Wake Wood (26 page)

Louise recoiled. Patrick dropped the bird he was holding and took the one from the car roof.

He looked at it for a few seconds, and then shouted to Louise, ‘Get back in the car.’

‘What is it?’

‘Don’t argue – just get back in.’

Even as he barked the order at Louise, the car began to shake. Both of them froze in terror. Then, as suddenly as it had begun to shake, the car stopped.

‘Hey!’

They both turned at the cry.

‘Alice?’ Louise called out tentatively.

Patrick swept his torch beam around them, picking out a small pink hand waving from behind a tree. He kept the beam trained on the tree, then slowly, inch by inch, Alice slid into view.

‘You were going to leave me,’ she accused them angrily.

‘Never,’ Louise countered. ‘We love you. We won’t ever leave you, sweetie. But we didn’t know where you were.’

‘But I’m right here,’ Alice replied logically.

‘I was at O’Shea’s farm tonight,’ Patrick informed her.

‘Were you?’ Alice continued to watch her father.

‘Do you want to tell us about what you did there?’

Alice looked at him blankly.

‘I know what you did at the farm, Alice. Do you want to tell us why you’re doing these terrible things?’ Patrick demanded heatedly.

Alice slid back around the tree until she was out of sight. Then she giggled. Her laughter hung, disembodied, eerie and disquieting in the cold night air. ‘If I put enough things in the ground, then maybe – just maybe – I won’t have to go back again.’

Louise and Patrick glanced uneasily at one another.

‘Da-a-ad?’ Alice wheedled.

‘Yes, honey,’ Patrick answered, instantly wary.

‘What’s in your pocket?’

Patrick felt in his pocket, pulled out the silver chain and held it up so Alice would see it as soon as she turned around. ‘Is this yours?’ he asked.

Alice peeked around the tree. ‘I lost it again.’

Patrick held it out to her. ‘Would you like me to fasten it around your neck right now, honey, so you won’t ever lose it again?’

Alice hesitated, as if she couldn’t make up her mind to trust him. Then warily, one slow step at a time, she approached Patrick. She stopped in front of him and smiled. He returned her smile and stroked her hair before leaning forward and fastening the chain around her neck.

‘Thanks, Dad.’ She fingered the chain then hugged him. He hugged her back, but only with one hand. He thrust the other into his pocket and removed the hypodermic he’d filled with fluid in the cattle shed. He flicked the cap from the top of the needle with his thumbnail and it fell noiselessly on top of the birds’ corpses that littered the road.

‘I love you, honey,’ he said sincerely.

‘I love you too, Dad,’ she replied, ‘… and you, Mum.’ Alice buried her face in Patrick’s shoulder.

‘I love you too, sweetie.’ Louise’s voice was heavy, thick with emotion when she saw what Patrick was about to do.

Patrick pressed the hypodermic needle through the layers of Alice’s clothes, deep into her thigh.

‘Ow!’ Alice cried out. ‘What are you doing?’

Patrick pushed in the plunger. Alice pulled back, away from him. The hypodermic fell to the ground. Alice looked at it and started to sway.

Louise cried out, ‘Alice.’ She ran to her, grabbing her arms when Alice started to struggle with Patrick.

‘I want to stay with you …’ As the drug took effect,
Alice’s
voice grew fainter. She slumped and Patrick caught her.

‘It’s over,’ Patrick told Louise quietly.

‘It’s not over …’ Alice’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

Patrick picked up his daughter and carried her to the car. He laid her on the back seat and checked her vital signs.

‘Is she …?’ Louise couldn’t bring herself to say more.

‘She’s tranquillised. As I said, we have to take her back, Louise.’

There was a sudden sound of flapping wings that rapidly intensified to a crescendo. Patrick closed the back door of the estate. The noise of the large black crows flying around them was becoming deafening. Patrick pushed Louise into the car and slammed the door, sealing her safely inside before running round to the driver’s side. Ducking and weaving to avoid the birds, he fell into the seat and closed his door. As soon as he was safe inside he reached for Louise’s hand. He needed reassurance, the knowledge that he wasn’t alone.

They both stared at the windscreen but all they could see was a mass of flapping, writhing feathers.

