The Darkest Corners (8 page)

I heard Ameena take a step closer behind me. I didn't need to look at her reflection in the window to know how terrified she was. The crack in her voice said it all.

‘It's the same everywhere,' she whispered.

I nodded, slowly. ‘The town as well?'

She hesitated long enough for me to realise what she meant. I turned away from the devastation outside. ‘Wait… You really mean
everywhere
, don't you?'

Her only reply was a single nod of the head.

‘
Liar!
' I snapped. It couldn't be true. This couldn't be happening.

She stooped and picked up the TV remote from the day-room coffee table. It shook in her hand as she held it out to me.

‘See for yourself.'

Hesitantly, I took the remote. ‘What channel?'

She glanced at the ceiling, steadying her voice. ‘Any of them.'

The old television set gave a faint
clunk
as I switched it on. In a few seconds, an all-too-familiar scene appeared.

Hundreds of the creatures. Cars and buildings ablaze. People screaming. People running. People
dying
.

Hell on Earth.

‘That's New York,' she said.

Click
. Another channel, but the footage was almost identical.

‘London.'

Click.

‘I'm… I'm not sure. Somewhere in Japan. Tokyo, maybe?'

It could have been Tokyo, but then again it could have been anywhere. I clicked through half a dozen more channels, but the images were always the same.

‘It happened,' I gasped. ‘It actually happened.'

I turned back to the window and gazed out. The clouds above the next town were tinged with orange and red. It was already burning. They were destroying everything, just like
he'd
told me they would.

This was it.

The world was ending.

Armageddon.

And it was all my fault.

I
watched for a few more seconds before the horror of it all became too much. I turned away from the window. Ameena hadn't moved, and nor had any of the people in the chairs. They continued their reading and their puzzle-solving and their dozing like they were off in some different world that wasn't in any way connected to this one. I envied them that.

‘I did this,' I muttered as the truth began to sink in. ‘Everything out there. The world. People dying. I did this.'

Ameena nodded. ‘Yep, you did,' she said. I shot her a wounded look, but she didn't flinch from it. ‘The question is, what are you going to do about it?'

‘Do? What can I do? I can't stop that. No one can stop that.'

‘You've got special abilities that no one else has.'

‘Not any more!' I cried. ‘Don't you get it? This is the Darkest Corners now. I'm powerless in the Darkest Corners. That's why the hospital isn't finished, because the barrier came down while I was still creating it. Don't you see? It's over. It's too late to stop anything. I'm a kid. I'm just a kid.'

She chewed her lip. ‘But you're going to try, right?'

‘Try what, Ameena? Try
what
?' I demanded. ‘What can I try against all that? And… and why are you even here, anyway? You work for
him
, remember? You're on his side, not mine. You made that very clear. You should be out there celebrating with the rest of them. With your
own kind
.'

That hurt her. Her eyes widened a little and the corners of her mouth tugged down just a fraction. She spoke, and when she did, it was in a voice on the brink of cracking.

‘I didn't want this,' she said. ‘I didn't want any of this.'

‘Yes, you did,' I said, turning my back on her. ‘You've been working towards it from the start. How many times did you try to get me to use my powers? How many times did you actually convince me, or trick me, or find some way to force me into doing it?'

I spun back to face her, suddenly furious. ‘I'm wrong, what I said; this isn't my fault. It's
your
fault. Yours. If it hadn't been for you none of this would be happening. If it hadn't been for you, everyone would still be alive!'

There was a crash from the stairs, and the grunt of something big and angry. The thing I'd seen outside was on its way up. The monsters were coming to finish me off, but I couldn't summon the energy to care.

Ameena glanced to the door, then back to me. ‘Want me to close it?'

I shrugged. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe this was the way it should end. At least then it
would
end, one way or another.

‘He tricked me too, you know?' Ameena said. The echo of the creature's grunts bounced further into the day room. ‘He told me he wanted to save the good ones. The kids, like me, who were stuck over there with the rest of them. He said he wanted to take us all out of there.'

