six

Before Estelle or Sandor could say another word, Carl had sped away on his wheelchair back up the corridor to his laboratory.

They stood there awkwardly looking at each other through the gap in the door, while the muffled bangs and crashes continued overhead.

“Is Carl mad doing this?” Estelle asked.

“Probably,” said Sandor. “But what choice do we have? The soul shadows we’ve created won’t be any match for the killers upstairs, and they could turn evil through exposure to the light up there. But a small squadron of ‘corpse shadows’ might just make the difference, and provide enough of a distraction to allow us to make our escape.”

“I could still make a run for it, Sandor.”

His eyes turned worried again. “I can’t let you do that, Es.”

In truth, she’d lost enthusiasm for the idea herself. She didn’t want to leave Sandor now, not after what he’d just said about wanting to be with her. And she was dying to find out what he’d been about to say before Carl had interrupted.

“What were you going to say to me just now?” she asked, trying to sound as if it didn’t matter much to her.

Sandor frowned, as if struggling to recall, though she didn’t believe his memory could be that bad. “Ah yes, well the thing is, I…”

Irritatingly, he had become distracted again, this time by something going on in the annex, which Estelle wasn’t able to see.

“Well of all the crazy things…” he began, before trailing off.

“What is it?” she prompted.

Sandor was looking at something going on to his right and whatever it was was now making him blush – a sight she never thought she’d live to witness.

“Er, you really don’t want to know,” he said eventually.

Estelle was now so curious about what she was missing, she almost decided to wriggle back into the annex to take a look, but was prevented from doing so by the return of Carl with a large metal-headed mallet lying across his lap. “We’ve no time for niceties, young lady,” he said to Estelle, as Sandor passed it through to her. “You must use all your strength to smash the lid of that coffin.”

The grey stone coffin was bulky, but plain, with very little ornamentation. On its side, the following words were inscribed:

The shadows are deepest where there is much light

The soul that suffers goes strong into the night

Rev. Edmund Craven (1841–1898)

May sweet Jesus grant him eternal rest

There was something faintly disturbing about the words of the epitaph. This sounded like a troubled man. Were they doing the right thing resurrecting him?

“Hurry up!” she heard Carl’s voice call.

Brushing aside her doubts, Estelle picked up the mallet, raised it high and let the heavy iron head fall onto a corner of the coffin lid. It made a ringing crack that echoed around the crypt. Chips of stone flew up and a deep splinter appeared in the surface of the lid. Three more energetic blows with the mallet and the entire corner of the lid broke and fell inward with a loud clunk. Breathlessly, she continued to hurl the mallet head down until more than half of the lid was smashed. Only then did she dare to look inside.

The musty smell made her cough as she peered into the murky interior. The Rev. Edmund Craven had been dead for over a hundred years, and, of course, Estelle expected to see no more than a skeleton. She was therefore surprised to find a wizened yet well-preserved body lying amid the shattered fragments at the base of the coffin. The body was dressed in green and white priestly robes, now coated with dust. The shrivelled head had brownish, leathery skin stretched tight over a fine-boned skull. There were deep creases in the forehead between the closed eyes, as if the man had been in turmoil or pain before he died. His small, gnarled hands were clasped across his chest. “What can you see?” Carl urgently demanded. “What condition is the body in?”

“Looks pretty good to me,” said Estelle. “Considering.”

Taking a deep breath, she reached inside and placed her hands beneath the corpse’s knees and back. Worried it might fall apart, she raised it as slowly and gently as she could. The body was very light and it was easy to lift out of the coffin. Averting her gaze from that pain-wracked face, she passed it carefully through the gap to Sandor, then squeezed herself back into the annex.

She immediately looked around to see what had caused Sandor to blush, and when she saw it, she only wanted to giggle. Shadow-Sandor and Shadow-Estelle, oblivious to all around them, were seated next to each other, leaning against a pillar, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. That’s so sweet! she wanted to say. How could Sandor not find that the sweetest thing? But Sandor’s attention was now riveted on the corpse. “It’s still got its skin and hair!” he said incredulously as he laid it on the floor.

“Remarkable!” agreed Carl. “Natural mummification. It sometimes occurs in crypts if the conditions are sufficiently cool and dry. So far, my friends, fortune appears to be smiling on us. Now, we must work fast. Young lady, will you please carry the body to the shadow-maker? And be careful with it!”

