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<h2>27</h2>
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<p>She was lurching along the track, unable to stop while the
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baby’s mind jittered inside of her own, forcing her on. Her
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body was a pulse of pain. She could even hear the sound of her
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bones grinding against each other where they met. Behind them men
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were coming through the trees. The sound of their voices was
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muffled, but getting louder out there among the trees.</p>
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<p><em>Help me please help me...someone help me</em></p>
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<p>The mantra sang out in the deep and barricaded part of herself
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that was her own, but she could not make the words come out, could
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not make herself stop. All she wanted to do now was die, but the
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thing at her breast tugged her on, its own panic conveying itself
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to her in sharp drilling spasms of energy. Off to the right, a
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clump of snow fell off a spruce tree with a quiet flop of sound and
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she felt it jerk in alarm. In her ears the chittering sound waxed,
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a fuzzy little crackle that made her ears feel as if they were
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bleeding. It vibrated in the bones of her jaw and made her teeth
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chatter together.</p>
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<p><em>Go go go. GO!</em></p>
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<p>No words but a mental goading, whip and sharp spurs, that could
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not be denied. She had to run and hide. She had to get the baby
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away from here. That was the only thing on the surface of her mind,
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the overwhelming, overpowering compulsion to get it to safety. It
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was crying at her, whimpering its alarm and its terror. She could
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do nothing but respond.</p>
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<p>The dogs were coming. Two of them, howling behind, somewhere in
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the distance. They sounded like wolves in the early dawn. Over to
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the east the sky was pinking, slashed in layers of colours under
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the snow cloud, tinged with the rising sun and with the orange of
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the street lamps on the main route to the city. Over to the right,
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the wide black ribbon of the bridge spanning the estuary was lined
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with a coruscation of lights. Under any other circumstances it
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would have been a winter scene that would have made her stop to
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admire. She did not even see it, not with her own consciousness.
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Her whole attention had been focused on the need to run.</p>
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<p>She ran, while rivers of white-hot pain surged in her feet and
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in her hips. Blood trickled form her mouth and from the ragged
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wound in her sole.</p>
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<p>The baby whimpered constantly, huddled against her. She could
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feel its arms and legs twitch and its alarm was a sharp and
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twisting augur of cerebral hurt.</p>
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<p>The dogs howled and snarled. Somewhere in the distance a siren
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wailed. Down in the estuary the foghorn bawled hollow in the
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lessening wind. Snow flurries still blew in, but less than there
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had been before. Kate Park’s feet made deep holes in the
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virgin snow and they made hardly a sound. Her joints squeaked like
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rusted hinges and it was a miracle that she did not collapse to the
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ground and lie down and die if such a word as miracle could
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describe her awful plight.</p>
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<p>She stumbled on.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>Behind her, the dog handlers were urging their animals onward,
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with some difficulty. When they had arrived at the old station, the
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dogs, at first fired with their normal energy had taken one sniff
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inside the ticket office and then they’d gone into fits of
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frenzied barking. Both of them, powerful German Shepherd dogs, had
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cringed back, haunches low, tails tucked tight. Their eyes had been
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rolling wildly and they looked absolutely terrified. The handlers
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dragged them back, wondering what was wrong with them. Already the
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first team had been forced to pull back up at the farm when the
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other two dogs had started snapping and snarling each other, and
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one of them had tried to mount the other, thrusting way with
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powerful jerks of its rump, while foaming saliva flicked from its
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gaping jaws.</p>
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<p>This time, just after dawn, the dogs looked plain scared. One of
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the other policemen went inside the office and came out holding his
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nose.</p>
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<p>“Smells like a slaughterhouse dump,” he said.</p>
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<p>There were footprints in the snow on the far side of the old
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building, leading down across the flat where the track had once
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been. They angled into the trees where the thick bushes had formed
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a snow break. The footprints stopped only a few yards into the
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spruce trees where the snow couldn’t reach. The handlers
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pulled the dogs away from the station. The animals howled and
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barked excitedly, almost like a gathering of wolves, but the
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trained men could hear the panic in their yelping.</p>
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<p>“Something wrong here, Sarge,” one of the men said.
