The Woman in Black (18 page)

Silence fell. No one dropped their hands or opened their eyes. The only sounds they could hear were the rain on the roof and the fire baskets igniting outside.

Jean tried not to listen to any of that. She just concentrated on her own breathing. Blackness and breathing. That was it. That’s what would get her through this. Blackness and breathing.

Then she heard footsteps. Slow, measured footsteps.

‘Don’t let go, Edward …’

Eve. Jean thought that the boy must have dropped his hand, tried to get away. From the strength in Eve’s voice, she wouldn’t let him.

The footsteps were getting closer.

Blackness and breathing … Blackness and breathing … Jean screwed her already closed eyes even tighter.

‘Don’t look,’ said Eve. ‘Don’t anyone open their eyes …’

Jean heard the footsteps slowly encircle the group.
She desperately wanted to open her eyes, to see who was there. It was probably that gruff sergeant back again, ready to say something that would make them all feel ridiculous, make her feel stupid for joining in.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Jean said.

‘Jean …’ A warning in Eve’s voice.

The footsteps still walking, still circling.

‘No. I’m sorry, but this is …’

‘Jean, don’t. Please, don’t …’ Desperation in Eve’s voice now.

The footsteps came to a halt.

‘Madness,’ said Jean.

She opened her eyes.

And there was the woman in black, her dead white face in Jean’s, screaming right at her.

Jean fell backwards, panicking, adding her screams to Jennet Humfrye’s. As she fell she knocked into Eve, who, caught off balance, stumbled against one of the metal chairs, hitting her head as she fell to the floor. She lay motionless.

‘Eve,’ shouted Harry.

He rushed over to her and tried to pick her up. She lay there unresponsive, eyes closed.

The children screamed and ran, scattering into any available space in the semi-darkened room.

Harry looked round. Jennet seemed to have vanished once more, but that fact didn’t seem to have calmed anyone down.

James had curled into a ball, hands over his head. He was sobbing, repeating the same phrase over and over again.

‘Please don’t punish me … please don’t punish me …’

Harry saw Edward standing still, like the eye of a storm while chaos swirled around him. He lifted the Mr Punch doll to his ear once more, nodded, then ran towards the ladder.

‘Edward! Wait!’ The boy ignored him.

Harry looked down at Eve. She was breathing but unconscious. There was nothing he could do for her at the moment. He turned to Jean.

‘Jean, look after the children. Keep them close.’

Jean didn’t seem to have heard him. She sat in a corner, eyes wide and staring. Seeing nothing.

‘Jean,’ said Harry, sharply. ‘The children …’

She nodded, numbly.

Harry gently placed Eve’s head on the floor, stood up, and followed Edward up the ladder and out into the night.

Edward ran through the phantom airfield, as fast as his legs could go. The fake planes loomed, black birds of prey silhouetted against the dark grey storm-heavy night sky. The canvas flapping free in the wind and rain, slapping the wooden frames like the beating of large leathery wings. The shadows of huge, grotesque carrion crows following him wherever he went.

All around him the huge fire baskets caught and flared up, sending out vast blasts of light and heat; short, sharp bursts of intense illumination, sudden against the darkness, like ruptures from an exploding sun. And all the time, the rain poured down in near biblical torrents.

‘Edward …’

Harry flung open the hatch and climbed out.
He stood up, looked round. No sign of the boy. He was lost from view among the planes. Harry started running, searching.

A fire basket flared up and Harry, instead of shielding his eyes, used the sudden burst of light to scan the area.

There, up ahead, the shadow of a child through the canvas of a plane. Seen briefly, then gone.

Harry ran towards the plane.

No one there.

He looked round, trying to get his bearings, see which way Edward could have gone. Another burst from a fire basket, then another. Harry was disorientated, confused. He couldn’t see Edward anywhere, couldn’t see anything for a few seconds, apart from the after-image of the intense blast dancing on his retinas.

Harry waited for his sight to return to normal, then scanned the field again.

‘Edward …’

There. He caught another glimpse of the running boy as he went behind one of the fake bombers. He gave chase and reached it, panting, head spinning from the explosions.

