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<title>Chapter 20</title>
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<h2>21</h2>
<p>Out on East Mains, a small, modern housing estate not half a
mile from where Jack Fallon lived, Derek Elliot had woken before
dawn with a pounding headache. He was numbed from sleeplessness for
the night had been riven with the grim and morbid dreams that had
assailed him for the past fortnight. In those two weeks, the
heavy-set man had lost three stones in weight. The girls in the
estate agency had noticed the sudden weight loss, but had said
nothing to his face. Elliot simply looked emaciated and ill. His
annoyingly vapid moon-face had become gaunt and hollowed, his
hail-fellow-well-met bonhomie had evaporated completely.</p>
<p>The dreams had begun after the night in Cairn House, when the
cold wind had shrieked around the room scattering books and
ornaments, blowing, it seemed, right through him, shivering his
bones. He'd fled, like the others, down the narrow staircase and
into the rain.</p>
<p>What had happened in there, he did not fully comprehend. He'd
gone to Marta Herkik's house to have his fortune told, something
he'd done several times now, every two months for the past year,
ever since somebody had told him the old lady had a real gift for
seeing the future. He hadn't believed it at first, though he'd
wanted to. The first time he'd handed her two ten pound notes,
thinking it to be a waste of money, and then she'd sat him down on
the other side of the round table and had looked into the glass and
then she'd told him things about himself which had badly unnerved
him.</p>
<p>Derek Elliot was twenty six years old and, like many people, he
was mildly superstitious. The first time he'd gone to Cairn House,
he was on the horns of a dilemma. He was junior partner in Levenax
Estate Agents, and for the past year he'd been incensed with
ambition and anger, because old Harry Fitzpatrick, uncle of the
fire station chief, spent most of his time on the golf course,
letting him do all of the work, for a fraction of the pay the old
man took home. The Porsche, with its personalised number plates,
looked like a rich-boy's toy. Few people knew that it was leased
and the monthly costs were like a millstone around his neck. Marta
Herkik had told him there were good signs as far as money and
business was concerned. She told him he'd be successful in a plan
he was making, and that someone close to him in business would take
ill, opening the door for his enterprise.</p>
<p>He'd formulated the plan a months before that. It was not
complicated, but he couldn't put it into operation under old
Harry's nose. Then the old man had suffered a mild stroke - making
part of the old woman's prediction come true - and had been away
from the office for a month and it was clear to everyone that it
would be several more before he returned, if ever. That was enough
to tip him over the edge. Derek Elliot spent the first few weeks
cultivating Harry's contacts in the banks and building societies
and then the right property had come up on the market. It was an
old villa owned by a ninety-year-old woman who had died in an
upstairs bedroom and hadn't been found for six days. Their niece,
who lived in London, had no intention of living there. She
contacted the estate agent by telephone and asked him to sell it
immediately. Derek Elliot did the survey himself, wrote down
detailed report on structural faults, dampness and dry-rot, all of
which reduced the selling price by a huge margin and all of it a
complete fabrication. He opened a bank account in another name,
transferred some funds to it, put an offer in for the property,
having forged half a dozen offers much lower than his own price,
then, on the seller's authority, accepted his bid. The simple
transaction netted him more than a year's wages when he immediately
transferred the deeds to the next buyer. With this money, he bought
up two houses on the east side of town under his assumed name, then
arranged finance from building societies on hugely inflated
surveys. When the money came in, he paid the mortgages for three
months to allay suspicion, and then defaulted. The lenders sent
agents down to Levenford to re-possess the properties. Derek Elliot
sympathised with them, said this kind of thing was happening too
often, and went home to check his bank balance. In six months the
deals had pushed his take to almost a quarter of a million.</p>
<p>Since then, he'd visited Marta Herkik's house every eight weeks
or so. Each time she told him his planned venture would be a
success, and each time he believed her. He'd come to rely on what
she said as an omen for the future. If she ever warned him of
danger, he'd rifle his account and take a plane to somewhere
warm.</p>
<p>When she invited him to a special sitting, he was in no mood to
refuse.</p>
<p>"Something different," the old woman had told him in her sharp,
crackling voice. "Something that will show everything in the
future."</p>
<p>Since then, the dreams had come every night. Dreams of darkness
and shadows. Unknown places where black things moved and the gloom
was filled with the sound of screaming and the air thick with the
foul stench that had wafted over him at Cairn House. He could see
eyes in the dark, glaring eyes swivelling right and left, hunting
for him and he spent his nights fleeing through alleys and runnels
he'd never seen before with the snuffling of the black pursuer
close at his heels, chasing him through the night.</p>
<p>On the morning that Jack Fallon took Andy Toye to Lorna's house,
Elliot woke up from such a dream, shivering in fear, still hearing
the guttural snarl of the thing that harried his heels. His back
was lathered with sweat, and the cold perspiration only made him
shiver more. The chill seemed to have got under his skin, making
the blood sluggish in his veins. He dressed slowly and awkwardly,
as if his co-ordination was failing, denying him the full control
of his movements. The shirt collar hung down from his neck, made
for someone much brawnier than he was now. He reached to put the
kettle on, saw the blue veins like a raised road map on the back of
a skinny hand, and instead, lifted the half-empty bottle of whisky.
He twisted off the top, raised the bottle to his mouth and took a
long swallow. The spirit burned all the way down to his stomach,
but the glow faded almost immediately. He shook his head and
grimaced. The drink, always his favourite, tasted foul. He felt his
gorge rise, swallowed quickly and the roll of nausea subsided.</p>
<p>There was something wrong. He knew that now. Every time he
closed his eyes he could feel the cold, rancid breath of the black
beast and he wondered if he was going completely mad. He didn't
have the old woman to help him now. She was dead. He'd read about
it in the paper and he'd been badly shaken, though, in himself,
he'd known it all along.</p>
<p>Since that night, he'd struggled in to the office, but he
couldn't focus his mind on the deals. With old Harry Fitzpatrick
still out of the way, he'd started going in late and leaving early.
Instead of drinking with the crowd of young turks, the lawyers and
accountants round in the Horse Bar on Station Street, he'd begun to
take a bottle home with him at night, sometimes two. The drink did
nothing to keep the dreams at bay, or the black thing in the dreams
that got close and closer until he could now feel it scrabbling at
his heels in the night.</p>
<p>Things were going badly wrong. In the last few days he'd had a
visit from one of the building societies who wanted all the details
on one of the properties he'd got the loan on. It was normal
practise, but alarm bells had begun to go off in his head. He'd
fumbled with the papers and stammered like a schoolboy. The rep had
looked at him with a calculating expression, or so it seemed.
