booksnew/build/shrike/OEBPS/shrike35.xhtml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta name="generator" content=
"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 14 February 2006), see www.w3.org" />
<title>Chapter 35</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
"page-template.xpgt" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="text">
<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
<h2>35</h2>
<p>The wind had veered again and was blasting down straight from
the north when Jack left the station and headed up to his sister's
house. The night was blistering cold and the frost sparkled like
diamonds on the windward sides of the trees and lamp posts. Jack
hadn't stopped, hadn't slowed down all day. Robbie Cattanach had
had to request extra storage space for the cadavers at Kirkland
Hospital and the fiscal had drafted in another pathologist to help
with the autopsies which were becoming monotonously, if horribly
similar. In every case, the cause of death was either by
devastating blood loss, massive trauma or both. Every one of the
bodies in the storage freezers had been mutilated in one way or
another. Robbie had been able to establish that the bite marks all
had the same radius and similar shear-lines. Each of the dead had
been gripped with enormous pressure, sufficient to cause dreadful
bruising and in most cases, skin rupture. The pathologist was able
to show, in a series of quick diagrams, the spread of the grip and
the strange, two-digit claw marks on either side. Robbie Cattanach
was not now prepared to put down on paper any speculation as to
what on earth could have caused the marks. As far as he was aware,
nothing living could have inflicted such damage.</p>
<p>Under John McColl's direction, the teams had hit the high spots
and searched as much of the town's skyline as they could before
nightfall. That search continued after dark in a town that had
become strangely silent, eerily empty. Few cars moved on River
Street. The cinema simply shut its doors and the bingo hall posted
a sign saying that they were sorry, but they were closed for
alterations. Under normal circumstances, this would have caused a
riot among the blue-rinsed brigade, but there were few grannies who
would risk venturing out in the dark just to test their luck. All
early morning milk deliveries were cancelled and Castlebank
Distillery stopped its night-shift bottling operation after
acrimonious but very speedy negotiations with the union
representatives. There was little else to be done when the entire
bottling line failed to turn up just after seven o'clock. Latta
Marineyard stayed open, working round the clock to finish the
oil-rig platform just at the south of the tidal basin beside the
old shipyard. The floodlights blazed down onto the maze of
metalwork and the sizzling electric flashes of the arc-welders
continued through the dark. Apart from that, and the and constant
passage of police patrol cars, the town had simply locked its
doors. The townsfolk huddled behind them and waited.</p>
<hr />
<p>On the other side of town, somewhere between the looming brick
megalith of Castlebank Distillery and the volcanic rock where the
castle perched at the junction where the river ran into the firth,
something moved in the dismal dark of the old shipyard. The great
sheds where some of the ships that had made the Clyde great had
been fabricated, were silent and empty. There were four massive
structures, all connected and constructed of iron beams and
corrugated iron, blackened by dirt and grime and the smoke of a
bygone age. From the giant shed nearest the castle, a slipway which
still had launching tracks embedded in the stone, swept down
towards the tidal basin where the hardy wrack which could survive
in the brackish water floated on a greasy surface. Inside, out of
the wind, it was like a huge and dark cavern. Somewhere high, water
leaked from an aged tank and dropped fifty feet or more into a rust
puddle with a metronomic, almost metallic sound. High on the sides
of the launch bay, a fretwork of metal stairs and ladders soared up
into the utter blackness above.</p>
<p>It was not silent here. Apart from the steady droop of water,
and the echoing chink of a rusty chain which hung beside the pulley
door and was stirred by the harsh wind, the fine ice particles
blown from the trees across the river abraded the outer surface
with the sound of glass splinters and the wind itself whistled
through the narrow gaps where the corrugated iron had peeled away.
