Harvest (47 page)

Craig thought she looked as if
she would cry. “You okay?” he broached warily.

“
What do you think?” She
snapped back.

“
You know I don’t think
Kelly meant to hit you. She was trying to bring you round. You were
getting a bit hysterical,” Craig dared.

Cat shrugged scowled, and
tightened her crossed arms stoically, looking anywhere but at him.
The tears had gone.

“
You were really giving
Rachel a hard time there. We have only known her a short while and
it’s hard for us to hear that when she has been so good to us.
Especially with what we have been through together
lately.”

Cat snapped at Craig. “You don’t
have to explain. Don’t go all ‘Mr Sensitive’ knowing your
girlfriend is in earshot. Don’t try and use me to score
points.”

“
She’s not my girlfriend.
It’s not like that; she’s just a friend,” he shot back, floundering
and flushed, very aware Kelly was only in the other
room.

Cat broke eye-contact and
raised an eyebrow in contempt. “
Whatever!
I didn’t ask for your life
story.”

Craig shook his head and flopped
back against the support of the armchair, she clearly wasn’t going
to be responsive to any attempts to restore the status quo and he
gave up trying, it wasn’t worth the hassle.

“
You call your cat Girl?”
Craig was just as surprised by Jason’s question as Cat looked to
be.

Cat’s face wrinkled up in a
frown. “Huh?”

“
You called the kitten
Girl earlier.”

Her face softened into
blankness. “That’s her name. I’m a girl and everyone calls me Cat,
so I called my cat Girl.”

“
That’s funny,” but Jason
didn’t laugh. “Seems like you have pushed her away too.”

Cat dropped back in her chair
and studied her arms with a blank face. After a time she spoke.
“Yeah I know.”

“
In a way I have lost a
parent too. My granddad is terminally ill and he’s going to die. My
best friends have been taken by the monsters, and they are probably
dead. I can’t tell my mum about the danger we are in living at The
Heights. Rachel, Kelly and Craig have taken me in to keep me safe.
You people are the only people I know that believe me or have any
idea what is really happening so I need you all to work together.
Because at some point I am going to have to go home with mum, and
we both might go missing and end up dead like the
others.”

Craig watched Cat wilt with
shame. Even he had forgotten about the degree of Jason’s
predicament, at least Kelly and Craig had a choice about whether
they stayed at The Heights. They had the freedom and the resources
to run away and no one else to convince to do the same. Jason
couldn’t just run and abandon his mum, and even though bad things
had happened at the tower he was unlikely to convince her to leave
their home. Crag squeezed the boys shoulder as he continued
undeterred, his tone firm and even.

“
We get the idea that you
and Rachel don’t get on, but what do you want to hurt more? Her or
the ‘thing’ that tried to get at you?”

She doubled forward on her seat
as if his words had caused her to fold in on herself, and she
rubbed her face roughly with her hands as if she could re-arrange
the thoughts and feelings within like a Rubix cube.

In the brief time since Craig
had met Cat, he had seen her terrified, hysterical, angry, attacked
several times, and come in contact with someone she clearly wanted
nothing to do with because of childhood issues, she could easily
breakdown any moment and that wasn’t going to help them or her.
“Look, Cat, try not to worry about anything that’s happened here.
You got it off your chest, but like Jay said. We are all trying to
work to the same aim, if you could put any differences aside just
for now, maybe the quicker you can get away from us.” Craig got up
and reclaimed his seat at the table and offered her a disarming
smile. She didn’t rip his throat out so it seemed Jason had had
some effect. “You can kill each other later, on your own time,” he
joked unable to help himself, but he was surprised that he got a
half-laugh from her, even though she tried to hide it by looking
into her lap. While she picked at her rashes he gave a discrete nod
to Jason as recognition for his intervention. Rachel and Kelly must
have gathered from whatever they could hear from the kitchen that
this would be a good time to return to the group.