While Sandor went ahead, holding doors open for her, Estelle picked up the corpse and carried it down the tunnel to the lab.

There was now an eerie quiet upstairs. Estelle wondered if there was anything left to destroy. She glanced at the security monitor and saw that it was blank. “They must have found and destroyed my cameras,” muttered Carl as he, too, noticed the dark screen. “I fear it won’t be long before they find us.”

“Are you seriously planning to reanimate that?” Sandor wondered, staring at the corpse now propped up in the shadow-maker.

“If you mean generate soul shadows from it, then yes. Why not?” responded Carl as he fiddled around with the dials and switches on his control panel. “We’ve done it successfully with rat corpses, although they were, admittedly, a little fresher than this specimen.”

“But you’ve got to have something to… generate from,” stammered Sandor. “I mean, I’m no scientist but –”

“This is no time to get into arguments about metaphysics, young man!” snapped Carl. “What is body and what is soul? Just accept that there is something remaining within that decaying matter, some residual essence if you will, that the zeta rays are sensitive to and can in some mysterious way reproduce. I know as little about how it happens as you do. I have no idea what nature of shadow a corpse that old will generate, or if it will generate anything at all. But we must try! Now, if we’ve finished with our philosophising, would you please close the shadow-maker door.”

Sandor slid shut the door, Carl pushed a lever forward and the unit filled with yellow light.

Estelle kept her eyes fixed on the glowing shadow-maker, fearful yet intensely curious to see what, if anything, would step out of it. The process seemed to take an age – Carl had decided to bombard it with as big a dose of radiation as he could safely administer in the hope of finding something to awaken in that rotten shell.

At last, the light faded and Sandor slid back the door. The corpse lay propped against the rear wall in the same position, its head lolling sideways like a broken-necked doll. The rest of the unit remained concealed behind frosted glass. Estelle, Carl and Sandor listened for any sound of movement, but all was still and silent.

“Alas,” croaked Carl. “It must have been too old. I don’t think –”

Then he broke off, for they had all seen a shifting of the shadows behind the closed part of the unit. Estelle jumped as a claw-like hand suddenly gripped the edge of the door. There came a soft sliding shuffle and a figure appeared at the door – an ancient, hunchbacked man in his green and white cassock.

Carl rolled forwards, ready to support it as it emerged into the light. The figure opened its eyes, which were big and scared, with the whites showing all around the blue irises. It opened its mouth and its teeth were yellow within the shrunken hole of its mouth. It emitted a hollow wail that sounded like the wind passing through a forest of bones, and a sour, primordial stench filled the room.

“Quick, help him into the Sustaining Room,” yelled Carl.

Estelle hesitated. Seeing those long-dead limbs coming jerkily to life affronted her at a deep level – it looked freakish and wrong.

“For pity’s sake!” screamed Carl. “The poor man’s about to expire!”

She ran to support the creature, which was starting to collapse. As she placed her left arm around its thin shoulders, its long, emaciated fingers clutched at her right wrist with horrible vitality.

“Wait there with him,” ordered Carl. “I’m going to try and make some more shadows. Sandor, stay here. I may need you.”

The corpse shadow moved in step with Estelle in a lurching shuffle down the corridor and she had to hold her breath to avoid the acid reek of the air spilling from its mouth. When they reached the Sustaining Room, she let the creature lie down on the cool stone floor, and it seemed to find some comfort in that position – at least its eyes lost their horrified stare and the mouth became small again. She sat watching it, revolted by its twitchy little movements, tempted to put the abomination out of its misery by smashing its head in with a brick. A sudden tap on her shoulder made her flinch.

“Sorry to make you feared,” came a soft, shy voice.

She had forgotten she wasn’t alone in the room, and was relieved to see it was only Shadow-Estelle.

“That’s OK,” Estelle replied.

“Can Shadow-Estelle speak her feelings to you?”

Estelle nodded. “Yes, of course.”

The girl sat down facing her. “You are Shadow-Estelle’s spirit-mother, yes?”

“Er, yes. I suppose you could call me that.”

