Harvest (45 page)

Craig’s hands leapt from her
body into an open-handed gesture of surrender. “Whoa! Calm down! I
was checking for injuries!”

Cat fingered the tear in her
top and nodded her understanding without apology. She looked around
at who was with her. “How did we get away…?” Cat climbed onto her
feet but her legs buckled beneath her. Craig braced her
instinctively and she leaned into the support. “You’re quick with
your hands.” He withdrew his hands reflexively but there was a
fleeting panic in her eyes and she snatched hold of him before she
could fall. “No. Really. It’s appreciated…”

A sourceless breeze swept
across Craig and Cat. She looked into his face, deathly pale with
her lips trembling with despair, and in the intimacy of the moment
he could feel her fear. “It’s coming for me again.”

The lights of the stairwell
began to flicker. Rachel and Kelly drew closer to Craig and Cat.
The landings above them broke abruptly away into nothing as the
landings blacked out one after another sending the darkness
collapsing down upon them.

The ground floor lights failed
and they were buried in the darkness.

Craig heard Kelly shout that
she would get the door to the lobby. The door sprang open and a
coruscating green light flooded in, bringing with it a shrieking
displacement of the atmosphere and two unnaturally long arms
flailing through the air. They swatted Kelly aside, slamming her
into a wall, while the hands reached into the landing to snatch at
Cat.

The hands wrapped their
elongated fingers around Cat’s arms and Craig could feel her being
tugged away from him. He was completely startled by the suddenness
of the attack and tottered on his toes, unprepared for the tug of
war. Despite the shock he locked his muscles and fought to keep his
grip and balance against the luminescent creatures pull. He became
Cat’s anchor, locked into close quarters with the creature, staring
into its six hauntingly human eyes divided between two gash-like
sockets, its jaws gnashed and snapped like a wild dog from behind a
muzzle of thin bones, which resembled a chicken carcass fused to
its face. Craig cursed in shock and exertion.

Rachel lunged forward in
wide-eyed horror and snatched instinctively at the creature’s arms
to free Cat. Its cadaverous face snapped in her direction and
creased into a vicious leer at her interference. It shrugged its
arms out and slapped Rachel down onto the punishing concrete
steps.

Craig’s grip slipped as Cat
thrashed in the manacle hands of the creature, squirming against
its hold. Rachel sprung back to her feet and clutched at Cat’s
ankles and legs to aid him in stopping Cat being dragged away. The
creature snarled and yanked harder, loosening Craig and Rachel’s
hold on Cat and stretching her prone and defenceless between them,
the aura grew around her as she was drawn further into its
swallowing maw. The creature walked its grip down to a more secure
hold under her arms, pulling her snug to its legless body. Her face
inches from its bared internal organs braced against its fleshy
cage of ribs. Craig panicked as his grip slid from her thighs to a
weaker purchase on her knees.

Kelly lunged into the skirmish
with a fire extinguisher and smashed it into the creature’s face.
It ignored the blow and yanked Cat further into the light, leaving
Craig and Rachel with a foot each. Kelly returned with a second
strike, but it effortlessly batted the blow aside and snatched its
hand back to Cat again.

Craig watched Kelly reel with
the creatures parry, then turn her momentum into a
one-hundred-and-eighty degree swing that brought the metal
extinguisher slamming down on the creatures head and the arm that
had just returned to secure Cat.

The creature lost its grip and
Cat swung to the floor striking her head on the concrete. Rachel
and Craig stumbled backwards in the direction they had both been
pulling, dragging Cat sprawling across them. The heavy extinguisher
tumbled into the light and disappeared. With a mournful howl the
creature swatted Kelly back against the wall and receded back into
the light.

Without words the four picked
themselves up and fled from the building.