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“They don’t want to go on”</p>
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<p>“They’ll go on with my toe up their
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backsides,” Sergeant Holleran warned him. “I
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don’t care if they’ve got broken legs. Get them out and
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get them sniffing.” The dog men dragged their charges onto
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the disused track. The beasts sniffed and yelped, in obvious
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distress. This pair, however, had taken their training better than
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the previous two at the farm. After a few moment’s
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hesitation, they got their heads down, started to snuffle for scent
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and then, very slowly, very nervously, they began to follow a
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trail. Every now one of them would back off, yipping in alarm and
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consternation. Slowly and hesitantly however, they made progress
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through the damp forest.</p>
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<hr />
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<p><em>He had perceived the pursuit and had woken her</em>.</p>
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<p>He made her move with a brutal, panicked wrench of his thought
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The dogs yipped and yelped and in his strange acoustics, he heard
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the sound like the cracking of ice, but he still recognised it as
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<em>threat</em>. Alarm jangled through him as she gathered him up
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and hobbled out into the cold, clutching him against her failing
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heat. He touched her mind once, twice, little shoves. Inside she
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was shrieking, like the other one had, like no other mothers
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before. They had all accepted him, they had loved him.</p>
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<p>But now he was changing, and while he could control the mothers,
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he had to push them hard.</p>
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<p>He shoved, twisted violently and she lurched outward over the
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snow flat and down to the runnel and into the trees. Her breath was
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ragged and her heart was beating too fast. He could sense the
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weakness there and the heat of slowly tearing muscle. She would not
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last. Her pain screamed within her, competing with the constant
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shriek of her trapped mind. Still she stumbled on, barging through
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the thickets of birch and bramble, charging through clumps of alder
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and hazel. He needed a place to hide. The threat came from behind
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them, in the howl of the beasts and the hoarse rumbling vibrations
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that were the shouts of pursuing men. If they caught him they would
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destroy him. That instinctive knowledge burned brightly, not in
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words but in a complete concept, on the forefront of his mind. A
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sudden dread washed over him. He had never been hunted, not in his
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memory. He had always driven the mothers, made them move on,
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whenever he sensed any threat. He had never been chased and now he
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was out in the cold, exposed and desperately vulnerable and they
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were after him.</p>
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<p>In his panic he reached out a long way, casting ahead and
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behind, to sense for spaces where the danger was less, to identify
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the points of greatest peril.</p>
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<p>He brushed the other one’s mind and recognised her.</p>
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<p>Hope flared. A chance. Hunger swelled with it despite his panic.
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She was coming. She would follow him. If he could find a place, she
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would come to him, dragged along the invisible lines that bound
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them. He needed her now.</p>
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<p>The mother stumbled on, broke free of the bushes and was down on
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the track again. Here, for a long straight distance, the rail-route
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was a broad avenue of pristine snow. He shoved and she went along
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it, breath crackling like ground glass, heart thudding so hard he
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could hear it through the shawl and the coat.</p>
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<p>The dogs howled. Men shouted. They were getting closer. Ahead of
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them, the old iron bridge over the canal loomed, grey and stark.
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She stumbled towards it, now reeling from side to side, powered
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only by the force of his will. She could do nothing but move and
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the rivers of pain sizzled inside her.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>“It’s ahead of us,” Helen Lamont panted. She
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and David had been pushing their way through the bushes. Both of
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them had listened to what Snib McPhee had said and they were the
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only ones who took his description literally. Helen’s mind
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wandered back in the direction of the barn and then shied away from
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the recollection. She had seen something and her eyes had swung
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round, denying what she might have seen in the shadows. It had been
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a flash, a glimpse, nothing more, and it could have been anything
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at all, except for the fact that her subconscious mind had flared
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and snatched the image and burned it deep into her brain.</p>
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<p><em>Monster.</em></p>
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<p>She knew it had been and it had almost had her. It had reached
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with its foul touch and had drawn her in and somewhere in the dark
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of the barn it had opened her eyes and she had felt its hunger and
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it had been like the touch of corruption. It had wanted her, and
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God help her, in that instant, she had wanted it.</p>
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<p><em>Monster.</em></p>
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<p><em>“It’s a fuckin’ monster,”</em> Snib
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McPhee had said, unashamedly massaging his balls where, according
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to the two policemen, he had taken a bit of a knock when he’d
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fallen on the slippery snow against a tree-stump. Snib knew there
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was little point in protesting about brutality, and anyway his mind
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was on other things.</p>
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<p>“Swear to Christ,” he swore to Christ. “I saw
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it with my own eyes. It’s a fuckin’ monster.” The
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small man crossed himself several times in quick succession,
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driving out devils. His hand slid back down onto his throbbing
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crotch.</p>
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<p>“I saw a woman. She was just sitting there with her eyes
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open and I thought she was dead for Christ’s sake and then
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she moved. I heard her first. Crying like, sort of moaning. Or
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maybe like a grunt. I thought it was a dog or something, stuck
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behind the door, but I got a look at her in the torchlight and she
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saw me. She tried to talk, I think, but I never heard anything and
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then this baby she was holding, it turned round, and it
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wasn’t a baby at all.”</p>
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<p>“What was it?” Bert Millar wanted to know.</p>
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<p>“I told you. It was a fuckin’ monster. My torch went
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out and next thing it’s up at the window. It had eyes like
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nothing I ever saw in my life and a mouthful of teeth. A big circle
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of them, all pointing in towards each other. You put a finger in
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there and it’s never coming out. I’ll tell you what
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it’s like. It’s like them lampreys you get on salmon.
