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532 lines
30 KiB
HTML
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<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
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<h2>28</h2>
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<p>Old Mrs Williams saw the bike approach in the distance, just a
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blur in the morning mist. She tottered along the road, moving as
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quickly as she could, faster than she had moved in years. The
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urgency drove her on. Her heart was speeding up, clamouring now in
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twists of effort, each beat loud in her ears with the sound of the
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sea on a stormy shore.</p>
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<p>All she knew was the compulsion to protect the baby. Her stick
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dropped form her gnarled hands and she got both arms around the
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burden, hugged it tight, and bent her head forward.</p>
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<p>A burning sensation ignited under her breastbone. Her breath
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plumed out, fast, irregular pants and gasps. She hurried on,
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ignoring the creak of ancient muscles and the painful twist in old
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tendons that had not been used for so long. Under her ribs, her
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heart was thudding away, each beat now a burst of heat. She could
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not stop, though her body demanded that she slow down. All of her
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was hot and then cold, ripples of alternating temperature bands
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flowing down from head to foot.</p>
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<p>A sweat broke out and dripped from her pores, and in her ears
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she could hear the distressed triple-thud of her pulse.</p>
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<p>On another five paces and she gasped for breath, hauling for
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air, now almost doubled over. She took another two paces, reached a
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hand to steady herself against the wall. Her whole body was
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trembling with the enormous effort. The sky darkened, lightened,
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darkened again. For an instant her vision failed her, then slowly
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came back. The only sound she could hear was the wet and gurgling
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pulse in her head.</p>
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<p>She tried to walk on, to get to shelter, to see the baby
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safe.</p>
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<p>Inside her chest something broke with a terrible snap. Instantly
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she spun to the left, against the wall, thrown by the force of it.
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Her heart kicked once, very hard, a hammer-blow against her ribs,
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and then vibrated like a tuning fork. Blinding pain twisted through
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her and a blinding light burst all around her, fading away to tiny
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sparkles of luminescence that jittered in front of her head. All
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sensation faded and the old woman toppled to the ground, her heart
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burst from the enormous effort of running with the child.</p>
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<hr />
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<p><em>Utter desperation flared inside him.</em></p>
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<p>It had happened too fast for his primitive reasoning to cope and
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now he was in acute danger. The dogs had come at him and he had
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needed to dispose of that threat and to do that he had turned his
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mind away from the mother and she had betrayed him for a second
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time. He had screeched in fear and alarm as they had tumbled from
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the wall and the ground had come rushing up at him., he had tried
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to get back into her head, to make her stop, and then she had spun
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in the air, they both had twisted and had landed with a colossal
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thump which for an instant had shocked his senses numb.</p>
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<p><em>Move move move!</em> This command had blared, a desperate
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and urgent shriek They were coming for him. The mother had moved,
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but he had sensed the numbness in her mind and the fear had looped
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up again. Above, the sounds of pursuit were loud and confusing.
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Here he was exposed and the mother would not move. He dug at her,
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put his thoughts deep inside her, felt the broken places and the
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hideous pain and he knew that she could not move, no matter how
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much he pushed. He reached further, touched the other one, far
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overhead. The heat of want hit him, even then, but he had no time.
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She was too far away and there were others with her, others who
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would kill him. He sensed the hate of the dogs and the little
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sparking pulses of anger and fright from the tiny minds of the
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crows and he knew that if the pursuers saw him they would hate him
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even more and they would destroy him.</p>
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<p>Frantic with fear, he turned, squirming in the confines of the
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shawl.</p>
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<p>And he touched another mind. Instinctively, and without
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hesitation, he hooked it. He focused all of his attention on this
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new one and grabbed wildly. He felt the connection, locked, and a
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huge relief washed through him. The new one was coming, she would
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take him away. Even then he sensed her barren emptiness, but that
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was no concern,. Flight was the only thing he needed, flight and
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protection. He would find the protection later, somewhere to feed.