Cat stated an apology with
little depth, but Kelly took it, she seemed grateful for the
absolution and apologised herself, while Rachel simply delivered a
curt nod in Cat’s direction, her eyes were red and swollen from
crying. They all took back their seats and Jason dragged a
footstool to the table this time so he could join them, probably
assuming (and rightfully) that after his intervention he deserved
to be in the thick of whatever was going to be discussed and
decided.

Cat flashed Craig a grin as
everyone settled back down around them. “About what you said
earlier: I’m glad to hear you’re single,” she whispered for
everyone to hear and gave him a playful wink.

While the apologies had
been made this was clearly only a momentary truce on Cat’s behalf
and she was still up for playing more games. He couldn’t help but
like her though, she had Vicki’s mischief in her. Fortunately Craig
didn’t have to think how to respond because she carried straight
on. “Jason is right.
Smart
kid,
” she complimented with warmth that dissolved
before she addressed the others. “I am grateful that you have
helped me out, but I’m just not usually a team player. It has been
just me for quite a while and I have gotten used to
that.”

Kelly gave an exaggerated nod.
“That’s accepted.” Although Rachel looked momentarily saddened
before she could hide her reaction. “No one is expecting us all to
get along. We just need to get some idea of what’s happening. You
can tell us what you know and go, or stick around and see what we
can do with whatever information you can give us.”

Cat shrugged, “It got in
my head, it feels like it has rooted around in everything, none of
my thoughts feel private anymore. Like I have spoken all my
secrets. But, as much as it looked into me I think I have sensed
something of ‘it’. You know, like when you look into an old
person’s face, you can see their age in their eyes, and it’s like
they are looking back at you from another time? Well, I got that
feeling from whatever was in my head. I think it is old.
Very old
.”

“
Yes, I
wondered whether it might be something ancient. With all the
excitement of today I forgot to mention that David and his
girlfriend Kim have been at the library all night doing research
for us. Kim’s a librarian. They haven’t turned up anything from the
news archives or anything, but they have found an interesting
pattern from some books on local history and maps – it would seem
the land the towers are on has been influenced by the number three;
it has three towers now, before that there were three pubs in that
part of the neighbourhood, before that there were three farm
buildings, and before that when the area was wild there was a pub
on a stage route named
The Three
Oaks,
apparently after three oak trees that had stood
on the land
.”

Kelly frowned. “Coincidence.
Surely?”

Craig was a little disappointed
in Kelly, they had been through so much together, seen so much, yet
she was still digging her heels in at accepting anything outside of
her rational ordered world. “It’s quite a big coincidence though,
don’t you think?” He laughed in the hope that Kelly would be more
likely to agree but she just shrugged and fingered the edge of the
table. “That is interesting, Rachel, but I guess it doesn’t tell us
much though, does it?” Craig added encouraging Rachel to elaborate,
and hopefully make it easier for Kelly to accept.

“
It does
suggest that there could have been some influence on this land for
some time. Also, in support of what were facing being old, I have
noticed several Runic symbols; one in the lobby at the flats, in
fact looking through the windows of the other two towers I noticed
they seem to have the same mural and I imagine the same mark hidden
within; the rune for protection – I wondered whether those symbols
repeated three times, served some unknown ritualistic purpose. I
have also seen a figure who has cast runes that seem to be
representative of what’s been happening at the flats. That goes
some way in supporting the possibility of it being very old as
runes are an ancient language. Actually,
and its just conjecture
, but I wondered if the
cowled figure I have seen with the runes might have a pagan or
Druidic connection, its just I have seen him bearing a golden
sickle and mistletoe, both are known to be Druid icons of
ceremony.”

“
Mistletoe?” Kelly raised her brow questioningly.
“Druids?
You mean
Stonehenge-and-human-sacrifice-druids?
” Her face
sharpened warily.

Rachel was very matter-of-fact
with her explanations, but Craig knew that Kelly was not going to
accept ghostly druids and rune power. He was willing to believe
because without any of this background and these esoteric theories
and explanations they would be no closer to an understanding.

