought, and one she was more accustomed to thinking.
Just
leave them. Get safe. Send someone back.
That
sounded like something her husband would suggest, and advice she'd been more
than happy to follow.
Her
friends? Her family?
'
Fuck
'em, Francis,'
he would have said.
'You don't need 'em.'
That
went both ways, though, didn't it? She'd taken his advice long enough to stop
caring about him, too.
Didn't
see that coming, did you? Prick.
'Help
me,' said the man in the darkness again. Not just frightened, but in pain.
Of
course he's hurt. I just stepped on him and kicked him in the mouth.
Maybe
he was a survivor from the wreck, though. Maybe he was dying.
With
fire ahead and madness behind and her and this man in between both, Francis
made her choice, and met Ben North.
*
III.
Wayland Redman
Wayland
Redman stayed on the motorway for just five minutes. He was aware of the cars
that piled up in his wake, if not the extent of the wreck. He was aware, too,
that a wider game was being played...if he could not see the whole picture,
know the rules, or even recognise the game, though, it was because O'Dell
willed it to be so.
Wayland
thought perhaps his luck finally ran out, meeting a road block as he left the
main road for quieter streets. It looked like a random thing, set up by the
police - the kind they often lay on when they're bored, or really looking for
something else other than drunks and bad car owners.
His
sweat had yet to dry from the days' heat, and though the night was cooler, the
van was not. Ahead, everyone else was stopped by a simple wave of the hand. Policemen
half-heartedly spoke to drivers and made a show of checking tread on tyres.
Wayland
glanced down, but the kid was out cold in the foot well beneath the passenger
seat.
'Fuck
it,' said Wayland.
The
kid might be unconscious, but awake probably would've been better. No time to
prop him up, or coach him, or scare the piss from him into pretending to be a
grandson or something.
Screwed,
thought Wayland.
But
then he wasn't.
Of
all the cars and vans that were stopped, his was the only one waved through
without incident.
Wayland
smiled and nodded and passed. Sometimes he was lucky. Sometimes O'Dell thought
ahead.
He
passed through the outskirts of the small town and onto an industrial estate,
mostly comprised of large warehouses where things like old furniture or power
tools were sold. Out the other side, he took a few turns around one of the country's
many uniform housing estates. Ten miles south of the accident he took the
bypass, then returned to the motorway. From there he drove at a steady 60 mph.
The drive took forty minutes and ended at a concertinaed garage door.
The
kid was still out. He had a welt the size of an egg on the side of his head.
Once,
Wayland had been a killer. That was another life, though, and this was his life
now. The kid was worth money. Dead, he wasn't worth a penny.
The
old man stepped from the van to remove a thick padlock from the garage door
before he pressed a button on the his key fob. The door rattled into the roof
space while Wayland drove in, then eased himself from the seat of the van for
the last time that day, kneading his back and wincing at the pressure in his
bladder. He flicked on the lights and used the fob to close the door behind
them, then hung it and the keys from a hook on the wall.
The
kid stirred.
Eight
,
decided Wayland. The kid was eight years old.
A
small sink and kitchen unit stood against the back wall, with a kettle on top
and tea rings on the work surface. He filled the kettle with water from a five
litre bottle before he set it going. A chipped and stained mug waited with a
teabag and one sugar in it and a plate over it to keep out spiders and dust. He
had only powdered milk, because he never knew when he was going to be able to
make it to the lock up.
The
kid switched from aimless movement to muttering.
'Waking
up, are we?'
No
answer, but he didn't expect one.
Time
to get to work, then.
Tea after. Kid first.
Wayland
set his gut and lower back as best he could, then pulled the child out and over
and onto his shoulder - the child weighed next to nothing, and although Wayland
was in his seventies, he was still strong enough to pick up a little kid.
The
boy mumbled, groggy, and his words didn't make much sense to Wayland. Either
way, the kid couldn't have said anything to stop the old man carrying him down
damp concrete steps into the dark room below.
*
George
Farnham opened his eyes and in the meagre light of a candle set in front of him
was an old man with a short cigarette stuck to his bottom lip.
'Now,
kid, if you scream, I'm going to kill you. If you fight me, I'm going to kill
you. If you're a good boy, you'll get out of this alive.'
He's
lying,
thought George.
Or...he doesn't really know.
'Nod if you
understand,' said Wayland.
George
nodded.
'I
reckon you're a smart boy. Do as you're told, and you and me'll get on just
fine, right?'
George
nodded again.
'Good.
Now, sit tight. Sit right tight,' said Wayland. Then he headed up the stairs.
He closed a trapdoor on a length of string behind him, and George was alone
with his candle in the room.
The
room was big enough to walk around in. It was bare of any kind of decoration or
comfort. A simple, plain, rough concrete cell. George didn't get up and walk,
though. What was the point? Run to the trapdoor and bash against it, or try to
dig his way out, like a hero?
He
wasn't a hero. He was a boy. He knew things, sometimes. Not everything, because
nobody should know everything. Even at eight George understood that much about
his talent.
He
did knew perfectly well he wasn't getting out of the room by that old man's
hand.
He
pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged himself like that while he rocked
and tried to find some kind of comfort. He cried, too, because he was eight
years old, he was in a dark, dank basement somewhere, and because the man with
the cigarette and the wrinkled old face was a liar. His words came from his
mouth and not his eyes.