Patrick tried the ignition. It fired, and those of the birds that could still fly whirled away. Crunching over the feathered corpses of the others, Patrick pulled away from the side of the road and headed for the centre of Wake Wood.

LOUISE PERSUADED PATRICK
that there was one person they could go to for help. She directed him to Mary Brogan’s house. He parked the car outside.

Louise held the back door of the estate open while Patrick lifted Alice’s limp body from the back seat and carried her to Mary’s front door. A light burned in the hallway and Louise realised electricity had been restored to the town. She pressed the doorbell.

Mary opened the door almost immediately. She looked from Louise to Patrick and finally to Alice, comatose in Patrick’s arms.

‘What’s happened?’ One look at Patrick and Louise’s stricken faces had been enough for her to know that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

‘I lied to Arthur, Mary,’ Patrick confessed, deciding the only course left to him and Louise was to tell the truth. ‘Alice had been dead for over a year before Arthur brought her back.’

Horrified, Mary’s eyes rounded. ‘Oh, Patrick, what have you done?’

Pale, trembling, Louise placed her hand on Alice’s chest. Panic-stricken, she screamed, ‘Patrick, she’s not breathing.’

‘She won’t stay that way,’ Mary warned. ‘You have the clutch I gave you?’

‘Not with us, not here,’ Patrick replied.

Mary looked skywards. ‘May we all survive,’ she prayed feelingly.

It was pitch black, impossible to see outside the circles of light beaming from the torches Patrick and Mary held. But the deeper Mary, Louise and Patrick went into the woods, the more they sensed life moving all around them. The sound of footfalls and the crackle of twigs breaking underfoot assailed them from all sides as their neighbours also headed to the spot Arthur had designated for the beginning of the short feather walk.

Louise and Patrick felt as though every inhabitant of Wake Wood was on the move, preparing to witness the ceremony of ‘the return’, as Mary Brogan had put it, to ensure that they really did place Alice back into the earth where she could do no more damage to Wake Wood or its people.

By tacit agreement, as the one most conversant with what was about to happen, Mary led the way. The path was uneven and she picked out her route carefully, stopping and shining her torch around the area every minute or so to check her bearings before moving on. Louise followed close on Mary’s heels and Patrick, carrying Alice’s dead weight on his shoulder, brought up the rear.

All three had to duck frequently when large black birds swooped dangerously low and close to their heads, their wings whirring, menacing in the darkness.
There
was scurrying all around them as small mammals, disturbed by their presence, fled through the undergrowth.

Louise dreaded arriving at the designated place, but at the same time she was irritated because she felt they were making slow progress.

After half an hour of steady walking, Mary turned right and began to climb the side of a steep ravine. Louise grabbed the trunk of a birch for support and followed her, taking care to avoid the showers of small stones Mary was dislodging on her ascent. Patrick stood back for a moment, shifted Alice from his right to his left shoulder and took a deep breath before following them.

‘I like Mary Brogan, Dad. She’s nice, isn’t she?’

Alice’s whisper in Patrick’s ear caught him off guard. He stumbled clumsily. Losing his footing, he fell into a bush, only just managing to keep a grip on Alice. If that had been the edge of the ravine …

The same thought had obviously occurred to Alice. She whispered, ‘Careful, Dad. I know I have to go back but I’d like to say goodbye properly to you and Mum before I leave.’

Patrick fought a rising tide of sour bile and nausea that rose from the pit of his stomach. He was angry, yet he felt he had no right to be. Arthur had warned him from the outset that the rules of Wake Wood must be obeyed. He’d known all along what had to be done. Now the time had arrived, he had no choice. But neither had he known just how wretched he’d feel when the moment came.

He tried to concentrate his energies on the task in
hand
and follow Mary without thinking further than the next step he was about to take. Head down, lips compressed, he started the climb. Already Mary and Louise were distant shadowy figures and he had to move quickly just to keep them in sight.

Alice moved her arms around his neck. He froze, expecting them to tighten. She hugged him, then released him. He weakened in relief.

‘Please put me down, Dad. Then I’ll go. I’ll disappear into the woods. You won’t ever see me again. I promise.’

It wasn’t easy but Patrick managed to ignore her plea. He kept climbing in the direction Mary and Louise had taken, determined to stay strong for the sake of Louise … and – the thought warmed him – their coming baby.