Beyond, closer to the distillery, the whine of machinery and the
harsh sizzle of arc-welding came over the wall from the
rig-yard.</p>
<p>Inside the gaunt and towering shed, something stirred in the
darkness. It moved slowly, but with little care for silence, out
from the shadows underneath the stairwell against the far wall. A
little light, not much more than a glimmer, was reflected up from
the oily water in the basin, just enough catch the figure of what
had been a man shamble back into the shadows.</p>
<p>If anybody had seen Michael O'Day they would have recoiled in
disgust. There was hardly an ounce of flesh on the man's bones. His
once-smart coat was in tatters and covered with whatever filth he'd
been lying in. The scarecrow figure turned and his eyes, now sunk
deep under grizzled white eyebrows, closed quickly against the pale
glimmer of light, screwing themselves up in obvious pain.</p>
<p>O'Day's thick hair, once black but now white, had all but gone,
save for a few lank strands which fell down behind his ears. One
hank, greased with oil swung down over his eyes. On his shoulder
another clump had stuck to a patch of engine grease and fluttered
there like moulted sheep wool. His face was so emaciated his cheeks
appeared to be black holes and the bones were ridged out, giving
his face a skull-like, fleshless look. The skin of his forehead was
scabbed and peeling, and a suppurating sore seemed to be eating
into the side of his nose. As he shambled back from the door, an
incoherent mumbling sound came dribbling out between cracked lips
along with thick and ropy saliva which swung with his jerky
movements to add to the damp stains on the front of his coat.</p>
<p>He took several steps, swaying like a drunk, then stopped,
shaking his head.</p>
<p>Something that was almost like words, but was still
unintelligible came out in a guttural stream. The man's body jerked
left and right, then he started walking again, feet scraping the
stone floor, kicking aside rusty nails and rivets. He got to the
far corner and reached the other space beneath the stairs and began
to crawl into the darkness.</p>
<p>For a while, he stopped moving and simply huddled there on his
side.</p>
<p>Then he began to twitch. It started with a twist of his neck, an
involuntary spasm, then his whole body began to shudder. A hellish
scream echoed round the vast chamber of the shed, reverberating
from one dark wall to another, but no-one heard it. Michael O'Day's
scrawny form writhed uncontrollably and his heels drummed against a
metal plate which had been left under the stairs, banging a rapid
drum-roll before they stopped abruptly and went limp. There was an
instant of silence and then something moved out of the shadow. It
was blacker than black and it moved with spidery speed. It flowed
up the side of the stairs, clinging to the outside of the banister,
then leapt without a pause to the first level of the side-wall
platforms, reached a long limb upwards with eerie liquid grace and
began to climb.</p>
<p>When it got to the top, high on the side of the shed, it paused,
making a throaty, rumbling sound. Until now it had not opened its
eyes, but when it froze to complete stillness, they flicked open,
two caustic yellow orbs, blind looking, and the left one puckered
and scarred, yet both searing in their intensity. The thing
swivelled its head.</p>
<p>Here, out of the sickly warmth where it had spent the hours of
light, the air was cold and somehow alien, yet despite the
emptiness of the shipyard, it sensed life, abundant hot and
fluttering life all around. Its head flicked to the side and cocked
up to the left, a mantis-like motion of alert menace. Up in the
high beams, it sensed the warmth of the starlings which had flocked
and wheeled like bees in the dusk and now huddled in uneasy
clusters. Its unearthly perception discerned the shiver of alarm
which rippled through the roost as the birds sensed its own
presence. It was too dark for them to fly. Instead they nervously
fluttered, each small bird crouching tight as the unseen but
strongly felt presence of the black thing touched them.</p>
<p>On the old iron stairway, the black gargoyle creature turned its
head down with that same insectile flick and the birds were
forgotten. Out there, beyond the towering metal walls of the
boatshed, there was warm life aplenty, a surfeit of it, a
storehouse of vitality, cowering from the dark, waiting to be
reaped. It closed its eyes and <em>sensed</em> way beyond the
walls. It scented the fear and the unease, like the fluttering
consternation of the little birds in their roost, but much
stronger, much more powerful. They tossed and turned and they
worried, all of them giving off the sweet emotion that filled its
senses with a potent spice. The obsidian lips parted and a drool of
saliva slithered in a wet braid to splash on the metal tread where
it sizzled and boiled in the freezing air. It held itself stock
still and forced its senses outwards, beyond the nearest buildings,
past Castlebank Church and over the centre of the town, keeping a
grip on its own clenching hunger.</p>
