The Taken (7 page)

Alex thought about the lightning last night. One minute he was there beside her bed, and with the next flash, gone. Maybe it was best to keep that story to herself for the time being. Otherwise Simon would think they were a family of lunatics.

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“Maybe he ran into the churchyard. It’s the only place he could have gone without us seeing it. Let’s take a look.”

Silent, Alex nodded, glad that Simon had suggested it. After the words the boy had mouthed to her, she definitely wanted to look, just to reassure herself that everything at the church was normal. Yes, that would be good. Everything normal, and the madness just inside my head. Great. Very reassuring. Cancer and insanity. How much can a girl hope for in life?

Keeping their heads up, they walked quickly to the gate and peered over it. “I can’t see anything. But then there’s an awful lot of trees blocking my sight.”

A few inches below, Alex was finding it equally difficult to see, and she clicked open the gate. It moved stiffly, as if it hadn’t been used in a while, and Alex didn’t find that at all surprising. Because he didn’t run away, did he?

He just disappeared. That’s what figments of the imagination do—vanish like a puff of smoke.

Crouching to duck under a branch, something caught her eye. “Simon, look. The church door is open. Why would Reverend Barker be in the church at this time in the morning?” Ahead she could see the wood swinging backward and forward with the growing wind. “And why would he leave the door open in this weather?”

“There’s only one way to find out. Come on, let’s go and take a look.” He smiled at her. “At least it’ll get us out of the rain for a couple of minutes.”

Fighting past the last of the grasping limbs of the trees, they emerged on the lawn, which covered the sides and front of the quiet fourteenth-century chapel.

Both their trots slowed to walks. The door banging in 63

the wind sounded like an untamed heartbeat, or a death knell; the two were one and the same thing— markers of precious time being lost. Alex shivered. This didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem right at all.

Simon jumped up the worn steps and held the solid wood open, letting the yellow, dim light from inside reach out to them. Watching him waiting for her, Alex bit back the urge to turn and run back to the farmhouse and stepped hesitantly through the archway, before Simon shut the door quietly behind them. Atheist that she was, she had still always felt some serenity, some inner peace in this church. But not now. All she was feeling now was unease. Whatever sense of sanctuary that had existed here was gone.

“Reverend? Reverend Barker? Are you in here?” Stepping forward down the aisle, her feet echoed as she glanced down the rows of pews. Simon followed her, peering under the benches for any sign of the boy or the vicar. Alex wasn’t quite sure what they were looking for, but the two of them moved slowly side by side, she searching the shadows and light to the left, and he to the right.

After the constant noise of nature’s angry rage outside, the quiet of the church was eerie. Every drip of water that slid from their clothes or hair to the floor seemed to chime out their presence. She sniffed and the sound came back at her from every corner, taunting her. Despite the gloom that seemed to eat at the cold stone walls and alcoves, the lights directly above Alex and Simon seemed almost too bright, like spotlights scrutinizing their every breath as they walked side by side in a parody of a wedding march.

“Look.” Alex’s heart thumped in her ears as she whispered, drawing Simon’s attention toward the altar. He

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nodded silently, and as she got closer she wondered why she hadn’t noticed it as soon as they came into the church. The beautiful gold and red tapestry that normally covered the aged surface had been thrown carelessly to the stone floor, and beside it a dark, oozing patch spread out where a large vase of flowers had been knocked over, some of the buds now dying on the steps by their feet. All that was left on the large space was a candlestick, the candle burnt right down.

But something had been written on the altar. Scrawled in hot wax, which had now set.

“What the hell does that mean?” Simon sounded confused, and for the first time, Alex heard uncertainty in his voice. She stared down at the abused altar.

The words stared back at her, her throat tightening. She’d heard those words somewhere, she knew she had. When?

I couldn’t move my legs. Look how they move now!

“What did you say, Alex?” Simon was staring at her, and she dragged her eyes away from the altar.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you did. You muttered something about your legs. And then said ‘Look how they move now’ Do these words mean something to you?”

