Pandaemonium (39 page)

She didn’t hesitate to worry whether he would respond, whether he would permit this: it was as though they both knew in one sudden moment that it had to happen. She doesn’t know how long ago that was. Time is suspended here, and while she is in this moment, she knows she is not in the horror of the immediate past or the terror of the immediate future.

It’s not some gentle embrace, some delicate, tender kiss. It didn’t even begin that way. It is both a hunger and a feast, a thirst and its slaking, a need and a fix, but there is no satiation, only escalation.

She pulls his hand to her breast because she wants to feel it there, but it’s not enough. She tugs her top up so that her chest can press against his with no material between them, but it’s not enough. Then she takes his hand and pulls it between her legs, holding it in place with her own as though she’s afraid he’ll take it away.

Deso’s not complaining, but what with demons running around, he is genuinely wondering whether Rosemary might have become possessed. He quite liked the girl, thought there was more to her than she let people see under all the holy wullie stuff, but he didn’t realise how much he fancied her until she kissed him. At that point he became immediately aware he was experiencing something unlike with any previous lassie he’s got off with. If what passed between him and the others was a nine-volt battery, then this was like being plugged into a hydroelectric power station. However, when she put his hand up her skirt, it was as if she was no longer in control, no longer quite here. She stopped kissing him then too, just buried her face in his neck as she held his hand still and moved against it. There were bangs in the distance: three, then a little later, three more, but she didn’t even seem to hear them.

She lets out a series of shrieks muffled by his collarbone, her whole body shuddering, the fingers of her free hand gripping him like she might fall off the world. Then she lets go of his fingers and he feels her go loose with a long sigh. She’s back now.

Uh-oh, he thinks. This is where it turns to dust. This is where Titania sees that Nick Bottom has a donkey’s napper.

Rosemary steadies her breathing, still resting her head against his shoulder. Somewhere in her mind’s horizon she can see a storm of embarrassment and shame, but it’s a splinter in a kaleidoscope, and it belongs in the old world where demons never came, where she would never have had the nerve to even kiss Deso.

In this dark new world, the guilt doesn’t come. There is clarity instead, clarity like she cannot ever remember. She understands that this world, this universe, is something far different and far more complex than that which she had so long believed.

Within this greater complexity, however, she knows three things for certain.

If there is such a thing as sin, then what she just did most definitely wasn’t it. If there is such a thing as God, presiding over such an infinite domain, then He cannot possibly be concerned with what a girl did with her genitals.

And if the demons are already out there, then it’s way too late to worry about damnation.

‘Thank you,’ she tells him, finally pulling away from his shoulder and looking him in the face. His eyes glint a little in what meagre light there is, the only features truly distinguishable.

‘Eh, any time,’ he replies uncertainly, a little taken aback. ‘I mean . . . you know . . .’

‘I do,’ she assures him. ‘So we have to make sure there is an any time. Let’s have a look around at what’s in here.’

Rosemary reaches for the light switch again, but Deso stops her once more.

‘I’m sure there’s nothing out there,’ she argues.

‘I think I saw a torch. If we use that, we won’t be so blind when we switch it off again.’

Deso locates what does indeed turn out to be a small Maglite. He switches it on and plays it around the shed, revealing a tractor mower to be taking up a great deal of the floor space. The beam then picks out a number of plastic cylinders containing pesticide, next to a high-pressure spray lance with back-pack mounting. Deso continues to scan the walls but Rosemary grabs his hand and directs the torch back towards the pesticide sprayer.

Deso doesn’t get it.

‘What?’ he asks.

‘It says it’s an eighteen-litre tank, and it doesn’t have to be pesticide that’s in it.’

‘What, then? You think we could get Father Blake to bless it and it’ll turn into a holy-water gun?’

Rosemary takes the torch from his hands and picks out another large plastic container on the floor to the rear of the mower. It has a pressure-seal cap, a detachable filling nozzle thrust through the carrying handle, and the words ‘highly flammable’ etched on it in several different places.

‘I was thinking infernal rather than divine,’ she says.

He opens his eyes again and catches sight of someone else’s gaze: one of the girls looking briefly across then turning away again. He is reminded, minutely, that such an embrace would have been the talk of the steamie mere hours ago. Now it seems bizarre to care about things like that. Nonetheless, it’s important to believe that there is a normal world for everyone to return to: a world where these kids get to go back to school and have a future. He has to focus on getting them there, but he’s starting to ask himself what he wants his own role in that world to be.

Sendak gives the hall a quick survey, checking the fortifications. Kirk stands alongside him as they look through the small windows in the emergency doors.

‘Anyone else still out there, you think?’