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You know those things that eat their way inside?”</p>
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<p>David recalled the words of dead Ron McBean in his strange and
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obsessive report. The Lassiter woman, way back before the turn of
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the century, had leapt off a bridge and killed herself</p>
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<p><em>When recovered, her whole body covered in bleeding
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lacerations and bruises which a doctor described as very similar to
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the sucking circlets caused by lampreys on salmon from the nearby
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River Nith</em>.</p>
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<p>McBean had noted the similarity in the odd circular lesions
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uncovered in the autopsy on Harriet Dailly.</p>
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<p>Another coincidence, David thought. Whatever this thing was, if
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McBean was right all along, it was older than fifty, older than a
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century. How long had it been around, picking women, stealing
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mothers? And what sort of creature, what sort of beast, looked like
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a sucking lamprey that fed on living salmon?</p>
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<p>“You’d know all about salmon, Snib,” Sergeant
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Holleran had volunteered, but the CID boss held up his hand for
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silence.</p>
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<p>“What do you think?” he asked David. “Is he
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taking the piss or what?”</p>
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<p>“No,” Helen said. “It’s probably the
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farmer’s wife. She’ll have the baby.”</p>
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<p>“Killed her own and then run off with another?”</p>
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<p>“I couldn’t say, sir,” Helen said, falling
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back into police-speak. “But the woman is missing and I
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can’t think of anybody else who’d be out alone with a
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baby on a night like this. And it also wouldn’t be the first
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time, if we’re right.”</p>
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<p>Millar drew them outside. “At least we’ve got a
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direction. We’ll take his word for it, but as far as the rest
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are concerned, it’s a woman and a baby.”</p>
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<p>A half an hour later, Helen stopped, panting for breath.
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“It’s ahead of us,” she said. They were almost at
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the edge of the trees now, coming down to the straight. She had
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been pushing through the bushes, well to the left of the other
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policemen, maybe ten feet from David when she felt its touch, the
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cold slither of hunger and black need. It sent a shiver right into
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her, because she recognised her own response.</p>
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<p>“Which way?” David asked. He recognised the look on
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her face and simply believed her. In the cold of the morning, in
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the weak winter light, her face was pinched and pale, and her dark
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eyes were like black stones in snow. The wind ruffled her hair and
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made her seem slender and vulnerable.</p>
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<p>“There,” she said, pointing ahead, further to the
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left. She turned and he followed, up a tree-covered rise and down
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the slope. The dogs were behind them now. They reached a stand of
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thin, rotting willowherb, ploughed through and found themselves on
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the straight.</p>
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<p>A pair of footsteps, deep and unclear, angled away from them
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towards the bridge in the distance. From where they stood, they
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could see the shambling progress, as if both feet had been
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dragging, throwing up spill-piles of snow into hummocks. The tracks
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wove left to right, from one side of the line to the other.</p>
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<p>David turned and bawled, attracting the attention of the dog
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teams who came bursting out onto the line some fifty yards behind.
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He pointed to the tracks and then turned to follow them. The dogs
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barked frantically, high, fretful yipping sounds that made them,
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sound plaintive and timid, but the handlers urged them on. David
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and Helen ran ahead, following the footsteps and all the time,
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Helen could feel the oily, sinful touch of the thing she had
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pursued now for eleven days.</p>
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<p>_______</p>
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<p>Kate Park lurched out of its grasp on the steep embankment about
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three hundred yards past the bridge. She had stumbled off the old
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track and down the slope, driven by the thing she carried. Behind
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them the dogs howled and scrabbled. Footsteps thudded on the far
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side of the bridge and men’s voices carried on the cold
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air.</p>
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<p><em>Go go go go GET GONE</em></p>
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<p>There was desperation in its urging and she obeyed it. She
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slipped, fell, arched her racked body to protect her burden, and
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got to her feet again. Every nerve ending jittered with pain.
