Harvest (44 page)

Kelly could only mouth the
start of several different sentences. What was going on?

“
Quick, go get some
clothes on. I’m calling Rachel. I have to warn her. She and Cat are
in danger.”

“
Get out. Get out,
Rachel.”

Rachel ended the phone call,
her stomach lined with lead. Shaken by Craig’s warning she fumbled
to end the call, placed the phone back in her bag and tidied the
contents around it, giving herself time to process his demand and
decide how to explain it to Cat who strangely looked scared and
ready to break into a run already. “Cat, that was Craig. I know you
aren’t going to believe me, but I ask you to think back to the time
when you did trust me. He has told us to get out of the building.
He thinks were in danger…”

“
Danger?” her tone was
incredulous, her eyes wild, but only a moment ago she had looked
scared.

“
Yes. Please trust in me.
Let’s leave. Now. Quickly.”

“
Go? I’m not going
anywhere…” she reiterated with less conviction. “Not with
you.”

“
I will
happily give you a head start if it gets you out that door and away
from danger.” Rachel bit back her angry humour and attempted to
calm her voice. She was trembling, torn between Cat and the door,
aware that every second wasted in argument could be a second closer
to being taken and whatever fate that may lead to. Could she leave
her? “I know it sounds stupid…
Can’t you
just humour an old woman?
If it’s nothing
then
– then it probably confirms
that I’m a silly old bitch and you can laugh at me!
o
r
…”

“
Or what!” Cat objected
defiantly in a contrary hysterical half-laugh.

“
Or maybe, the thing
you’re afraid of in this building won’t stop at putting you in a
coma this time!”

Cat’s hand was suddenly in hers
and the contact created an overwhelming mixture of grief, gratitude
and hope swell within her, but she was distracted from the moment
and any meaning it might have for her by Cat tugging her to the
front door. Cat pulled the door open, losing her grip of the door
several times in her clumsy panicked haste. It seemed that she
needed no more convincing.

Outside the door the corridor
had been replaced by a fluttering darkness. The fluorescent light
that lit Cat’s section of the corridor was going the same way as
the one Rachel had noticed earlier. Standing in the doorway she saw
that all the lights to the right of Catherine’s door had failed,
the whole corridor in that direction was lost to shadow and
blackness. Rachel’s instinct was to turn back and shut the door,
but what good were doors and walls now?

There was something standing in
that deep black well, less than two metres from them, just out of
reach from the intermittent flashes of light from the fluorescent
line above them. Rachel found herself yanked into the corridor and
pulled after Cat who was breaking into a run for the lit section of
corridor.

“
The stairs…” Cat
instructed firmly.

The line of light over their
head failed as they ran, and Rachel heard herself yelp in fear as
the great darkness hauled itself on to their heals. The idea of the
blackness being on top of them was all Rachel needed to spur her
into matching Cat’s speed, and seconds later they made it into the
light of the next fluorescent.

Around twelve metres away at
the other end of the corridor the opening to the stairs was
suddenly replaced by a closed door. It snapped shut with an
ear-jarring boom that rolled down the corridor and back several
times. Rachel could hear creaking coming from its direction and
could see the square of glass twitching and scattering its
reflections and didn’t understand what was happening, but the
fluorescent that had just passed overhead became her prime concern
when it began to flicker and dull. If that went then there would
only be five lights between them and the dark.

In a cacophony of trampling
footfalls they reached the fire escape door, and as Rachel feared;
it would not move. She ran her fingers to the seams and found the
door was bloated to the jamb, and she then understood the creaking
noise that she had just heard. “It’s jammed. It’s fused shut!”

Rachel and Cat exchanged
desperate glances then in unison they both worked at pushing the
door, banging their fists, kicking it. The safety glass in the door
was toughened and laced with metal mesh and offered no weakness.
The noise was terrible but that could draw people out of their
homes to help them. Although, with everything that had been
happening maybe they wouldn’t come. The residents might be too
scared. Might not want to get involved. Some might already have
been taken. She screamed and balled and punched and slumped against
the door in fits of fear, frustration and resignation.