Another basket went up, the sudden flash illuminating the inside of the nearest bomber like an X-ray. And there he was. Inside the bomber, Harry
saw – for a second or two – a child-sized shadow, huddled into the nose cone.

‘Edward,’ Harry shouted, ‘it’s all right … It’s me, Harry … You’re safe now …’

There was no reply. The light had disappeared and Harry couldn’t see or hear anything from inside the plane. He walked round until he found the small maintenance hatch in the underside of the fuselage and pulled himself in.

Harry blinked. Again. And again. At first he thought the rain had blurred his vision, coming down so hard and fast outside, but inside the plane it was only trickling from leaks down the canvas seams. His head still spun from the proximity of the blasts, the rain exacerbating the pain by hammering down insistently on the plane’s shell like nails against his skull. It was dark inside, darker than he had thought it would be.

He looked over to the nose cone where he had seen the shadow of the child, made his way slowly towards it.

‘Edward …’ He spoke softly so as not to alarm the boy. ‘It’s all right … you’re safe now …’

Flames shot up outside, casting shadows against the canvas wall. The silhouette of a child appeared.
Then another. And another. Then more, all seemingly standing outside the plane, waiting.

Harry blinked.
No
, he thought.
It’s a trick of the light.
His eyes weren’t yet accustomed to the sudden changes of light and dark.

And then he heard the singing.

Harry’s head swam. ‘Don’t listen, Edward. Don’t listen …’

More silhouettes appeared on the other side of the plane, lit by flashes of light. The singing became louder.

‘Don’t listen to them …’ Harry shouted. ‘Don’t give in to them …’

The voices became louder still.

Then silence. The shadows disappeared. The singing stopped. All Harry could hear was the hammering of his heart, the pumping of blood in his ears. He breathed a sigh of relief.

‘It’s all right, Edward,’ he said. ‘They’ve gone. We’re safe. Now, give me your hand …’

Harry reached out, touched the shoulder of the boy, tried to turn him round.

It wasn’t a boy.

The corpse, waterlogged, bloated and decayed, stared at Harry with its one remaining eye.

‘
Help me, Captain, help me …
’

Harry screamed and jumped away from the apparition, landing on his back. He couldn’t breathe; his chest had a tightening steel band wrapped round it.

The corpse had gone. In its place were only a bundle of unpainted canvas and half-empty tins of paint.

Still shaking, he looked round. He was alone.

He got out of the plane as quickly as he could.

Edward was still running. He no longer knew where to or what from, all he knew was that he must keep running.

The perimeter fence stopped him getting too far. He had crashed into it at one point and turned round to go in the other direction. That route had
led to the hill that he was now running up. He hoped there was a way out on the other side.

A fire basket went off. He found himself exposed on the hill’s ridge, silhouetted against the night sky.

‘Edward!’

Harry was sprinting towards him.

No
, he thought.
Have to get away, got to keep going
 …

He ran on, over the crest of the hill, down the other side. He turned round to see that Harry was gaining on him.

Then he lost his footing on the wet grass, slipped and went tumbling down the hill.

Edward didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t see anything. His glasses were gone, knocked off in the fall.

He felt around him, squinted. He was lying on a bed of wood, and he could smell oil. He sat up, felt wire mesh by his fingertips.

He could just about make out the rise of the hill above him and quickly worked out where he was.

He had fallen into a fire basket.

He got to his knees, desperately trying to scramble out of it before it ignited.

Harry saw him fall, saw him land in the basket.

‘Edward …’

He ran even faster, ignoring the tiredness in his body, pushing himself on. He had to get to Edward before—

Harry was thrown backwards as the fire basket exploded.

Eve opened her eyes. Abstract, blurred images coalesced, began to form into something solid, corporeal and sharply defined. Muffled, distorted sounds became correctly pitched and distinct. She made out a face looking down at her, a worried, concerned expression.

‘Harry?’

She sat up, looked round, her head throbbing as she did so. Made out the dimly lit concrete and corrugated metal of the bunker, heard the incessant drumming of the rain. Everything looked grey and washed out. Or perhaps that was just how she felt.