Paranoia swept in like a vulture. Every time the phone rang, he
jumped, startled. During the day, he'd begun avoiding places where
people knew him. When he made it to the office, he went in and
closed the door, sitting in the shade, away from the window. He put
it down to lack of sleep, but the light was beginning to hurt his
eyes.</p>
<p>On the morning Jack and Andy Toye went to Lorna Breck's house,
Derek Elliot drank his whisky and nearly vomited. He put the bottle
back on the ledge below the curtained window and walked slowly,
like an old man, into the darkened living room. Outside, a passing
milk-float jarred on his ears as the bottles rattled in their
crates. He winced and crossed to the seat beside the fire. The
embers were still warm from the night before. He stoked them with
the poker and they flared red, but the radiance did nothing to warm
him. He felt as if he'd been invaded by a cold that would never
heat up. Quite remotely, as if someone else was thinking for him,
he considered the possibility that he might be dying. He was too
tired to worry about it. There were enough things to worry
about.</p>
<p>It was just then that he noticed the cupboard door open. That
was where he kept his fireproof box and the special bankbooks with
the money he'd embezzled. He was sure the door had been closed when
he went to bed. Alarm flared inside him, possibly the strongest
emotion he'd felt for days. He crossed to the door and yanked it
open.</p>
<p>The strong-box gaped. The papers and books he'd stuffed inside
were lying scattered on the floor.</p>
<p>Derek Elliot's heart thudded painfully. He stood, slack jawed,
one hand on his chest, trying to comprehend what had happened. He'd
heard nothing in his sleep, except for the fearful snarl of the
unseen thing behind him. Immediately he thought he'd been burgled,
then his jittery mind recalled the rep from the building
society.</p>
<p>Had he been a detective? An investigator? His jumbled thoughts
leapt this way and that, but his mind seemed to have no cohesion.
He knelt and swept up the sheafs of paper and the passbooks,
counting them out quickly. They were all there.</p>
<p>He opened the first. He'd made two deposits, using the name of
someone he'd been at school with. It had been easy to get a
travel-card with his picture as identity. The bank accepted that
without a second thought.</p>
<p>The two tranches of money were written out on the left column,
totalling forty thousand. There was a smaller amount in the same
column showing the interest he'd been paid in the last six months.
He let out his breath slowly. If anyone had seen these, then he was
finished. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and his whole body
shuddered.</p>
<p>Something was scrawled in red ink across the page, below the
printed deposit amounts.</p>
<p><em>Debit. All sums forfeit. Account now closed.</em></p>
<p>The skinny young man lurched backwards and crashed against the
chair. He snatched at the second passbook.</p>
<p>This time there was no writing, but as he stared at the page,
the print began to fade from the bottom up. His total vanished as
if it had evaporated from the paper, then, in moments, the figures
above followed suit until the whole page was blank. He snapped it
closed. Up the front, just under Bank's logo, the name he had
chosen had been written in ink. One by one the letters changed,
right in front of his eyes. <em>Raymond Caldwell</em>, the boy he'd
been at school with, was erased in seconds. In its place, in bold
black letters appeared two words: <em>Dead Account</em>.</p>
<p>Derek Elliot began to whimper. The third book was completely
empty when he opened it, except for an old-fashioned block stamp,
again in red. It slanted across both pages, just one word:
<em>Debit.</em></p>
<p>Now speechless, almost fainting from the shock, Derek Elliot
jerked back and let the books drop to the floor. His eyes were
glazed and staring. His weight seemed too heavy for his skinny legs
and he slowly subsided to the floor in at the corner close to the
cupboard. He drew himself into a ball, his mind now so benumbed,
that he could think of nothing at all. Some time later, the postman
came up the path and the letterbox clattered loudly as something
was posted through the door. By this time, Derek Elliot's sanity
had completely fragmented and he heard nothing. He crouched in the
shadows in the corner, oblivious to everything except a whispered
voice inside his head that he couldn't make out, but struggled to
comprehend. Some time much later, when it was dark, the huddled
figure uncurled and slowly got to its feet. The front door opened
and Derek Elliot walked out into the cold night, heedless of the
bitter cold wind blowing down from the snow on top of the Langmuir
Crags. The whispering voice, now completely comprehensible, guided
his feet.</p>
<hr />
<p>Out beyond the town hall on Strathleven Street stand a couple
modern stores built of concrete and red corrugated iron in what
somebody had described <em>recession-aiscance</em> style. The
biggest is a do-it-yourself business which is always busy on
Sundays, packed with hordes of women choosing wallpaper, followed
by doleful looking men who are faced with the fun prospect of
hanging it. Beside it, there was a carpet store, since closed, that
was doing badly, and next to that a car-parts business which sold
everything from trailers and alarm systems to mountain bikes. A
large car-park dominates the yard and beyond that there's a stand
of trees which borders a path beside Jinty Jackson's allotments
where keen gardeners had a series of tight, well tended plots
crammed with vegetables in the summer months. In the winter, the
little rickety greenhouses looked empty and forlorn. Each plot on
Jackson's ground butted on to the Rough Drain, a mess of willow and
reeds and tangled brambles, where every boy in Levenford was
forbidden to play but where almost every lad on the east side of
town used as an adventure playground. It stretched for almost a
mile out towards Dumbreck Hill, another volcanic plug which marked
the eastern border of the parish.</p>
<p>Jed Galt, whose mother Cathy worked nights in the County Bar,
and who was one of the women who witnessed Lorna Breck's strange
seizure on the night of the fire, was leaning against a lightning-
shattered trunk which had fallen over one of the water-filled
runnels in the Rough. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his
mouth. The three other boys sat on stones they'd rolled out from
the brambles in a rough circle around the fire they'd made. Nobody
came down to this part of town at night. It was truly rough and it
was where the run-off water from the hills behind town finally
drained before seeping down in a series of oily rivulets to the
estuary on the east side of the Castle Rock. Thick, greasy smoke
rose up from the flickering flames, and filtered through the bare
branches of a nearby tree, but there was nobody else around to see
it.</p>
<p>Jed's father would be down at the Castlegate Bar with the rest
of the drunks. What his mother made in one bar, Campbell Galt drank
in the other. It had always been that way as far back as Jed could
recall. His old man couldn't give a toss what his son got up to on
winter evenings. The house could burn down and he'd never be the
wiser until morning. Jed was seventeen. He was a tall, good looking
boy with an air of studied nonchalance about him. Inside, he
bitterly resented his father because of the very fact that he, Jed,
was down in the rough drain with the guys. At the age of ten, Jed
had shown considerable promise in art. He could draw horses and
stags and peregrine falcons from memory. One of the teachers had
shown him the basics of perspective and that had changed his whole
outlook on his drawing. He'd spend hours, huddled over the kitchen
table with a set of charcoal pencils his aunt Tricia had bought
him, tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, drawing the
street scenes he'd seen on his way home. He'd shown promise, but
his old man, in a drunken rage one night after an argument in the
bar had come home and swept the whole lot off the table and as an
afterthought he'd mashed all the carefully stacked sheets together
in his two big fists and thrust the lot into the fire. The charcoal
pencils had followed and then he'd sent the young Jed sprawling
across the room with a quick and mean backhander.</p>
<p>"Bloody nancy boy," he'd roared, eyes glittering and mean.