A light died, and the darkness
swallowed another section of corridor, leaving only eight metres of
light between them and the dark. The fourth light began to flicker
almost immediately. Rachel grabbed Cat and spun her round to
witness it.

“
We can’t get back to my
flat. I’m not going through that.”

“
Walls are useless
against it anyway; it can just come through them and get you.” Cat
looked like the terrified little girl Rachel had read stories to
during thunderstorms. The light flashed and died. Three lights and
six metres of light. Rachel stepped back and became flush with the
door. Cat balled her fists up ready, like a boxer ready to
spar.

Rachel heard something. She
hushed her body, and over the sound of her rushing blood and
pounding heart was a sound. Footfalls. Slow even footsteps coming
from the darkness. Something was walking slowly towards them within
the encroaching dark.

Two lights and four metres of
light. Doorframes and walls disappeared into the void. The light
from the stairs the other side of the door dimmed flickered and
fizzled out, robbing them of any light that might permeate the
encroaching wall and help them see what might be coming for
them.

One light and two metres of
light. Utter uselessness descended upon Rachel. The world
flickered, faltering in and out of existence, and then the last few
metres of corridor collapsed into nothing and the darkness consumed
them.

Chapter
Thirty Three

Craig had quickly found a
routine for climbing the stairs that involved leaning heavily onto
the banister and pushing himself forward, using his bad leg for a
little spring and his good leg for some serious leverage. It was
uncomfortable, but the sound of a door being frantically pounded
drove him on. Someone was in trouble, and from his nightmare he
just knew that it was going to be Rachel and Cat.

Craig had decided it would have
been impossible to use the crutch the hospital had given him to
climb the stairs so he had left it at Kelly’s as he rushed to
Rachel and Cat. Fortunately rushing as best as he could meant his
foot had less time on the ground and his tendons spent less time
extended which didn’t seem to cause as much discomfort as
walking.

The lights on his flight of the
stairs suddenly failed and he was pitching himself into complete
blackness. He should have been able to see some light from the
corridor of Cat’s floor but there was none. He didn’t like the idea
of searching Rachel and Cat out in the darkness, but he was getting
closer to the terrible desperate banging. He reached the landing
and the banging pounded into his ears.

He gave his eyes a few seconds
to adjust to the dark, and was able to pick out the details of the
landing from what little light soaked into the dark from the lights
on the staircase below him. He hobbled forwards, his hands held
before him and just discernable from the dark, and felt his way to
the door. The door trembled under his hands with the fists that
were pounding it. His eyes adjusted as best as they could to the
dark and he could see the door and the wall it was set within, and
could just make out the window in the fire escape door, and through
it the grey shapes of the people at the door.

“
Rachel? Rachel is that
you?”

“
Craig? Craig. Help us!
Oh God, Craig help us!”

Craig shielded himself from a
blast of air and a storm of shrapnel. The wooden door disintegrated
in a roar of splintering twisting timber that echoed and screeched
as the fire door shredded and concertinaed unnaturally against the
wall. Cat fell through the hole with Rachel stumbling after her
attempting to break her fall. Craig dove to Cat’s side and could
tell by her weight and he limpness that she was out cold. Rachel
was tugging at her and pulling at him, throwing terrified glances
over her shoulder at the darkness she had just escaped from.

There was no need for words. He
dragged Cat up his kneeling body then, slumping against the wall
for balance, he forced all his strength into his good leg and
pushed himself up. Now standing he scooped a limp Cat into his arms
and hobbled for the stairs.