Eve saw the children and Jean huddled together. They all looked terrified. The way the older woman
clung to them, it was hard to see who was comforting whom.

Eve rubbed her head. It hurt. ‘How long have I …?’

‘A couple of hours,’ said Harry.

Eve looked round once more, urgently, ignoring the pain in her head this time.

‘Where’s Edward?’

Harry was holding something in his hand. He opened his fingers, let Eve see what was there. In the palm of his hand, all singed and twisted, the lenses shattered, were Edward’s glasses.

Eve shook her head, increasing the pain, but she didn’t care. ‘No … no, no, no …’

‘He ran. I chased after him. He … fell into a fire basket, I …’ Harry’s voice wavered. ‘I couldn’t reach him before it … I tried … I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry …’

Eve didn’t know what to say, what to do. Anger and sadness welled up within her, fought for prominence. She grimaced, fingers flexing into fists. She needed an outlet. Turned to Jean.

‘You let go,’ she said.

Jean just stared, open-mouthed. ‘I …’

Eve stabbed a finger at her. ‘This is your fault …’

Jean put her head down and began to cry. ‘I’m sorry …’

‘Eve.’ Harry took hold of Eve’s shoulders. ‘Stop it. Yes, I’m sure you want somebody to blame. If that’s the case, blame Jennet. This is nobody’s fault but hers.’

Eve’s shoulders slumped and the fight went out of her. The only sounds in the room were the rain and Jean’s sobbing.

Eve frowned as a sudden thought struck her. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

She shrugged off Harry’s grip, went over to Edward’s few belongings and began searching through them.

‘What are you doing, Eve?’ asked Harry.

She was rummaging through Edward’s bag.

‘His drawing … He wouldn’t have … Here it is.’

Eve drew it out, looked at it. It had changed. The boy and the woman were now standing in front of a house. The woman’s clothes were floor length and heavily coloured in with black. A veil covered her face. The boy was holding something in his hands. The Mr Punch doll. Eve smiled at Harry, a wild, desperate look of vindication in her eyes.

‘Edward’s still alive,’ she said.

‘Eve,’ Harry said, not unkindly, ‘you’re in shock.’

‘No,’ she said, her voice calm and low. ‘No, I’m not. Did you see his body?’

‘He was in there. I saw him fall, I …’

‘Did you see his body?’

Harry made a helpless gesture. ‘There was nothing left to see …’

They stopped talking as they heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. It pulled up outside the bunker.

‘She’s taken him back to the house,’ said Eve. She held up Edward’s drawing and was about to explain further when the hatch was pulled back and Jim Rhodes let himself in.

‘Captain Burstow,’ he said, once he had made his way down the ladder, ‘why the hell did you bring all these children here?’

Eve didn’t have the time or the energy to waste on arguing with Jim Rhodes. Her only thought was to get back to the house and save Edward.

‘They couldn’t stay in the house any longer,’ said Harry. ‘It wasn’t safe.’

‘Safe? What d’you mean?’ He turned to face Eve. ‘Was this your idea, Miss Parkins? Some kind of nonsense?’

But it was Jean who answered him. She stood up, walked right up to him. Her face was tear-streaked, her hair dishevelled, clothing crumpled. There was barely any trace of the previously fastidious woman who had absolute belief in her own authority. Instead there was hurt, damage and rage.

‘Three children, Dr Rhodes. Three children. Look. Look for yourself. They’ve gone. Dead.
Dead, because of that house, of what’s … what’s in that house …’

Jim Rhodes just stared at her.

‘I told you,’ Jean went on. ‘I told you that place wasn’t safe, but would you listen? Oh, no. You left us there. And now this. This …’ The tears were falling down her cheeks now. ‘Why? Why would you do that? Why …?’

She broke down into sobs once more, her hands covering her face.

‘Jean …’ Harry placed a protective arm round her shoulders.

Jim Rhodes just stared at her. ‘I did … I did what I thought I …’

No one noticed Eve climb the ladder and leave the bunker.

Eve climbed out of the hatch and ran across the tarmac towards the Jeep. She heard Harry calling after her. She didn’t have time to stop for him, she had only one thought.