‘And what about when it all started?' I snapped. ‘When you saw what he was doing? To me. To Marion. To my mum and everyone else. You still stuck with him. You still helped him!'

Ameena nodded quickly. ‘He gets into your head. He can twist the way you think, the way you feel. It's like he can rewire your brain. Mr Mumbles didn't want to kill you. Not at first. Not until your dad persuaded him.'

The sounds of the thing on the stairs were louder than ever, so loud I almost expected it to come leaping through the open door, claws flashing, teeth bared.

‘So what?' I asked. ‘You're saying he was controlling you?'

‘Yes. No. I mean, not really. He just told me everything we were doing was for the best, and he made me believe it.' Her voice cracked and a tear ran down her cheek. ‘Every bad thing he did to you, to everyone you cared about, he made me believe it was the right thing to do and… and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'

I clenched my jaw. I should hate her. I wanted to hate her. But Mr Mumbles himself had warned me my dad could get into your head and make you do things you didn't want to. He was a manipulator, and maybe I wasn't the only one he'd been manipulating this entire time.

‘Close the door.'

Ameena wiped her sleeve across her cheek. She pushed the door closed just as a monstrous shape reached the top of the stairs. There was a loud
BANG
as it hammered against the wood.

‘It'll break through,' she warned, jamming her foot and one shoulder against the wood. ‘We don't have long.'

‘I don't need long.'

I hurried over to the defibrillator and studied the controls. There was a switch marked
ON
. That bit was simple enough. I pressed it and a little green light illuminated inside the button.

There was a dial marked
CURRENT
. Again, straightforward enough. I cranked it up to full, then carefully removed the shock pads. One was marked
STERNUM
, the other marked
APEX
. The sternum was round the chest area, I knew, but what the apex was I had no idea. Still, I didn't suppose it mattered.

There was a button on the back of one of the pads. The word
CHARGE
was printed on it. I pressed it and the machine began to emit a high-pitched whine.

I wheeled it into position across from the door. Being careful not to touch them together, I gripped both pads and held them by my side. The wires attaching them to the machine were coiled like old-style telephone cables, which meant I'd have plenty of room to manoeuvre.

‘OK,' I said. ‘Open the door.'

The monster on the other side thumped hard against it. Ameena stared at me in disbelief. ‘Open it? Are you nuts?'

I shrugged. ‘We'll find out in a minute.' I readied myself. ‘Do it. Now. And stay out of sight.'

Ameena yanked open the door just as the brute hurled itself again. It came charging through, its long arms swinging, a serpent-like tongue flicking across its bulging eyeballs.

It ran straight for me, grunting and snorting through its snout of a nose. I dodged as it made its final lunge, brought up both pads and clamped them down on to the monster's head.

There was a sound like a camera flash going off. I felt a jolt travel the length of my arms. The creature's whole body went rigid for a moment, then it clattered against the wall, bounced off and fell to the floor.

We watched it for a few moments, hoping it wouldn't get back up. After a while, I nudged it with my bare foot. It didn't react, and I realised it was quite probably dead.

‘I think you're supposed to say “Clear” before you use those things,' Ameena said.

‘Oh yeah,' I said, still staring at the fallen monster. ‘
Clear
.'

I put the pads back into their holders on the side of the defibrillator and switched the machine off. My fingers traced along the button and down the metal case.

‘I made this,' I said. The idea seemed alien. Yes, I'd used my abilities to create things before, but nothing this complicated. And I hadn't even been thinking about it. My head spun. Just how powerful had my abilities been? Now I would never know.

‘So,' Ameena began. She had her hands in her pockets and was swinging one foot idly above the floor. ‘We OK?'

I should hate her. I wanted to hate her.

‘No,' I told her. ‘We're not.'

‘Oh. Right, yeah,' she said. ‘I mean… that's fair enough.'