Sendak shakes his head. ‘Never seen anything like it, not in man nor beast. A bloodlust that’s beyond feral, and yet they’re intelligent, coordinated. More like warfare. War
crime
.’

‘They leave nothing alive,’ says Adnan. ‘Fuckers only spared Marianne and Cameron to use as bait.’

‘They crucified them,’ adds Radar.

‘Crucified?’ Sendak asks.

Blake glances across, over Heather’s head.

Marianne holds up her bandaged hands, red soaking through at both palms. She and Cameron have been laid out on exercise mats, having had morphine administered by Mrs McKenzie. Marianne is groggy, but she has sat herself up against the wall, partially resting against Deborah. Cameron, however, is mercifully unconscious.

‘Fair to say they’ve got a serious issue with crucifixion,’ Marianne says bitterly. ‘We were ambushed by several of them, and we only got away because Bernadette pulled out a crucifix.’

‘They shrank from the crucifix?’ Blake asks.

‘No. They went fucking postal. Ignored the rest of us and all fell upon Bernie. At least it was quick,’ she adds, glancing towards Cameron. ‘I saw some other bodies in the barn. I’m not sure who. They’d been eaten.’

‘Marky and Theresa,’ says Beansy, his voice dry.

‘Didn’t kill the horses, though, for what that’s worth.’ Blake doesn’t understand why, but he feels relief at Marianne’s response to his question, despite it discounting a possible means of defence. While his faculties can still comprehend this, he knows he can ward off complete despair. He knows he may be clutching at straws to be still searching for what would be termed a ‘rational’ explanation, but those straws are the only thing he
can
cling to if he wants to believe that the normal world still exists.

Sendak casts an eye over Cameron, taking in the makeshift tourniquet Mrs McKenzie has fashioned from ripped-up clothing.

‘This boy’s lost a lot of blood,’ she reports. ‘He needs hospital treatment soon or he’s not going to make it.’

Sendak scans the room, calculating.

‘Twenty-three,’ Deborah tells him, anticipating what he is about. She holds up the sheet of paper bearing her lists of names.

‘Okay. Gonna be snug on legroom, but I can’t see anyone whining about it.’

‘About what?’ Blake asks.

‘Got two Land Rovers outside.’

Heather finally pulls away from Blake and looks at Sendak like she can barely dare to believe it.

‘But this is the part where you tell us the keys are in an office at the other end of the corridor we just escaped down,’ Blake says.

Sendak holds up two sets of car keys.

‘Oh, thank God.’

‘Thank me,’ Sendak tells him, ‘but maybe not yet. The Land Rovers are parked all the way on the other side of the compound - hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred yards from here. Not to mention the five miles of single track we gotta drive through the forest before we hit the open road and are literally out of the woods.’

‘I’ve got faith,’ Blake tells him.

Sendak permits himself a smile.

‘Okay, people,’ he announces. ‘We’re launching Operation Get the Fuck Outta Here. Heads up. Let’s look sharp.’

Adnan reloads the shotgun with the last shells from the box and hands it to Sendak.

‘Six rounds left,’ Adnan reports. ‘That’s it.’

Sendak nods in acknowledgment, then turns to Kirk.

‘Can you drive, big guy?’

Kirk shakes his head regretfully.

‘I take it you can, Padre?’

‘Sure,’ says Blake.

Sendak tosses him a set of keys. Heather looks at him like she wishes he’d kept this to himself.

‘I’m coming anyway,’ Kirk declares.

‘Damn straight. These fuckers are
scared
of you.’

‘Scared of this, anyway,’ Kirk replies, picking up the chainsaw.

Sendak casts an evaluative eye over Kirk’s black-spattered weapon.

‘How much juice you got in that thing?’

Kirk frowns.

‘Petrol? Don’t know. How?’

Sendak goes over to the five-a-side goals that are wedged against the door to the corridor and unscrews a length of tubular metal from the stanchion.

‘Gimme your jacket,’ he tells Blake.

Blake hands it over and Sendak begins ripping it into pieces. He wraps several strips tightly around the metal tube at one end, before soaking the binding with petrol poured from the chainsaw. Then he taps Beansy for a lighter, sets the torch ablaze and hands it almost ceremonially to Blake as Adnan and Radar prepare to open the doors.

‘We know they ain’t scared of crosses, but I never encountered any creature dumb enough
not
to be scared of getting its ass barbecued.’

‘Fuck,’ mutters Kirk. ‘Here they come.’

Blake turns to his right and looks up the gentle slope towards the treeline, where silhouetted figures are emerging from the shadows. There are only a couple at first, then more and more become visible, cautiously intent upon the exposed trio. Their guttural voices sound out across the air, calling instructions. There is no mass charge, but as their numbers swell, they begin to spread out, forming a noose that they will inevitably tighten.