“Shadow-Carl is teaching Shadow-Estelle. Shadow-Carl is clever-clever.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Shadow-Carl teaches that you are the mother of the feelings in Shadow-Estelle. Make her heart go bump-bump-bump.”

“That’s right.”

“Shadow-Estelle is afeared of alone-ness. Of trapped-ness. Shadow-Estelle not ever want to be alone.”

Estelle felt a small sob in her chest when she heard that. She looked into her double’s dumb, innocent eyes. “Yes, I’m afraid I’m the mother of those feelings,” she admitted, pressing her lips together to stop them from shaking.

“Why Shadow-Estelle is so afeared?”

Estelle reached out and brushed the girl’s cheek with her fingers. “Because once, a long time ago, your spirit-mother was trapped in a room on her own. Since then she’s been trying to get over it, but it’s hard. I’m sorry I’ve passed that fear onto you.”

Her soul shadow nodded gravely. Then her face broke into a smile. “Shadow-Estelle feel safe with Shadow-Sandor. He very nice.”

“Yes, he is,” Estelle had to agree.

“He make her heart go bump-bump-bump, but in nice way.”

Estelle stifled a giggle. It was like listening to herself aged 13, or a version of herself who’d been raised by wolves and was only starting to get to grips with human society.

The girl’s smile faded. “But Shadow-Carl say there will soon be war. Shadow-Carl is afeared of war. But Shadow-Sandor say he want fight in war. Shadow-Estelle is afeared that Shadow-Sandor will die, and she will be alone.”

“Shadow-Sandor won’t need to fight,” Estelle assured her. She indicated the twitching figure lying on the floor. “We’re making new soldiers to fight.”

The girl took in the corpse shadow for the first time, and her smile reappeared. “Shadow-Sandor won’t need to fight,” she repeated to herself. “Spirit-Mother make new soldiers to fight.”

“Book time!” called Shadow-Carl from the far side of the room. He stood there, brandishing a large book he’d plucked from a shelf full of similarly bulky tomes.

“Shadow-Estelle must go,” said the girl, getting up. “Shadow-Carl is teaching us more.”

From the floor behind Estelle came a dry cough. When she looked, she saw the corpse shadow had sat up.

“So,” he growled with a voice like a sack of nails being dragged across concrete, “the Good Lord, in His infinite wisdom, has seen fit to bring me out of retirement. Well, I suppose it was only to be expected. For this sinner, eternal rest was always an unlikely prospect.” The tendons in his neck creaked like old leather as he began to examine his surroundings. Recognition dawned on his withered features, as he rasped: “It seems I have been returned to the very scene of my blasphemous undertakings. How entirely appropriate.” Finally, his eyes fell on Estelle. They were an arid blue, like cracked, empty swimming pools, and she thought she saw a terrible remorse in their dark centres. He coughed once more and a small cloud of yellowish powder burst from his mouth. “Are you an angel?” he asked her. “Or a demon?”

“I’m Estelle,” she replied, trying her best to hide her revulsion.

“Estelle,” he repeated. “It means ‘star’, does it not?” He scrutinised her even more carefully, making her want to squirm. “I must say, you don’t look like an instrument of divine vengeance.”

“I assure you, I’m not.”

“Well, then, why did you awaken me?” he barked.

She wondered how best to phrase her answer.

Well, the thing is, we needed some bait to distract the killers upstairs so that we could escape, and you just happened to be available.

“We need your help,” she said finally. “This is the 21st century. We’re being attacked, and –”

Edmund Craven raised a bony hand. “21st century? Are you saying I’ve been dead for over a hundred years?”

She nodded.

His eyes filled with wonder, and then flashed with alarm. “Attacked by whom?”

“We call them soul shadows. They look a bit like humans, but they’re evil, with black, shiny eyes and sharp teeth, and they like to eat our flesh. They were created by –”

“Do not speak his name!” shrieked Edmund, his leathery cheeks twitching with horror. Then he uttered a dreadful wail and beat his narrow chest, making a hollow, dead sound like a funeral drum. “I should have known this would be the consequence,” he wept. “I am to blame for your predicament, Estelle. I summoned him here, all those years ago. I and my fellow devotees, with our black magic rituals, we invited the Evil One to this place, and now he has sent forth an army of his dark-eyed minions to attack you. You, my poor young lady, are reaping the consequences of our diabolical act.”

