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<h2>25</h2>
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<p>“We should take a look,” Helen had protested and
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David had reluctantly agreed, over his better judgement. Both of
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them were subliminally and consciously aware of the presence of
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threat, the imminence of danger, yet each of them were now driven
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to put an end to this, to find Ginny Marsden and the mysterious
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baby. The young policeman was whey-faced and every now and again
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his stomach muscles would spasm and he’d double over,
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dry-retching. He had not been sick yet. Helen had felt the bolt and
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roil of nausea and swallowed it back. The dead man’s awful
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injuries had not been the worst, though they had been devastating.
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The shotgun wounds were black and still liquid, while the blood on
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the walls was black and dry, soaked into the paper. Other things,
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dotted like flies still stuck there, shrivelling as they too dried.
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The dead man had not been the worst of it, though his frozen
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grimace, lips stretched back from bloodstained teeth, making him
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look like a savage snarling in death had been a sickening sight. So
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too had been his empty, bloodied eye sockets blindly staring at the
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ceiling, mutely appealing for help.</p>
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<p>The baby’s thin and waxen little body had been the worst.
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David had tried to push her back from it, sparing her the horror,
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but she had squirmed past him and now she wished she hadn’t
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done that. The other policeman had not seen the baby. If he had, he
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might have been a stretcher case by now.</p>
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<p>She was shaking inside, shaking in fear and in anger and in a
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sudden pathological loathing for the thing that had done this.</p>
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<p><em>Not human.</em> The words repeated themselves in her mind.
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<em>Thing</em>. She tried to shuck that thought away, but it came
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back insistently, reinforcing the crazy theory that David had
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raised.</p>
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<p>What sort of woman steals a baby? What sort of baby steals a
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mother?</p>
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<p>And what sort of devil could do this to a helpless infant?</p>
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<p>She had bit down on the nausea and backed away from the cot
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where a thin trail of congealed blood hung down in an elongated
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drip, like old black toffee. The baby’s little mouth had been
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open</p>
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<p>in a perfect circle, its tiny tongue, soft and delicate as a
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rabbit’s tongue, protruding over the toothless gums. Splashes
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of black, fathomless and alien, sank where the eyes had been. The
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tiny chin was angled to the left and below it was a hole in the
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flesh that reminded her of something. It was not until she got
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outside that she remembered what it had been. She had once seen the
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body of a tramp who had died of exposure in an old derelict
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warehouse. He had not been found for some time, not by humans. The
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rats had discovered him and had gnawed their way under his rib-cage
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and were eating him from within. The body had twitched in a
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ghastly, possessed way and the rats had come scurrying out of their
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fleshy tunnel, glutted and fat. The baby did not twitch or tremble.
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The tunnel in her little neck showed ragged and abraded ends of
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tendons and blood-vessels. It looked as if something had drilled
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its way through her skin and flesh. The small arms and legs were
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thin and wasted, as if all the goodness had been sucked out of her,
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and though Helen did not know it, that is exactly what the
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pathologist would discover.</p>
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<p>Outside in the yard, where the snow had begun to fall, swirled
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round by the wind boiling up from the estuary, she had leaned
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against David, while he had used Jimmy Mulgrew’s radio to
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call in. He had kept it very brief. She held on to him, more for
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the warmth of another human being, than for anything else, while
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the initial ripple of shock and abhorrence faded to a level where
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she could grasp it and wrestle it down. He put the radio back in
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its socket in the front of the patrol car and then moved towards
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their own car.</p>
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<p>It was then that Helen had sensed something, and later on she
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would say it was just like the scrape of awareness that had made
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her flesh creep down in Levenford as she was leaving the old women
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in the cafe, footsteps on her grave. Something touched her and she
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stopped dead.</p>
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<p>“What is it?” David asked. His face was pale and
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pinched, showing he was not immune to what they had found in the
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farmhouse.</p>
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<p>“I don’t know,” she said. “I got a
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feeling.”</p>
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<p>“What kind of feeling?”</p>
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<p>“We should look here.”</p>
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<p>“We should wait for reinforcements,” David said.
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“I think we should get out of this yard, just in
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case.”</p>
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<p>“There could be something here,” she said.
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“The guns are inside, and the used one is on the floor.
