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181 lines
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<h1>21</h1>
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<p>On the night after the tanker crashed under the bridge and blew up the west exit, the night of the lightning storm, an unseen shadow flowed over Arden,</p>
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<p>The shadow floated towards the door of Tom Muir's butcher shop and oozed inside.</p>
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<p>Eadie Muir, Tom's well-rounded wife, was fast asleep, a beached whale that caused that side of the bed to sink alarmingly. Tom Muir was no lightweight either. He was a big-boned, well-fed man with a moustache and mutton-chop sideburns and he combed his sparse hair from his left ear across the dome of his head.</p>
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<p>He had a ruddy complexion, partly from his taste in malt whisky and because he spent a lot of time in his big freezer room. He was a friendly fellow who always had the time of day to pass with his customers.</p>
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<p>That night, Tom was far from jovial. He had woken early to get the shop ready on the morning after the festival and he'd a throbbing headache. Not unusual in itself, for he'd been hung-over many a time, but this one was enough to make his vision waver. Despite the pain, he'd gone down to the shop and got the joints from the freezer, cut off steaks on the saw and laid out the enamelled plates just the way his father and grandfather had done down the years.</p>
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<p>It had been a quiet day. Hardly anybody had come in, and those who did seemed very subdued, as if they too might be suffering festival after-effects. Old Mrs hardy came in and spent ten minutes deciding what she needed, which was unusual because she always took six mutton pies on a Monday. She'd wandered off without her usual thank-you, and more, she'd forgotten to pay for the pies. When Tom called to her at the door, she'd just wandered out as if she hadn't heard. It wasn't a big deal. She'd no doubt square up later.</p>
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<p>The headache did start to subside just a little in the afternoon. By evening it was almost gone, but Tom's vision was still out of kilter. Little flashes sparkled on the periphery, and he kept thinking something was moving, just out of sight, but when he turned to look, there was nothing there.</p>
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<p>That night, Tom lay in the dark, trying to sleep, but he kept seeing those flickering movements out of the corner of his eyes. He hoped it was just the result of bad whisky and not something more serious.</p>
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<p>Eadie began to snore.</p>
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<p>She was lying on her back with her mouth open and her jowls, sleek and rounded, rippled with each breath. No matter how often Tom dug his elbow into her yielding girth, the snoring got louder in the dark and she just wouldn't turn, or wake up.</p>
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<p>The coloured flashes were flaring more and more, to fast to really see, but now moving into the centre of his vision. Eadie snored on and the more Tom tried to sleep, the more tense he became. He lay with his hands clenched, trying to ignore the sound and the flashes, but it was impossible.</p>
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<p>Unaccustomed anger began to swell inside him.</p>
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<p>And so did the headache. It was now pulsing in temples and throbbing up and down his spine. Eadie's snoring seemed to get louder and louder, contributing to the pressure inside his head.</p>
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<p>Tom knelt up on the bed, throwing the blankets off. He clamped both hands to his temples, pressing tight to kill the sound and the coloured flashes and the pain.</p>
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<p>Eadie snorted and Tom reached out in the dark, grabbed the blanket and flung it right off, exposing his wife's bulk. He grabbed her shoulders and tried almost screamed at her to be quiet. Her eyes stayed shut and the snoring continued.</p>
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<p>He got her neck in his hands and squeezed. He squeezed it until the sound suddenly cut off and then he squeezed more until his big hands began to cramp. The pain in his head began to slowly ooze away.</p>
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<p>After a while, he slowly turned and switched on the light. The dancing shapes in his vision were gone. Eadie lay beside him with her arms splayed wide. Pink, meaty arms. Her tongue was blue and swollen as it poked through her lips, the same colour as the calf tongues he packed in jelly. Her eyes had rolled up to that all he could see were the whites. Eadie's nightdress had opened up and a large soft breast had spilled out and seemed to be trying to drip down the side of the bed. In her thrashing, her nightdress had rucked up to her hips, showing her heavy thighs below the bulging curve of her belly. Tom thought she looked just like a pig, with little trotters at the end of fat legs. There was a strong smell of urine and a damp stain on the mattress.</p>
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<p>"Pig, Tom grunted. He heaved up out of bed. He went for a fresh sheet, for he sure as hell wasn't going to sleep in a puddle of piss.</p>
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<p>But at the top of the stairs, he paused. In the deep shadows he was suddenly confused.</p>
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<p>He couldn't remember why he'd got up.</p>
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<p>He thought it must be time to go to work.</p>
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<p>Tom dressed, took out a fresh apron, put on his hat and went downstairs to the shop. Five minutes later, he came back to the bedroom and went to work.</p>