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Burning crushing sensations ground from bone to bone down the
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length of her back. Her heart was a lump of fire in the centre of
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her chest and the pain in her legs and hips had soared to such a
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crescendo that the nerves there had simply given out. A dreadful
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numbness oozed up her limbs making it even more difficult to carry
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on. Yet she moved, stumbled, staggered, reeled down the slope,
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snagged by thorns and bramble runners, down to the low wall that
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came to waist height, in the brown sandstone of railway embankments
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the world over. An angle-iron fence sat atop the wall, its top
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spikes rusted and paint peeled. She started to climb when one of
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the upright spars clanged outwards, making a gap. A bolt had
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rusted. She slipped through, pushing the baby ahead, then drawing
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herself between the spars until she was on the wall itself, maybe
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ten feet above a narrow street.</p>
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<p>The metal clanged back into place just as the dogs came pounding
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over the edge of the embankment, whining as they came. The handlers
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urged them on. They all came thundering towards the shape on the
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other side of the fence, half-hidden by the upright spars. The baby
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squirmed until it could see over her shoulder, risked opening its
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eyes despite the ferocious burn even in the half light of the early
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winter’s morning. Its attention was half snagged by the other
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female who was behind the dogs, but it had no time to waste. It
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concentrated at the beasts, reached out, stabbed into their
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minds.</p>
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<p>The dogs went berserk.</p>
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<p>They were halfway down the steep slope when the whining yelps
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turned into savage growls. The lead dog turned round, bolted
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between its handler’s legs, knocking him of balance. It
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pulled the leash from his hand and went streaking for its partner,
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jaws agape. The second dog reared up, met it half way, fangs
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exposed in a ferocious snarl. The two animals hit, growling like
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tigers. Their teeth closed on each other’s necks and they
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worried and tore frantically. Blood and fur flew. The two men tried
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to separate them, but the dogs seemed to have gone mad. Their eyes
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were rolling wildly and their strangled grunts soared higher and
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higher as they savaged one another. One of the men got his
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night-stick between one dog’s jaws, levered hard and
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succeeded only in snapping two teeth. The dogs ignored them.</p>
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<p>Helen and David came running fast over the rise and down the
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slope. They took in the snarling animals and then saw the shape at
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the far side of the fence.</p>
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<p>Helen felt the touch of the thing, not aimed directly at her,
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because it was focused on the dog threat, but it still sent a spasm
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of horror (<em>and feral hunger too, she knew</em>) right through
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her.</p>
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<p>“There,” David said, pointing. A pale face could be
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seen on the other side of the fence. Someone was sitting on the
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wall. “Stop,” David yelled, and the face disappeared
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from view. The dogs screamed in fear and fury. Blood bubbled form
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their nostrils, from their throats. One of the policemen was
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shouting at the top of his lungs. David started toward the wall and
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Helen followed, her whole mind cringing from the leprous touch.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>It turned its mind away from the mother.</p>
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<p>The woods were full of noise and motion. She had got through the
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fence and was over the road when the dogs came rushing down,
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howling and whining and the thing had turned its attention on them.