"Waste of fucking time. I catch you doodling about in here and I'll
break your fucking arms."</p>
<p>It was the last art lesson Jed Galt ever had and one of the most
unforgettable lessons he got in life. Campbell Galt had reached
base line. His wife struggled at a job which paid just enough to
keep the house going with what she managed to hide away from her
husband's romance with the bottle. From then on, Jed stayed out
striking distance of the old man's fists and boots and out of his
way. He contrived to be out of the house when his father was in and
he ended up out of the house for most of the time. He lost interest
in art, and in schoolwork and at the age of seventeen, he was out
of school, out of work and had no prospect of getting a job. He
knew he'd end up just like his father and that thought brought up a
bile of bitterness over what might have been if he'd just been
given a chance.</p>
<p>"We could go up the allotments," Chalky Black ventured. "See
what's in the greenhouses."</p>
<p>"No point," Jed said derisively. "It's friggin' winter." It had
been different in the autumn when the nights were just drawing in
with that mellow tartness that reminded folk of stolen apples and
big shiny horse-chestnuts. Then, some of the greenhouses had been
bulging with black grapes hanging in great fists from the vines.
Jed and his mates had jemmied one of the doors open and made off
with their sweaters cradled out in front of them, loaded with the
swollen bunches. They'd scoffed the grapes until the juices
dribbled down their chins, feasting on them until they were
sick.</p>
<p>"How about the school again?" Votek Visotsky piped up. He was a
tall, pale faced boy with light eyes and delicate skin. His
grandfather had been Polish and Votek had inherited much of his
looks. Unfortunately he was heir to less of the old man's brains.
His father was manager of a car dealership in Kirkland. Votek could
hardly manage to tie his high toe-tector boots.</p>
<p>"Not me," Chalkie Black chipped in. His name was as much a
contradiction as his appearance. Black he was not. His shock of
pure white hair sat in tangles on top of his head, above a long
pale brow and equally white eyebrows almost hidden behind lenses
through which his eyes looked tiny in the centre of concentric
rings of corrective glass. He blinked in the light of the fire.</p>
<p>"It scared the living shite out of me last time," Chalky said
vehemently. "I'm not going back in there again."</p>
<p>Eddie Redford nodded in agreement. It had been weird, going back
to the place they had spent seven years of childhood. Even Jed Galt
had been unnerved by the foray into their old school on Braeside
Drive.</p>
<p>They had gone in on the day of the big bonfire on the common
meadow out by Slaughterhouse Road. Votek had wanted to go see the
firework display, but the others said that was kid's stuff and
outvoted him. There was a space fiction film on at the Regal Cinema
that they had all wanted to see, but between them they didn't have
enough money for even one seat in the front row and since the last
time, when old Henry McLeish had shone his torch down the stairwell
and caught Eddie pushing the bar to open the fire door to let the
others in, there was no chance of a free night. The grouchy old
bastard had put a chain on the bar to make sure nobody could get
in. It also made sure nobody could get out and in the course of
time that would prove to be a mistake of disastrous proportions,
but that story is for another time.</p>
<p>The four of them had been strolling out by Cross Road, noisily
kicking an empty beer can between them. Votek had taken a
long-limbed boot at the can and sent it tumbling into the air over
the old school wall. They'd scrambled over and into the low bushes,
searching for the can, but in the dark, it was lost in the foliage.
Jed had crossed the small playground and peered in the window of
the cloakroom. It was too dark to see, but from memory he could
conjure up a picture of the lines of coat-hooks and little benches.
In the winter, there had always been a smell of damp from steaming
coats and sodden shoes. The cloakroom was an extension built onto
the ancient structure of the building, and more recently, it had
been further extended to take in a toilet block which had replaced
the old and filthy urinals along the far high wall of the yard
where the boys used to climb on top of the roof and peer into the
girls section and occasionally pelt them with water bombs.</p>
<p>"Let's go in," Jed had said, testing the downpipe for
stability.</p>
<p>"What for?" somebody asked.</p>
<p>"Just for the hell of it. There's always something to lift.
Maybe dinner money."</p>
<p>Without another word, he shinned up the roanpipe and onto the
flat felted roof and moved easily onto the equally flat tarred
surface above the cloakrooms. There were three translucent glass
domes here, each more than a yard wide, which served as skylights
to the long changing area. They were held in place by lead brackets
and it took them two minutes to work the clips off one of them. The
dome slid away from its mount with little effort, making a grainy,
bell-like sound.</p>
<p>Jed knelt at the edge of the circular hole. Down below, it was
pitch dark.</p>
<p>"Who's first?" He asked the others, but nobody said anything. He
eased himself over, sitting on the lip, then turned onto his
stomach and lowered himself down. It was about ten feet above the
ground, which meant that with his arms outstretched as he dangled,
Jed would have nearly four feet to drop.</p>
<p>As he hung suspended in the darkness, with the three faces above
him pale in the dim moonlight, a strange and scary apprehension
shivered through him with no warning. He couldn't see below him.
Already he could hear the quiet <em>school</em> sounds; the
dripping of water in the toilets, the hiss of a cistern with a worn
washer. The eerie chink of pipes.</p>
<p>In his mind's eye he saw something come out of the darkness to
reach and grab his dangling feet in scaly hands. Right at that
moment, a ten-year-old memory came zooming into the forefront of
his mind. <em>Old Miss Walker.</em> She'd collapsed and died in the
class next door when he and the others were six years old. Just
like that, the other kids told him, snapping their fingers for
emphasis. She'd clamped a hand to her chest and made a little
moaning noise, and then crashed right across the table, stone dead.
And after that, the older kids teased the younger ones with tales
of how old Miss Walker's ghost, as white as a sheet, used to stand
in front of the blackboard in the class at the end of the corridor.
Jed's heart did a double beat as the imaginary picture, last
thought of all those years ago, came flashing back, a long, bony
white hand pointing out the ghostly columns of figures on the
board. A long white bony hand down there in the shadows, reaching
for <em>him</em>.</p>
<p>He could do nothing, hanging helplessly into a void. Abrupt
panic flared and without thinking he started to haul himself back
up out of the hole. It was too late. His arms were too straight
against the raised lip of the skylight. They couldn't bend properly
to gain leverage. One hand slipped from the edge and he hung
suspended for several seconds, every nerve cringing against the
sudden lunge of the unseen thing that waited in the dark of the
deserted night school. The fingers of his other hand slid slowly
towards the edge. He hooked them frantically, trying to maintain
his grip.</p>
<p>Then he was falling into the dark, no way out. His feet hit
before he expected them to and the shock jarred up into his hips,
toppling him sideways to crash against the wall. He spun round,
cat-like, eyes wide, trying to see into the dark. From off to the
right came a rythmic liquid and echoing <em>plink</em> sound.