Blake holds the torch a little higher, keeping the brightness above his sightline. There must be a dozen of them. Fifteen. Twenty. God knows. He can’t count, can barely retain focus in his fear.

‘Stay tight,’ Sendak commands. ‘Keep it together. We can do this.’

The triangle closes, the three of them now almost back-to-back in a defensive formation. Some of the demons are holding their ground, maintaining a perimeter; others are closing in, slowly, cautiously. Kirk holds aloft the chainsaw, revving it as a warning.

Nervously, Blake gives the torch a wave too, sweeping it to convey that it is a weapon. The flame flickers, then starts to fail.

‘Oh, bugger.’

He waves it again, like the air will help reignite it. It dies.

‘Oh shit. Sendak . . .’

‘Keep it together,’ Sendak states, his tone indicating that even for him this is a bigger ask than the last time he said it.

‘Should have used more petrol,’ Kirk moans.

The trio keeps moving, but the approaching demons are now less cautious and are starting to stride forward with purpose.

Kirk revs the chainsaw again. It cuts out.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’

He tugs the starter cord. It growls briefly then splutters out again.

‘Used too
much
petrol,’ he revises, sounding close to panic.

‘How many shots are in that thing?’ Blake asks.

Sendak pauses before responding, long enough for Blake to fear the answer will be one.

‘Six.’

Blake looks at the ring of demons surrounding them: there must be at least twice that number ranged between them and the vehicles.

‘But these fuckers don’t know that.’

One of the demons launches itself at them. Sendak fires, blows it away, spraying matter all over the creature behind it. Sendak pumps the shotgun just in time to repel a second assault. The demons close by retreat, but only a few yards. Then there sounds out a rumbling growl from up the slope, prompting human and demon alike to look towards the trees. A dozen more horned creatures are emerging into the moonlight: blades, teeth and claws at the ready.

One of them lets loose a deafening, defiant, gut-shuddering roar, the cue for what will be a decisive final assault. The members of this second wave break into a run, the first group holding their positions to prevent any escape.

Then a human voice pierces the sky.

‘HAAAW!’ it shouts. ‘Creatures of the Eternal Darkness?’

Deso stands with the lance gripped in both hands, the back- pack strapped around his shoulders, and Rosemary at his side.

Some of the demons turn in response, mostly those of the first wave. The second group continue charging, undistracted.

Their mistake.

Deso squeezes the trigger on the lance as Rosemary flames up his trusty Ronson Triumph.

‘Let there be light.’

The lance sends an arcing blast of flame towards the nearest demons, training it on the first of them and then sweeping it steadily across the line of attackers. Several of them are completely engulfed and fall, burning, to the ground, while others run off, flames dancing about them, crashing into each other and spreading panic.

‘Oh yeah,’ declares Sendak. ‘Oh yeah. Oh yeah.’

Deso twists the outlet valve, cranking up the range and the pressure as he sends the spray towards the demons on one side of the enclosing ring. He strides forward as they scatter, pursuing them with his deadly jet as they flee. Unfortunately, they are fleeing past the nearer of the Land Rovers.

‘Oh no,’ gasps Sendak. ‘Oh no. Oh no.’

One of the flaming demons crashes through the windscreen as Deso’s plume of flame also engulfs the vehicle.

Deso lets go of the trigger immediately, cutting off the fire like switching off a light, but he can only extinguish the blaze at one end.

‘Oh-oh,’ he breathes.

The Land Rover burns for a few seconds, then explodes, consuming the vehicle alongside it and triggering a second blast almost before the first one has ended. It obliterates what was left of two more blazing demons and sends a pulse-wave through the air that Deso can feel in his chest. He hauls the backpack off lest it detonates, and steps hurriedly away from it, dragging Rosemary clear also.

Sendak, Blake and Kirk look on in horror as flaming debris from the blast is sent flying against the walls of the building; and more distressingly, against the tanks abutting the walls of the building.

‘Get down,’ Sendak shouts. ‘Now!

The three of them hurl themselves to the deck just before the fuel tanks go up. The explosion rips open the side of the building, blowing demons apart like cinders.

Another explosion follows instantaneously, the leaked gas in the kitchen igniting in a flash that sends a spurt of flame towering into the sky and several objects hurtling out through the windows. One of them looked like a body. If it was Kane’s, Blake hopes he wanted to be cremated.

Deso stands open-mouthed and stares at what he has wreaked. Retreating demons are scuttling for the shadows, ready to regroup. The vehicles are mangled, twisted and burning. The complex is ablaze in two different places and there is flaming wreckage everywhere.

‘Well, that’s annoying,’ he says.