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Whoever did this has cut and run.”</p>
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<p>The contact touched her again, a feather stroke on the edge of
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her thoughts, slightly greasy, ominous as a distant thundercloud.
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She sensed it and something deep within her responded.</p>
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<p>“I want to look around,” she said, suddenly afraid,
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but needing to move. “It can’t do any harm.”</p>
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<p>He had looked at her, weighing it up. She was probably right, he
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finally conceded. This had not happened today, or yesterday. The
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damage was a couple of days old and the killer had gone. He thought
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that, yet the other part of him, the part that had read old Ron
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McBean’s account and had dreamed of parasites, told him to
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get the hell out of there. Ginny Marsden had come to Barloan
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Harbour with her creepy little baby. Down the years, there had been
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a trail of death and madness, suicide and lost, abandoned lives,
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and they were all linked. Ginny Marsden had come here with her
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creepy little baby and they had followed her trail and they had
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found a tiny infant with a black, gaping hole in its neck and not a
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drop of blood left in its body. He lifted up a hand to call her
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back, but she was angling away towards the corner of the garage.
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Behind him, Jimmy Mulgrew gurgled like a drain and then heaved his
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substantial lunch onto a pile of potato sacks.</p>
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<p>David shrugged. She was probably right. The inner voice nudged
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and tweaked at him, but he ignored it. They were the police, his
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rational voice said, stolid and definite. This is a murder.</p>
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<p>Helen was across by the wall. The touch came again, gentle as
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fog. She thought she heard the squeak of tiny bats, whispery as
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insect legs on dry sand. It drew her onward and she did not even
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know she was being pulled.</p>
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<p><em>Go back.</em> The logical segment of her brain, the one
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corresponding to David’s rational part, urged powerfully.
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<em>Get out of here NOW,</em> pleaded the deep, subconscious core
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that sensed a deep and alien danger and an awesome threat in the
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shadows. Yet beneath that, something darker egged her on. Her
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nipples tingled. At first she had been unaware of it as she crossed
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the yard, feet muffled by the thickening snow. It came as a
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pressure in her breasts and then a warmth that spread to the tips
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and suffused them with a fierce, prickling heat. Down in her belly,
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another warm, sensation spread, edged down between her legs, pulsed
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twice, unexpected and powerful. For an instant her vision swam and
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she thought she was slipping on ice. She reached a hand out to the
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wall, found its cold surface, steadied herself. The brief flare was
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gone, leaving her with only an itch and a sudden sense of need that
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she could not identify.</p>
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<p>Go back! <em>Get out of here!</em></p>
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<p>It came loud, like a physical blow, just as she pushed forward.
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Her hand shoved the faded red door. It creaked open in a shudder.
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She was in before she knew it. The bat-squeak subaudible sound in
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her ears swelled stronger. It felt like a resonance in the bones of
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her skull. The fillings in her teeth sang in sympathy, sending a
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ripple of galvanic shock down her jawbone. Behind her she heard the
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clatter of the byre door as it swung along on its rollers, but it
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sounded far away. She was here and she was now and her whole world
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was suddenly shrunk right down to this singularity.</p>
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<p>Above her, a slow, flopping sound rolled down from on high. The
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air was cool and dry, filled with dust and another, more familiar
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smell. She walked inside, across the dry straw-covered floor,
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between two stalls festooned with ancient harnesses and bridles, to
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the other side. Very slowly, and with hardly a sound this time, the
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door swung shut. The darkness here was not absolute.</p>
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<p>Another smell. She breathed in and the flush fluttered over her
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skin in a hot tide. She turned, feeling the touch stronger now,
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feeling it close. Deep within her, in her mind and in the cells of
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her body, urgent messages were pulsing, exchanging, jumping from
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axon to dendrite, from cell wall to cell. They shunted through her
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nerves. For an instant, everything else was forgotten and a tide of
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hungry need rolled up to swamp her.</p>
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<p>Up there, the sound came rumbling, as if heard through several
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layers of canvas, while the whispery call that snagged her went on
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and on and on, insistently tugging at her. She was halfway up the
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short flight of wooden steps when a shape launched itself from the
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doorway ahead. Helen saw a pale face and a flapping coat, white
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skin. It came rushing at her.</p>
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<p>The singing in her ears soared to a glassy, brittle pitch, and