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She was reaching for him and the mother had spasmed, twisted and
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tried to crush him...</p>
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<p>...and then he was free, swooped up from the mother’s
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grasp, into the air. He had pushed then, pushed hard and the old
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one had reacted to protect him from harm. He felt the violence of
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her blows, forcing her to move beyond her strength, an act that
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started to drain her immediately. The mother fell back to the
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ground and he pushed again, knowing he had to be away from
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here.</p>
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<p>She held him in weak arms and he sensed the ruination of her
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body and he knew he had to find a mother, find one fast. This one
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could not last long.</p>
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<p>And then, to his utter, feral dismay, she started to falter.
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Something inside her broke with a violent crack of vibration.</p>
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<p>He screeched aloud, a thin, whistling, metallic sound that got
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lost in the mist coming off the canal. In desperation he dug his
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mind into her, reaching for something to command, touched the
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damaged part and knew she was finished. The blood was pooling in
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her abdomen, pouring out from her ruptured heart, even as she began
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to slump.</p>
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<p>His mind bawled in desperation while behind him, he knew the
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killers were coming.</p>
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<p>_____</p>
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<p>Little Kirsty Cameron came down the road on her brother’s
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bike which was too big for her and if he knew she’d taken it
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out in the snow, she’d be in trouble, but he had been in bed
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with a cold since Christmas Eve and that’s why she was out on
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a winter’s morning, heading down to the baker’s shop
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for bread while her mother attended to Kirsty’s younger
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sisters. The girl had been one of the youngsters haring down the
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slope of the hill on the day Ginny Marsden had left the station and
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ponderously ascended the road up to old Mrs Cosgrove’s house.
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On that day, something had snagged her attention and she had turned
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her head, almost falling off the bike in the process. On this
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winter day, at ten years old, she was just big enough to reach the
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pedals as the bike trundled down the gentle slope, crunching the
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snow beneath its treads. She reached the flat, brown pigtails
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swinging, eyes down, trying to avoid the piles of slush, tongue
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sticking out of the corner of her mouth in a grimace of
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concentration. Ahead of her, through the thin veil of falling snow
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she saw someone walking quickly, huddled close to the wall. She
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braked, slowed, careful lest she hit a pedestrian. It was only when
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she got to within twenty five yards that she recognised old Mrs
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Williams.</p>
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<p>Immediately she slowed further. The old lady didn’t have
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her trolley, or her stick. She was carrying something in her arms
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and walking in jerky, speedy steps. Kirsty stopped her bike. She
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was a bright girl. Old Mrs Williams was never without her trolley
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and her walking stick, and she always walked at a snail’s
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pace, each step an effort on her ancient heart. Just as Kirsty
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stopped, the old woman’s head arched upwards to face the sky.
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She uttered a groan and spun sideways to hit against the wall.
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Without hesitation the girl laid the bike on the ground and ran to
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help.</p>
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<p>The old lady hit against the wall. A terrible, futile little
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moan came blurting out of her slack mouth and she crashed backwards
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like a falling log. Her head hit the concrete with a sickening
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crack. She did not even twitch.</p>
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<p>“Are you all right?” Kirsty asked, suddenly scared.
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She did not know what to think, or what to do, and she was
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frightened in case the old woman was dead. She did not want to look
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into a dead person’s eyes.</p>
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<p>She got to within three paces of the body and stopped. The old
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woman was lying with her head to the side. Her scarf had pulled
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back from her freckled head where the scalp showed through the
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thin, scant hair. A few snowflakes landed on her face, as they had
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landed on Kate Park, and quickly melted. The woman’s mouth
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was slackly open and her top row of false teeth had slipped out,
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giving her a graceless, somehow imbecilic appearance.</p>
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<p>On her chest, something moved.</p>
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<p><em>Mother me</em></p>
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<p>A voice whispered inside her head, not quite in words, but in a
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context she understood.</p>
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<p>“What?” the girl asked. She leaned forward, nerves
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making her hands shake. She thought she should call an ambulance,
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or at least get across to the baker’s shop and tell someone.