‘Why you?'

She raised her eyes to mine. ‘What?'

‘Why you? Why did he send you?'

Ameena shrugged. ‘He brought me up.'

‘He what?'

‘He brought me up. He's your dad, but you see… Well, he's my dad too.' She smiled weakly. ‘I'm your sister, kiddo.'

My mouth dropped open. ‘You're my
sister
?' I spluttered. ‘But… but…
I kissed you
!'

‘Yeah, I know, ya sicko,' she said.

‘My
sister
?'

A smile cracked across her face. ‘Nah, not really,' she grinned. ‘Just kidding.'

I almost smiled. Almost. But a sudden swelling of anger pushed it aside. ‘You don't get to do that,' I said, grabbing her by the shoulders. ‘You don't get to do that any more! You don't get to make jokes and laugh and pretend like everything's OK. Everything is
not
OK! Everything is never going to be OK again!'

I shoved her harder than I meant to. She gave a yelp as she tumbled to the floor beside the fallen thing. She peered up at me through a curtain of hair and did her best to fight back tears.

‘You hate me. I get that,' she said. ‘But what you said earlier, about me picking him over you, that's not right. As far as I knew there was only ever him. He's not my dad, but he may as well be. He saved me when I landed in the Darkest Corners.'

She glanced at the monster lying dead on the floorboards. ‘Saved me from things like that. I would've been killed if it wasn't for him. Or worse. He looked after me and fed me and kept me safe.' A tear broke through her defences. She whipped it quickly away. ‘And now I see he was using me the whole time. He was preparing me for this. He didn't care about me. He doesn't give a damn about anyone. He just thought I could help him get to you. And it turned out he was right.'

Her voice had been growing weaker with every word. The last few came out as barely a whisper. ‘So I didn't choose a side, Kyle. I didn't even know there were sides. I wasn't given that choice to make.'

She looked away and hung her head.

I should hate her. I wanted to hate her.

So why couldn't I hate her?

‘Choose.'

She lifted her head and blinked. ‘What?'

‘Choose,' I said. ‘I'm giving you the choice he didn't.'

Ameena sniffed and brushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘There's no choice to make. It's you, Kyle. It will always be you.' She tried a smile to go with it, but it didn't amount to much.

I held out a hand and was surprised to find it was as steady as a rock. Her fingers trembled as they slipped into mine and I helped her back to her feet.

‘So, we're OK now? Do you, like, you know? Forgive me?'

‘No. I can't. I mean, not yet, anyway. I want to believe you. I want to trust you again, like I did. But I can't. Not yet.'

She gave a resigned shrug. ‘Maybe someday, huh?'

‘Maybe someday.'

Ameena followed me over to the window. The whole village was in chaos, with more fires burning and more grotesque shapes lumbering through the streets.

‘There's no snow,' I realised.

‘Yeah, don't really know what happened there,' she admitted. ‘Don't even know where it came from in the first place. It was nothing to do with us.' She looked at me guiltily. ‘I mean, you know? Him. He was as surprised as you were.'

I filed that bit of information away. ‘Where is he now?'

‘I'm not sure,' she admitted. ‘But he's planning on setting himself up in power. He likes the idea of being in charge.'

‘In charge? Of that?' I said, motioning at the rampaging creatures below. ‘How can anyone take charge of that?'

‘Not everyone from over there is a monster,' she said defensively. ‘They're the minority. A very vocal minority, I'll give you, but still a minority.'

‘What about Billy? Where did they take him?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Well, think,' I told her. ‘You're my person on the inside.'

‘I thought I was your trusty sidekick?'

‘Well, now you're both. Think. One of Doc's porters took him from the church.'

‘Hospital then, probably.' She caught my next sentence before it came out of my mouth. ‘Not this one. One that you didn't magic into existence. Could be his own hospital, but probably just the closest one; it wouldn't make any difference to him now.'