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pain drilled into her skull, but over them, the appalling need
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swamped everything. It took hold of her and drove her on. She
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wanted it. It wanted her. She had to have it, Protect it,
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<em>mother it.</em></p>
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<p>Uncontrollable ripples of emotion pulsed into her, pulsed out
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from her. The shape came lumbering down, pale in the gloaming
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light, the edges of a coat flapping, while legs, moving slow, as if
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through glue, thudding with soft, muffled crumps on the treads. She
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saw a dark triangle of hair, realised this was a woman. She tried
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to raise her head. There was something dark clutched tight in the
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other woman’s arms.</p>
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<p>The baby.</p>
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<p>A surge of need was like a bolt of electricity, shivering her
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from foot to head. She had to look after it, had to protect it. She
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felt its touch and heard its cry and smelled its smell and for an
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instant she was completely and utterly ensnared. She reached to
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take it. It reached towards her, focusing its thoughts. She heard
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its hunger.</p>
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<p>Yes. <em>Yes.</em> Come now. Sizzling messages jangled between
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them and the darkness started to close in on her.</p>
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<hr />
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<p><em>He saw her.</em></p>
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<p>In that moment of recognition, his new hunger yawned, huge and
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empty, confusing his senses and for an instant stripping his
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instinct away.</p>
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<p>The scent of blood was even now still in the air, the
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mother’s blood, and with his own essence in it, rich and
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powerful. She had come for him on the cusp of the change, when he
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was freeing himself from the tight and fraying shackles of the old
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skin, while he struggled to break out. She had almost succeeded
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this one, even more than the last. The anger had flared and he had
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almost put his head against her neck and sucked her dry, but he
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still needed her. Instead he put the hurt in her, pushing the pain
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deep inside, sensing the explosion within her and hearing that
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sudden mental shriek as it burned in her head.</p>
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<p>The mother had stopped, snared by the hurt and then he had
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pulled the pain out and covered it with a different pressure,
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making her love him again. She had nursed him in the dark, and he
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had fed, stronger now and needing more. He had fed ravenously,
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glutting himself even as she felt her own strength diminish.
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Another change was already boiling inside him, making his blood
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sizzle and his muscles tremble. It was coming so swiftly, hard on
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the heels of the last one, that its speed confused him and he only
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knew he had to feed fast now. Soon he would have to make her move
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on, because he sensed this change would not last long. The growth
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inside him was phenomenal. There were changes within changes, new
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senses, new needs, waxing with every feeding. He could not resist
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those changes any more than he could turn away from the need to
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feed.</p>
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<p>Still he had no conscious thought, though a kind of intelligence
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burned behind the thick lids that protected his eyes from the day.
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His instinct, however, was all. He fed and slumbered, holding the
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mother tight with his neural connections as he did, making sure she
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could not escape again.</p>
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<p>The sensation of threat, his ever-alert sentry, woke him and he
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knew they were coming again. Unconsciously he had reached out and
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touched, feeling them approach and he recognised their glow, the
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way a dog sniffs a familiar scent. He pushed the mother, waking her
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brutally. She came awake, coughing harshly, choking in the dust
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until he suppressed it. Her lungs were filling up with fluid. He
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made her sit very still, despite the cold of the old loft. They
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both heard the trundling vibration of the cars as they came round
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into the courtyard and still he waited, despite the urgent
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instinctive need to move, to fly.</p>
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<p>His new hunger confused his instinct and made him wait.</p>
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<p>After a while, noises came outside. People talked,
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unintelligible grunts and creaks to him and he recognised her
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sounds again. He stretched out, sending a tendril curl down towards
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her and slid it over the top of her thoughts.</p>
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<p>She sensed him and recoiled. A delicious heat spread inside him,
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and the new thing between his legs swelled, urgent and
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thrusting.</p>
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<p>He waited a while, fighting the need to be away and in a safe
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place, unable to comprehend the speed of the next change. The
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mother breathed steadily, her eyes closed and mouth open, a trickle
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of saliva dangling from her cracked lips. He could feel her
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encapsulated horror tumbling inside her mind and ignored it.