It watched them disappear into
the night and the world. It did not feel frustration or anger at
losing the thing called Cat to the others that were now becoming
aware of It, for at the exact same time It watched them escape It
was in other places. It was in Vicki Day’s thoughts, riding her
madness. It stood before Alec Jacob’s in the guise of his distant
mother pleading for him to accept her as real – and he spoke back.
It controlled the undertaker that carried the body of Neil Harris
down the stairs, one of many bodies It would fetch down to the
basement. It was in the mind of the father who scrubbed at the pool
of blood that had drained from his two teenage sons that had killed
each other. It understood so much about flesh, what would be
painful, what would cripple, what would kill. It knew as much about
their minds, what they feared, what hurt, what would break one of
these things, what could drive one to kill. It got the mother of
the two sons to speak to the scrubbing father “I’m glad they’re
dead.” It watched the violence unfold, and It had only used four
words of their language. It could feel the Billy-infants gnawing
hunger, a wanting and a need that It also understood, but unlike
the Billy-infant It was not weakening, but growing stronger.
Stronger from the flesh of Clive Jenkins, Maureen Brooke, Jim and
Sylvia Smith, Moll Dancey and all the others It had just taken, and
was now dissolving and merging together in a shape that It willed.
Their life-forces flowed into It, increasing Its power and Its
hunger. There were so many to feed upon in the tower, and so many
more beyond.

Part Three:
Facing t
he Monster

Chapter
Thirty Four

Craig found the forced
quiet at Rachel’s dining table unbearable; he was regretting
joining Kelly and Cat there and wished he had sat with Jason on the
armchair. He could feel Jason’s eyes burning into his back and
could sense the boy’s stifled urgency to know what had happened, it
was emanating from him like radioactivity from a power plant on
meltdown. The others shared Craig’s shock from their encounters and
none of them had wanted to recount their experiences to Jason upon
returning. Jason had seemed to accept Craig flagging down his
racing questions and he had sat watching the silent group, waiting
for answers. At least there
were
answers now.

Craig and the others had finally
seen what was behind the disappearances and violence. He had only
seen fleeting glimpses of the undertaker-thing on the stairs and
had spent most of the struggle with the other creature with his
eyes closed against its light, but he could recall every grisly
detail of both creatures into his head with the clarity of one of
his photographs, and although those things were terrifying and
their reality nauseating he experienced euphoric relief whenever he
thought of them. The fact that they were real, and could exist
outside of his nightmares, completely exorcised his self-doubt and
fear that somehow he was responsible for their actions.

With undeniable confirmation of
there being something supernatural or paranormal behind things they
now needed to decide on what the next step was. He looked over at
Kelly propped up at the table on her elbows with her head in her
hands and the fall of her dark hair hiding her face from him. Her
belief system was probably in tatters.

Cat sat slumped in the dining
chair nearest the door, securing her exit, he doubted she wanted to
be there with them at all, but she was probably too much in shock
to be alone. She divided her attention between petting the kitten
that nestled comfortably on her lap and scratching at the reddish
splotches that trailed from her wrists in pink veins. She had
bluntly refused any concern or offer of aide from Rachel with a
heavy dose of contempt that had sent her scurrying to the kitchen
to prepare drinks for everyone, and probably to fall apart in
private. He wasn’t sure what to make of Cat, or what she felt, she
seemed to spend most of her time in anger. The rash looked painful
and he hesitated around asking. “Looks sore…” Craig braved nodding
to Cat’s wrists.

Cat smiled wanly and
stopped scratching. “I said I’m okay
. It’s just like
an allergy I think.”

Her tone was softer than he had
expected. When the creature had let her go she had hit her head on
the concrete floor, but he decided not to ask about her head in
case he should lose his in return. The rash was all up her arms
where the creature had held her. In places he could make out the
welts where the creatures’ fingers had been. Rachel appeared in the
doorway bearing a tray of hot drinks and set it down on the table
and handed them out. She gingerly sat a hot chocolate down in front
of Cat.

“
You said you didn’t want
anything, but it’s there if you want it. I remembered that you will
only drink a hot drink if it’s hot chocolate.”

Cat looked up and fixed Rachel
in a firm stare. “Things change. I prefer coffee now.” Cat raised
her eyes at Rachel’s flustered apology and her offer to make a
coffee, and shooed her away with a wave of a hand.