Breathing hard, he swung his eyes left and right as the gloom
resolved itself into the rows of coat-hangers separated by lines of
mesh. In peripheral vision, shadows moved and danced, vanishing
when he swivelled his eyes towards them. It was as if the place was
crowded with half-seen, shadowy people waiting in ambush. He put
both hands out in front of him and carefully stepped away from the
wall.</p>
<p>And something came down out of the dark and crashed into his
shoulder. Jed let out a whoop of pure fright and instinctively hit
out at the thing.</p>
<p>"Ow. Watch it," Chalkie Black bawled. His dangling feet were
swaying back and forth.</p>
<p>"Stupid bastard, nearly killed me," Jed yelled, trying to
disguise the huge relief. All his childhood fears of the shadowy
Old Miss Walker and things crouching under the bed or lying in wait
in darkened cupboards had come shooting to the surface of his mind
while he'd hung helpless over the well of darkness. Chalky dropped
to the ground, his white hair a weird, disembodied oblong in the
dark. Votek followed seconds later, his heavy boots clattering on
the floor. Eddie came last, rolling as he hit the ground, then the
four of them stood in silence in the old cloakroom.</p>
<p>"Creepy, isn't it?" Chalky said.</p>
<p>"It's only a school," Jed retorted disdainfully. "We spent years
in here."</p>
<p>"Aye, but in the daylight," Eddie muttered. "Now what?"</p>
<p>"Come on," Jed said. "Let's see what they've got."</p>
<p>The corridors and stairwells had an empty and creepy echo. The
sound of their footsteps boomed loud, no matter how softly they
tried to walk. The headmaster's office, where on many an occasion,
each of them had stood, stony faced and eyes downcast under the
furious glare of Sister Bernadette, was locked. The secretary's
room was not. The door creaked open and they crept in. The third
drawer from the top held an old flat tobacco tin which rattled
metallically. Jed slipped it into his pocket, then they went to
explore the other rooms. After a while, they found themselves in
the classroom where Jed had learned to draw. Votek found some chalk
and drew a highly stylised and disproportionate nude on the board
and they all giggled. Eddie found a teacher's drawer open and a
hoard of sweets she'd obviously confiscated. He filled his pockets.
Chalkie picked up a good penknife. Votek kept the board duster
after he'd rubbed out his masterpiece.</p>
<p>In a cupboard, Jed found a box of charcoal pencils. He drew them
out and opened the carton. There were five of them, all different
thicknesses, unused, their points new-sharp. A surge of nostalgia
swept through him, followed by a sour bitterness. He almost threw
them back on the shelf, but then, for some reason, he slipped them,
before any of the others saw him, into the inside pocket of his
scuffed leather jerkin. He was about to turn away when he saw the
face.</p>
<p>"Hey look," he hissed. "It's Old Blackie."</p>
<p>They all laughed. The little metal toy had sat on the teacher's
desk for years. Its face was a parody of a black child, rolling
eyes, wide, grinning lips, a hand outstretched. The children would
put pennies into the hand, press a lever that jutted from the back
and the arm would raise to flip the coin into the mouth. Money for
black babies. Jed had often wondered, when he was still in the
primary school, why the black babies would want to <em>eat</em> the
money.</p>
<p>Chalky reached for it. None of them really knew what happened
next. It could have been that he nudged the little figure forcing
it against the back of the cupboard, making the lever move.
Whatever happened, Old Blackie's hand moved up with a loud
<em>clink.</em> The eyes rolled back in the head. Chalkie's hand
came jerking back. The thing moved again and the hand dropped down,
white and empty. The eyes swivelled back to where they'd been.</p>
<p>Chalkie stumbled back, coming down hard on Eddie's foot.</p>
<p>Then they were all scrambling for the door. Behind them, from
the cupboard, the <em>chink</em> sound came loudly. Jed grabbed
Votek by the collar and hauled him backwards, eager to be first.
Votek sprawled, Chalkie ran right over him and then Eddie landed on
top of him.</p>
<p>Somebody yelled in sheer panic. Jed got to the top of the stairs
and ran down them, one hand sliding on the banister. Behind him the
thud of heavy boots told him the rest were behind him. He reached
the ground floor and ran along the corridor with his palls behind
him. Votek was whimpering because he was last. Jed slammed open the
door on the bottom passageway that led to the cloakrooms. On each
side, the massive doors of the old classrooms stood in opposite
pairs. The boys slowed down here, getting their breath back.</p>
<p>"That wasn't fuckin' funny," Votek complained. "I nearly got
trampled to death."</p>
<p>"Just as long as Old Blackie didn't get you," Chalkie snorted
nervously. They had all seen the hand move on its own.</p>
<p>"Come on, you eejits," Jed said. He just wanted out of the
school. It had taken on a different, unnerving character at
night.</p>
<p>They slowly crept along the final corridor. At the far end, the
last classroom door was open. As they passed it, Chalkie peered in.
The tall sash windows, the kind that needed a hooked pole to open,
let in some light from the street beyond. They were crossing past
the door-space when Chalkie's breath hissed in a sharp intake. They
all turned, and they all saw it.</p>
<p>Just in front of the blackboard, motes of chalk-dust had
billowed upwards in a faint cloud, maybe caused by a draught from
the old ventilator grille beneath the board. Whatever had caused
it, the pale haze swirled as they watched. The street-lamp outside
caught the dust motes as they floated.</p>
<p>"That's room seventeen," Eddie hissed. They were all frozen in
the act of passing the open door.</p>
<p>"Old Miss Walker's room," Chalkie whispered back.</p>
<p>The cloud of dust eddied upwards and the light limned the edges
and for a split second, something seemed to writhe there in front
of the blackboard. For that brief instant, the boys stared, eyes
wide, mouths open. The shadow of the window bars rippled across the
apparition and in the pattern of light and shade they saw the pale
face, hollow eyes and a long dusty trail reaching out, pointing not
at the blackboard, but at <em>them</em>.</p>
<p>"Oh my Aunty Jean," Votek breathed. He backed away, bumped into
Eddie who stumbled right across the corridor and slammed against
the opposite wall. Upstairs, far up in the gloom of the empty
school, a door crashed shut with a resounding <em>boom</em> which
reverberated down the stairs and along the corridor in a jarring
shockwave of sound.</p>
<p>Eddie bounced off the wall, slipped to one knee and came
bounding up. By this time the other three were haring down the
corridor, Votek whimpering non-stop. Jed hit the door at the far
end and it flew against the side wall with a hammer-blow crack. It
was swinging back by the time Eddie straight-armed it and he almost
dislocated his shoulder with the force of his passing. They
scrambled, panic-stricken through the cloakroom. Jed did not stop
under the round skylight they had shifted an hour before. He headed
straight for the far end, clambered up onto the window-sill,
slipped the latch, swung the pane right out and dived headlong into
the playground. He landed on the line of aluminium dustbins which
broke his fall surprisingly well, but the clatter of the trashcans
as they scattered and rolled would have woken the dead. The others
piled out after him, kicking the bins out of the way and they all
raced across the yard, scrabbled and scuttled over the wall and
into the bushes at the far side. They did not stop until they had
got to the edge of the Rough Drain, doubled over, hauling for