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Outside, beyond the walls, danger walked. He stayed stock still,
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all his senses stretched to their ultimate, picking up sounds and
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vibrations and the heat of the moving shapes. In the dark,
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surrounded by the old hay, clutched in the mother’s arms, he
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was safe for the moment.</p>
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<p>Out there, the noises faded for a while, leaving a silence
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broken only by the rising moan of the wind, until a cry came, low
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and inarticulate. Some more noises, a clang of metal. His nerves
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twitched and he waited, awake and aware. Something was about to
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happen. The imminence of danger pressed at him. He closed his eyes
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and reached out just as the door opened below and alarm suddenly
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flared.</p>
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<p>The mother jerked, hauled out of her torpor.</p>
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<p>“Wha...?” a sudden sound blurted. He punched a
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command at her and her mouth clamped shut. The door rattled, the
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old loose hinges protesting. A shape came inside, sensed, rather
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than seen, through the gaps of the floorboards of the hayloft. He
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reached again, and touched the other female. An explosion of
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emotions erupted within him. The mother jerked back, hitting her
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shoulder against the heavy oak beam. The thud boomed hollowly.</p>
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<p>Some reflex, some intuitive force made him move. He shoved at
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the mother, giving her a savage mental wrench. Her eyes opened
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wide, mouth wider. She got to her feet and moved slowly to the top
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of the steps.</p>
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<p>______</p>
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<p>When Kate Park became aware, she was already moving. Her body
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was a mass of pain and her foot was shrieking loudest of all. The
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bones of her toes had been dislocated and distorted as the tine of
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the pitchfork ripped between them. The puncture holes, top and
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bottom, were now ragged and black. A gangrene was setting in there
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on top of the infection from the rats droppings. Her joints sung a
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protest song as they ground together. Her breasts, now thin and
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dangling, felt as if they had been torn in a clawed vice. She was
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moving down the stairs from the dark of a hayloft. A blink of
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darkness flooded her vision, as if an internal switch had been cut,
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then her sight came back and with it came her own conscious
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self.</p>
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<p>She was moving and her body was screaming in pain but her mind
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was her own. It had turned away from her, swung its dreadful
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concentration from her own mind. She stumbled down the stairs, not
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even limping, though the agony was so immense it felt as if she was
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riding an impossible surf of hurt. It carried her along, carried
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her down.</p>
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<p>A pale face floated in the gloom.</p>
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<p>She saw the woman, seeing her eyes widen, all of it in slow
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motion. She was slim and dark haired and she was reaching outwards
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towards the baby as if her life depended on the contact.</p>
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<p>In that instant of recognition, Kate Park became a martyr.</p>
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<p>In that moment of time, all three of them were bonded. The other
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woman’s hunger came sizzling between them and her primitive
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need to protect the baby came rolling up from her depths. The baby
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was calling out to her, a feral, mindless demand. The girl was
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reaching for it, snared by the thing.</p>
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<p>The image of her baby’s pallid face lying in the cot came
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suddenly back to her and Kate Park’s mind almost broke with
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the pain of it. She saw her dead husband twitching his last while
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his blood ran across the floor. She saw the thing sucking down
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there at his face.</p>
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<p>“No,” she grunted, though the sound was hardly even
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audible. She perceived the young woman’s need, knew it would
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have her, would capture her mind and soul, and in that instant she
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reacted.</p>
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<p>Helen Lamont reached to touch the thing that was still huddled
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between Kate Park’s breast, overwhelmed by the need to hold
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and protect it, and overcome by the strange, hot urgency in the pit
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of her belly that was something entirely different from
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mother-love.</p>
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<p>She reached with both hands and Kate Park slammed her to the
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floor. There was no hesitation. The woman swung out a sturdy arm
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and hit her square on the side of the face. The slap sounded like
