Hunters: A Trilogy (82 page)

Mary felt herself being pulled towards him and she let herself go – she should have known better. As Mary went to her husband, the Demon played its final card. With a sudden flicker, the remnants of the black dust oozed into Jack’s mouth and nose, the timing was perfect and Mary didn’t see it.

As she pressed her dream lips to her dying husband’s mouth, the blackness was waiting for her. Mary touched him, Jack screamed and tried to force her away, she was horrified, in his delirium her husband was denying her, fighting her off! She pushed his arms away, clasped him to her and kissed him firmly on the lips, Jack cried out in anguish and she felt his teeth crush her lips, the familiar touch of him was only a fleeting moment before she felt something else, something torrid, a warm, sweaty nastiness – something evil.

Ripping her head away, Mary tried desperately to spit the sensation out. A plume of black dust erupted from her lips, floating down to land upon her husband’s upturned face. In madness and fear she watched as the black filth slithered into Jack’s nose. His eyes flashed open, and in that instant, Mary Wildeman unwillingly looked the Demon in the eye. She saw the brilliant blue of her husband’s eyes turn a malevolent yellow. They flashed with green as Jack tried to fight the presence within, but his strength was gone. As the yellow resurfaced, the blue began to drown. Jack began to drown.

He lurched to his feet with a howl, the yellow eyes blinking out as the blueness of their real owner returned. He spat the words out. ‘Run Mary, run!’ He choked, gasping out to her: ‘Run now, for God’s sake, woman, it may already be too late, just run! I’ll see you later, in some other place, run, Mary, RUN!’ He turned and staggered away, crashing to his knees before the rucksack.

Jack fumbled, trembling fingers trying to fasten the bag, slivers of light slicing from within its canvas interior. Pulling the last strap tight, he slung the bag onto his shoulder, coughed once more and then straightened himself. Holding his head high, Jack Wildeman began to do some running of his own. Loping strides carried Mary’s tall husband towards the precipice, the edge of the track that fell away into a deep valley below.

In horror, Mary realised what his intention was. ‘Jack, wait! Jack!’ Mary screamed after him but it was too late, far too late in far too many ways. Without looking back, Jack leapt into his unknown future. As he sprang forward over the edge, Mary heard the Demon scream – a long, steel scraping shriek of a noise.

‘Get the ship! Get ouuttt! Ohhh, Out! Get out quickly! Now-now, fly out, get ouuttt! Swinefuck-pig-dog-bastardddd, out-out…GET OUT!’

Mary saw the black dust flying from her husband’s head, catching a last glimpse of his boot sole as he dived headlong into the abyss. The swirling powder rose above the place where Jack had been, it melded into the shape of the awful eagle, which she had seen plummeting onto her husband earlier. It swirled in upon itself and fluttered down onto the edge of the cliff. With a liquid chuckle, the substance began to suck itself together, drawing all its scattered particles back into a central mass. She watched in horror as it grew, becoming larger and larger as it did so. Mary stared in dismay as it magnified by the second.

Soon it was as large as a man; the rippling blackness shimmered and pulsed as it tried to find some shape. The blackness didn’t really have a shape, as such, but the petrified mind of any observer would make shapes of its own. Mary saw giant lizards, flat-headed dogs, sharp-toothed dragons, and yellow-eyed ogres, the beast became all of those things and more to her. In her mind she saw absolute evil, felt herself fill with terror. Mary saw the Demon. She saw it and she ran, ran back into the very darkest corner of her fracturing mind.

It laughed at her, and the terrible sound of its filthy words followed her fleeing horror. ‘Run, Mary, run! Run jus’ as fast as yoo can, but it ain’t gonna help yoo none, sister! I’ve been in yore mouth, and a mighty sweet little mouth it is too, lady, mighty sweet. I maybe’s gonna get me some more o’ that sweet rose! I maybeee’s gonna get some o’ yore sweet pussy next time too, Mary…sweet, sweet pussy!’ Then the Demon began to sing for her, it sang in a grating, nursery-rhyme monotone – an awful sound that pierced her inner being.

‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary – look at how my tongue doth grow! Mary, Mary, she’s my sweet fairy!’ The rhyming stopped to allow a playground taunt to take its place. ‘Mary is my fairy, fairy-Mary. Mary Wildeman wants to sit on my cock – she wants to sit on my long, hot cock!’ Then it giggled, the sound of its pure insanity cut into her like a scalpel. ‘K – I – S – S – I – N – G, Mary and me, a-sittin’ in a tree, first comes love and den comes marriage, and den…’

It paused, giggled once more, and said, ‘And den Mary gets fucked until she dies. Mary wants to F – U – C – K me, me-me-me!’ The voice laughed insanely. ‘You should see what I can do with my tongue, missy Mary, yoo want me to show ya? C’mon now, sister, don’t run away, let’s play! Mary, its big, Mary – really biggg!’

The words of its final rhyme shoved Michael’s mother over the edge of her own precipice. In shattering horror, Mary Wildeman saved herself by plunging back into a fear-wracked sleep, a deep, sick, tormented sleep.

She slept the sleep of the dead.

The next morning she awoke with an awful headache, the worst one she had ever had. Nothing would make it go away and terrible memories of the dream plagued her. She tried ringing Jack but it was to be of no avail. That didn’t really mean anything as it was very rare, if ever, that she was able to get hold of him whilst he was at work, anyway. The only time she would ever hear from him was if he called her.

Mary spent the morning sitting in the kitchen, nursing endless cups of tea and swallowing aspirin. At 11:15am the telephone on the kitchen window ledge did some ringing of its own, it was a very bad line and a man saying he was from Jack’s work tried to talk, the line hummed and buzzed. ‘Mrs Wildeman,’ bzzzz…crackle…‘I tried to call you but the line was,’ bzzzzzz… ‘…accident…Jack’s been…helicopter,’ bzzzz…crackle…‘Hello, hello?’

Mary became aware of a background noise, akin to an electrical hum, but somehow tuneful. She couldn’t help but listen to it. Then the horror rose within her as she realised something, she’d heard that sound before, she knew that tune! ‘Mary, Mary, she’s my sweeeet fairy, Mary…’ She slammed the handset down and fell to her knees on the kitchen floor. She was never to answer that telephone again, ever.

Later that day, a tall man wearing a very smart suit, came to the house. She had been waiting for him, sitting in frozen anticipation and waiting for the nightmare to become a reality. It didn’t disappoint her. The man introduced himself as someone in HR from the company that Jack worked for.

‘May I come in, Mrs Wildeman – it’s rather bad news I’m afraid, can we...?’ he said, nodding his head wearily toward the hallway behind her. There was no humour in those hazel eyes. Mary sensed the weight of something terrible resting upon his wide shoulders. After a few niceties, the tall man… Malcolm, he said his name was, and so did the business card he left on the coffee table… told her that he had bad news, very bad news. He said that Jack’s helicopter was believed to have crashed into the side of a cliff on some barren mountain range. They believed the accident had been in Southern Afghanistan, but weren’t absolutely sure. There were no survivors and no chance of rescuing the bodies. Reports did state the sighting of some wreckage, but it was scattered like confetti and badly burned. Access was impossible by either land or air.

They would never be sure.

There wasn’t a lot to say after that. He left some paper forms for her to complete, and said that she would be given copies of all the official documents once the process of tying up her husband’s affairs had been completed. Malcolm left soon afterwards – his papers untouched on the table. Mary sat in the chair, staring at the wall, terrible thoughts stumbling through the quagmire of her mind.

‘What should I say to Michael? What should I say, what should I do? Oh my God, oh my Jack, my poor Jack!’ He was gone forever and the hole in her heart would never be filled. The nightmare was real, it was upon her and Mary cringed inwardly as the coldness of its cruelty spread through her mind.

It wasn’t long afterwards that she became ill, and it wasn’t just a little cold. Mary became properly ill. The dream had broken her mind and the news of her husband’s death had broken her heart, she was nothing but a hollowed out husk. However, the lump in her stomach did its level best to fill any gaps. Endless tests confirmed the presence of a tumour, but no-one was able to completely diagnose what type of cancer it was, or even what may have caused it. It was just a little black lump and no matter what they tried, it always came back.

The prognosis wasn’t too good, either.

Actually, it was pretty bad, terminal, in fact.

For nearly five years she had battled the blackness that lay inside her, the festering wound the Demon had left behind. Her fear of him, and the mocking words he had chanted in the dream, gave her the strength to carry on, but the truth was that on the inside she was nothing more than a void. The death of Jack and the sucking poison of the blackness had emptied her heart, they had desiccated her soul. Gradually, she became more and more unwell, and by the time Michael was approaching his seventeenth birthday, Mary had become completely bedridden.

