Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series Two#7) (10 page)

I stepped onto the escalator,
then felt someone tug my arm. I looked back to find that Lilly had caught up with me. I eased my arm free of her grip. Those cravings to kill had eased a little. But still, I didn’t want her to reignite them. I looked at her, knowing that she wouldn’t see anything other than my crazy yellow stare.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I nodded. “I have to.”

“Are you doing this for Kiera?” Lilly said.

“No, I don’t think so, not really,” I said thoughtfully.

“For who then?”

“Me,” I told her.

“Why?”

“It’s not often someone as evil as me gets to go back and put something right,” I said, turning and heading down the escalator. It made a chugging noise beneath me as each step cranked around on a rusty chain.

“Jack!” I heard Lilly call to me one last time.

I glanced back over my shoulder at her.

“Be good,” she smiled,
then turned her back on me and disappeared amongst the crowds on the concourse. Turning to look down into the approaching darkness, I knew I couldn’t promise to be good, but I would certainly try. If I didn’t make it back, I was content to know that Lilly had the letter I had written for Kiera.

I stepped onto the platform. It was dark, and I could only make out the edge of the platform because of a strip of fluorescent lighting overhead. It made a fizzing sound as it flickered off and on like flashes of lightning. Moths fluttered about the blinking light. The walls of the platform were constructed from a rusty coloured brick. There had once been posters attached to the walls, but all that was left were strips of faded paper. There was a wooden sign hanging from the wall. All but one of
the screws fixing it had come loose. So the sign which read ‘The Great Wasteland Railroad’ hung lopsided from one corner. Shouldn’t that have read ‘The Great Western Railway’? I wondered. I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. All I knew was I couldn’t afford to fuck this journey up. I had to get through it without killing anyone or thing. Lilly had made it clear that I wasn’t to interact with anyone or change anything other than unmask the photographer. Maybe if I could do this without killing, then I would start my own journey towards beating the curse that caused so much pain, not only to my victims, but me, too.

I caught sight of someone further up the platform. I couldn’t see them clearly, it was too dark. The strip of lighting above me flickered on and off, and the person, whoever it had been, was gone again. A
humming sound filled the tunnel to my right, sounding like a swarm of angry wasps heading my way. A single light appeared deep within the tunnel and got bigger with every passing moment. The humming sound grew louder as the light got bigger. A train raced out of the tunnel. It wasn’t a steamer like Lilly had described. The train was electric, although I couldn’t see any overhead cables or third rail running alongside the tracks. The engine was made of metal and was pointed like a snow cone at the front. Its once-white body was now covered in sheets of flaky rust. The cab windows were so cracked, they appeared frosted. It was impossible to see who the driver might be. I stepped towards the carriages and could see that each of them, like the engine, looked weather-beaten and old. There was a whooshing sound as the carriage doors slid apart.

“All aboard,” someone said.

I looked to my right to see a woman crawling up the platform. Peering into the gloom, I realised that she wasn’t crawling at all, but clawing her way along the platform on her belly. She had no legs, and a stream of black blood and entrails dragged behind her where she had been ripped in half. She looked like she was wearing a tattered and torn wedding dress.

“Climb on board,” she gargled on a throat full of blood, which spurted over her lips and onto the platform. Her hair looked black, or was it simply coated in blood? I couldn’t be sure.

“Do I know you?” I asked her.

“You killed me, Jack, on my hen night,” the woman gurgled.

It was then I remembered the young woman and her friends. I remembered how I had slaughtered each and every one of them. I got no pleasure at watching her crawl up the platform towards me, her eyes white and rolled back into her skull.

The sound of the doors closing snapped me out of
my trance. I looked up and slipped between the narrow opening and into the carriage. The doors closed behind me. I pressed my nose against the window. The woman was now standing on the platform. She wore a perfectly white wedding dress, a veil pulled down over her face. In her hand she held a small posy of pink roses.

She raised the hand holding the posy and waved at me. “Be good, Jack,” she whispered as the train started to ease its way out of the station.

I lost sight of her as the train started to gather speed. It rocked from side to side as if going over a set of badly maintained points, and I fell backwards onto the seat. It was surprisingly comfortable and my bony arse sank down into it. At once I started to feel tired. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so sleepy before. I struggled to keep my eyes open as the train slid into the tunnel. My eyes closed and my head rocked forward as I fought the tiredness. I snapped my head back and opened my eyes. I was still in the tunnel but no longer on the train. It was like the carriage had disappeared all around me. I wasn’t sitting either, but crouching. The tunnel I was now in wasn’t wide enough for a train to pass through, let alone allow me to stand up. The tunnel walls were covered in mud – no, they were made of mud, as was the ground I was kneeling on.

“Where the fuck
am I?” I breathed.

There was a noise ahead of me. I crawled forward on my hands and knees into the darkness and followed the sound. It sounded like someone was crawling through the tunnel ahead of me. I rounded a bend and stop
ped. There was a boy on his hands and knees. He was heading upwards towards a spot of light. It was then I realised where I was and who I was following. I was back in The Hollows and crawling after Isidor as he made his way above ground.

Potter

“What was that for?” I cried, jumping out of Kiera’s armchair and standing up. I put my hands to my face for the second time that day to stem the flow of blood gushing from my nose.

“That was for running out on me, Potter!” Kiera seethed behind me.

“Running out on you…?” I muttered, the warm sensation of blood flowing through my fingers stirring me awake somehow. Where was I? More importantly,
when
was I? I glanced around the apartment and realised I had been here before. This is where I’d come after leaving Hallowed Manor… after I’d gone in search of Sophie… this is where I’d discovered that picture of Kiera and her father. I glanced over at the table where I’d taken it from. There wasn’t any picture and I guessed the photographer hadn’t left it here yet.