breath.</p>
<p>"Bet that scared you," Jed finally spluttered. He straightened
up spun Votek around and did a perfect imitation.</p>
<p>"Oh my fuckin' aunty <em>Jean</em>!" he whooped and they all
dissolved into hysterical laughter.</p>
<hr />
<p><em>Five bizarre abductions and four equally grotesque suicides
have rocked the town of Levenford</em>.</p>
<p><em>The latest shock came with the disappearance of 16-year-old
carol Howard from Castlebank Distillery late last night. The young
office clerk disappeared from a service elevator after it became
jammed between floors.</em></p>
<p><em>Distraught fellow workers heard Carol screaming for help and
made a desperate effort top prise open the doors to free her. But
when engineers and rescue services arrived, she had disappeared,
leaving a trail of blood inside the lift-shaft.</em></p>
<p><em>Police are treating the case as murder, the fifth murder, or
suspected killing to have stunned the town in the past three
weeks.</em></p>
<p><em>Carol Howard, who had worked in the distillery for only a
few months, was the eldest of four children. Her mother was being
comforted by relatives, while police, led by Chief Inspector Jack
Fallon, were organising a massive search of the building and
surrounding area.</em></p>
<p><em>Only hours after the tragedy, the body of 45-year-old Mrs
Anne Eastwood was found at the base of a cliff below the parapet of
Levenford Rock, the site of one of Scotland's oldest and most
historic castles. The grotesque find was made by an angler in the
early hours of the morning. From Mrs Eastwood's injuries, police
assume that she fell two hundred feet from the castle ramparts. It
is the second tragic incident suffered by the family. A year ago,
Mrs Eastwood's daughter Angela was killed in a horrific car
accident on the Loch Corran Road. Like Carol Howard, she was only
16 when she died.</em></p>
<p>The story appeared in very national paper. Blair Bryden must
have burned the midnight oil, quartering his area, collecting
photographs and snapshots from friends and family, speaking to
everybody at the scenes.</p>
<p>It went into detail on the missing Neil Kennedy, including a
picture of the boy at a cub camp, looking bright and mischievous
and without a care in the world. From somewhere, Blair had managed
to get a christening picture of little Timmy Doyle and his parents
and another snap of baby Kelly Campbell in her cot. A cousin had
turned up a likeness of Shona Campbell when she was in fourth year
in school. A black and white portrait of William Simpson, wearing
his minister's collar and a long black gown, glared severely from
the page. Edward Tomlin peeked out from his greenhouse in a grainy
shot. From deep in the files, Blair had managed to find the snap of
Marta Herkik taken only weeks after she'd arrived in Levenford
after the Hungarian uprising. The picture showed a strong faced,
not unattractive woman, with piercing black eyes and dark hair.</p>
<p>The story quoted Jack Fallon accurately, though it did raise the
question that the police were undermanned and had insufficient
resources to bring to bear on what increasingly looked like the
hunt for a mass murderer.</p>
<p>Blair Bryden had cleverly written a step-by step account of the
how the murder of Marta Herkik had preceded the other abductions
and suicides. He went into great detail about her reputed
clairvoyant powers and managed to convey, between the lines, that
some sort of sect might be responsible.</p>
<p>The tabloids carried five pages apiece, while the loftier
broadsheets were more thrifty, but there was no doubt about it.
What was happening in Levenford was now the top item on national
news.</p>
<p>Jack read them all. It was fair coverage, though he thought it
would probably do the investigation more harm than good. The only
benefit, he decided, was that it would re-inforce the warnings the
community involvement boys had been giving round the schools and at
every mother-and-toddler group in the area. Ronald Cowie was far
from pleased. He stormed into Jack's office, waving a copy of the
Daily Record demanding to know who had released all the
information. Jack told him it was just a matter of a good local man
digging deep.</p>
<p>"I want that man arrested!" Cowie ranted. "All of this is
sub-judice."</p>
<p>"As a matter of fact, it isn't. Everything there is in the
public domain. There's nothing we can do about it, and if we arrest
him, the press will come down on us like a ton of bricks. They'll
think we have something to hide."</p>
<p>Cowie spluttered, and Jack made good use of the chance. "And the
crown office would have our guts. We can't arrest a man for stating
fact or giving opinion. That's still not against the law."</p>
<p>"Well," the superintendent said when he'd calmed down to a mere
boil. "We need results. Any result."</p>
<p>"We're doing our best," Jack said levelly. "But I don't think
that's good enough. I think this is getting too big for us. We need
more bodies."</p>
<p>"We've got enough bloody bodies. They're turning up under every
stone."</p>
<p>"I mean more officers to help with inquiries."</p>
<p>"No," Cowie said. "Under no circumstances. It would make us even
more of a laughing stock."</p>
<p>"But it might save another life," Jack protested, hearing his
own voice rise. "I want to make a formal request to
headquarters."</p>
<p>"Request denied," his superior barked.</p>
<p>"If you insist, sir," Jack said, forcing his voice back on an
even keel. When he spoke, the words came out flat and cold. "But as
it is my judgement that such a request is not unreasonable, I shall
put it in writing for you to make a formal decision. In writing of
course."</p>
<p>Cowie froze. His eyes widened in anger and his cheeks began to
quiver.</p>
<p>"Don't you dare defy me, Chief Inspector. I was a policeman when
you were still shitting your pants, d'you hear me?"</p>
<p>"With all due respect to your length of service," Jack said
calmly, "I am still obliged to follow regulations. I'm sure you
would not want me to be involved in a breach."</p>
<p>The Superintendent's hands clenched into fists. He looked as if
he was about to step forward and throw a punch. Jack hoped he would
not, if only for the fact that it would cause a mess which would be
difficult to clear up. He stood head and shoulders taller than his
superior, and he had almost twenty years advantage. If it came to a
scrap, there would only be one outcome. Cowie glared and quivered
some more, then turned and walked out of the office, slamming the
door behind him. Immediately Jack wrote his request for an extra
team of men and passed it through normal channels. Cowie would have
to make a decision, then back it up with his signature. When he'd
finished, Jack wished the man had taken a swing at him, just for
the sheer satisfaction of knocking him to the ground.</p>
<p>It was a day for brutal slog-work, going over the statements
gleaned by the teams who were out door-stepping. John McColl had
got enough from Edward Tomlin's wife, including the tarot card, to
show that the man had been acting strangely in the last week or
so.</p>
<p>"He'd always been backward at coming forward. Hardly went out of
the house," John said. "He'd a train set up in his loft. But
Margaret Thomlin said he'd recently started going out to meetings
every so often. He said they were train-spotters, or some sort, but
she got suspicious. Went through his pockets, though she never came
up with anything.</p>
<p>"Then the week before last, he came home late at night and went
to his bed. She says he was ill with some kind of fever and kept
yelling all night. The next day the fever was gone, but she says he
was acting really weird. She heard him talking to himself when he
thought he was on his own. Looks like he'd a change of character.