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She felt the buzz of mental energy as it concentrated, and threw
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its command at them. It was like he searing heat of lightning in
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the air, an arc of pure power. Her own mind had reeled out of the
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control and then lurched away from that mental blast.</p>
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<p>And she was herself again.</p>
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<p>Kate Park blinked, coughed, and a trickle of pink foam spun away
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from her. She felt a scream build up in her shredding lungs, an
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enormous primal blast from the depths of her fragmented soul and
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she clamped it to silence. All of her was in pain, her mind, her
|
|
heart, and her body. The image of Jack’s twitching body came
|
|
back again, overlaid by the sound of sucking from the baby’s
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|
crib and the awful dribbles of blood that had come soaking through
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the basket weave.</p>
|
|
<p>She was out of it, out of one nightmare and into another. She
|
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turned her eyes to the thing and saw its flat, mindless eyes. It
|
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was bigger now, more angular, almost insectile. She looked at it
|
|
and her hate welled up and in that moment she knew what she had to
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do.</p>
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|
<p>Behind her, the dogs howled and shrieked, tearing at each other,
|
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men were bawling. The beast was concentrating on the animals,
|
|
trying to combat one threat. It would come back to her, or it might
|
|
turn on the others.</p>
|
|
<p>She was done and she knew it. There was nothing now. Jack was
|
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dead. Lucy was dead, her own baby gone. There was nothing to live
|
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for and the pain was so much, so overwhelming that she knew she
|
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would not last much longer.</p>
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|
<p>It was turning to the others. She turned too, unable to prevent
|
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herself. Through the bars of the fence she saw the young man coming
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towards her, his mouth open to say something, one hand raised as if
|
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reaching to grab her across the distance between them..</p>
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|
<p>Beside him was the girl she had seen below the hayloft. She
|
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recognised her instantly, although their previous encounter had
|
|
only been a dreadful scrape of contact. She recognised her and her
|
|
open mind touched the girl’s, in a flash of empathy. She knew
|
|
in that instant it had wanted her and she knew why. The
|
|
girl’s mind touched hers and sent a shudder of sorrow and
|
|
pity and fear.</p>
|
|
<p>Kate Park turned away. Down below the flagstones of the sidewalk
|
|
came hard up against the wall of the embankment. The thing’s
|
|
attention was still on the dogs, just beginning to swivel to the
|
|
men, when she launched herself into the air. She clutched her
|
|
burden tight, turning as toppled, ensuring that they would both
|
|
land together, head first on the hard concrete.</p>
|
|
<p><em>Kill you!</em> Her mind snarled. She spun away. Oblivion
|
|
rushed at her.</p>
|
|
<p>David Harper saw the twisting lurch and bawled at the top of his
|
|
voice, jumping past the slavering, snarling animals. Helen
|
|
screeched an incoherent warning. The woman disappeared from the
|
|
other side of the fence.</p>
|
|
<p>Kate was falling. But a long runner of bramble thorn snagged her
|
|
foot as she tumbled, spinning her in mid air. The world whirled.
|
|
The thing in her arms shrieked a glassy mental scream, more
|
|
powerful now in its desperation, stronger now since its change and
|
|
the spurt of growth. It screeched and she felt the mind-blast like
|
|
a sizzle in the air, like a physical vibration. A pure distilled
|
|
pain shuddered into her head and completely shattered the cochlea
|
|
in her inner ear. Above the embankment, the mind-shriek lashed
|
|
outwards and a policeman’s retinas detached themselves and he
|
|
went instantly blind. In the trees overhead, the flock of crows
|
|
that had mobbed Kate on her run down by the hedge, dropped like
|
|
fluttering weights, hitting against branches before they flopped to
|
|
the ground quivering but not dead, all of them hissing like snakes.
|
|
Fifty yards away a cat howled, ran across the broad, and was
|
|
flattened under the wheels of an early morning commuter’s
|
|
car. Beyond the bridge, a small child in a high-chair vomited and
|
|
fell face first into a plate of cereal.</p>
|
|
<p>Kate Park landed on her hip and her pelvis shattered into
|
|
fragments. The appalling jolt smashed her teeth together so hard
|
|
that they bit right through the tip of her tongue. A new lava-burst
|
|
of pain slammed her breath away and she bounced, flopping on the
|
|
pavement, dazed, but amazingly still conscious. Unbearable despair
|
|
overshadowed the inconceivable pain in her damaged body. She had
|
|
tried to kill them both and she had failed.</p>
|
|
<p>“Are you all right dear?” A voice came from nowhere,
|
|
thin and wavering. Her head turned as she lay, not voluntarily, but
|
|
simply with its own weight. An old and weathered face was looming
|
|
down at her.</p>
|
|
<p>“Go,” she tried to say.</p>
|
|
<p>“What’s that love? Are you hurt?” The old
|
|
woman peered down, her head tightly wrapped in a thick scarf
|
|
knotted under her chin. “You took a nasty fall there. Did you
|
|
slip on the ice?”</p>
|
|
<p>“Please,” Kate tried to tell her, but the word only
|
|
came out in a wheeze. Her vision was looping in and out of focus
|
|
and she felt her consciousness only now begin to slip away. In her
|
|
arms, a shape stirred, wriggling powerfully and it was only then
|
|
that she realised it was still wrapped in the shawl. It kicked
|
|
against her. She could feel its mindblast of panic as it shoved and
|
|
twisted, like a trapped stoat.</p>
|
|
<p>“Oh dear,” the old woman said. “The poor wee
|
|
thing. Is the baby hurt?”</p>
|
|
<p>She tried to scream again, to tell the old woman to get away.
