Harvest (18 page)

Part Two: The
Threat Grows

Chapter
Thirteen

Craig drifted from the depths
of sleep and became lucid mid-dream, aware that he only needed to
flick open his eyes to wake, but the slumber was comforting and he
recognised the situation playing out around him. The images on the
monitors were shaky and unidentifiable, and Rachel and Kelly’s
panic was a contagion. Before he knew what he was responding to he
was acting on the rush in his blood and his jack hammering heart,
all he knew was that Amy was in trouble.

Craig took comfort that this
replay was only his subconscious trying to make sense of the night.
He drifted from sleep, dimly aware of the uncomfortable hospital
bed and his surroundings. Although the dream would have inevitably
become a nightmare as the evening had, the sleep that drained out
of him was strangely more wholesome and satisfying than the one he
had back at his flat before the disturbance of the monitors had
roused him. That sleep had been deep – so deep that he had thought
he wouldn’t find his way out. Something hadn’t wanted him to leave.
Something had needed him to stay.

He lay there in his curtained
cubicle with nothing to look at, resting his eyes but guarded
against sleep, listening to the sounds of the hospital, the sobbing
cries and angry shouts at pain, bed wheels squeaking past his
cubicle, footsteps and voices. He filtered through the voices
trying to tune into a conversation. He could hear a heavy Jamaican
accent mumbling and another very polite voice explaining something
in response. Probably a nurse. Then there were two female voices,
clear but distant from him.

“
It’s Chloe isn’t
it?”

“
Close; it’s Zoe. Zoe
Sampson – like it says on my badge.”

“
Sorry. Guess that’s why I
won’t make detective.” It was Kelly.

“
That’s okay, it’s Kylie
isn’t?”

“
Kylie?” Kelly laughed and
Craig found himself smiling with her. “It’s K…”

“
Kelly – I know. Only
pulling your leg.”

“
Listen, I’m not on duty
but a friend of mine is here somewhere. I was hoping I could see
him.”

‘
Friend’?
It was what she needed to describe him
as, but the idea that she might class him as a friend warmed
him.

“
The guy from The Heights?
He mentioned a Kelly.”

“
Craig – I don’t remember
his surname.”

That jarred Craig. They barely
knew each but here they were.

“
The ones from The Heights
tend to stick in my memory at the moment. We have had a few through
our doors. I do agency work at one of the flats in that block; I
take an old guy out and about for a bit of respite for his wife,
she tells me there’s been some weird stuff going on. I wouldn’t
want to be living there at the moment…”

“
I know – I live in the
same building.”

“
Oh, right. Sorry. Don’t
know what he was involved in but your people have been all over
him.” She stopped abruptly before speaking again in a quicker pace.
“You were with him weren’t you – right O-KAY not sure there’s any
other way I can put my foot in it! He’s in here.”

The curtain parted, he saw
Kelly and he recognised the nurse as one of the ones who had
treated him. “It always works in the movies...” He greeted Kelly
feebly, trying to hide his embarrassment at his injuries.

“
You
nob. A
heroic
nob I guess
though.”

“They shouldn’t make battering
a door down look so easy.” Craig eased himself up in the bed on his
left arm, careful not to move his other arm in its padded
sling.

“
They fixed your shoulder
then?”

Craig winced at the thought.
“Yup. They relocated it – and just where I like it.” The nurse
checked over his sling, her lips curled at the edges. The little
red head had a wicked smile. He imagined that nurse Zoe Sampson was
a bit of a handful outside of her job.

Kelly stepped into the nurse’s
place as she moved away to jot some notes on some paperwork on the
bedside unit. Kelly fingered his blonde hair away from his forehead
and found the thin ragged gash that was knitted together by three
adhesive stitches. “I didn’t realise you cut your head.” Craig
pretended not to notice her sudden discomfort with the familiarity
of the gesture as she tentatively withdrew her touch.

Craig grimaced
sheepishly. “I didn’t...
I er,
passed out when they popped my shoulder back in and I hit my
head on a trolley.”

“
Yeah he’s a regular hero
alright.” Zoe added, tipping him a wink.

Kelly laughed then covered her
mouth and apologised to Craig. She jumped as if she remembered
something. “Oh... It’s as near to grapes as I could get you at this
time of night...” She pulled a bundle of greasy paper out from
under her arm.

He savoured the sharp
mouth-watering smell of salt and vinegar. “You are magic.” He
beamed and sat the bag of chips on his lap, fingering it open with
his good hand and with some help from Kelly.

“
Great. Now I fancy a
Kebab and I don’t get off for hours.” The nurse smirked. “I will
leave you two to it.” She said goodbye to Kelly.

“
I take it you had the
interview from the Police too?” Craig blew on a chip before popping
it in his mouth.

“
I
wasn’t spared, they interviewed me and Rachel at your flat just
after you was taken by the paramedics.
God, what must they be thinking down the station?
They took all of Rachel’s equipment.”

“
Has there been any
news?”

Kelly sat on the bed. “No.” She
confessed shamefully. “No Amy.”

Craig put a poised chip
back into the pile, suddenly losing his appetite despite how good
the food smelt. “What happened?
I just
don’t understand
. She was snatched off her feet. She
was just...
gone!
”

Kelly nodded blankly, hugging
herself against the gutting guilt. “I don’t understand it. Rachel’s
at a loss.”

“
How about the
parents?”

“
I spoke with a colleague
– they are scraping Claire off the ceiling. She’s hysterical. Brian
has just shut himself down. Don’t think he can cope or
understand.”

“
I feel the
same.”

“
It took them ten minutes
to get them out of the bedroom.”

Craig paused in mid-expression
of a frown as he deliberated over this statement. “How come?”