Kept nagging at the girls to put the lights off all the time and
during the day he'd sit in his room with the blinds drawn. She says
she kept asking him what was wrong, but he'd just shake his head.
Hardly said a word to her in the last week. Never spoke to anybody
else as far as we know."</p>
<p>A search of Janet Robinson's house brought nothing of note.</p>
<p>Apart from William Simpson, the suicides had all been normal
people. Quiet, even solitary people who minded their own business.
Nobody knew too much about them. On the surface they did not seem
to be the stuff of strange sects. There was no history of violence,
no rumour or speculation about odd habits.</p>
<p>Jack went through the list. Aside from the fingerprints on Marta
Herkik's table and the added confirmation of the tarot cards, there
was nothing to link them to each other. The only central connection
was the old Hungarian woman herself and she was saying nothing.</p>
<p>Had a seance gone wrong? Had there been a sudden overwhelming
surge of hysteria that had made them all turn on the little old
lady? Jack had to consider the possibility, though while Ralph
Slater's team had shown quite clearly, and the lab had confirmed,
there was every sign of a struggle, there was nothing to show that
any <em>person</em> in the room had been involved. There was no
blood under Marta Herkik's broken nails but her own. No hairs or
traces of fibres or skin flakes from anybody else. It could have
been that one of the group had stayed behind and brutally battered
the woman to death.</p>
<p>But that left another conundrum. Robinson, Eastwood and Tomlin.
They had all been there, and they had all died - or started to die
in Tomlin's case - just after an abduction. At first it had seemed
simple enough. William Simpson had been bang to rights. He'd taken
his own life and made a production of it, a theatrical, if
grotesque confession. Or so it had seemed. That Simpson had been
involved right up to his recently stretched neck, Jack had no
doubt. He had been an abuser of children, a pornographer, most
certainly a killer of long standing, a sociopath or a psychopath
among other things.</p>
<p>Jack had had the feeling, on the day he'd watched the video of
Simpson's death, that there was something too pat, too easy, about
it. And he'd been right. The very next day, little Kelly Campbell
had been dragged from her mother's arms and had disappeared into
the cold night on Barley Cobble. Somebody had come out of the dark
and had smashed the young mother to the ground with enough force to
shatter the bones in her face. It had not been Simpson, not unless
he'd come back from the dead to do it.</p>
<p>When that thought struck him, Jack gave an involuntary
shiver.</p>
<p>Back from the dead.</p>
<p>That's what happened at seances. They tried to contact the
spirits of dead people, to learn the future. Marta Herkik had died
at a sitting, or just after one, from the scattering of tarot cards
around her blasted room.</p>
<p>He shook his head wearily. <em>Too much listening to crazy
folk,</em> he told himself. And if that included Andy Toye and
Lorna Breck, then he couldn't help it. He did not have the time to
go believing in goblins and ghosts. He was convinced he was looking
for a crazed human, a clever and calculating human, but a crazy one
nonetheless. And that human was bound to make a mistake sooner or
later. He picked up the cup from the desk and threw the contents
down his throat. The coffee was cold and tasted foul.</p>
<hr />
<p>On the night they sat around the fire, Eddie Redford was adamant
that it had only been a trick of the light.</p>
<p>"I'm not going back in there again," Votek said
uncompromisingly.</p>
<p>"Pissed his trousers," Eddie said, and everybody laughed.</p>
<p>Nobody took the decision to break into Rolling Stock, the
car-parts business close to the allotments. It just seemed to
happen. They'd come through a break in the chain link fence at the
edge of the garden plots and rummaged through the dump-skips behind
the DIY store. There was a box of old lightbulbs which imploded
with a satisfactory pop when thrown against the wall, and Jed and
Eddie found two long fluorescent tubes Votek said looked like light
sabres but when the two of them swordfenced, they shattered at
first contact, showering each of them with fine glass dust.</p>
<p>Ten minutes later, they were round by the corner of the
auto-parts store. Another developer was building an extension to
the line of the trading units, this one higher than the rest and
corralled in scaffolding. Bricklayers had left a wooden barrow-ramp
up to the first level. The four teenagers climbed this, then,
without any spoken decision, ascended to the third story. A big
sign on the wall announced the planned opening of the town's first
leisure centre and bowling rink. From there, the gently sloping
roof of Rolling Stock was only a short climb. The four of them
clambered up on the metal surface, feet ringing on the corrugated
incline as they made their way to the peak. From there they could
see across the hedge at the end of the allotments. Further in the
distance, in at the dark unlit mass of the Rough Drain, Jed could
see the tiny red twinkle of the fire they'd made.</p>
<p>"I thought you'd put that out," he accused Votek.</p>
<p>"I did. I pissed in it."</p>
<p>"You couldn't have pissed hard enough. It's still going."</p>
<p>Eddie was walking the ridge, arms out for balance. He stopped at
the sloping glass skylight and levered it up.</p>
<p>"That'll be alarmed," Chalky said. "You'll have the busies after
us."</p>
<p>Eddie kept hauling, swinging the frame upright, then laying it
gently on its back where it stood up slightly against the ridge.
Nothing happened. He leaned in and felt for the wires. They were
still connected to the socket.</p>
<p>"Must have forgot to switch it on," he said. They all crowded
round the hole. Directly beneath them, there was a cats-cradle of
rounded girders, like a kid's climbing frame.</p>
<p>"Whatdja think?" Eddie asked Jed.</p>
<p>The dark-haired boy looked around. There was only one entrance
into the car park. Once inside, they could see any car approach
through the big display glass doors.</p>
<p>"Aye. Lets go in."</p>
<p>As before, Jed went first, easing himself onto the cross-braces.