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leather on wood. Helen went spinning away. She hit an upright with
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a dull thud and fell to the floor.</p>
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<p>The beast howled in fury.</p>
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<p>Kate’s momentum carried her across the store-room, past
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the stalls and out the back door. The thing in her arms was
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shrieking madly, its mind still casting round to grab the other
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woman. But for seconds, for a few vital seconds, Kate Park’s
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mind was her own, and in that brief, somehow eternal, space of
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time, she refused to let the monster take another human.</p>
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<p>She pushed the door hard. It swung back, hit the wall and she
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was out in the snow. Cold bit at her skin. The thing at her breast
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cowered from the sudden lack of warmth. It’s mind was singing
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in screeching anger and thwarted hunger. She ran along, loose shoes
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clacking on the hard-pack ground, coat flapping in her wake, right
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down the line of the hedge, taking advantage of its frustration and
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confusion, putting distance between her and the farm, knowing she
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was doomed anyway, but doomed to hell if she stayed to let it take
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another woman.</p>
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<p>Down at the bottom end of the field, where the old fence gave on
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to woodland, it stopped her headlong, staggering rush with a savage
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twist of demand, but she was too far now. It turned its attention
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to her, seething with incoherent anger. It pulsed at her and an
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augur of pain drilled into the back of Kate Park’s head. The
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last thing she knew before she lost control of her own mind was the
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appalling satisfaction that she had fought it, and on one level,
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she had won.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>Helen Lamont had hit against the post and she dropped like a
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sack. The darkness spun and fragmented into crazy whirling
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Christmas lights. The sound was shrieking in her ears and the smell
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filled her pores and then everything broke up into shards. She
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rolled, gagged, got to a knee, fell again and then she burst into
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tears of loss and anger and pain and relief.</p>
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<p>She had almost seen it. As soon as it was gone and as soon as
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she had got to her knees she realised that it had almost had her
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and a dreadful horror surged inside her at how close it had been.
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Everything was blurred. She remembered walking away from the car
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and nothing else after that except the humming sound of music in
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her ears and an urgent sense of want. She had turned and something
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had...</p>
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<p>She reached for the memory, not wishing to see that it might
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show her, shuddering all the while, trying to overcome the racking
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sobs that shook her and filled her with that deadly, hopeless sense
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of loss. She turned, got to a crouch, tried to stand.</p>
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<p>The image wavered in her memory, trying to get through.
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Something had come at her, big and white. A woman? Yes, it had
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been. And in her arms she had held something that had reached out
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to her and demanded her love. She had stretched and even in the act
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of reaching she had sensed the wrongness that jittered under the
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|
urgent compulsion. She had not been able to help herself at all,
|
|
snared in the intensity of its command.</p>
|
|
<p><em>Alien.</em> She had almost been there. It had almost had
|
|
her. She had been smothered by the need to protect and nurture it.
|
|
It was a parasite. The realisation swamped her in a tide of terror
|
|
and relief. The false imperative was ebbing away fast and on its
|
|
heels came the fear. It had been an alien thing. It had reached
|
|
into her soul and touched her and for a moment she was not herself
|
|
at all, just a thing to be commanded by the filthy mental touch of
|
|
something that should never have existed.</p>
|
|
<p><em>Parasite</em>, she thought, breath now hitching violently.
|
|
It was a parasite and it had wanted to feed on her.</p>
|
|
<p>The woman had slapped her, hit her. Had it been Ginny Marsden?
|
|
Had she inadvertently saved Helen from it? Or had she deliberately
|
|
saved her?</p>
|
|
<p>The door opened and David came running in. He took one look at
|
|
her, hauled her to her feet. “What happened? Did you see
|
|
him?”</p>
|
|
<p>Helen coughed, felt a bubble swell out of one nostril. She wiped
|
|
it away unselfconsciously, pointed at the door.
|
|
“There.” She said. “She got away.”</p>
|
|
<p>“She? Was it Marsden?”</p>
|
|
<p>“I don’t know. She hit me.”</p>
|
|
<p>“Did she have the baby?” David wanted to know. Helen
|
|
could not even respond for a moment. She felt a warm itch of blood
|
|
trickle from a scrape on her temple. David was across at the back
|
|
door, pushing it open. Here in the lea of the wind, the snow had
|
|
not gathered. There was a space of about two yards clear behind the
|
|
building that was bare of snow. He looked up and down, but there
|
|
was no sign of movement. There were no footprints on the hard mud.
|
|
Finally he came back to her.</p>
|
|
<p>“You sure you saw something?” he asked.</p>
|
|
<p>“Yes. I saw something and it hit me. Oh God. It was a
|
|
woman and she was carrying a bundle. I think it was a baby. It
|
|
almost had me, for god’s sake.”</p>
|
|
<p>“How do you mean?”</p>
|
|
<p>“It reached inside me and told me to become its
|
|
mother.” She turned to David, blinking the tears back.