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Old Mrs Williams stared at the sky through the open eye. The other
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was closed in a ghastly, humourless wink. Kirsty knew she was dead,
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but didn’t want to believe it.</p>
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<p>“Are you all right?” she asked again.</p>
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<p><em>Mother me! Mother me!</em></p>
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<p>The pulse came stronger. The bundle was moving and for an
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instant Kirsty thought it was a small dog wrapped up. Maybe Mrs
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Williams’ great grandson was staying for the holidays and had
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brought his pet spaniel. She bent down, suddenly curious, drawn to
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the thing. She pulled back the coverlet.</p>
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<p>A face stretched out from the cloth and she jerked back in
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terror. Lizard eyes blinked then closed. Her heart thrummed in
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shock. Her mouth opened and then the thing reached and took her. It
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looked into her head and in that moment her vision crackled and
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everything wavered. Just as abruptly, the world came back into
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focus again and she saw the baby.</p>
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<p><em>No No No,</em> she told herself. It’s not a baby
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it’s <em>something else</em>...</p>
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<p>Despite her denial and the swelling fear, the girl lifted the
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thing, grunting with the effort of hoisting its weight. It poked
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into her head and she tried to shy away from it. It reached and
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stabbed and dug and Kirsty tried to scream but found her mouth
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would not work. It was a baby and it was a freak, both at the same
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time.</p>
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<p>It held her in mental manacles, trying to insinuate itself, but
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she fought against it, her mind swinging between sudden need and
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dreadful loathing.</p>
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<p><em>No No NO</em></p>
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<p>It’s glands pulsed, exploded weakly, denuded of their
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potency by the effort of taking the old one. The scent surrounded
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them but the wind blew it away.</p>
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<p>Little Kirsty squawked. Twin pains flared under the skin on the
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front of her chest and a different, more agonising tearing
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sensation hooked in her belly. She swung away, still holding the
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thing, part of her trying to clutch it tight, the other attempting
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to throw it away. It pulsed again, giving its last and the girl
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cried out in utter terror.</p>
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<p>Little breasts budded and started to swell on her narrow,
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childlike ribs. Flesh gathered, immature glands suddenly expanded,
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dilated, sent hormones flooding her system. Pain twisted on her
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skin as it ballooned, forced out by the preposterous growth. Down
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between her skinny hips, her ovaries began to enlarge, draining
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oestrogen and progesterone into a system that was not yet ready for
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it. Instant and devastating puberty came crashing in on the little
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girl. A dreadful flush of heat sizzled inside her. She cried out in
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real pain and real fright.</p>
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<p>Somebody called from down the street. The little girl staggered
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and crashed against the railway wall. On her chest the thing glared
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at her and tried to make her move. Kirsty stumbled forwards, unable
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to cope with the sudden, urgent flood of chemicals in her veins.
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Her heart was fluttering like a bird’s. The thing was poking
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and prodding at her head, but she was too young for it. She was not
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yet a woman and for that reason alone, it could not completely
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dominate her.</p>
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<p>The girl staggered on, trying to free her mind from it while
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inside her the catastrophic physical reactions were beginning to
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tear her apart. Without warning she spun and was instantly, very
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violently sick.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>David and Helen came hammering rood the corner under the bridge.
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Behind them, on the main road that went through the centre of
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Barloan Harbour, they could hear the wail of sirens. Over by the
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wall, hardly more than a hundred yards away the old woman was lying
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flat out. They reached her in seconds.</p>
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<p>“What the hell?” David started to ask. The old woman
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was clearly dead. Her hands were both arched up from the body,
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fingers hooked at the air. Helen remembered the dead cat in Celia
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Barker’s house before it had got up and danced.</p>
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<p>“Where is it?” she blurted, getting to her feet. At
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that moment, the old woman did not matter. She was out of this
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fray, finished her long innings. There was nothing they could do
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for her. A wide snowflake floated down and settled on the
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bloodshot, blinkless eye where it melted and ran.</p>
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<p>“There!” David bawled. He was already moving across
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the road, to the patch of grass along the side of the canal. Just
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beyond them, the vast arch of the road bridge loomed. On the grass,
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moving in a crouching, staggering run, a little girl was ploughing
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through the snow. Just beyond the old woman’s body, a
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boy’s bike lay on its side on the pavement, its back wheel
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still spinning slowly.</p>
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<p>“Jesus,” Helen spat. “It’s got her.