|
|
Beside her, she saw with unexpected clarity, a shopping bag on
|
|
wheels and just then she got a whiff of freshly baked morning
|
|
rolls, the first normal scent she had been aware of since the thing
|
|
had come scuttling in through the cat flap and stolen her mind.
|
|
It’s thoughts were focused outwards, not aimed into her
|
|
brain. It knew she was useless. Up above, beyond the wall, the
|
|
shouts of men echoed down and she could not move, could not even
|
|
speak. Blood gushed from the rip on her tongue, dribbled down her
|
|
throat, made her cough in a red spray.</p>
|
|
<p>It pushed and kicked, panicked now and desperate. The old woman
|
|
with the trolley was leaning closer, using her solid walking stick
|
|
to brace her weight. She was wearing a long dark coat and had a red
|
|
scarf double-looped around her neck.</p>
|
|
<p>“Can you get up?” she asked.</p>
|
|
<p>The thing swivelled, managed to get its head and shoulders out
|
|
of the confines of the swaddle of the shawl. The old woman blinked,
|
|
wrinkled her nose.</p>
|
|
<p><em>Take me take me take me. HELP ME!</em></p>
|
|
<p>The wordless command blared out. Kate Park recognised it. Her
|
|
whole body was trembling in the shock of her fall, making the
|
|
twitching motions Jack had made as he death-danced to the floor,
|
|
but even then, in her extremity, she tried to move, to roll over,
|
|
crush the life out of it. Much of her weight had wasted away, but
|
|
there was enough there, surely, to suffocate the monster. She tried
|
|
to move, rolled and just then the old woman bent and lifted it,
|
|
grunting with the effort.</p>
|
|
<p>“Oh, who’s a lovely baby then?” she crooned,
|
|
sing-song.</p>
|
|
<p>“No,” Kate tried to say but all that came out was a
|
|
bubble of red. She fell forward and hit the pavement with a solid
|
|
thud. Her shoulder splintered where the weakened bone took the
|
|
impact but even then, she still tried to grab the thing from the
|
|
old woman. Already it had fixed its eyes on her. The trolley rolled
|
|
away on its own, down the small slope, tumbled off the kerb onto
|
|
the road, and a half-dozen morning rolls spilled out and wheeled
|
|
around in decreasing circles under the span of the old railway
|
|
bridge.</p>
|
|
<p>“Give me,” Kate grunted but the words were all
|
|
bloodied and incoherent. She snatched at the old woman’s
|
|
coat, ignoring the white rivets of pain caused by every motion. Her
|
|
numb fingers grabbed the fabric and she hauled hard. The little
|
|
lady was jerked forward, almost off balance. She turned to look
|
|
down at the crawling, desperate woman on the ground.</p>
|
|
<p>The baby held her tight and glared into her mind. Its glands
|
|
pulsed, sending a hiss of chemicals in an visible cloud around them
|
|
both. An immediate rush of emotion swept through the old woman, an
|
|
unexpected flare of heat and need. Her vision swam for an instant,
|
|
steaming up her wire-framed glasses, then it cleared. She looked
|
|
down and saw some dreadful woman trying to steal her baby. In that
|
|
hellish moment, she felt a twist of pain in her ancient breasts,
|
|
felt them swell. Another sensation rippled between her angular,
|
|
shapeless hips. Sensations she had not experienced for near-on
|
|
fifty years flooded her and in that instant she had to protect her
|
|
baby. The dreadful woman on the ground was trying to take it from
|
|
her. She wanted to kill it.</p>
|
|
<p>The old woman dragged herself back with a thin cry. Without
|
|
hesitation, she raised her walking stick and brought it down with
|
|
all her weight, her strength now augmented by the baby’s
|
|
powerful demand. The end of the stick came down in an arc and
|
|
caught Kate Park on the side of the face and her head whipped back
|
|
in a violent jerk. Without hesitation the club was back in the air
|
|
and coming down again. It cracked against her jaw and something in
|
|
there broke like a twig.</p>
|
|
<p>“You can’t have it,” the old woman squawked.