<p>Soon it would have nowhere to shelter, unless it found welcome
warmth, unless it <em>invaded</em>. Time was running out. Here, in
this place of light, where the minds and souls were throbbing with
savory life, it had almost outstayed its allotment, unless it found
a nest to shelter from the burning radiance of day. Anger, glowing
and feral, boiled up inside the thing as it hunched, still as
stone, on the metal ledge, while it outreached with its baneful
mind over the town beyond the shipyard.</p>
<p>Finally its perception focussed and found what it sought. The
strange <em>other</em> mind it touched was filled with flickering
thoughts, wheeling emotions, and under it all, the dark bubbling
fear that all prey possesses. It dipped into the mind and sipped on
the emotion, nurturing the fear, sampling the jittery thoughts, and
then, as quickly as it had entered, it withdrew, leaving hardly a
trace of its presence.</p>
<p><em>Out on Clydeshore Avenue, Lorna Breck shuddered, as if a
chill wind had blown through her.</em> Somebody must have walked on
my grave, <em>she said herself.</em></p>
<p>In the old shipyard, the thing turned its mind away and pushed
outwards, following the skein of thought it had invaded. It dipped
here and touched there, a cold, unseen presence.</p>
<p>After a while, it began to move, flowing like oil up to the roof
of the massive shed. A starling chirruped as a shadow deeper than
night passed by. An eye gaped in the dark and the bird died
instantly. Its small body tumbled, fluttering to the ground far
below. When it hit, there was hardly a sound.</p>
<hr />
<p>It was after eight when Jack knocked on Julia's door. Davy
opened it, flashed him a big smile and then bounded away to watch
whatever was on television. Julia was in the kitchen, sitting at
the table with her big electric typewriter in front of her and a
pile of papers on the side.</p>
<p>"You've been in the wars, I hear," she said, pushing her chair
back. She crossed to the sink and filled the kettle.</p>
<p>"It's a long campaign," Jack said wearily. "I just need a wash
and a clean shirt and a quick bite."</p>
<p>Julia reached up and rubbed his cheek.</p>
<p>"And a shave. You look totally disreputable."</p>
<p>"Always the one with compliments," he shot back. She slapped his
jaw lightly.</p>
<p>"I told you to get a good woman who'll do your shirts for
you."</p>
<p>"I've got one, and you're a marvel. Just tell me where they are
and I'll be out of your hair in ten minutes."</p>
<p>Despite his obvious agitation to be gone again, Julia made him
sit down and have a cup of tea while she rustled up a sizeable
grill of bacon and eggs and hot toast, then sat down and watched
him until he'd finished the lot. She asked him about the case and
he responded almost unintelligibly between mouthfuls, but she
gleaned enough to get the picture.</p>
<p>"This girl, what's she really like?" she asked.</p>
<p>"She's okay. I thought she was a bit of a flake at first, with
this mental thing, but I reckon she's straight." Jack told her.
"She's got auburn hair."</p>
<p>Julia's eyes crinkled over the top of her teacup.</p>
<p>"Do I detect a note of interest here?"</p>
<p>"Oh, don't be daft. She's too young for me."</p>
<p>Julia smiled again. She knew her brother probably better than he
knew himself.</p>
<p>Davy's programme finished and he came charging into the kitchen,
narrowly missing the fridge. He pushed and squirmed until he was on
Jack's knee.</p>
<p>"I'm off school tomorrow," he announced. "Can we go sledging
again?" The boy was bouncing around on Jack's knee with unconcealed
enthusiasm.</p>
<p>"'Fraid not, pal. Too much work. But maybe at the weekend. No
promises, but I'll do my best."</p>
<p>Davy took a sausage from his uncle's plate, slid down to the
floor again, and went pattering out of the kitchen. Jack watched
him, unable to keep the smile from his face.</p>
<p>"He's as fly as a bag of monkeys, that one."</p>
<p>"He's picking it up from you," Julia told him with mock reproof.
She leaned over the table and took his empty plate away.</p>
<p>"As you heard, you don't have to come for him tomorrow. They've
closed the school on the pretext of in-service training. The kids
are having an extra week's holiday."</p>
<p>"Silver lining for the wee ones. I wish I could say the same for
the rest of us."</p>
<p>"Are you going to catch him?" Julia asked. Like every mother,
the enormity of what was happening in Levenford had seeped into
her. She was afraid for her child.</p>
<p>"Sure I will, and damned quick. We're getting closer now. It's
just a matter of time. You just look after Davy until the weekend,
and it'll be over. That's a promise."</p>
<p>He reached across and ruffled Julia's hair, the way he'd done
when they were both teenagers. Then she had screamed in protest,
now she just came close and leaned her cheek against his
shoulder.</p>
<p>"I'll be praying for you," she said.</p>
<p>After the huge meal, the hot shower went a long way to making
Jack feel he was able to face the night ahead and the plan he'd
been working on. He stood under the cataract of water, letting the
heat soak off some of the tension which had crept under his skin.