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She’s only a kid.”</p>
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<p>The small frame, making heavy going, was clutching a bulky white
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cloth which fluttered with the motion. David was halfway across the
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road, feet splashing in the slush. Helen started to follow just as
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two patrol cars came roaring round the corner. The leading driver
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only saw a shape on the road, hit the brakes. He missed Helen by
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three inches. Her heart leapt into her throat as the wind of the
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car whooshed past her. The policeman had stamped hard and the car
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spun round, pirouetting on the slick surface. Its off-side tyres
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hit the pavement beside the woman’s body, burst
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simultaneously with thunderous cracks. The car mounted the kerb,
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completely flattened the bike and crumped itself against the wall.
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The second car fared better. It managed to stop three inches form
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the first. Its driver got out, hands shaking. By this time Helen
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and David were running along by the edge of the canal. The three
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police officers, two of them women, followed on after checking the
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fourth, who was lucky to have got off with a bruised nose and a
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staved little finger. He had however, pissed his pants and he did
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not want to walk. Two of the other men who had been with them as
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they trailed Kate Park through the trees came running out from
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under the railway bridge.</p>
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<p>The little girl was crying. She was screaming in a high-pitched,
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pitiful way, but still she continued to stumble along on the grass.
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It pushed and chivvied and she could feel the alien touch of its
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mind on the surface of her own and there was nothing she could do
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about it. Every time she tried to throw the thing away from her an
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intense pain knifed into her head. Her chest was sore as the skin
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stretched beyond its elasticity, swelling too quickly, tearing
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under its surface. Her little nipples were points of fire and she
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could not comprehend what was happening to her. Even if she had
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been older, she might not have understood either, but little Kirsty
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was only ten.</p>
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<p>She tried to stop and it made her move and all the time she was
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sure it would kill her the way it had killed old Mrs Williams. She
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ran on, unable even to slow down, heading through the thick mist on
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the canal side.</p>
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<p>David reached her first, tried to get a hand to her collar. She
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swerved and he almost fell headlong. Helen had kept up with him, an
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enormous black apprehension beginning to build up in her, the
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anticipation of catching the thing and a fear of getting close to
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it. With that newfound sense she had felt its touch again when it
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had reached out from down on the street after Kate Park had jumped
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and after that she had felt the pulse of its mind as it grabbed the
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old woman. There had been another flare, hot like the updraught
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from a brush fire, and she knew that’s when it took the girl.
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Each time, she had sensed it and it had sparked the loathing and
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the other, dreadfully hot and frightening want deep within her.</p>
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<p>Behind her footsteps clattered on the road then became muffled
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thumps as the rest of the pursuit reached the snow of the grass.
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David reached, missed. The girl swerved to the left, went through
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an ornate clump of azaleas, diving between the thick bushes like a
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small animal. David’s passage was thwarted. He and Helen went
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to the left. The others went round the side closest to the
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canal.</p>
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<p>The girl shrieked and every one of the pursuers heard the
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appalling fear in her cry. The two of them swung round just as a
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policewoman held her hand up to stop the girl.</p>
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<p>Everything happened at once. The child spun, tumbled as the
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policewoman grabbed for her, and the officer’s momentum
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carried her forward in a stumbling trip which sent her flat on her
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face. One of the uniformed men came barging through the bushes,
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cursing hoarsely. Kirsty Cameron got to her feet, moving fast
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despite her burden. Helen got a glimpse of greyish pink, just the
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curve of a head under the cover of the shawl. A slither of thought
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reached out, touched her and she rocked back under the force of it.
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A powerful sensation twisted deep in her pelvis.</p>
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<p>“Don’t get close,” David bawled, suddenly
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aware of the reach of the thing. He had felt the sear of energy
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radiate outwards and had not known what it was. But this close, he
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could feel the mind-burn like a singe on the edge of his
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consciousness and the power of it both amazed and appalled him, In
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that instant he realised how this thing snared the mothers. The
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policewoman either ignored him or did not hear his blurted warning.