Rachel looked dejected, and then
hesitant when she saw that the only seat available was next to Cat.
Craig realised that he and Kelly should have put more thought into
where they had sat. Cautiously, Rachel took it, and Cat shuffled
her chair a few inches away from her. There was a frosty exchange
of looks that Kelly caught as she emerged from behind her hair to
claim her drink, she responded with a look of disgust at Cat. Craig
silently took in a deep breath and held it, but fortunately Kelly’s
face softened before Cat could notice her expression. Three
volatile women sat around the table. Craig joined everyone else in
nursing their drinks and decided he would take the first
opportunity to join Jason at the sidelines.

After an awkward silence he
looked up, just as Cat raised her mug in a toast to the table and a
spiteful grin twisted her face. “Get the marshmallows out! Anyone
know any good camping songs?”

Craig looked down at his drink
again. Focus on your drink. Don’t look up, don’t make eye-contact
with anyone.

“
Having a tea party is
hardly pro-active,” Cat pushed.

“
How would you prefer to
react to what’s happening?” Kelly’s response was quick but calm and
even, while the question was challenging, and Craig hoped it was
sobering. He was relieved at having a negotiator at the table and
he dared to look up again from his mug and found Cat glaring back
at Kelly, her vivid green eyes as hard and sharp as emeralds. Kelly
didn’t appear shaken and didn’t seem to need to posture in return,
just held her gaze. He was sure Kelly had faced off against much
more intimidating girls than her.

“
You wanted to escape that
thing and you had a choice in where you escaped to. That choice is
still open to you any time you would like to take it.”

One-point to Kelly! Craig called
out in his head, careful to not let any of his satisfaction be read
in his face. An uncomfortable brace of tension had settled across
the table between the two women. He felt a pang of guilt at leaving
all the peace making to Kelly. He decided to jump on the grenade of
a situation, and hope it wouldn’t go off. “Maybe we should all just
chill out a bit? A lot’s happened. Hopefully I’m not the only one
in shock. Maybe we can just focus and work out what’s going
on?”

He was rewarded by a weak smile
of gratitude from a beaten and vulnerable looking Rachel, and Kelly
softened her steely glare and allowed it to drift from Cat to the
others.

“
How about something to
calm our nerves?” Kelly slid hers and Craig’s mug to
Rachel.

Rachel looked caught, then left
her seat and retrieved a bottle of brandy from beside the armchair.
With a trembling hand she sloshed a shot into Kelly’s mug then his.
Cat slid her mug over and Rachel looked unsure whether to dose her,
but gave in. “Good for shock,” she colluded, it was clear that
Rachel saw the opportunity as some kind of inroad to Cat.

“
If you say so. I just
think there’s always an excuse for alcohol – don’t you?” Cat took a
deep slug.

The comment felt pointed but
Craig didn’t have a clue what about. “I’m with you on that one,”
and he took a swig.

Cat ignored him and kept her
focus on Rachel. “Aren’t you going to top your own up?”

Rachel hesitated in sitting back
down. “I… er, yes. Of course.” She finished seating herself and
poured a meagre shot into her own mug.

“
That wasn’t much. Or are
you just topping up on what you added in the kitchen?”

A little voice from over Craig’s
shoulder cut in insistently. “So, what happened?”

Craig wanted to twist round and
thank Jason for the timely interruption. The three women looked
surprised, as if they had forgotten Jason was even in the room.
Rachel and Kelly shared a look of uncertainty with each other that
Craig understood. Jason was young, how much should they tell
him?

“
It came for me.” Cat
stated, deciding for them.

“
The same thing that came
for me?”

“
A creature that reaches
out from a burst of green light to grab you. Sounds like
it.”

“
There was a skeleton
thing too,” Kelly offered reluctantly.

Craig could see that Kelly and
Rachel were uncomfortable sharing this with Jason, but he had
already encountered the thing that had tried to take Cat, it had
come for Jason and he had faced it alone. Craig twisted round in
his chair so that he could see Jason too. “It was more like a
zombie, actually.”