His thoughts danced at random while the steam fogged the tiles. He
closed his eyes for only a moment and all thought wavered away,
drifting into the mist of vapour. A few seconds later, Jack gave a
start, as if coming awake. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing
it back from his forehead, and knuckled his eyes. Without looking,
he reached out and yanked the shower handle, twisting it far over
until it pointed to the blue marker. The hot water switched to a
jet of cold. He endured it for ten seconds, feeling his skin pucker
as it froze, then, when it became unbearable, he stumbled out of
the shower, gasping for breath. While he shaved, he remembered
Julia had asked him to run the bath for her. He jammed in the plug
and let the bath fill noisily while the steam misted up the mirror,
making the shaving more difficult. He rinsed off with a sharp
splash of cold water and ran his fingers backwards through his hair
again, knowing it would fall back over his forehead once it
dried.</p>
<p>Downstairs, Julia had placed a fresh shirt over the back of a
chair close to the fire and he savoured the momentary crisp warmth
as he buttoned it. Davy was perched on the arm of the seat, eyes
fixed to the screen where Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were
perpetrating enormous wrongs on each other. Julia had got into her
dressing gown.</p>
<p>"Come on, young man, it's time for your bed," she told her son,
who immediately protested that he was off school the following day,
and using Jack as a back-up, he wheedled his way into staying up
for half an hour.</p>
<p>"I've run your bath," Jack said, stretching an arm into the
sleeve of his coat.</p>
<p>Julia looked up at him.</p>
<p>"I hadn't planned one 'til later," she said.</p>
<p>"Oh, I thought you asked me to," Jack said, brows knitting in
puzzlement. He'd been sure she had asked him to fill the bath.</p>
<p>"Must have been some other girl," she said, smiling. "Are you
sure there's nothing I should know?"</p>
<p>Jack patted her backside.</p>
<p>"Go on. Get up and soak before the water gets cold."</p>
<p>Julia hadn't planned on an early bath, but for some reason, and
despite the oddity of her brother telling her he'd imagined she'd
asked him to run the hot water for her, the idea of a quick warm
soak appealed to her.</p>
<p>Davy gave his uncle a hug and tried to elicit a definite promise
for Saturday. Jack ruffled Julia's hair again at the bottom of the
stairs before she went up for her bath, then, impulsively, took her
in his arms and squeezed her tight, silently showing his love and
appreciation before he walked out into the cold. Down the path
towards the gate, the wind moaned through the bare branches of the
rowan tree and cut into him like a knife.</p>
<p>He'd parked the car up at the end of the road and the fifty yard
walk drained the heat from him, despite the thick wool of his
overcoat which he'd buttoned up to the neck. Ice had already
started to rime the windscreen and had clogged the keyhole enough
to make it difficult to turn the lock. The engine started first
time and Jack eased the car onto the hill and carefully steered it
down the slope towards the centre of town. It was only when he was
half-way down Kirk Street, when raised his hand to check his watch,
that he realised he'd left it at Julia's. The radio spat and he
thumbed it on. Bobby Thomson told him there was a message to call
Lorna Breck. Jack told him he was heading that way anyway. He
switched off and accelerated over the crossroads.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>The cartoon had ended just after Uncle Jack had left. Davy
flicked through the channels, but there was nothing of interest for
a seven-year-old so he hit the button and watched the picture
disappear to a dot. Upstairs, he could hear the watery sounds of
his mother in the bath and he knew that in a few minutes she'd be
down to tell him to get into his pyjamas and go to bed.</p>
<p>He picked up a toy car lying on its side close to the fireside
kerb and trundled it along the top of the fireplace, making a noise
he thought was a close representation of a racing car. The kerb was
warm on his stockinged feet as he edged along, feeling the heat of
the coals against his legs. Just at the end, before he turned the
car to retrace its route, he found Jack's watch. Davy dropped the
car and carefully lifted the timepiece. It was heavy and silver and
had two little faces inside the big one and a picture of a thin
sliver of moon rising beside the quarter hour.</p>
<p>He turned and scampered across to the window. He peeled the
curtain back and leaned up against the glass, raising his hand to
cut out his own reflection. He hadn't heard Jack's car outside, as
he normally did when his uncle came to visit. He peered out. Specks
of snow danced up against the pane then veered away, gusted by the
wind. Further along the road, an orange street-lamp winked as the
branches of the chestnut tree swung in front of the glow. Jack was
nowhere to be seen.</p>
<p>Davy pulled back and thought for a moment. If the car wasn't
there, that meant it was probably parked outside the cottage, and
that was only two minutes away across the back gardens behind the
house. It was dark out there. If he told his mother, she'd tell him
just to leave it. Davy sat down and thought. He closed his eyes for
only a moment and when he opened them again, it was as if he had
just woken from sleep. He rubbed his eyes and then turned to pick
up the watch.</p>
<p><em>Take it.</em></p>
<p>The thought came from nowhere, like a distant whisper, and the
decision was somehow made. Without further pause, the boy hauled
his shoes from under the table and jammed them on his feet with the
wriggling motions children use when they haven't opened the laces.