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She reached again and without warning, the girl ran onto the ice on
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the surface of the canal. David grabbed at her, got a finger to her
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collar, almost caught her, and then they both plunged through the
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thin covering and down into the freezing water. The thing in her
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arms was tumbled away onto the ice. It spun on the surface. A
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small, thin arm reached out and something screeched with the sound
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of cracking glass.</p>
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<p>The girl went right under. Her scream was cut off instantly.
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David was right behind her and the shards of ice slashed at him as
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he went through. Instant cold froze him to the marrow. He gulped,
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took in a throatful of slimy water, coughed. The water was black
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down there. He reached out, turning as he did so. His feet were
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down in the mud and he couldn’t free them. Panic flared at
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the thought of being trapped down here under the ice. He’d
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never get out. That thought galvanised him. He spun quickly and his
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feet came free. In front of him a pale shape floated. He reached
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for it, inadvertently stuck his little finger up the girl’s
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nose. She bucked, he caught her, grabbed, lifted her above him. Her
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head broke the surface and she hauled in a desperate gasp of
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air.</p>
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<p>Helen saw the thing spin away on the ice, travelling five yards
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to settle close to the bank where a stand of reeds stood up from
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the surface. Without a thought she went after it. It screeched
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soundlessly and a note of singing pain lanced between her temples.
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She leapt off the bank and crashed through the reed bank, up to her
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thighs in mud and decaying stalks. She got a hand to the shawl,
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dragged it towards her, pulling herself back as she did so. She
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lifted the bundle, feeling its weight, the powerful squirming of
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the thing inside. She turned it round in her hands.</p>
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<p>A red eye opened and speared her.</p>
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<p>“Oh my god,” she managed to blurt.</p>
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<p>And then it reached and took her. A force reached right inside
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her, touched her depths, and she was lost. Her mouth opened, stayed
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that way. It touched again, suddenly strong.</p>
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<p><em>Move move move</em> it demanded. The command speared into
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her and she reached out to it and it had her. A pulse of pure
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energy flooded her mind and she recognised the alien scrape of
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mindless hunger yet she was completely powerless to fight it. The
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sky went black. The thing closed its eye and locked itself into
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her. Helen stumbled back under the force of its command. One of the
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men reached for her and she batted his hand away, pushing herself
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out from the bank into deeper water. It came up to her waist.</p>
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<p>“What the hell?” the man blurted, but Helen did not
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hear him. Behind the man, a policewoman burst into sudden, braying
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hysterics as she picked up some of the pulses blasted out from its
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panicked mind. In the water, Helen reached for a floating branch
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and held it up.</p>
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<p>David got the girl to the bank, literally shoved her up onto the
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firm ground. He hauled himself out, gulping for air, gasping with
|
|
effort. The other policeman was down at the girl who was crying and
|
|
spluttering hysterically. David got to his knees, staggered
|
|
breathlessly to his feet, heard a commotion in the water and saw
|
|
Helen wade out backwards. In her arms a grey thing was squirming
|
|
away from the light.</p>
|
|
<p>“What in the name of fuck is that?” the policeman
|
|
bawled and David could hear the bewildered loathing in his voice.
|
|
The shape of the thing rippled and wavered, its lines undefined. It
|
|
could have been anything.</p>
|
|
<p>But there was a mad look in Helen’s eyes. His heart
|
|
flipped over and a sudden fear shook him. She brandished the thick
|
|
piece of wood, warding the others off. Her eyes were wide and
|
|
flashing and her teeth were clenched and she looked like an animal,
|
|
like a ferocious panther protecting her cubs. In that awful
|
|
instant, he knew it had her. Whatever it did, however it achieved
|
|
it, it had reached out and taken her.</p>
|
|
<p><em>What kind of baby steals a mother</em>?</p>
|
|
<p>Now he knew. This ugly, wavering thing had stolen a new
|
|
mother.</p>
|
|
<p>He did not hesitate for a second. That sudden desperation drive
|
|
him on. He ran along the bank, past the floundering policeman and
|
|
leapt right in again, pushing through the thin layer of ice beside
|
|
the reed-bed. She saw him coming and swung the heavy branch in a
|
|
vicious swipe, catching him hard on the ribs. Pain exploded as
|
|
something inside cracked, but not as much as it would have done had
|
|
his whole body not been already numbed by the freezing canal water.