The pain in his leg was
excruciating and blotted out the feel of its movement or the feel
of the floor beneath his step, but he pressed on. Rachel jogged at
his side with a hand rested on Cat’s leg, splitting her looks
between the stairs ahead and the dark behind. Craig’s
manoeuvrability was seriously impaired by his leg and by Cat. He
couldn’t see what he had seen in his nightmare, but he knew it was
there, and they had to keep running. They stumbled down the
darkened steps into the light of the landing below. A wide-eyed
Kelly waited with shock and confusion written upon her face.

She shouted above their echoing
scuffing footsteps. “What was that noise?”

Craig didn’t know what had just
happened with the door and he didn’t have the wits or breath to
answer, he was a pull-back car fully charged and committed to on
one action and direction.

A shape lunged from the
darkness of the landing above them and a wide flat blade caught the
light as it flashed violently across Rachel’s face. She fell away
and slammed Craig against the wall and Cat’s weight dug into his
chest and winded him. He stumbled and lost his footing and was left
grounded before their attacker.

The undertaker from his
nightmares lanced seamlessly from the darkness and his blade
flashed again in a downward stab. The blade snagged on Craig’s
cradled load, hitting home with a force that pushed him scrambling
further down onto the steps, the jerky flexion of his leg sent
fresh bouts of pain into his groin and gut.

The elongated angle of metal
snapped sharply back into the shadows as soon as it struck,
reflecting a flicker of light under the brim of the dark top hat,
giving detail to the skeletal face of sinew and raw muscle, split
in a silently-laughing death’s-head grin. The knife lashed out
again at Kelly, and Craig witnessed her slide clumsily down the
stairs to the landing below.

The ambush was sudden and in
seconds Rachel and Kelly had been sent to the floor and Cat had
been struck leaving Craig prone for the next stab. Riding a wave of
desperate adrenaline Craig pushed himself upright and charged
forward using Cats limp prostrate body to force the stunned Rachel
scrabbling down the stairs to where Kelly was drawing to her feet.
Craig’s legs continued to stamp at the stairs, corralling Kelly and
Rachel down flight after flight, pushing Kelly passed her own
landing (there was no safety there) to escape the building.

Kelly and Rachel didn’t seem to
be slowing, or show any obvious wounds, their only concern was
running. Craig knew Cat had been struck, but he had no idea to what
degree and he couldn’t alter his hold of Cat for fear of dropping
her or falling himself. No matter how injured she was, or how
uncomfortable and awkward his hold, he had to keep his grip and
pace. With the noise of their footsteps it was impossible to hear
if they were being followed, and he wasn’t going to stop, in his
mind that grisly undertaker was on his heels. The steps and
landings blurred by as they focussed on getting to the bottom of
the stairs.

On the ground floor
landing it seemed to Craig that they all unconsciously agreed to
break from the fury of their escape. With the kill switch thrown on
the frantic workings of his body, he sucked in gasps of air to
counter the smothering humid heat in his chest. His legs swam as
they adjusted to being immobile, like sea legs on land, and his bad
leg burned as if he could feel he friction in his tendon. A slick
of sweat formed all over his body. Craig’s underdeveloped biceps
and triceps were strained to what felt like a painful ripping point
with the constant dead weight of Cat in his arms. He lowered her to
the ground and allowed himself to feel the pain from his injured
shoulder and leg.

Rachel and Kelly hugged briefly
for comfort. Kelly craned upwards to try and catch some sight or
sound of their pursuer on the silent stairwell above them. “I think
it’s stopped,” she panted. She looked down at her top and fingered
the puncture in the fabric at her belly.

She had been close to being
badly injured. Craig felt sick at the thought of Kelly being
injured. He remembered Cat had been struck so he sank down to her
side and ran his hands over her body in a crude pawing, searching
for any injuries. He found the rip in Cat’s tee-shirt where the
knife had cut and he probed some fingers within but didn’t find a
wound, just the soft climb of her breast.

His head rang with a blow to
the side of his face from a suddenly animated Cat.

Cat struggled awkwardly onto
her elbows. “What the FUCK!” she barked viciously.