Alex stared at the words. Did they mean something to her? Should they? Fear bit at her insides. This writing was real, not just something in her head brought on by the medication. Just what was going on? She looked up at Simon, and felt tears suddenly threatening to

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spill. “I don’t know. I don’t know if they mean anything to me or not. They just seem familiar.” The confines of the church were making her feel claustrophobic.

“Let’s go and check outside. See if there’s been any more damage. Maybe the kids that are staying at the caravan park or wherever broke in and vandalized the place.”

Once outside, Simon led the way around the side of the church, Alex using his back to shield her from the wind. She was glad they weren’t walking side by side, because it gave her a few minutes to try and pull herself together. Maybe there was something odd going on, but at least there was now physical evidence rather than just her overactive imagination. Maybe there even was a little boy.

Maybe he had hidden in the house last night and really had been in her bedroom.

She hadn’t checked under her bed after turning the light on, so maybe he’d hidden under there and snuck back out when she’d gone to sleep.

The more she thought about it, the more she liked it. It was thin and flimsy, but in daylight it certainly seemed plausible. Although she didn’t know why anyone would want to hide in her room to scare her. And his finger was cold and wet, the small voice of reason in her head whispered quietly. Not like someone that had been hiding in the warm all afternoon, but I guess you don’t want to think about that right now, do you?

They turned the corner and ahead of them the old graveyard opened up. Toward the other side of it was the border with Mary’s garden, through which she’d seen or heard whatever it was that made her so upset the previous day, and between them and that were rows of deteriorating gravestones and tombs. About halfway back, amongst a neater line of modern stones,

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was her mother’s; in the not too distant future, Alex would fill the space beside her. Her stomach tightened slightly. Each day, a day closer.

“Oh God.”

Simon’s voice was loud and deep, and he stopped so suddenly that Alex almost walked into the back of him, having to swerve to his side, stumbling over her feet. Steadying herself, she stared down at what had stopped him and for a moment, for a long, blissful moment, she didn’t understand what she was seeing.

The body that lay twisted on the hard stone paving slabs was nearly unrecognizable; it was the vicar. He wore ordinary gray trousers and a V-neck pullover, out of his church uniform he was no longer a representative of a higher power, but just a person, vulnerable and so pathetically human. Hearing Simon letting out a long shaky breath beside her, Alex absorbed the details, her eyes and brain working together against her need not to know, not to see.

Reverend Barker’s hands had gone slightly blue, no, more like bluish-purple, where they had been exposed to the elements, the liquid that filled his veins congealing in the extremities of his fingertips, bloating them with pressure from within, maybe from the smashed bones that must be the cause of the sickening shape of his legs and arms. Beneath the thinning hair on his scalp, blood as red as communion wine gathered and then dispersed outward, filling the cracks between the slabs of stone and running through them, using them as canals for escape, disappearing into the dirt.

Although Alex’s rational mind told her this was Reverend Barker ruined on the ground, she couldn’t come to terms with the reality of it. His dignity and quiet 67

serenity had been stripped away, leaving only a humiliated husk of a human being. Looking upward, Alex could see the bell tower directly above where he lay.

She’s hurting him. She’s making him cry. She’s going to make him jump.

“Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus…”

It took a moment to realize that the disjointed voice she could hear was her own, and when Simon touched her arm she yelped, pulling away.

“It’s me, Alex. It’s just me.” He held her arms for a moment, focusing his eyes on hers. “Stay with me, Alex. We’re okay. We’re okay.”

Breathing deeply, the air feeling shaky around her, Alex nodded. Simon held her gaze for another few seconds, then moved her so she was leaning against the wall before he crouched by the body, touching the man’s scrawny neck where his head was twisted sideways, one cheek pressed into the coldness beneath.

“Still alive… he’s still alive.” Simon stared as the vicar’s eyelids fluttered open. Alex fell to the ground, kneeling in the man’s blood, her heart pounding in her chest with hope. Reverend Barker coughed; a weak, wet sound that sent a shiver up Alex’s spine, and spots of blood appeared on his teeth as he opened his mouth, his breath raw and rotten.