|
|
“It felt like leprosy, David. It felt like it had been
|
|
waiting just for me. And I couldn’t do a thing about
|
|
it.”</p>
|
|
<p>She held on to the lapels of his coat until a fresh and violent
|
|
shudder of sobbing passed. He knew he should be out there looking
|
|
for the woman, yet all he could do was stand and hold on to
|
|
her.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p>Kate Park made it to the bottom of the hill hobbling in little
|
|
spastic jerks, her body bent against the pain of disintegration.
|
|
Her eyes were wide and blinkless, despite the whipping snow. She
|
|
was heading for shelter, driven on by the force of its will. She
|
|
reached the fence and skirted along the tree-line, now out of the
|
|
direct wind. Ahead, the land rose and she forced her way up, every
|
|
breath a purgatory of rasping pain, every step a hell of hurt, but
|
|
she could not pause, not flag. Her mind was no longer her own.</p>
|
|
<p>She stumbled on, as the light was beginning to fade in the sky
|
|
and the clouds rolled overhead. At the crest of the low slope, a
|
|
black cloud erupted from the field that had been ploughed the week
|
|
before. A flock of rooks, great black birds, took to the air,
|
|
startled by her sudden lurching presence. There were forty or more,
|
|
wide and glossy, cawing angrily. They wheeled, took off for the
|
|
trees, then turned towards her. She reached the corner where a
|
|
stile gave on to a woodland path which would lead to the far side
|
|
of Barloan Harbour, close to the soaring bridge over the estuary.
|
|
As she levered herself to the top of the steps, the flock of rooks
|
|
came winging in, beaks wide, wings whooping. They swooped down,
|
|
beating at her with their wings, black beaks pecking at her head.
|
|
In at her breast, the baby thing hissed and spat, sensing their own
|
|
perception of something alien, but unable to turn his head and open
|
|
his eyes to the daylight.</p>
|
|
<p>If Kate’s mind had been her own, she would have known the
|
|
crows were mobbing her, driving her off as they would a stoat or an
|
|
owl caught out in the daytime, vulnerable in the open. They sensed
|
|
the predator and the parasite and instinctively drove it away. She
|
|
stumbled over the stile, landed heavily and twisted her ankle.
|
|
There was no stopping. The crows followed them a short distance
|
|
into the tangle of the woods and then pulled off, still cawing
|
|
deafeningly. She moved on, down towards the old railway, lugging
|
|
the weight she was forced to carry.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p>It had all been his fault, David knew that.</p>
|
|
<p>The sirens howled like banshees and the ice-blue lights pulsed
|
|
like electrical sparks on the home straight. Jimmy Mulgrew was
|
|
shivering and not from the cold. His eyes rolled every now and
|
|
again and he would grab something to stop him from falling. He had
|
|
been sick so often and so violently he believed the next spasm
|
|
would turn him completely inside out.</p>
|
|
<p>David sat with Helen, merely holding her hand. She was shivering
|
|
like an aspen leaf. He could feel it vibrate into him. Her eyes
|
|
were wide and dark and she looked into the distance as if she had
|
|
gone blind. Two red grooves angled from her ear to the point of her
|
|
jaw and the side of her face was swollen alarmingly. It reminded
|
|
David of Greta Simon’s slumped leer and he winced at the
|
|
comparison.</p>
|
|
<p>Helen had not been badly hurt, not physically. But the look in
|
|
her face told it all. She looked as if she was in the middle of a
|
|
nightmare she could not escape from.</p>
|
|
<p>He should have pulled out.</p>
|
|
<p>She wouldn’t have been hurt if he’d just got them
|
|
out of there and waited for the cavalry. Yet both of them had been
|
|
compelled to stay, compelled to look. Christ, they could have been
|
|
killed, he thought, all of them. He put his arm around her, pulling
|
|
her close. Nearby, beside the barn wall where he’d hauled
|
|
them back, the young constable was bent over again, gagging
|
|
ferociously. David and Helen were sitting on the upturned trough,
|
|
out of the wind, out of the gathering blizzard which had started