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<p>It took him no more than half an hour to expertly flense the carcass and take out the heart, liver and kidneys. The rest of the offal, he just dumped on the sheet. That done, he cut off the head and put it to one side, then, with efficiency born of years of practice, he removed the limbs. The torso, he carried downstairs and he came back for the rest after a while. The bedroom was awash with blood and the bed itself was a red mess, but the meat didn't bleed much once it was cut into sections.</p>
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<p>Down in the shop, Tom ran the carcass over the saw, cutting the spine down the middle and then he used the handsaw to split the ribs so he had two halves to work on. There was very little waste.</p>
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<p>He laid out the rib-steaks and small chops. He rolled marbled meat and tied it into joints. He slung plenty of spare fat into the rendering put and with what was left he filled the mincer and flicked the switch. Good pink meat came squirming out the spout.</p>
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<p>The enamel platters in the butcher's window were all dressed nicely.</p>
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<p>And once he had finished, Tom stood there and waited for the first customers. He hoped it would be a busier day, because yesterday had been very slack, and that was strange.</p>
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<p>But, he told himself, there was always another day, and the customers always needed meat.</p>
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<p>The shadow over Arden oozed inside Mary Baker's door in the early hours before dawn.</p>
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<p>It had been a strange day for the jolly woman who ran her bakery and tearoom with the same delicate expertise her mother had taught her as a girl. Mary was proud of her confections. People came over from Levenford and Kirkland specially for her sponge-cakes and spiced buns. They ordered potato scones by the dozen, and in summer season, Mary's strawberry tarts were second to none.</p>
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<p>Monday was just a haze, lost in the distance. That night, Mary could hardly remember the day she'd spent in the shop. Normally, she'd spend the time behind the counter chatting and picking up the gossip. She had two nieces who came in to help, but although Mary was up was always up before dawn, mixing and getting the ovens just right, she couldn't do without the gossip. Everyone had something to tell Mary Baker about everybody else. It was the ingredient of life.</p>
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<p>She just liked to know what was going on.</p>
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<p>Yet, strangely, she couldn't recall anything she'd been told today. Normally she would sit and knit together the bits and pieces that formed her picture of Arden. Why so-and-so hadn't made it to church; whose wife was making dangerous eyes at whose husband. Mary knew it all. It was the life's blood of the town.</p>
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<p>But as she lay in bed, she couldn't recall a thing, because she hadn't been downstairs all day, her first day off since she could recall. At the festival, she had been the judge in the baking contest - her pride of place - and she had tasted everything, especially the bread from the seminary, which she considered almost on a par with her own.</p>
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<p>Well after midnight, Mary had clambered out of bed and gone down to her shop. She thought she'd heard a noise downstairs and wondered if she'd forgotten to lock up. She pulled her dressing gown around her and crept downstairs in the dark. It was quiet now, except for a hollow drip from the tap in the bakery.</p>
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<p>She moved into the shadows. A line of light shone down the edge of the door and she realised that it
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<em>was</em> open. Mary stepped outside and looked up and down the street. There was no-one about. But maybe, someone had come
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<em>in</em>.</p>
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<p>Her heart beat a little faster as she went back inside. There was no-one behind the counter, or hiding in the shadows. She looked around the racks of bread-boards and then went through to the bake house. It smelt of flower and spices, the aroma that Mary had been born to.</p>
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<p>In the gloom, despite the thudding of her heart, she searched around, but still found no sign of any intruder. She let out a slow breath.</p>
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<p>Then she had a sudden thought.</p>
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<p>What if someone had <em>been</em> inside and stolen her cakes.</p>
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<p>That thought propelled her through to the shop and behind the counter where the trays laden with iced fancies and fruit tarts were covered in plastic film. The wrapping was peeled back in the corner of one tray, as if someone had tried to get at her wares.</p>
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<p>The thought appalled her.</p>
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<p>She lifted the tray and sat it on one of the tables and lowered herself to a chair. Slowly, she lifted a tart to her mouth and nibbled. It was still fresh and the icing crisp. She finished it in three bites. She reached down for another one. Then another.</p>
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<p>In the darkness of the shop, Mary fetched a second tray and a carton of cream from the fridge. She sat down to eat again.</p>
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<p>Hours later, long before the grizzly dawn and while the rain still beat down on the roofs and streets of Arden, Mary was still working through the trays of her own baking. She was determined to make sure nobody stole
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<em>her</em> cakes.</p>
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<p>She was on her fifth carton of cream and hardly aware of the pain in her grossly distended belly when her heart and lungs, labouring under the huge pressure from within, were on the verge of collapse.</p>
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<p>Mary was stuffing a spiced bun into her mouth when she slumped back.</p>