“Shhh. Don’t try to speak. Don’t try to speak…” Her own eyes were blurring with tears, but she could see that the vicar’s were so full of pain that he couldn’t even focus. When he whispered, he sent his words somewhere between her and Simon, as if a ghost had joined them that only he could see.

“Melanie Parr.” He spat the words out accompanied by a spray of blood and saliva. Alex’s heart froze, but

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this time the dying man’s gaze met hers, and for a moment there was clarity within the glare of pain. She could see his jaw and throat working, desperately trying to communicate, those two words obviously not enough. Not nearly enough.

A clicking sound came from his chest and he shut his eyes for a second, concentrating on the effort of speech.

The sound came out in a rattle of air. “Our… sin … warn them …”

He stared at Alex, the frustration at her confusion obvious as he tried to move his head forward, needing to be closer, needing to make them understand something. Alex and Simon both leaned forward, Alex trying not to recoil from the warm smells erupting from Reverend Barker, the death that was shrouding him.

“… Warn them. …” His lower body had started to convulse slightly, but still he pushed out the words before the shaking overtook him. “Come … for… us.”

This time the cough raped his being, sending warm blood into Alex’s hair as he angrily expelled his last breaths. She shrieked, burying her face in Simon’s shoulder, his arms wrapping round her, pulling her in. The awful choking hack stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun, but Simon held on to her, rocking slightly backward and forward, whispering soothing sounds, his hand holding onto her crimson hair as they sat in silence.

Eventually, she lifted her face. “Is he dead?” She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to look back at the mess of the corpse beside them.

Simon nodded. “He’s gone.”

“I need … I really need …” The heat had returned to her face, and looking down at her hands, her red

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hands, she saw how they were shaking. Her whole body was shaking. Bile began to burn her chest as spots of blackness ate into her vision. She had to get away.

She had to get away immediately. Pulling herself to her feet, she clutched at the wall behind her, numb feet clumsily lurching back the way they had come, toward the lawn, to where she wouldn’t be able to see him, not able to get her there quick enough, fighting the scream that seemed to be filling her brain.

Doubling over in the open space, she let it go, her stomach emptying itself, the steak, the flesh of the previous night’s dinner not welcome inside her anymore.

She heaved and heaved until there was no longer even any liquid left to relinquish. Tipping her head backward, she let the heavy rain run through her hair and over her face and sighed, letting her skin cool. Somewhere down in the mess at her feet were her painkillers and medication, probably only half-absorbed. Should she take some more? Would she be able to hold them down?

And what the fuck would she start seeing if she did? Maybe a bit of pain wasn’t such a bad thing.

Turning around, she tilted her head up into the rain, enjoying its attack on her face, the way it stung her skin. She ran her hands through her hair as if she was in the shower, imagining the water running first red, then pink, and then clear as she rinsed away the blood and tears that covered her. Her muscles ached from throwing up and her limbs felt heavy. God, she was tired. But then she was always so goddamn tired these days.

Opening her eyes, she saw Simon standing beside her. He didn’t seem bothered by the weather anymore either, ignoring the way it buffeted him.

“I’ve covered him up with the cloth from inside the 70

church. It’s the best we can do for now. Maybe he jumped or just fell by accident, but with that vandalism to the altar it’s probably best we don’t move him. Not until the police get here, anyway. The best thing we can do is get back to the house and see if the phones are back on.”

Alex nodded. “Just give me a minute. I’ll be fine in a minute.” Despite the relief of the cleansing cold and rain, she didn’t think she had it in her to move. It was all too much to deal with—Melanie Parr, the boy from her dream and the things he said. How could any of it make sense? And on top of all that she could feel the pain deep in the core of her abdomen throbbing into life, her cancer reminding her of what she really had to fear. Not ghosts in the night.

Simon put his arm around her. “It’s the shock. It’s okay. It’s shock.”

Anger flashed inside her, white and hot and she pulled away from him. What the hell does he know, the patronizing bastard? What the hell does he know about me?