His hooded jacket was still slung over the back of the chair and he
pulled it on quickly and did the zipper right up to the neck. At
the bottom of the stairs, the heavy watch clenched firmly in one
hand, he paused for a second. Upstairs his mother was still
splashing in water. Any second now, she'd pull the plug and he'd
hear the gurgle as it flushed through the pipes.</p>
<p>It would only take a minute, he told himself.</p>
<p>He reached for the front door handle, then stopped again. If he
followed along the road, then Jack might get to his car first and
drive away. There was a quicker way, the kind of route Davy and his
small friends knew intimately because of the hours they'd played in
each other's gardens. He went down the hall, through the kitchen
and eased open the back door. Here, in the lee of the wind, it was
cold, but not bitterly so. Davy pulled the door closed and twisted
the handle to make sure it made no sound, then scampered down the
steps and across the crisp, frosted grass of the drying green.</p>
<p>At the far end, the small rockery gave enough height to scramble
over the lattice fence and into the neighbour's garden. On the
corner, beyond the onion patch, there was a gap in the privet hedge
which was used as a short-cut by most of the kids in the street. It
led through to the stand of tall pines which bordered onto Cargill
Farm Road.</p>
<p>Davy had never been in the barwood at night. Beyond the
protection of the fences and privet hedge, the unhindered wind
tugged at his jacket and pulled the hood back from his face.</p>
<p>The track between the trees was hard-packed and solid with
frost. The boy's feet thudded noisily as he scurried between the
gaunt trunks. Overhead, the dry pine-needles scraped and whispered
and up there in the dark, two trunks sawed noisily against each
other with a shivery squeal, like an animal in distress. In the
dark, he held his hands out in front of him and his eyes were
instinctively open wide to catch as much light as they could in the
gloom. Here was a strange world of shadows and eerie sound. Twenty
feet in from the edge, the far-off light from the window of the
nearest house faded to nothing and Davy was alone in the gloom.</p>
<p>He stopped, hands still outstretched to protect against the
knife-edge twigs that jutted in spikes from the conifers,
momentarily lost.</p>
<p>Just ahead on the track, or what he assumed was the footworn
path, a small juniper bush reached a out fuzzy branch just at head
height. It waved lazily, almost threateningly, as the cold wind
whipped it into motion. Davy shrank back, and bumped against a
tree. A broken branch jabbed against his spine and when he twisted,
he felt the material of his jacket rip.</p>
<p>From just ahead of the juniper bush, a twig snapped and suddenly
everything went quiet.</p>
<p>For a second there was no sound at all, not even the whine of
the wind above. It was as if a heavy door had silently closed,
trapping him in still air. The wind, for some reason, had stopped.
Davy stood frozen, heart now beating faster. He held his breath,
ears straining to listen, but no sound came.</p>
<p>Very slowly, he raised his foot then put it down in front of
him. It happened almost without volition, because as soon as the
twig had snapped, the kind of sound a twig would make if something
heavy had stood upon it, his first thought was to turn back the way
he had come and scramble though the hedge and over the lattice
fence and back into his own house.</p>
<p>Instead his foot moved forward. He took another step, then
another, heading for the far edge of the wood opposite Jack's
house.</p>
<p>He made it past the waving arm of the juniper bush, feeling with
his feet to keep them on the bare path.</p>
<p>Something rustled nearby in a patch of dead brambles and a small
unseen thing scuttered out and dashed into a scraggle of
rhododendron. Davy's heart skipped a beat and he gasped
involuntarily. This stand of trees was a different place at night.