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<p>It was some time before she was found. By that time, the uneaten bun between her jaws was stale and hard.</p>
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<p>In the police station, Murdo Morison sat with his feet on the desk while his assistant, John Weir, who was more or less the town's beat policeman, typed reports on a big Imperial that he pecked at with two fingers. Murdo had taken a turn round the streets in the patrol van.</p>
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<p>The pounding rain had kept everyone indoors. It had been quiet all day, which was not unusual in Arden. The day after the festival was always subdued, as the townsfolk recharged their batteries.</p>
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<p>Down the corridor, in the row of small cells, two of the more unruly drinkers who'd been brawling in the street at dawn were still cooling their heels. John was writing the reports, but there was every possibility that Murdo would crumple them in the bucket later and kick the prisoners' backsides as he let them out with a warning. They'd have learned their lesson anyway.</p>
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<p>The constable clicked away and Murdo started to doze off.</p>
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<p>He awoke with a start when one of his feet slipped from the desk. At first he didn't know where he was and shook his head to clear his vision, but there were still wavery lines in front of his eyes. He yawned and stretched. John Weir kept on typing. Down in the cells, one of the guests was humming a tune. There was a faint ringing in Murdo's ears.</p>
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<p>He got up and moved to the door. For a second, it seemed to buckle and waver and he stepped back. He rubbed his eyes, looked again and the door slowly bulged outwards. Murdo grabbed the handle and yanked it open.</p>
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<p>There was nothing behind it, nothing that could have made the door bulge.</p>
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<p>He stepped into the narrow passageway and looked right and left.</p>
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<p>Something was wrong with the walls. They were slowly pulsing in and out, as if they were breathing.</p>
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<p>The humming still continued along in the cell and the buzzing in Murdo's ears got louder. The walls bulged in towards each other and then subsided.</p>
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<p>He went down the passage, wondering what the hell was wrong with his eyes. He felt dizzy and the bulging walls made him feel claustrophobic. He stopped at the row of three cells and looked inside.</p>
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<p>Sam Caldwell was lying on the bunk, sound asleep and snoring. Murdo moved on to the next and Alec McGrath looked up.</p>
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<p>'Hey Murdo, am I going to be in all bloody night?'</p>
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<p>Murdo stared into the cell. The round bars were expanding and contracting all on their own. He stared at them bemused, wondering why they were doing that, when McGrath called out again.</p>
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<p>'How about it, Murdo? I've been in all day and I'm choking for a drink.'</p>
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<p>Murdo looked from the wavering cell bars and stared at McGrath.</p>
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<p>There was something wrong with the man's face. It was twisting and warping as if something was moving under the skin.</p>
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<p>McGrath said something else, but Murdo stood silently, watching as the man's features contorted like melting plastic. He leant against the bars, sweat beading his brow.</p>
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<p>The thing in front of him no longer looked human. Its mouth opened, but all that came out was a rasping grunt.</p>
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<p><em>Devil.</em> The word sprang into Murdo's mind. <em>Not human.</em></p>
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<p>He was a simple, god-fearing man who attended the parish church every Sunday.</p>
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<p><em>God help me.</em> The words came out in a prayer.</p>
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<p>The contorted thing looked up at him, still growling like a beast.</p>
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<p>Murdo reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. He selected the big mortise and slipped it into the lock. The contorted thing on the bed glared at him, growling like a beast.</p>
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<p>The big policeman reached both hands and grabbed it by the neck.</p>
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<p>It screeched and wriggled, but he was too strong. He lifted it right off the bed and squeezed harder until he felt something inside burst under his thumbs.</p>
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<p>In the other cell, Sam Caldwell, who had been startled awake by the noise watched in horror as Murdo Morrison squeezed the life out of Alex McGrath.</p>
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<p>He whimpered in pure fear, slowly sank to the ground, and very quietly crawled under the cot.</p>
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<p>Murdo went back to the office. The walls had stopped bulging and the big pressure inside his ears had subsided like an ebb-tide.</p>
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<p>'Everything ok, Sarge?' John Weir looked up from a report that bore an incomprehensible jumble of random letters that no-one would ever be able to read.</p>
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<p>'I don't know,' Murdo said. 'It doesn't feel right.' He blinked and shook his head, standing under the fluorescent light as if he didn't know where he was.</p>
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<p>And in and around Arden that night, in the dark of houses and cottages and far steadings, other strange and terrible things were happening.</p>
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