There was some light from a quarter moon glimmering through the
rest of the skylights, making some shapes visible below. It was not
as scary as the school had been, and here, there were greater
prizes. The others followed him along the spars until they got to
the far wall where they butted into the breeze-block. From there,
it was an easy climb of thirty feet down the gantry of metal
shelves in the store room. Jed got to the ground and waited for the
others to join them. He could feel the delicious tension twist
inside him.</p>
<p>The place was a paradise, an Aladdin's cave of all the things
they wanted but couldn't buy. A whole wall of car stereos, black
and expensive, sat waiting to be hoisted. There were trailers and
socket sets and shelves lined with expensive tools. And up at the
far end, there were bikes in all shapes and sizes.</p>
<p>"I want one of them," Eddie said in a quiet covetous voice.</p>
<p>"We'll need to get a rope to hoist them up there," Chalky made a
practical observation.</p>
<p>"There's tow-ropes all over the place. We could do it," Eddie
told him. He walked forward and ran his hand over the saddle of a
sturdy looking mountain-bike with thick treaded tyres. In the
gloom, he couldn't say what colour it was. It didn't matter,
already in his mind's eye he could see himself coming down the side
slope on Langmuir Hill.</p>
<p>Votek had moved off down the aisles. Chalkie followed him while
Jed fingered the precision tools.</p>
<p>He hefted a power-drill and held it up like a gun when without
warning a loud noise blared only inches from his ear. Jed jumped
like a scalded cat, ears ringing, heart pounding.</p>
<p>Votek burst into hoots of laughter. He had reached across the
low shelves and let off a car-horn right next to Jed's head.</p>
<p>"Stupid bastard," he hissed at him. "You'll get us all
hung."</p>
<p>Votek giggled again and let the horn drop to the floor. He found
a row of spray paints and popped the lid on one, crossed to the
bare wall close to the door and with two quick sweeps of his hand,
drew a <em>V</em> shape on the rough surface.</p>
<p>"Great thinking moron," Chalkie rasped. "Just write your name
and address and they'll come for you in the morning." Votek
shrugged, then filled in the space of the letter, made it it a
circle, then scribbled fuzzy lines all over it.</p>
<p>Up at the far end. Eddie had lashed two tow ropes together and
wheeled the bike across to the gantry. He was tying the rope round
the cross-bar when the others found him.</p>
<p>"You really taking one?" Chalky asked.</p>
<p>"Sure. They've got plenty."</p>
<p>"Me too then."</p>
<p>They all selected bikes, hauled them out of their stands and
brought them to the wall. Jed clambered up, with end of the rope
between his teeth. Carefully he threaded his way though the
girders, making sure he looped the rope under them when he crossed,
so that it dangled down to the group below. Chalky followed him
through the wide skylight and then they braced themselves and began
to haul. There was a rattle from down below and the rope rasped
against the lip as he pulled, but once the bike left the floor, it
came up smoothly. The handlebars banged against the edge and the
two of them manhandled it through the gap</p>
<p>Jed threw the rope back down, watching it snake like a pale worm
into the gloom below. There was a tug, some jiggling, then another
two jerks. They hauled this one up even quicker than before then
repeated the manoeuvre until there were four new bikes lying on
their sides on the slope.</p>
<p>"I'm going back in," Jed said.</p>
<p>"What for?"</p>
<p>"They might have left money in the tills."</p>
<p>"They'll all be locked."</p>
<p>"No problem to a man of my caliper," Jed told him, walking
towards the skylight with an exaggerated limp. It was an old joke,
but Chalky laughed anyway. Jed climbed back inside and rather than
wait out on the roof alone, Chalky followed him through. They got
to the ground and found Votek and Eddie both wearing bikers helmets
and giggling hysterically as they goose-stepped up the aisle. Jed
went down the line and picked out a cordless drill. There were
dozens of bits hanging from pegs. He slotted one in, tightened the
mouth then squeezed the trigger. The tool was fully charged. It
whined in his hand and he could feel the torsion bend his wrist to
the right. He strolled down towards the cash-points and sat on the
service shelf. The till-drawer was locked, as he'd expected. Jed
aimed the bit at the key-hole on the side. The drill screeched and
jumped in his hand as the point rasped at the metal.</p>
<p>Then the whole place went suddenly dark.</p>
<p>"What was that?" Votek called out.</p>
<p>"Wheesht, man. Just a cloud over the moon, or something."</p>
<p>The dim light through the skylights had faded to nothing. Jed
slid off the desk, jammed the drill down the front of his jacket
and zipped up the front. He had just reached Chalkie at the bike
stands when a huge booming noise thundered down from the roof.
Jed's hand jerked away from the wall as a shock of vibration jolted
up his arm.</p>
<p>"What in the name of..." he started to say and another
ear-splitting crash followed on the first. It felt as if they were
on the inside of a vast drum. The noise was so loud it made their
ears ring.</p>
<p>"Oh Jesus, it's the cops," Votek blurted.</p>
<p>"Shut up, wanker," Eddie hissed at him.</p>
<p>The noise came again, like giant footfalls on the roof. There
was a grating sound, like stone on metal, then everything went
quiet.</p>
<p>"What's happening," Chalkie whispered in Jed's ear. They were
standing elbow to elbow, with the other two backed right up against
them.</p>
<p>"Just wait," Jed murmured.</p>
<p>There was a silence for several minutes, and finally they began
to relax a little, letting their breath out slowly.</p>
<p>"Probably kids throwing bricks up on the roof," Jed said. It
sounded reasonable enough. "Is there another way out of here?" he
moved away from the stack of shelves and crossed quickly in the
dark to the far wall. The others followed him. There was a door
there, but it was locked.</p>
<p>"We'll have to go back up," he said, turning back to walk across
the floor again, when just above them, there was a scuttering noise
on the wall. Something growled, low and guttural. Jed pulled back,
and a dark shadow peeled itself off the wall and snatched Chalky
right into the air. The boy gave a gasp of surprise as he rose
straight up above them. The others stood gaping upwards, in
attitudes of complete bewilderment. Chalky's white hair floated
above them in the dark.</p>
<p>"Did you see..." Votek asked, incredulity plain in his
voice.</p>
<p>Up on the wall, above their heads, the low rumbling growl
stuttered again. Chalky said "Oh," in a very small voice. There was
a crunching, tearing sound, a squeal of pain and then silence.