“Don’t act all innocent,” Kiera said, now standing in front of me, hands on her hips. She was wearing her white police work shirt and black police issue trousers. “When you put in for that transfer to ‘C’ Division – you knew what you were doing… you were running away, Potter!”

“Running away…” I mumbled through the blood that was now congealing on my upper lip and chin. What the fuck was she talking about? And then like another sudden punch to the face, I realised I wasn’t talking to the Kiera I knew and loved, but the Kiera from this
pushed
world – the Kiera Lilly Blu warned me not to have any contact with. Had I fucked up so quickly? Sure I had – that was my style. I fucked everything up one way or another. It was what I was good at – my claim to fame. I had made fucking up an art form. 

“How dare you stand there and pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!” she said, stepping forward and pushing me in the chest with the balls of her hands.

I staggered backwards. She was truly pissed at me. Two different
whens
and
wheres
and nothing had changed very much. I still had the knack of making Kiera Hudson mad at me.

“Really, I don’t know…” I started,
then stopped. How did she know my name and who I was? This was the first time we had met. I hadn’t come into contact with Kiera in this
pushed
world… not unless… unless… unless? I staggered backwards again, but not because I had been pushed by Kiera, but because of what was slowly dawning on me. I dropped back into her armchair by the tall bay window. Was there another Potter… another
me
in this
pushed
world? Had Kiera fallen in love with this
other
Potter? Christ, two Potters running around in the same world causing mayhem – things really were fucked up!

“Get up and get out!” Kiera snapped at me, hooking her thumb towards the door. 

“Hang on, just hang on a minute,” I breathed, arming away the blood from beneath my nose. “I’m not sure I understand what’s going on here.”

“I think it’s perfectly clear to see what’s going on here, Potter,” she seethed, showing no signs of chilling out. “When you walked out on me over a year ago, you said you needed some space… some time on your own to get your head around things… you promised you would be in touch. But I didn’t hear a word from you… not
so much as a postcard. All I did was say ‘I love you’ and you ran for the hills…”

“You love me?” I said, still trying to play catch-up and figure out what kind of relationship the Kiera and Potter from this world had shared.

“The word you’re searching for is
loved!
” she snapped. “I did love you, but not anymore, Potter. I have so gotten over you.”

“Really?
I ran for the hills because you said you loved me…” I breathed, feeling really rather shocked. The Potter from this world seemed to be a bigger dickhead than me. I didn’t know if I should be pleased about that or not.

“Don’t you dare sit there and pretend there’s another reason you pulled the vanishing trick,” Kiera said, pointing her forefinger at me like a cop telling me my rights.

“I’m sure I didn’t run out on you because you said you loved me…” I started.

“So there was another reason, was there?” she snapped, her long, black hair falling about the sides of her pale face. “What was it, another woman?”

Was there another woman? How the fuck should I know. I wasn’t responsible for this other Potter. “No, there wasn’t another woman,” I said, looking straight back at her. “There could never be another woman like you, Kiera.”

“Oh, my God,” Kiera breathed out loud. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”

“Believe what?” I said, noticing the thousands and thousands of newspaper cuttings tacked to her apartment walls. This Kiera wasn’t so different to the Kiera I knew.

“You think you can waltz back into my life, pay me a few cheap compliments, and I’d fall straight back into your arms,” she said, her eyes wide with disbelief.

“I’m not here to pay you cheap compliments…” I started.

“So why are you here, Potter?” she demanded, tapping her foot restlessly on the carpet.

That was a good question… but how did I answer it? I couldn’t tell her the truth. “Erm… Erm…” I said, struggling to find an answer.

“You’re so full of shit, Potter,” Kiera said angrily. She reached down, took hold of the sleeve of my long black coat, and yanked me from her armchair.

“Look, I’m sorry…” I mumbled, my brain still racing to find the right words.

“It’s too late for sorry,” Kiera said, shoving me towards the front door of her apartment. She yanked it open. Staring out into the hall and not at me, she added, “Don’t ever break in to my home again, Potter, or I’ll have you arrested, even if I have to do it myself.”

I stepped out into the hall, and even before I’d had the chance to turn around and look back at her, Kiera had slammed the door shut behind me.

“Well, that couldn’t have gone any better,” I said under my breath, heading down the hall and out of the apartment block.

I stepped out onto the street. It was night and there was a fine drizzle in the air. Pulling the collar of my coat up around my neck, I headed into the darkness. I knew I couldn’t go too far from Kiera’s apartment block if I were to try and catch the photographer. I would have to stay close by and keep watch on the apartment. But where could I hide? There were plenty of trees in the street, but if Lilly Blu thought I was going to hang out in a tree, she was sorely mistaken. I knew I was something close to a bat – but that was just taking the fucking piss. Then, in the light of an overhead streetlamp, I saw a narrow alleyway set between two houses across the street from Kiera’s apartment. I headed across the road into the alleyway. With the drizzle becoming a steady downpour, I leant against the rain-soaked wall and watched Kiera’s apartment block. I hoped the photographer put in an appearance sooner rather than later.

I took one of the cigarette packets I had stolen from the machine at the campsite from my coat pocket. I poked a smoke between my lips and tried to light it. Within seconds, the cigarette was little more than a soggy white stick as it soaked up the falling rain. I tossed it to the ground. This mission was turning to shit with every passing minute.