“
Actually I believe there are some thoughts that
Stonehenge predates the Druids, but I don’t know about the human
sacrifices as very little is known about them as a culture, which
is why you have the romanticised-spirituality view of modern day
pagans, and the perception of demonised-rituality by people
that,
well;
aren’t
pagans.

“
Druidic traditions are
thought to have been passed on orally, so their traditions died
with them. The only written accounts are through the Romans, and
their perspective could just be propaganda; human sacrifices,
secret practices in caves, decapitating prisoners, drawing spirits
from severed heads...”

“
Heads? In one of my
dreams I saw heads.” The memory frightened him, he didn’t want to
recognise any of the faces. “Floating in some kind of gunk. With
severed limbs. Like they had been harvested and stored
away.”

“
Like you say though, the
Druid connection is only conjecture.” Kelly reinforced.

“
I think we left the
yellow-brick road of reason a while back.” Craig joked and Kelly
held her hands up in surrender and was able to laugh at herself. “I
remember the caretaker, Alec, telling me about the problems he had
keeping the grounds under control, he said the holly bushes grew
like wild-fire around the building, but he got his Christmas bonus
by using his ladders to get at the mistletoe that grew on most of
the trees, and he would sell it on to the local florists. So maybe
that Druid influence does play a part.”

“
Yes, but Kelly is right
to question, because the Druids predated the Futhark.”

Kelly raised her eyebrows again.
“I know I am going to regret this, but Futhark?”

“
Futhark is the runic
alphabet. The Vikings would have brought it to Britain, but not
until after the Druids had been expelled into exile.”

“
Maybe some of the Druids
headed to Norway when they were forced out. Maybe it was the Druids
that introduced the Futhark to them?” Craig suggested.

“
As Kelly reminded us, all
of this is just conjecture. Even if there were a Druid connection
it wouldn’t really help us. We probably won’t ever know anything of
this creatures heritage, and it’s not like we have a tome of
ancient Druid beasts lying around.” Rachel placated
lightly.

Cat jumped in. “Whatever it is;
I think it was learning about us, testing its powers at first,
experimenting, physically and mentally: seeing if it could use us
or control us.”

“
If it is an ancient
creature or power, wouldn’t it know us? Why would it need to
experiment with us? If anything that sounds more like alien
motives.” Kelly laughed and gave a mock surrender again, “Not that
I am in any way suggesting this to be aliens.”

Rachel shrugged. “If it were
Druids that were originally behind this then a lot of their magic
is thought to be around manipulating the forces of creation, the
power of nature and life; ensuring the health of coming crops,
turning weather against the enemy. Maybe they created this force or
this thing for some reason. If it is created, then perhaps it is
trying to understand the world it now finds itself in.”

“
That is how it felt to
me. It got in my head the day I went into the coma. I think it put
part of itself in my head, seeing if it could use its power through
our minds. It worked and I think that might be how my flat got
trashed; the first test of using its power through me. Somehow, I
resisted, or it didn’t go to plan and I think it shut me down and
put me out of the way.”

“
In a coma?”

Cat answered Jason with a nod.
“Maybe it didn’t have the power to kill me at that point. Or it was
keeping me for something else.”

“
It was using Malik to
watch over you, it probably had the power to kill you at any point.
It only tried to take you out of the picture when we arrived,”
Craig surmised.

“
Yeah, it must have been
keeping me alive for some reason. Maybe it was monitoring me, like
a scientist does with an experiment. It seems to use people, Malik
and that old guy you told me about, Harry. Maybe it’s incorporeal,
and it uses people to interact with the environment. If it is
linked to the land, where the towers are, then perhaps it uses
people it controls as relays to further its range and influence to
other locations. Malik was a relay for the thing to extend its
range to watch over me in the hospital and get in my head and keep
me under and out of the way.”