George
was a smart kid. Smart enough to know he was going to die, but it wouldn't be
the old smoking man.
He's
waiting for the other one,
thought George and when these strange thoughts came
to him, he knew they were true. They always were.
*
Steam
drifted from a cup of tea on a small table while Wayland sat on an ancient
wooden chair with one broken strut and waited. Every time he moved the chair
tilted a little, but that was fine, because he was a man used to that economy
of movement that came from being old.
He
tapped ash into another mug he used for an ashtray, whether needed or not. He
checked his watch. The man who had only ever identified himself as Mr. O'Dell
was late. Any later and Wayland knew he'd have to leave, and cut his losses.
It
wasn't like O'Dell to be late. But when Wayland switched on his tiny portable
television and saw the news, he thought maybe he'd been caught in the snarl up.
The presenter sat at his desk, speaking to a reporter close to the scene, with
just a few images that looked like stock photos. The kind of thing reporters
did from inside hostile territory, like North Korea, or Iran. But that made no sense
to Wayland; why would there be no film of the accident? Footage of a horrific
blaze, maybe a blackened car that hinted at a painful death; these things were
gold dust to news programmes.
The
reporter said something about a chemical spill and with a sour face on him,
like he wanted to call bullshit on the whole story. But everyone's got a job,
Wayland guessed.
The
TV droned on, but Wayland only half-listened to it, while his other half listening
out for the boy, just in case he cried out. Not that it would do the kid much good
- the lock-up was in a quiet side street and the kid was under a couple of feet
of concrete.
He
checked the watch on his left wrist once again (the watch, like everything
Wayland owned, reliable) before he tried to tap ash from the cigarette between
the fingers of his right hand and found he'd already smoked it to the filter.
Both
measures of time were reliable enough.
Time
to go.
The
garage door jolted, then started to roll up. The fluorescents winked out for a
second, then hummed back to life. And there he was; all suited up, that odd
scar pale on his forehead, and his ever-present fuck-you grin. Mr. O'Dell.
Wayland
was glad of the bright, unnatural light overhead. Few things could get his
heart beating above a murmur. Perhaps the feel of another's blood on his skin, or
a wet blade in his hand...he was well used to the dark and the things that
happened there. Still, though, the man before him made Wayland's skin crawl and
turn cold. O'Dell's eyes looked
through
Wayland, at something Wayland
could never see, but whatever it was, it felt like a bad thing yet to come. Always
there was a sense of some future pain when he met with O'Dell.
And
that fucking insane grin that
never left
.
O'Dell
stopped in front of the old man and looked down with eyes that were black and
deep and always seemed alight with madness or mirth or both. O'Dell's teeth
were a little yellow, as you'd expect. His skin pale and spotted with brown,
and his unassuming hair that was always brushed back from a forehead that bore
a single penny-sized scar. Though he looked maybe sixty, at a push, Wayland
guessed O'Dell was older than sixty, maybe even the same age as Wayland. The
madman just wore those years a damn sight better. Probably helped that he
didn't smoke and didn't have cancer up his arse.
'The
boy?' said O'Dell.
'Down
in the cellar,' said Wayland.
'Then
your job is done. I will have work for you again. Soon.'
O'Dell
held out Wayland's payment.
Wayland
had little need of those things money could buy - not any more. What he needed
was respite from the cancer, and the man before him had his brand of medicine
on tap, all wrapped up in enough cash to cover his room and board for a few
months. The cash was fine. The pills, better. He didn't know what was in the
pills. All he knew was that he should have been a couple of years in the grave.
And yet here he was - playing hooky and loving it.
The
man still gave Wayland the fucking creeps, though. Enough to keep their
dealings simple and quick, enough that he never asked what happened to all the
kids over the years. He never would ask, either, because there were plenty of
things about O'Dell it wouldn't be healthy to know. Curious about their fate,
definitely - but not enough to ask, or care.
'You
may leave, my friend,' said O'Dell.
Wayland
didn't need to be told twice.
O'Dell
would sort out the kid and close up when he was done, and Wayland was quite
happy to leave the weird bastard to it.
*
George
had only been down in the dark for long enough for Wayland Redman to drink one
and a half cups of tea. George had no idea how long it had been, but without
any of the doubt that an adult might have entertained the boy knew he was as
good as dead - he accepted it without question, while an adult might have
wasted time railing against.
By
the light of his candle George sent up a small prayer. He thought about his
dad, his mum, his teachers, his friends. He didn't believe in God. Not really.
But he prayed nonetheless, though without hope. Just him, the candle, but then...a
feeling. A
blankness.
The
other one.
Now
he knew why sensed no danger back at the supermarket. Whoever created this
aura, this
dead space
, was far more gifted than George.
The
man with fire in his eyes
, he thought.
He
was never sure where these thought came from, but not entirely surprised by them,
either. These thoughts were natural for him, something he'd always had and
never spoken of. The thoughts were clear enough - something of the mind,
something of emotion. His gift came with words and wisdom beyond his years, too,
so George understood very early on that to tell anyone would be bad.
The
dark man has come for me and he wears so many crowns they weigh him down.
Brightness
filled the cellar. A man stepped into the light, silhouetted for a moment in
the fluorescents above, and began to descend down the wooden stairs. Some
children might have screamed, or cried, or pleaded. George did none of these
things. He blew out the candle.