|
|
His momentum carried him forwards, carried him onwards. He landed
|
|
with a terrific crack and a huge splash. His full weight hit Helen
|
|
and drove her under.</p>
|
|
<p>She saw him coming and only saw threat. The other man was
|
|
pulling away out of range of her swipe and then she had seen the
|
|
shadow in the corner of her eye and she had snarled, knowing this
|
|
was an attack. Her lips drew back over clenched teeth and she spat
|
|
in animal fury.</p>
|
|
<p>He had leapt and she had struck him and then his weight had
|
|
cannoned into her and she had screamed. Water went down her throat
|
|
and an appalling anger erupted inside her. She reached for him,
|
|
trying to scratch at his face and his eyes, trying to claw and rend
|
|
to protect her burden.</p>
|
|
<p>The water blinded her. She held the baby tight against herself
|
|
and shoved at the attacker.</p>
|
|
<p>David reared back and slapped her so hard her head whipped
|
|
sideways. With his other hand he grabbed at the thing she clutched.
|
|
It was shrieking, a strange high and alien quiver of sound, as if
|
|
the very air was being torn apart. He reached for it and she turned
|
|
and clawed at his face, hissing like a cat. Her nails ripped on his
|
|
eyelid and raked down his cheek. Blood poured into his eye,
|
|
blinding him on one side.</p>
|
|
<p>The thing screamed again, a mental blast of energy that felt
|
|
like nails on glass, yet sounded as if it scraped right in the very
|
|
centre of his brain.</p>
|
|
<p>Anger exploded. Bright hot feral rage erupted inside him,
|
|
completely uncontrollable. The thing’s mindblast had touched
|
|
that male part of him and catapulted him right into absolute and
|
|
savage frenzy. All he wanted to do was destroy this. The automatic
|
|
response to the parasite was to kill it, break it and tear it and
|
|
rend it. He reached to drag it from her.</p>
|
|
<p>Helen screamed, the sound of a pig in a slaughterhouse. She
|
|
lunged at him, mouth wide and all her teeth showing. In that
|
|
instant she looked more animal than human. The thing in her arms
|
|
was just a blur, its shape rippling and shifting as if it had no
|
|
definition. David tried to hit it. She pulled back and he went
|
|
flying into the water. Some of it went down his throat and he came
|
|
up spluttering.</p>
|
|
<p>One of the policemen ventured a foot into the reeds, appalled by
|
|
the sudden and incomprehensible violence, unable to understand it.
|
|
Just then, the other policewoman began to scream and he turned,
|
|
just in tome to see her launch herself at him, both hands hooked
|
|
into claws.</p>
|
|
<p>“Hold mother...” he managed, before her weight
|
|
slammed into him and threw him into a dense thicket of scrub
|
|
willow. The woman came tumbling after him, trying to hook his eyes
|
|
out, driven by the thing’s foul appeal for protection.</p>
|
|
<p>On the bank, young Kirsty Cameron’s body arched backwards
|
|
with such violence the ligaments actually creaked like old wood,
|
|
and every muscle in her body shivered as if a powerful electric
|
|
shock had surged through her.</p>
|
|
<p>In the water, David got to his feet, lunged again for Helen and
|
|
the thing in her arms, She saw him coming, screamed wordlessly at
|
|
him, desperately trying to reach the bank and be away. He dived
|
|
full length, got a hand to her jacket, pulled her back violently.