“
My
friend said the door had wedged. Well;
more than wedged
. It was as if the door and the
jamb had become one lump of wood:
Fused
together!
The team had to hack it open with an axe.
They were at a loss to explain how it had happened.” Kelly frowned
and then rubbed her eyes and groaned aloud. “I’m so
tired.”

“
What time is
it?

“
Almost five I think,”
Kelly guessed without checking her watch.

“
What you still doing
here then? Get home...” Not actually wanting her to go
anywhere.

“
Thought I would wait for
you, give you a lift home.” Kelly’s face flushed.

Craig thanked her. Touched by
the fact she had waited around for him considering they barely knew
each other.

They both picked through the
chips and ran through each others experience of what had happened
at the flat, looking for inconsistencies between the two that might
offer a chance of rational reasoning for Amy’s disappearance. They
quickly lost their appetites.

Although Craig was reluctant to
head back to his flat, he admitted he was at least fit enough to
leave A&E. Kelly helped him off the bed and found Zoe to let
her know they were leaving.

The early morning air was
chilled and smelled fresh. It was raining and the tarmac was
glossed black except for the puddles of orange light below the car
park lighting. Craig squinted against the drizzle that speckled his
face. The glare of passing headlights and ambulance blues glittered
in the rain.

“
Oh, I hope you don’t
mind, but Rachel was worried about you and a bit upset about the
whole thing and didn’t want to go back to her empty flat. So after
her turn to be interviewed by the police she crashed at
yours.”

“
That’s
okay.” Craig pointed at the gold
Yugo
that Kelly hurried to. “This is –
your car?
” He eyed the
piece-of-junk-car warily.

“Yeah, she makes the speed
limit,” she justified. “She may not look like much, but she gets me
about.”

He looked over the small car.
“I can see that they are right about the Police needing pay
rises.”

“
Ha,
bloody, ha! Don’t insult
‘Goldie’
.” She stood poised half-in the car.
“You could always walk.”

Craig dived awkwardly into the
cramp interior and settled himself into the passenger seat. “No,
no. I’m always up for new experiences. Of course walking could be
quicker”

Kelly cocked her head and
rolled her eyes disdainfully with a wide warning smile as she
plugged her seat belt in. “I could have bought a better car, but I
save a lot. I don’t want to be stuck at the Heights for the rest of
my life.”

Her goal was like a punch in
the gut. Was he going to be stuck there for the rest of his life?
It was unlikely he could afford to be there for the rest of the
year. “Don’t you need me to get out and crank this thing up?”

She turned the engine over and
the car came to life. “That won’t be necessary, thank you. Back
home then?”

The shadows within the car
seemed to thicken and smother him with the prospect of having to
return to the tower block. The tower block that was home to
something they did not understand.

Chapter
Fourteen

Jason slipped out of his bed
and padded from his room, barely awake, his eyes half-open as he
stood using the toilet. He headed back to his room on autopilot
until something unfamiliar snapped him from his trance and his pace
slowed.

He stopped dead.

For a moment he challenged what
caught his eye through the lounge doorway. A smudge of light picked
out the shapes of the furniture in the lounge before it faded into
blackness. A chill wrapped around him as he stood and stared into
the black doorway.

The light had been green.

The same colour he had seen in
Amy’s scribbled drawings. The crayon that had been thickly scrawled
on the dog-eared pages in spirals and swirls, with a creature sat
in the centre like a spider with a crocodile maw grinning and long
skinny arms ready to grab.

He had glimpsed the same colour
light glowing from within Amy’s room when she had been briefly
trapped behind the door. The fear on her face stayed with him.
Emily was gone. He knew to fear the coloured light.

His mum’s room was off of the
lounge. She was all he had now and the thought of losing his mum
terrified him more than the light. He needed to see her. If he woke
in the night he often needed to check she was still there. Now,
seeing the light near her room the urge was even stronger. More
selfishly he wanted the safety of his mum.

Jason hesitated on one foot,
poised on the brink of stepping into the darkness. He launched
himself forward, charging into the blackness. His legs pounded the
floor. The air hushed in his ears, joining the sound of his own
racing blood as he ran. His heart and fear powered him the short
distance through the lounge. He burst through the bedroom door,
slammed it behind him and dived into the bed, his arms snaking
across the sheets until he found the reassuring warmth of his
mother’s body. Safe.

Police Officer Stewart Balin
shone the thick beam of his torch around the large room that faced
him at the bottom of the tower-block stairs. The air was thick with
dust and heavy with the smell of age and damp. He flashed the beam
at his feet to secure his path into the basement as he conducted
his part of the coordinated sweep through the building.

Stewart started his journey
into the large basement room with a casual confidence, not
bothering to hunt down the light switch. His search took him deeper
into the room and the darkness swept around him. The lance of light
from his torch cut and sliced at the black tendrils of shadow that
clung to the borders of any relief. The black smothering monster
that surrounded him ate at his resolve to move forward, devouring
his choice of direction except for the steps that would lead him
back out of the basement and up and away into the safety of light
and his colleagues.

The spot of light from his
torch slid across the cabinets and shelving before him, jumping the
cracks and seams of the doors. He rested it on a black gap behind a
cabinet that had been pulled aside. The inky black strip swallowed
the light from his torch as if nothing existed beyond.

Leave... There’s nothing down
here... Go back up... No one will know...

Stewart’s fear marshalled
as he heard the strong spontaneous and desperate thoughts in his
head.
Were those his thoughts?
It had sounded like his mental-voice... Yet there was
something in the irrational thoughts that was too loud, too clear,
too commanding.
Not quite him.
He tried to shrug the thoughts off, but the doubt teased his
fears. He spun on his heels, and clasped his radio at his lapel and
squeezed the buttons, launching a rake of static at the
silence.