The doctors were amazed by her resilience, the size of the tumour in her stomach was by now enormous, and yet she would not allow them to operate. Despite their heartfelt pleadings, Mary refused. She knew what it was that lay on the inside of the black lump, sitting and festering within her stomach, and in some revengeful way she had decided to take it with her when she died. The thought made her smile ruefully, she remembered the thing’s panicked shriek when Jack had launched himself into space with it still trapped inside his head.

‘Get ouuttt…Ohhh!’

Mary remembered the fear she had heard within that terrible voice and she had an answer for it. ‘Well, you won’t be getting out of me, you cowardly bastard!’ The thought gave her strength and she felt the darkness writhing within. Mary allowed her thoughts a voice. ‘We’re going into the fire together, you and me. And together we shall burn! But I won’t be feeling anything because I shall already be dead! How do you like those apples, Mister Demon? You bloody coward, enjoy the ride why don’t you, who is it that’s laughing now, eh?’ She coughed viciously and lay back against the pillows, panting for breath in anger.

Michael had cared for her like a professional, and she admired him greatly. It was more than simply love which she felt for the boy. It was a deep and aching joy, a passion and envy for the person she knew he would grow to be. He would bring joy to many people, and Mary knew that his path would be a special one, one that would change things.

She never really knew what her husband had done for a living, but she knew that he, too, had been a chosen man, she had seen the calmness in his eyes, in the way he handled her everyday life and little problems. She knew he had travelled widely and had seen things that most likely would have made her blood freeze. Mary barely remembered how they had met, it seemed so long ago and Jack had always seemed to be there by her side. She felt as though they’d been together forever, living happily in the place she imagined they had always been. It was only her, Jack and Michael, there were no other family, just the three of them, and Jack’s work.

His passion for it was admirable and he never turned down a call when he received one on his weird little telephone, the device looked like a funny-shaped rock, or a pebble. Whatever work it was he did, always seemed to have paid handsomely, although they never spoke of money, her account was always healthy and Jack had no qualms about enjoying the good things in life.

He never once questioned her if she decided upon some new piece of furniture or another, perhaps the car needed changing, or Mikey had the chance of a school trip to France, or wherever. Her husband would just smile and say: ‘Live your life whilst you can, my love, we’ve plenty of money and you can’t take it with you when you leave…’ He was a good man, she had been able to see it when she looked into his eyes or held his warm hand, a very good, kind and gentle man. She missed him terribly. The hot trace of remorseful tears made a damp track down the sides of her face and soaked into the pillow.

Mary let them dry of their own accord.

Michael was of the same ilk, she saw it as plain as day within those crystal blue eyes of his, even now he was unflappable, never once did he ask about the tumour, never once did he ask her to justify her actions, to have an operation or do something other than what she wanted to do. He simply cared for her and protected her. It was all that she wanted and more than she could have asked for. Much like his father had done, Michael loved his mother, and Mary knew it.

It was a further seven months before she finally succumbed to the poison planted within her, seven long months of pain and tears, but also seven months of being with her son, time she spent well in telling him tales of his father, good times spend holding him to her and stroking his head.

She let him take care of her. In the end Mary had dismissed the doctors and nurses, after much cajoling she finally let them leave her a little machine to help kill the pain, which it did, almost. Mary didn’t really want to kill the pain as she had an idea that whatever she felt would be felt ten times by the inner blackness. She knew it, and she also knew that it hated the love that she shared with Michael; she felt it shuddering with hatred in her guts. She drew upon the knowledge and found a hidden strength in the idea. In many ways it was a terrible partnership of mutual self-destruction. The tiny piece of the Demon within was killing her without a doubt, Mary had it trapped, and as she died, then so did it. The more she died the more strength it gave her, the more strength she gained the more the blackness devoured her. It was a battle with no real winners, but, in her mind, Mary knew that she would be the winner.

Her approaching death was no longer a taboo subject and Mary discussed it openly with her son. She made absolutely sure that there would be no autopsy and that her cremation fire would be the hottest damned one they’d ever had! When she said that it always made Michael laugh, shaking his head, the boy would lean forward and stroke his mother’s damp forehead.