Mary and Louise reached the top of the hill and entered a clearing that seemed to be full of people, although it was so dark, Louise found it impossible to estimate the numbers lurking silently in the shadows beneath the trees. An enormous bonfire had been built from dead wood, and it dominated the centre of the space, waiting to be torched.

‘This is it. We’re here, Louise. I told you that the feather walk would be short because of Alice’s age. It will be three times around the bonfire and thirty paces to the east.’ Mary patted her arm. ‘Do you want to find somewhere that you can sit and rest until it’s time?’

‘I’ll rest after Patrick gets here.’ Louise walked to the edge of the ravine and looked down, hoping to see her husband in the darkness.

‘He was just behind us,’ Mary murmured. ‘He’ll be here any minute.’

‘I know,’ Louise answered automatically, but already she could feel a tight knot of apprehension forming in her stomach.

Patrick negotiated the steep path up the hill with difficulty. It wasn’t easy to juggle Alice and the torch he was carrying but somehow he managed it. His daughter had never weighed so heavy, but he tried to quicken his pace in an effort to lessen the distance between him and Louise. It had been a good few minutes since he’d last seen her and Mary. He was barely aware of tightening his arms around Alice as he walked, until he felt her fighting back, punching and kicking his arms and body, resisting the pressure he was putting on her. Already he was loath to let her go.

‘Dad, you’re hurting me,’ Alice protested.

Patrick kept on walking, taking longer and longer strides in his haste to reach the top of the hill.

Angry, Alice shouted. ‘Dad, put me down!’

Patrick kept moving, all the while trying not to think of what he and Louise were about to do. For the moment Alice was still in his arms. Whatever she’d done, she was his honey … his little girl …

‘All right then, Dad. Remember, you made me do this.’ Alice’s voice sharpened in exasperation.

She didn’t move an inch but Patrick gagged as if he were choking on something caught in his throat. Spots wavered before his eyes. He felt faint and tripped but he struggled on … had to keep moving … to
keep
moving … to put one foot in front of the other …

‘Don’t make me do this, Dad,’ Alice warned.

Unable to breathe, Patrick coughed. Blood trickled, warm, salt and stinging, down his cheeks from beneath his eyelids.

Alice slid from his shoulder the moment his arms fell slack to his sides. She stood back, facing him, watching as his entire body went into a paroxysm. He fought to draw air into his lungs, tried to call out to Louise and Mary for help, but all he managed was a weak groan.

And all the while he struggled to remain upright Alice stood in front of him, a few feet away, just watching – and waiting for him to collapse to the ground.

Louise paced impatiently at the top of the hill but she was careful not to move far from Mary. She studied every figure that appeared on the summit to join the knot of people assembling in the clearing, but none proved to be Patrick.

Concerned, unable to wait a moment longer, she went to the edge of the ravine, looked down, scanned the path and shouted, ‘Patrick? Where are you? I can’t see you.’ When there was no reply other than the steady tread of people making their way up to the top, she turned to Mary.

‘I’m going back down. Patrick could have fallen … He could have … Anything could have happened.’ Louise tried not to think of Howie and Peggy or what Alice was capable of.

Knowing it was useless to try and talk Louise out of looking for her husband, Mary said, ‘I’ll come with you.’

The two women started their descent along the path they’d just taken.

Mary shone her torch either side of the route, checking every shadow. Soon she became as worried as Louise. She tightened her hands into fists and muttered a silent prayer. But when she saw Alice standing ahead of them, blocking their path, she abandoned her prayer and murmured, ‘Alice … Please … no …’

‘Hello.’ Alice stared coldly at Louise and Mary, her eyes unnaturally bright, luminous icy pinpricks in the darkness.

Mary wanted to move but she couldn’t. It was as though she’d been transformed into a firmly rooted plant. She was totally incapable of leaving the spot she stood on.

Alice crept towards Mary, taking her time, relishing the hold she exercised over her.

Patrick was lying on his side a few feet away from Louise and Mary. He’d heard Mary’s voice but he couldn’t see either her or Louise. It was too dark, although he sensed Mary and his wife were close by. He fixed his gaze on Alice. If he reached out to her, could he stop her?

He tried to move one of his arms but it lay limp, paralysed, useless. All he could do was remain on the ground, cursing his own impotence.