For a small boy, it was like a different world.</p>
<p>He waited until his heartbeat settled again, though it was still
beating fast, before he moved forward again.</p>
<p>Ahead, maybe forty yards away, he thought he could see a patch
of light from the street and made his way towards it, easing his
way past the dark trunks.</p>
<p>Halfway across the belt of trees, there was a depression where a
big pine had come crashing down in a winter gale. Most of the tree
had been cut away and burned in the neighbourhood fireplaces. All
that was left was the fan-shaped root system and the dip in the
earth where it had been torn free. Here Davy and his small friends
had played adventure games, using the great roots as a gang hut or
a fort or a space-station, whatever the game dictated. At night,
however, the spiked semi-circle glowered like a the skull-frill of
a monstrous dinosaur. In his mind, Davy could picture the dead tree
in the warm light of a summer day, but now in the dark, it had
changed into a threatening mass, something with a life of its own.
The boy veered away from it, moving right off the pathway and into
a closely-planted section of pines.</p>
<p>Without warning, the wind came gusting between the trunks again,
more ferociously than before. It whipped at Davy's hood and he
raised a hand to snatch the draw-strings. Uncle Jack's watch was
still held tight in one small fist.</p>
<p>He felt his way between the trees until he came to a dead end
where the rubbery rhododendrons crowded together to bar any
progress. Immediately a sensation of being trapped in the barwood
swamped him. It was as if the bushes had <em>eased</em> themselves,
roots and all, out from the edges and right across the track.
Davy's breath locked in his throat and he backed away again as he
had done when he'd seen the juniper branch beckon to him. He
turned, groping his way in the dark, every nerve now jittering with
the awareness of the motion of the forest, mentally conjuring up
dread movement behind him where the bushes were thickest. He banged
his shoulder against a tree, swerved to the right and reached an
open space where he stopped, panting for breath.</p>
<p>And in that moment, he knew he was not alone. He did not know
how he knew. Yet suddenly, something in the dark had changed and
that change had been picked up on an instinctive level, received by
wire-taut senses, gathered and sent to his brain along jangling
nerves. He was in the dark, among the night-strange trees and there
was something there with him. He froze.</p>
<p>Up above him the wind shrieked through the icy needles and far
off the two trunks screamed frictive protest. A shivery fear
tingled up and down the bones between his shoulderblades. Davy
swung his head from side to side, beginning to panic, wondering
which way he should go, not even sure now of how to get back, in
the dark, to the safety of the privet hedge crawlway.</p>
<p>Then something came crashing out of the dark towards him.</p>
<p>It happened so suddenly that he didn't have time to think.</p>
<p>All he saw was a black shape, blacker even than the trees over
his head. He'd been standing there swinging his wide-eyes from left
to right when the movement had flickered in peripheral vision. His
neck had jerked round towards it so fast he felt a painful wrench
in the neck muscle under his jaw. Ahead of him, between the trees,
but high up from the ground, there was a loud crash as something
leapt from one trunk to land on another with a thump strong enough
to shiver the roots. At that very moment, Davy heard the grunting
sound, a noise so hard and deep and fearsome that he simply turned
and ran. It was the kind of sound a dinosaur would make in the dark
of the forest. The noise of something that would open preposterous
jaws lined with curving serrated teeth and snatch a small boy from
the ground and snap him in two with one savage crunch.</p>
<p>In that instant, he heard the voice in his head.</p>
<p>"<em>Get you. Catch you</em>."</p>
<p>It was like a creak of wood against wood, the rasp of stone on
stone. It was a voice so cold and so deadly it sent wild fear
sizzling down his back.</p>
<p>"<em>Catch you kill you, catch you eat you."</em> The voice in
his head jabbered in malignant glee.</p>
<p>Davy took off. He ran like a startled rabbit, jinking past the
jagged saw-tooth trunk of an old pine he scooted along the track,
legs pumping fast, lungs bellowing air.</p>
<p>Behind, high and off to the right, the thing smashed through
foliage, hit another trunk with a smack and wrenched a small branch
loose in its passing. Davy heard the scrabble of claws on bark and
a rip-tide of terror surged through him. He opened his mouth to let
out a scream, but all he managed was a whimper. His uncle's watch
was still clutched in a death-grip in his hand as he blundered
through the trailing strands of brittle bindweed, while all the
time the dreadful voice was screeching in his mind.</p>
<p>Something hit the trunk above his left shoulder and Davy
immediately dodged to the right. As he did so, his foot snagged on
a root just at the edge of the depression where the tree had blown
down and the boy went sprawling headlong. He saw the dip yawn in
front of him. His left hand went out in a reflex action. The ground
fell away from him and he felt his body twist as his legs swung up
and over. The spiked branches in the gloom of the hole were waiting
to impale him and he could do nothing as he flipped in the air
towards them.</p>
<p>Then something hit him a shocking blow on the shoulder. The
ground, only inches from his face, swung away from him with
dizzying speed. He felt himself thrown upwards and something under
his shoulder-blade ripped with an actual tearing sound and a
searing bolt of pain arced across his back.</p>
<p>Again the boy's mouth opened as the hurt twisted through him.
