Berserk (7 page)

He was about to drop the legs, back away, away, when he saw that the chain was wrapped around another bundle, another corpse. This one still seemed to have its head attached. He pulled again and it popped free of the ground, wet and filthy and yet obviously whole. It was chained to the three headless corpses, the metal wrapped around its chest, under its armpits and between its legs, thoroughly entangled, and Tom wondered why anyone would need to bury a dead person like this.
run

He faltered only for a second before moving slowly down into the pit again. These bodies were more whole than any of the others he had brought out, mummified rather than rotted, perhaps because they had been buried deeper in the peaty ground. The first skull stared at him as he reached over the two adult bodies, grabbed the headless child’s skeleton and pulled it across to himself. He was crying, and moaning, and there was a strange keening sound that took him many seconds to realise actually came from him. The child was as light as a pillow, its body seemingly whole and yet dried out and desiccated. The only thing that gave it weight was the chain. Tom placed the corpse gently between the headless adults, clasped the chain and pulled. He lifted, grunting with the effort, tears and sweat blurring his vision as he tried to make out what was wrong with this thing’s head, why it was shaped like that, why it was
turning
. . .

And then the tiny corpse reached out and grabbed Tom’s arm.

CHAPTER THREE

Cole stared down at Nathan King, who was tied onto a chair with his own torn-up clothes. The idiot was still trying to play with him, string him along, and Cole did not have time for that. Not now. His purpose, stalled for a decade, was moving again. The last thing he wanted to be doing was beating information out of his friend, this useless ex-grunt. “You’re wasting my time,” he said.

King shook his head. “For God’s sake, I told—” Cole’s fist connected with his chin and flipped his head back and to the side.

King gasped, spat blood, and Cole stepped back so that he did not get splashed. “Think about what you’re going to say to me next,” Cole said. “Daz told me you went back to the pub to meet Tom Roberts. There’s only one reason you’d have done that, and we both know what that is. So, for the last time . . . what did you tell him?” He massaged his knuckles and turned away.

King’s flat was small and untidy. There were grubby hand marks around the light switches, cobwebs in the ceiling corners, and used fast food containers piled up beside the only armchair. Food was trodden into the carpet. Beer cans were crushed and thrown into one corner of the kitchen. He lived like an animal. Cole did not want to be here – he felt dirtied just breathing the same air – but he needed more from King. More than just,
I
told him it wasn’t like the Army said.
In one way he was glad that King had spilled the beans at last, but he needed to know which beans and what flavour. It would do Cole no good at all storming blindly into the countryside in search of phantoms he had lost a decade ago.

“Cole . . .” King spat several times and a tooth tumbled from his mouth. “Fuck’s sake, Cole, you knocked my tooth out! I don’t see you for ten years, then you turn up and knock out my tooth? What’s the point of that, eh?” Shaking his head, he stared at the bloodied molar stuck on his thigh, and his whole body shivered.

Cole looked at the pathetic man strapped into the timber kitchen chair, and shame bled into his anger. “Sorry, Nath,” he said. “Really mate, I’m sorry. But more than being sorry, I need to know exactly what you said to the old guy about his son.
Exactly. Everything.
He’s left his house with his wife and I need to know why he’s suddenly gone. I can guess
where
he’s gone, that’s no problem, because it’s ten years ago this weekend. But Nath . . . I don’t want to go down there blind and deaf, mate. I need to know how much you told him. I need to know
everything
he knows. And I’ll hit you again if you continue to piss me around.”

King hung his head, blood dripping into his lap. Tears followed, and the big man sucked back a sob. “Cole, it just came out,” he said. “Steven Roberts was his son – remember Steve? – and the guy looked so sad, you know? So desperate for the truth. I thought it might help him to know. And I told him where to look.”

“The grave?” Cole went cold.
We left her chained up, wanting her to suffer, wanting her to be alive down there forever
. . .
“I’ll meet you again,” she had said
. . . “Holy shit, Nath.”

“I didn’t tell him anything about—”

Cole hit him again, and there was real anger behind this one. “You twat! Why the hell would you do something like that? Does he know? Does he know about
her
?”

King shook his head, blood and saliva swaying from his chin. “Of course not,” he said, tired and sad and scared. “You think I’d have told him about them? I don’t even know all about them, or understand what I know. And I don’t want to think about them but I do, every night, I dream and scream and sometimes I think sharing the fear will reduce it, you know? But if you think I told him all that, you’re mad.”
do

“I am mad,” Cole said. “Mad that they got away.”

“The ones that got away.” King shook his head. “They’re long, long gone, mate.”

Cole sat on the armchair and stared at King. He had been a good soldier ten years ago, and someone Cole could have trusted with his life. Now he was a fat shit, living like a pig, sitting in the chair and spilling his guts after a couple of punches. He stank. He had no respect for himself any more, and no sense of responsibility about the secrets he knew.

“Did you tell him his son isn’t buried there?”

King raised his head and stared at Cole, and Cole thought,
Oh shit, he doesn’t know, he really doesn’t know.

“Now you realise why I want to know what you told him.” But the words suddenly felt hollow in Cole’s mouth, because really there was little point in going on. He knew as much as King could reveal – Tom Roberts had gone down to the Plain to look for the grave of his son – and the most important thing he had to do now was to follow Roberts, stop him, and if necessary silence him. Roberts knew too much already. The slightest risk of him opening the grave . . . that could not be allowed to happen. Not now. Not after so long, when most of the people who knew about the berserkers were dead, or mad.
exactly

Cole stood to leave. “Nath, you live like a pig. What happened to you? Why did you go this way? You could have sorted yourself out, got a decent job in security. Worked abroad, maybe. Why this?” He gestured at the filthy living room, encapsulating the whole of King’s life with one wave of his hand.