|
|
She slipped, fell, he reached and snatched at the thing, jerked as
|
|
hard as he could, and it came tumbling out of her arms.</p>
|
|
<p>Helen screamed and then the dreadful contact of its touch
|
|
snapped she went spinning backwards, along the side of the bank,
|
|
out of the reeds and into deep water. A hand came reaching for her
|
|
and hauled her back up again and she gulped, coughing slimy liquid
|
|
which ran down from each nostril. The baby was calling for her,
|
|
sending out its shivery demand and she tried desperately to
|
|
respond, but David shoved her away. She was crying and shrieking at
|
|
the top of her voice, in between coughing splutters. Another hand
|
|
reached down, strong and steady and lifted her straight out of the
|
|
water. David went spinning away out of view with the small thing in
|
|
his hands.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p><em>He was dragged down in the water</em>.</p>
|
|
<p>The mother was screaming for him as she was pulled away and
|
|
there was nothing he could do. The man had hit him, almost hard
|
|
enough to break his neck, and a dreadful realisation had burst on
|
|
him. He had been caught and there was no mother and the one he
|
|
wanted was gone.</p>
|
|
<p>Under the water, his glassy eyes opened and he tried to squirm
|
|
away. It was no use, he was caught in the fronds of cloth and he
|
|
could not move. His glands opened wide and they filled with water,
|
|
drenching him in cold. He pushed at the man’s mind but could
|
|
get no response. He could sense hate and loathing and beneath it,
|
|
an awful anger. Underneath the anger there was a sea of fear that
|
|
mirrored his own. It was the primitive and mindless fear of the
|
|
alien.</p>
|
|
<p>Down they went down into the dark of the mud. He pushed and
|
|
squirmed, but the weight kept him down.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p>It had tried to take her and it had almost won. David knew that
|
|
as he pushed down under the ice. The creature was in his arms,
|
|
twisting and turning, all arms and legs and bones, a scrawny yet
|
|
powerful thing. He could feel its shape through the cloth and knew
|
|
it had no right to exist. It was a spidery, reptilian gargoyle of a
|
|
thing. It was a parasite.</p>
|
|
<p>The sizzling anger still suffused him, a desperate, mindless
|
|
lust to kill. It was such a primitive need that it by-passed all
|
|
his other conditioning, everything he had learned. It was simply a
|
|
basic drive.</p>
|
|
<p>The thing pulsed at him, sharp shards of thought, glassy blades
|
|
of mental energy that stabbed in is head, searing the back of his
|
|
eyes, making the nerves in his teeth jump and tingle, sending
|
|
corkscrews of hurt into his bones. But he could not help himself,
|
|
he had to kill it. The pain was somewhere inside him, but the anger
|
|
flooded the hurt and smothered it.</p>
|
|
<p><em>Take me take me take me</em>. The creature’s wordless
|
|
command blasted out. He felt it reach and touch, on the inside of
|
|
his skull, and it felt like some rotting poison, some dreadful
|
|
infection trying to find a way in. He shuddered, drawing away from
|
|
it. It sensed retreat, pulsed harder.</p>
|
|
<p>The awesome anger surged up inside him, he shook his head,
|
|
unable to control himself. In that instant he was locked with the
|
|
creature. Nothing else existed except he and it and the need to
|
|
destroy it. He twisted his body and forced himself downwards, right
|
|
under the surface at the far end of the reed bed where the water
|
|
swooped to its canal depth. It was freezing cold, but he did not
|
|
care, did not even feel it. For the past eleven days he had
|
|
followed its trail of feeding, its trail of destruction and he knew
|
|
that this was beyond any natural law, or any law of man. This was
|
|
beyond any nature he had ever heard of. It had almost taken Helen
|
|
Lamont and that would have been enough for David if any form of
|
|
rational thought could break through the ramparts of his monumental
|
|
anger.</p>
|
|
<p>He went down to the bottom of the canal and pushed the thing
|
|
right into the mud, forcing it down into the ooze and kicked his
|
|
feet hard to force it further, shoving hard, shoving with all the
|
|
strength of his body. He kept it there, down under the silt until
|
|
it stopped moving.</p>
|
|
<p>The mind scream went on and on, but it was weakening all the
|
|
time. He pushed, up to his shoulders in mud down in the dark, until
|
|
the shivering stopped and the mental pulses died away. Whatever
|
|
life was in this thing guttered and failed. David stayed there
|
|
until everything began to fade away and just before the cold came
|
|
and took him, a wonderful surge of triumph swept through him at the
|
|
knowledge that he had beaten this thing. His last sensation was one
|
|
of dim regret that he would not see Helen again, for in his fading
|
|
consciousness he realised that indeed, she was the one for him.</p>
|
|
<p>He knew that she had been worth dying for.</p>
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|
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