His eyes were still wide open, but the dark world of the trees
whirled and spun. His shin scraped across rough bark and scored a
flare from knee to instep. The grip on his shoulder was so enormous
that he couldn't breathe and the big scream boiling up from deep
inside simply came out in a burbling wheeze.</p>
<p>In a matter of seconds, the boy was up in the canopy of the
pines, hauled and jolted along as whatever had grabbed him leapt
from trunk to trunk at bewildering speed. Davy could smell the
noisome stench which surrounded him and he could hear the guttural
mindless snuffling of the creature every time it flexed itself for
the next leap. Needles tore at his face and twigs poked at his
eyes. By the time he reached the end of the line of trees on
Stockyard Street, Davy was barely conscious. He felt himself drawn
upwards, even higher than before. Out on the road a car's headlamps
flickered briefly, though the sound of its engine was just a low
drone, almost drowned out by the now-sluggish thudding of blood in
the boy's temples. Whatever held him gripped him harder still and
he felt the last of his breath expelled from his lungs. Little
green lights sparkled in front of his eyes and then everything
faded away to complete darkness.</p>
<p>The thing that had snatched the small boy in the belt of trees
did not pause. Using the trees and the darkened sides of buildings
as its own skyway, it skirted the low land on Rough Drain until it
crossed Castlebank Street over the old spur line rail-bridge and
disappeared into the high warren of deserted sheds in the shadow of
the rock where the castle perched.</p>
<p>-------</p>
<p>Lorna was wrapped against the cold in a thick wool jacket and a
knitted Tam O'Shanter hat with a big red pom-pom. It made her look
more childlike and innocent and the paleness of her skin made her
eyes huge and luminous, but the pinched, fearful tightness of her
face contradicted the illusion of youth.</p>
<p>"Ready?" Jack asked, and she nodded, not trusting herself to say
anything. She was so frightened she thought she might be sick.</p>
<p>When they had discussed the possibility, in the cold light of
day, she had readily agreed. It was a long shot and she knew that
Jack knew it too, but at least it was a shot. Lorna had been
willing, almost desperate to do something, anything that might rid
her of the terrible visions that were ripping her apart. But now,
in the cold dark of night, as she eased herself into the passenger
seat, the slumbering fear in the pit of her belly had woken up and
was twisting and writhing like a rat in a corner.</p>
<p>It had seemed simple then. Jack had wanted to use her as a
direction finder, some kind of psychic sonar. That's how he'd
described it and she'd laughed then, a girl from a farm on the edge
of a village in the back of beyond, picturing herself with a dish
aerial on her head, trying to pinpoint a source. The pictures, he'd
explained, were no use to them, because Lorna didn't know enough of
the town, not the way Jack knew it after a childhood spend
exploring every alley and shack. She'd laughed then, but she was
not laughing now. Even before he'd arrived, the cold twist of fear
had started to roil in her stomach and she could not fight it.</p>
<p>"We'll just drive around," he'd said. "If you get anything,
anything at all, let me know, and we'll try to find it."</p>
<p>She'd agreed to that. "And don't worry," he'd told her. "You'll
be with me all the time, and you'll be in the car. If we can find
it, then I'll call up the cavalry."</p>
<p>Lorna hadn't worried then. As long as she was with this man, she
was safe. When she'd collapsed into his arms, the sense of sureness
and strength and honesty had come radiating out from him. Behind
it, as before, she felt the bleak empty space that had not been
filled, had not healed over, since the deaths of his daughter and
his wife, but in that moment she'd known that she could trust him
implicitly. Whatever faultline had opened in her mind and let in
the nightmare visions of terrible death, had also allowed another
perception. For some strange reason, she felt closer to Jack Fallon
than to any other person. That thought had warmed her, but not
enough to douse the embers of fear.</p>
<p>Now despite the closeness, despite his protective presence, she
was dreadfully scared, though she tried to hide it. She nodded and
he started the engine and they pulled away from the house. Neither
of them heard the muted ringing of the phone in the empty
house.</p>
<p>He drove up the slope of Clydeshore Avenue and down the run
towards the old bridge, both of them peering through the windscreen
at the fine salting of frozen mist which rolled and tumbled in the
headlamp beams. He slowed down at the turn and was about to pull
out when Lorna cried out so loudly his foot automatically stamped
on the brake pedal and the car fishtailed right across the
junction. Jack swung the wheel, guiding the nose into the skid,
found purchase and eased it to the far side and slowed to a stop.