“Seeing what I saw . . .” King said, but he shook his head and looked down at his bound arms and legs. “You leaving me like this?”

Cole put his hand on King’s shoulder and squeezed. His old comrade. His old friend. “No,” he said, and as King’s shoulders relaxed Cole grabbed him around the head and broke his neck.

* * *

Outside Nathan King’s second-floor flat, Cole stood for a while and held onto the landing balustrade. He was shaking. His hands were clawed, cramped, and his shoulders ached. He had not killed anyone for six years; he had killed a friend. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, taking strange comfort in the city smells after leaving the reeking flat. Exhaust fumes and the stench of stale fat from fast food restaurants were preferable to the stench of King’s decline. Memories flashed by, images of King and him ten years ago, young and brash and indestructible.
never

Working at Porton Down had been a much sought-after posting. The food and accommodation had been good, the security work interesting, and the local ladies had always been interested in men clothed in uniforms and secrecy. Days on the base were spent patrolling the perimeter, fixing fences, handling the dogs, guarding the gates and occasionally doing over reporters who made it their mission to ‘reveal breaches in security’. Evenings were spent at local pubs and clubs, spreading wild tales without actually saying anything, and letting the local girls work off their fascination in the back seats of cars or on the moor behind the pubs. Cole, King and the others had revelled in the assignment. They were reliable men, good soldiers – that was why they had been chosen – but they were also more than aware that they had landed a cushy number. They worked hard at the security of the base, always aware that a true breach would likely result in them being sent back to their regiments, and put a lot of energy into their leisure time, too. The base had a good gym and ample countryside for running. They kept fit. They banked their extra wages. Rarely, if ever, did they question what was going on at the camp. They all knew of the facility’s history, but they were Army through and through. They understood the need for deterrent and retaliation, and none of them had any time for the occasional protestors who camped at the main gates, waving their placards and demanding the safe return of a bunch of bunnies or puppies.

Three months after starting there, he and King had witnessed the return of the berserkers from Iraq.

Cole opened his eyes and stared out across the park opposite the flat. A young mother was pushing a pram along a path, a toddler running beside her, aiming for the playground. The toddler – a little girl – ran on ahead, jumping onto the roundabout and waiting impatiently for her mother to begin pushing. The baby squealed in its pram as it watched its sister having so much fun. The mother, tall, red-headed and attractive, pressed the pram’s brakes and pushed the roundabout, bending to kiss her daughter every time she span by. The little girl giggled and the mother smiled.

They don’t have a clue,
Cole thought. He had just killed his friend for them. For their safety. For the little girl’s future. That’s what all this was about. After six years spent living in one bed-sit after another, drawing the meagre Army ‘pension’ they had awarded him after letting him go, picking up crappy menial jobs as he watched for signs of the berserkers’ re-emergence, it had all come to this. He was convinced that he was doing right, and yet sometimes he had to remind himself, to reinforce his conviction.

Because Cole was not a bad man. Cole was a
good
man.

He had left the Army six years ago, three months before killing Sandra Francis. They had refused to let him pursue the escapees, saying that they were gone and that was that.
Gone back to wherever they came from,
the brass told him.
They’ll not worry us now.
But he had never forgotten the wagon that rolled in one June morning under cover of darkness, ‘Robinson Fresh Foods’ painted across its sides. The sounds he had heard from within had stayed with him forever. And then, seeing those things as they brought them out, his view of the world had changed in seconds.

The woman in the park reminded him of the scientist, Sandra. She had been attractive, her red hair hiding a stunning intellect behind Barbie-doll looks. And that had been Cole’s mistake. His sexism had made him believe that it would be easy to persuade the truth from her.

What did you do to the girl?

I can’t tell you.

What makes her special?

I can’t tell you.

You have to
—

No, I don’t.

What was in the syringe? Did you help them, did you make them immune to the silver?

I can’t tell you.

Did you help them escape?

A silence, long and loaded. And Sandra never shifted her gaze from Cole’s eyes.

You did. You did! Why? You have to tell me. Really, you do, because I need to know, and I’ll find out one way or the other.

Then it’s the other.

More talking, more pleading, but however tightly he’d tied her to the chair and however much he threatened, Cole could not bring himself to torture her. And really, looking back on it, he believed that nothing would have made her talk.

Because she was scared.

Please, tell me or
—

Or you’ll shoot me?

And perhaps that had been mistake: not believing that he would.
her

Cole marked this as the point when he had grown up. Leaving the Army had turned his purpose into a private crusade. His shoulders had bowed under the weight of guilt and responsibility, and he spent many waking hours convincing himself that he was doing everything right. There were no voices, no jealous gods giving him their time, but there God, present at every twist and turn of his life and listening to his fears and hopes. He knew what Cole was doing, and He knew why, but that did not make the remorse and doubt any less difficult to bear.
was

Cole let go of the balustrade and smiled as the woman glanced across at him. She smiled back, and went back to playing with her children.

I’m doing all this for them,
he thought, patching any holes in his conviction. He had just killed a friend. He shook his head to dislodge the memory and it slipped down through the gratings in his mind, under the skein of reality he had created over the past ten years, finding itself prisoner with so many other memories, ideals and discarded morals that he worked so hard to keep subdued. That false vision of reality kept them all hidden away. The memory would come back, he knew that, haunting him forever, just as the memory of Sandra Francis’ death haunted his dreams. But even as Cole walked along the landing and down the outside staircase, Nathan King became a man he had once served with at Porton Down, a fun friend, a good soldier. He was a million miles and ten years away from that corpse already cooling in the filthy flat.