|
|
Her stick hit again, right on the bridge of Kate’s nose and
|
|
this time it was enough to slam her to the ground. The world spun
|
|
in wavering ellipses and then blacked out. The pain drained
|
|
away.</p>
|
|
<p>The old woman did not pause. She turned and tottered away, off
|
|
the pavement and past the overturned trolley. Her foot crushed one
|
|
of the morning rolls under the bridge, but she saw nothing. Her
|
|
whole being was overwhelmed by the need to get away, find a place
|
|
to look after the baby. The bundle in her arms, a heavy, dragging
|
|
weight, clung tight to her coat and she smothered it in her thin
|
|
arms.</p>
|
|
<p><em>Move move move move.</em> She heard the commands as her own
|
|
thoughts and she scurried under the bridge, turned at the corner
|
|
beyond it, hastening in small, old-lady steps. Behind her, dogs
|
|
were snarling and men were shouting or crying and she had to get
|
|
away. At that moment, for the old woman, it was the whole purpose
|
|
of her existence.</p>
|
|
<p>In her arms the thing shoved hard. A savage, mindless glee
|
|
shuddered within it, the aftermath of extreme danger. He would
|
|
escape. He would find shelter and find another mother. He had
|
|
touched this one and knew it was empty. He instinctively sensed the
|
|
twitches deep inside this one as its body tried to respond, as the
|
|
old machinery tried to re-awaken, but it was dry and barren. There
|
|
was no feeding here.</p>
|
|
<p>They turned the corner and the sounds of pursuit faded away.
|
|
Here the road was narrow, flanked on one side by the blank wall of
|
|
the railway where boys came to practise climbing in the summer. The
|
|
line then turned to allow space for a terrace of sandstone houses.
|
|
On the other side, a couple of old buildings, the bakery and a
|
|
newsagents. They were almost at the far edge of Barloan Harbour.
|
|
Beyond the cluster of buildings the canal snaked away up from the
|
|
harbour itself. A strip of grass, covered now in snow and planted
|
|
with cherry trees in regimented lines, gave on to the bridle path.
|
|
A mist crept up from the still water where the outlines of the
|
|
houseboats and converted barges loomed like ghosts.</p>
|
|
<p>The old woman scurried along, heading past the shops. In the
|
|
distance, ahead of her, a bell jangled and a child came scooting
|
|
down the slope on a bicycle. A couple came out of the newsagents
|
|
and started walking towards the bridge.</p>
|
|
<p>Up on the embankment, a tragic comedy of confusion was
|
|
unreeling. One of the policemen was crying real tears as he tried
|
|
to open the jaws that were clamped and still chewing away it his
|
|
own dog’s neck. He did not care that his own animals teeth
|
|
were embedded in the flesh of its attacker. They were partners, he
|
|
and the dog. He had trained it almost since it was a puppy and it
|
|
was dying in front of his eyes. He jammed his night-stick in
|
|
between the teeth and twisted savagely. The other policeman, a
|
|
close friend, took exception to this and kicked him on the backside
|
|
so hard his colleague fell over onto the writhing pair of animals.
|
|
All around them, stunned crows were flapping in little circles,
|
|
banging into trees and men alike, now cawing raucously in confusion
|
|
and fright. Another policeman grabbed the first and dragged him
|
|
back, while a fourth was holding on to the trunk of a tree and
|
|
bawling for help. “I’m blind, for pity’s sake. I
|
|
can’t fuckin’ <em>see</em>!”</p>
|
|
<p>Both dogs were howling no longer. They grunted and snarled
|
|
weakly, unable, it seemed, to open their jaws and let go, locked in
|
|
a deadly embrace.</p>
|
|
<p>David and Helen were over at the fence on the wall. David was
|
|
trying to climb the spiked spars which had been designed just to
|
|
prevent such an occurrence to keep children off the line. Down
|
|
below, through the close-set spars, he could see some movement, but
|
|
it was hidden by the ridge of the wall.</p>
|
|
<p>“She must have got through,” Helen said shrewdly.