Lorna was thrown right back in her seat. In the wan orange light he
could see the pallor of her face. Her eyes were wide and staring,
both hands up at her face with her fingernails dug into her cheeks
and she was moaning incoherently.</p>
<p>He reached over to her and grasped her shoulder. Under his
fingers he could feel the tuning-fork vibration that told him every
muscle in her body had locked in tension.</p>
<p>"What's wrong," he asked, shaking her almost roughly.</p>
<p>She opened her mouth and he thought she was about to speak, but
all that came out was a low moan.</p>
<p>"Come on Lorna," he said, more urgently. He shook her again,
even more strongly. Her head rocked back against the headrest, and
a lock of hair which had been tucked under the rim of her hat fell
down over her eye. She gasped, then started hauling breath in, like
an exhausted swimmer who's battled an undertow to reach the
surface.</p>
<p>"What is it?" Jack demanded, his voice now loud.</p>
<p>"<em>Catch you kill you, catch you eat you,</em>" Lorna
jabbered, the words tumbling over each other in a rush. It didn't
even sound like her voice, not the sing-song highland lilt that
gave her the air of innocence. Her tone had dropped to a harsh
rasp, almost a growl. Jack felt a chill crackle through him.</p>
<p>He took both her shoulders in each hand, leaning right across
the seat and grabbed her tightly, pulling her roughly back and
forth. Her eyes were staring straight ahead, and her pupils were so
wide they were like blind, black pools. Her breath was rasping in
her throat, so fast it sounded like a dog panting. He pushed her
hard against the back of the seat, slamming her roughly against the
fabric. It seemed to work. Lorna blinked twice. Her breath caught
in her throat and then she let out a shuddery wail. Jack pulled her
in towards him and held on to her as she shivered against his
chest, mewling continuously. He rocked her, the way he had soothed
Julie when she'd been teething, waiting until the spasms passed,
then finally pushed her back. Her face was still deathly pale,
making the freckles on the bridge of her nose stand out like sepia
ink-blots, but her vision was back. She knew where she was.</p>
<p>"It's out again," she said, with difficulty. Her voice was
cracked and uneven.</p>
<p>"What happened?" Jack asked simply.</p>
<p>"It came down from the trees," she said. "I could hear its
<em>thoughts</em>. There was a boy. It was telling me what it was
going to do."</p>
<p>She paused, seeming to cast around, looking for the right word.
"No. It was telling me and it was telling <em>him.</em> Oh, it's
evil. It's like a disease in your head. It wanted the boy to be
frightened. It was leaping from tree to tree, jumping through the
branches. It moves so fast. It came rushing down and took the boy.
Oh, Jack, I could feel his fear, it was like glass inside me. He
didn't have time to scream."</p>
<p>"Where was it?"</p>
<p>Lorna shook her head.</p>
<p>"Trees. That's all I could see. I don't know where. It took the
boy up into the trees and carried him along the branches. It's dark
in there."</p>
<p>Jack was now beyond any semblance of disbelief.</p>
<p>"What in Christ's sake is a kid doing out in the dark? Eh? Do
the stupid bloody parents in this town have no fucking idea?" He
felt the hot and futile anger rise inside him again in the certain
knowledge that another child was dead.</p>
<p>"It's still moving," Lorna butted in. "It's gone beyond the
trees. It crossed over on a bridge and then up a wall, away from
the light."</p>
<p>"Where, for Christ's sake?" Jack demanded, voice too loud.</p>
<p>She shook her head.</p>
<p>"It wants me to see, but I don't know where. I think it's a
railway bridge, but it's too dark."</p>
<p>She sat back, hands over her eyes, concentrating. She held her
pose for several seconds, then jerked up.</p>
<p>"The boy. He's still alive. Oh, but he's hurt. It still has him,
but he's broken something. He's so small."</p>
<p>Her eyes flicked open.</p>
<p>"I can <em>sense</em> the boy, Jack. There's something wrong
here. It's important, but I don't know what it is." Lorna's voice
rose higher. "The boy is special to it, but I don't know why. I can
feel it laughing. It's like poison."</p>
<p>"Just as long as we find out where," he told her. "That's what
we need to know."</p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>