Something splashed on Jed's shoulder.</p>
<p>"What is it?" Votek demanded in a shaky voice, then,
uncharacteristically, he bawled out: "Chalky? Are you up
there."</p>
<p>Jed and Eddie were too stunned to move. It was as if time had
suddenly stopped dead. The warm smell of blood was thick in the
air. Votek took two steps forward, the rounded hat still strapped
to his head.</p>
<p>"Hey Chalkie. Quit messing about, eh?" He stood, looking up into
the shadows where there was some indistinct movement. "How did you
get up there."</p>
<p>Above him, the growling sound rolled out from the dark corner
again. Jed lunged forward, started to call a warning, when a shadow
moved down the wall with flickering speed. It elongated, stretched
as it surged out from the surface. It hit Votek such a blow that
the shiny plastic helmet was swiped clean off his head. It landed
ten yards away with a heavy thump.</p>
<p>Jed stood frozen. Everything happening too quickly, much too
quickly. His mind was trying to sort out the different messages his
senses were yelling at him. Votek was swaying on his feet. There
was something wrong with him, though in the gloom, Jed couldn't
make out what it was. Something blurted out from his friend and
splashed to the floor. In those shattering moments, he could hear
his own voice inside his head, repeating over and over again:
"Shouldn't have <em>thumped. Shouldn't have thumped!"</em></p>
<p>Then it came to him with such a shock of realisation he nearly
dropped into a dead faint. The plastic hat would have clattered and
rattled. It wouldn't have landed with that heavy thud.</p>
<p>Adrenalin jolted through Jed's veins. Up above, the shadow
struck again, leaping off the wall. Votek was snatched forward
soundlessly.</p>
<p>Jed jumped back. He grabbed Eddie by the collar and hauled him
away, pulling him desperately towards the stack of shelves. Behind
them, he could hear the snuffling, grunting sound the shadow was
making. He didn't want to hear it, didn't want so see what could be
making such a noise. He did not want to know what kind of thing was
that looked like a shadow on the wall, but could reach out and
knock the head completely off Votek's shoulders and leave him
standing there in the aisles in his big toe-tector boots.</p>
<p>They made it to the far side. Jed started to scramble upwards,
arms and legs snatching for hand-holds, feeling the terror scream
though him. Below him, Eddie was standing, head down, both hands on
the first shelf. Despite his horror, Jed clambered down to the
floor.</p>
<p>"Come on, Eddie, it'll get us."</p>
<p>His pal turned to look at him, his face just a blur in the
dark.</p>
<p>"But..." he murmured. "But I don't see.."</p>
<p>Jed slapped his face with a resounding clap. Eddie's head
snapped backwards and hit off the angular upright.</p>
<p>"Come on, you stupid bastard," he hissed. "Get up there. Fuckin'
<em>move</em>!"</p>
<p>Eddie turned and began to climb like an automaton. Jed chivied
and shoved at him, forcing him up further, all the while expecting
something black to come snaking up from below to smash them off the
shelves like flies. They made it to the cross-beams and again Jed
had to keep pushing at Eddie to make him move. They reached the
skylight and Jed clambered out first, kicking the nearest bike out
of the way. He turned and reached for Eddie's hand, bent his legs
and heaved backwards. The other boy came on his belly over the
ledge. He got one leg out onto the roof, shoved with his elbows and
was bringing the other one out when his arms seemed to give way and
he flopped down onto the sloping surface with a thump.</p>
<p>"Oh," he said, just as Chalkie had done when he'd disappeared
into the dark.</p>
<p>"Come on Eddie, come <em>on!</em>" Jed bawled, not caring who
heard him. Every nerve in his body was singing with utter
dread.</p>
<p>Eddie tried to shove himself up. His face contorted with
exertion. It lifted up from the roof and faced towards Jed. His
eyes were opened so wide they looked as if they would roll out and
dangle on his cheeks. Even in the cold night air, Jed could see the
sudden and complete realisation in his friend's face.</p>
<p>"Oh, Jed. Oh Christ Jed, it's got me."</p>
<p>Jed stepped forward and grabbed Eddie's hand in both of his. His
panic was telling him to run, to get off the roof and away from
here and never stop running, but for some reason, he managed to
squash the instinct down. His friend was hanging over the lip and
it had <em>got</em> him.</p>
<p>"Come on Eddie," he cried, voice cracking. "Oh, please man. Come
on, son."</p>
<p>He heaved as hard as he could on Eddie's arm and something
heaved in the opposite direction with such sudden force that Jed
was almost catapulted right into the hole.</p>
<p>Eddie wailed.</p>
<p>"Oh Jed. Oh please. For <em>fuck</em> sake, Jed." All the words
came out in a liquid gurgle. Jed made a superhuman effort and his
friend came up six inches. Eddie's free hand scrabbled on the
corrugated metal of the roof, scratching like cat's claws. Then he
screamed.</p>
<p>The sound shattered the night. A huge, high and piercing
screech. like the night mail train going through the junction at
Bankside Road.</p>
<p>Jed almost let go.</p>
<p>There was a cracking sound from inside the lip of the skylight
and Eddie screeched again. Jed started crying, fingers hooked into
his pal's arm. Eddie looked up at him again and his face had gone a
sickly white.</p>
<p>"My fucking leg," he said, very dreamily. Then, without any
warning, there was an enormous jolt. Eddie's wrist slipped from
Jed's grasp and the boy went slithering back into the skylight.</p>
<p>The lone boy on the roof stood frozen, his mind unable to
comprehend what had happened. His hands and legs were shaking
uncontrollably and his breath was coming so fast his vision began
to swim.</p>
<p>He stood there, silent, shocked rigid, eyes wide, hair standing
on end.</p>
<p>And a dark shape hauled itself out of the skylight, scraping the
metal, growling so low it made the roof-plates shiver.</p>
<p>Suddenly something snapped inside the dark haired teenager. His
mind broke through on the other side of his terror. His hand
flashed up and hauled on the zipper of his jacket. He reached
inside and dragged out the drill.</p>
<p>"Right, you bastard. Come on."</p>
<p>He dived at the gaping hole on the roof just as something heavy
and oily black came scuttling out, limbs blurring fast. Jed jammed
his hand forward, squeezed the trigger and aimed the whirling bit
at shoulder height. Just as he did so, two enormous orange eyes
opened with a snap that was audible over the shriek of the drill.
His hand plunged forward and the whirling metal went straight into
the poisonous orb. Something popped. A foul stench belched out.
Liquid splashed onto Jed's hand and burned like acid, though he did
not feel it then. The black thing grunted, recoiled. A piece of
itself shot out and tried to grab at him, but the boy kept his arm
rigid and his finger hooked on the trigger.</p>
<p>The shape roared like a vast beast in a den, almost knocking the
boy off his feet with the ear-splitting blast of sound. It shook as
if it had been jolted with a million volts, almost breaking Jed's
arm. The drill whined and the foul mess splattered onto the front
of his jacket. The drill kept on shrieking and the thing snarled
and gurlgled and roared, now backing off, heaving itself away from
the biting metal. Filthy vapour had started to billow out from the
obsidian surface, as if it was evaporating in the night air. It
gave an almighty jerk. There was another pop as the twist of steel
came out from the eye and then the thing twisted, still roaring,
and disappeared back into the hole. Jed stood there, unable to move
for some seconds. Under his feet he could feel the whole building
vibrate like a bell as the thing, whatever it was, crashed along
the girders and battered against the walls. Down there in the dark,
it sounded as if the whole store was being wrecked.</p>
<p>Jed dropped the drill. Something was searing into the skin of
his hand. He turned and ran across the roof to the scaffolding on
the uncompleted building, scrambled down to ground level, then
raced for the road at the far end of the car park.</p>
<p>Halfway along Castlebank Street, he collapsed in the middle of
the road and was almost killed by old Wattie Dickson the newsagent
who was weaving his way home from Eastmains Bowling club. The old
fellow saw the blood all over the boy's jerkin and bundled him into
the back of the car. He reached Lochend Hospital in a commendable
twenty minutes, much faster than he'd ever believed his ancient
Wolseley car was capable of.</p>
<p>By the time Jed Galt was rushed into a cubicle on the casualty
ward, he was incoherent with shock. A young registrar gave him a
shot which should have put him to sleep in twenty seconds, but
seemed to have no effect whatsoever.</p>
<p>The boy with the badly burned hand and face and the blood-soaked
jacket kept screaming about a monster who had killed his friends.
The registrar suspected he'd taken one of the designer pills all
the youngsters were swallowing at discos these days. He gave him
another injection which did what the first was supposed to do and
then he began working on the burns. An hour later, while Jed Galt
was still unconscious, he was transferred to the plastic surgery
unit of a hospital on the north side of Glasgow where some of the
best medical men wondered just what had caused an acid burn that
had taken almost all the skin and muscle from the boy's hand,
leaving white and pitted bones exposed to the air.</p>
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