|
|
She scampered along the side of the fence trailing her hands on the
|
|
spars. One of them swung at her touch. “Over here,” she
|
|
said. David gave up on his fifth attempt to clamber the fence and
|
|
came quickly towards her. She pulled the metal back, leaving just
|
|
enough of a gap for him to squeeze through. Ignoring the men and
|
|
the dogs behind them they got onto the wall and looked down.</p>
|
|
<p>One woman was lying spread-eagled on the ground, her pale face
|
|
up to the sky. A couple of snowflakes landed on her forehead. Her
|
|
eyes were open, staring straight upwards and David assumed she was
|
|
dead. Down under the arch of a bridge, an old woman was walking,
|
|
head down. David ignored her.</p>
|
|
<p>“Where is it?” Helen said. “I can’t see
|
|
it.” Both of them peered down. There was no sign of the
|
|
baby.</p>
|
|
<p>“It can’t have got away, can it?” Without
|
|
hesitation he turned and began to lower himself down. There was
|
|
little purchase for his feet on the damp surface and he slipped
|
|
downwards, only catching himself at the last moment. Green smears
|
|
of moss painted the elbows of his coat. Helen turned and started to
|
|
lower herself onto her belly at first and then down the wall. For a
|
|
moment the pair of them hung like mountaineers and then both
|
|
dropped together, fortunately landing lightly. David turned,
|
|
slipped on the snow and went down on one knee which hit the ground
|
|
with a sickening thud.</p>
|
|
<p>He limped across to the prostrate woman. Her eyes were still
|
|
open and a trickle of blood was dribbling out of her left ear. Her
|
|
face was pale and twisted out of shape, which skewed her mouth out
|
|
of position. There was a jarring grotesqueness about the
|
|
woman’s posture. She looked as if she had crumpled in on
|
|
herself. David got a flashing image of vampires after sunrise, then
|
|
dismissed it. This was an injured woman. Even in the first glance,
|
|
he could see that she was dreadfully hurt.</p>
|
|
<p>Helen scrambled across and knelt beside the woman, ignoring the
|
|
damp snow under her knees. She took a hold of the woman’s
|
|
face, holding it gently as she could. Kate Park blinked once,
|
|
twice, and she took a deep, shuddering breath as she swam up to
|
|
consciousness. Her eyes rolled, focused and met Helen’s.</p>
|
|
<p>“Saw you,” she said, and though the damage to her
|
|
jaw and the bloody wound on her tongue fuzzed the words, Helen
|
|
understood. “Couldn’t let it take you.”</p>
|
|
<p>“I know,” Helen said. “We’ll get help.
|
|
Just lie still.”</p>
|
|
<p>“Find it,” Kate Park. “It’s got
|
|
away.” The pain was razoring and twisting through her and not
|
|
one part of her body was free of it. She had welcomed the dark,
|
|
welcomed the cessation of hurt, but she forced herself to open her
|
|
eyes. She had to do it because the thing had taken everything from
|
|
her and she had to destroy it. The pain was a price she was willing
|
|
to pay.</p>
|
|
<p>“Where did it go;?”</p>
|
|
<p>“Old woman,” she said, gasping for a breath that
|
|
seemed to take forever to come. “She hit me. It got
|
|
her.”</p>
|
|
<p>“Jesus,” David said. He hadn’t been thinking.
|
|
He had seen the old woman turn the corner just beyond the bridge.
|
|
It hadn’t even struck him as incongruous that the woman was
|
|
still walking past after another woman had come flying over the
|
|
wall and landed on the concrete. He hadn’t even considered
|
|
how unnatural that was. Without hesitation he turned to face up to
|
|
the embankment. The dogs were still wheezing and the crows were
|
|
only now beginning to get their flight capability back, lumbering
|
|
unsteadily into the air. One policeman was coming through the gap
|
|
in the fence.</p>
|
|
<p>“Get on to Mr Millar,” David told him. “Tell
|
|
him where we are. Get an ambulance here pronto.” The man
|
|
nodded. David turned back. “You look after her,” he
|
|
told Helen.</p>
|
|
<p>On the ground Kate Park moaned. She shook her head and a stream
|
|
of blood blurted from between her lips. “No,” she said,
|
|
guttural and almost incoherent, but powerful enough to make sure
|
|
they understood.</p>
|
|
<p>“Find it,” she said. “Find it and kill
|
|
it.”</p>
|
|
<p>She lowered her dreadfully injured head to the ground and the
|
|
red blood trickled down onto the white snow in a searing contrast.
|
|
Her body shivered as if in a death spasm, but her eyes were still
|
|
gleaming bright.</p>
|
|
<p>“Go,” she told them.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
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