|
|
only a few minutes ago and was now already covering the dead,
|
|
fluttering bodies of the pigeons.</p>
|
|
<p>Exactly what had happened here? He couldn’t begin to
|
|
imagine, he tried to tell himself, but his imagination was all
|
|
fired up and doing nicely on its own. She shivered beside him,
|
|
breathing hard, as if she’d run a long way and had some
|
|
distance yet to travel.</p>
|
|
<p>The sirens howled a cacophony, the blinking lights battling
|
|
bravely through the snowstorm. Down on the lane the gate opened,
|
|
slammed hard against its post with the sound of a heavy bell and
|
|
the cars came rolling on, wheels crunching on the gravel that would
|
|
be hidden when the wind came round to let the snow lie on the
|
|
track. A big sergeant, grizzle haired and jug-eared, wide as an
|
|
outhouse and towering over them all came striding forward, followed
|
|
by four other men in uniform and a pair of ambulance men in medics
|
|
greens. Another car let out two pairs of plain clothes men and
|
|
David recognised one of them as a Chief Inspector from the west
|
|
division. He bulled his way forward.</p>
|
|
<p>“Well, young David,” he said, recognising him by
|
|
sight, or simply from what he’d heard. “What in the
|
|
name of God’s going on?”</p>
|
|
<p>“Two dead,” David said, “In there.” He
|
|
pointed towards the farmhouse. “Plus some dead
|
|
animals.”</p>
|
|
<p>“Signs of violence?” The detective asked. His name,
|
|
David remembered was Bert Millar</p>
|
|
<p>David nodded. Helen shivered. “One of them’s
|
|
gunshot. Shotgun. Haven’t a clue about the baby.” She
|
|
shivered against him again at the sound of the word.</p>
|
|
<p>“Jesus. A baby?” The detective turned to one of his
|
|
men. “Tell the office we need a full forensic, if it’s
|
|
not on its way. And dogs.”</p>
|
|
<p>He swung back to David. “This a today job?”</p>
|
|
<p>David shook his head this time. “Couple of days, I think.
|
|
The blood’s dried and clotted, no sign of mould
|
|
yet.”</p>
|
|
<p>The older man looked at Helen. “Does she live
|
|
here?”</p>
|
|
<p>“No, she’s with me. D.C. Lamont. Waterside section.
|
|
City division.”</p>
|
|
<p>It was almost like a code. Short, rattled sentences, the
|
|
machine-gunning of professionals.</p>
|
|
<p>“What’s up with her?”</p>
|
|
<p>“Slipped on the ice, Sir,” Helen spoke up. She had
|
|
gone very still and David could feel the vibration in her body,
|
|
tense and trembling. “Hit against the wall.” David said
|
|
nothing. He had only seen a shape, maybe, a kind of movement along
|
|
by the far hedge leading along the side of the field towards the
|
|
trees. He’d considered pursuit, but Helen had been on the
|
|
ground, hands to her face, obviously in pain. She’d seen it,
|
|
and she wasn’t ready to tell another soul. Not yet.</p>
|
|
<p>“There might have been somebody in the barn. I
|
|
couldn’t be certain,” he said, knowing he had a duty to
|
|
tell them at least that. The senior man nodded, jerked his head to
|
|
one of the others who strode towards the gaping door.</p>
|
|
<p>“I’d get that seen to,” Bert Millar said. He
|
|
beckoned to the big sergeant who came clumping forward, his collar
|
|
up against the gathering wind. “David’s going to show
|
|
us. There’s a man shot in there.”</p>
|
|
<p>“Is it Jack Park?” he wanted to know, but David
|
|
hadn’t a clue, and the young policeman had been no help at
|
|
all. He had been unable to speak from the violence of his vomiting
|
|
and he now looked as if his mouth had forgotten how.</p>
|
|
<p>They all walked in through the gap towards the courtyard of the
|
|
farm as the snow fell in a silent shroud, giving the day an eerie,
|
|
slow-motion effect. The flashing lights added a winking
|
|
Christmas-card image as the snow began to pile quickly on the roofs
|
|
and chimneys and the curve of the nearby barn, while inside, they
|
|
both knew, was like a scene from hell. He was reluctant to go back
|
|
inside again. They passed the door that led to the old hay-loft. It
|
|
was still swinging on its hinge. He felt Helen cringe as they
|
|
walked by.</p>
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|
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