To Estelle’s alarm, Edmund suddenly threw himself face down on the ground, his spindly arms thrust forwards and hands clasped in an attitude of supplication. “Dear Lord,” he cried, “I thank you for granting me this opportunity to redeem myself. Through the intercession of this young lady, you have generously resurrected me so that I can put right the great harm that I did in my lifetime. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.”

Estelle’s initial disgust had by now evolved into something approaching sympathy for the pitiable creature now lying prostrate before her. But she was also puzzled.

“Black magic rituals?” she said. “That doesn’t sound like priestly behaviour.”

He looked up at her, oily tears welling in the hollows of his enormous eyes. “For many years, I led a double life,” he croaked. “A man of the cloth by day, delivering sermons from my pulpit, ministering to the needs of my flock – while by night I was the Magus of a very different institution: the Church of the Cloven Hoof we called ourselves, and we met right here, in this place. We had read our Michelet, our de Sade, our Carducci. They had revealed to us the seductive power of the left-hand path, the inverted pentagram. Oh,” – he laughed – “we became quite intoxicated with that power!” Edmund’s face then grew tight with contrition, as he recalled himself. “We were always masked,” he said. “Never knew each other’s identities, though we guessed them well enough. It was a small village, and my voice was, of course, well known. We kept our secret to our graves, and my grave was to be, quite literally, the guardian of that secret. I had my coffin built directly in front of the door to our ungodly shrine, to conceal it, so I thought, for all eternity.” He bowed his head. “But, of course, one can have no secrets from the Lord.”

Estelle decided it was best not to disabuse Edmund of his notion that he’d been brought back to fulfil a divine quest. There wasn’t time to explain the true situation, and by allowing him to interpret his circumstances in his own way, he’d hopefully prove more co-operative.

At that moment, Sandor limped into the room followed by two more Edmund Cravens. Both corpse shadows collapsed to the floor and lay there unmoving. These ones looked, if anything, even weaker and more decrepit than the first one.

“Carl says that’s the limit,” Sandor told Estelle. “The third one may not even survive.

“Why not?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Basically, whatever the stuff is, in the corpse, that they’re being copied from, there’s not enough of it to stretch to copying any more. Or something like that.”

The first Edmund recoiled in shock at the sight of his doubles. “More of me? What kind of devilry is this?” He turned to Estelle, doubts now clouding the eyes that had earlier been so full of morbid conviction. “Don’t tell me that you people are also meddling in the black arts!”

“No, no,” said Estelle, determined to sustain him in his illusions. “My friends and I prayed to the Lord that he would revive you to help us in our plight, and, er, Lo! – in his great generosity, the Lord said unto us... Indeed, verily he said unto us, I shall send forth a whole multitude of Edmunds to, er, do my bidding.”

Edmund frowned at her. “Egad, you people of the future speak strangely!”

“Estelle?” queried Sandor, looking equally bewildered. “What’s got into you?”

Before she could explain, Carl entered, looking more tense than ever. “I can hear them up there!” he warbled. “They’re drilling into the floorboards now. It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”

“I am ready to fight,” coughed Edmund, trying to get to his feet. “Lead me to the minions of the Evil One.” He got as far as a crouch, but the weakness of his limbs put the completion of the task beyond him, and he soon toppled back to the floor. Estelle rushed over and helped him up, propping him against a pillar. “I trust,” panted Edmund, “that the Lord will grant me the requisite strength to do my duty when the time comes.”

“The time is now!” lamented Carl. “They’re coming for us, don’t you understand? Oh, I was a fool to think I could shadowcast a hundred-year-old corpse and send it out to fight. Look at the thing! He can barely stand!”

“Stand I shall, and fight!” protested Edmund. “Lead the way, and let me prove my worth.”

“I shan’t be leading the way,” said Carl sadly. “In fact, my friends, I don’t think I shall be going up at all today.”

“Why ever not?” demanded Sandor. “Don’t you want to escape?”

Carl shook his head. “See this?” he raised his hand from the push-rim of his wheelchair. It was shaking violently. “Frankly, I’m terrified. I simply can’t go up there. Call me a coward if you want, I don’t care. But I’m staying down here in the Sustaining Room with the soul shadows. I’ll seal off the door from the lab. You two should stay down here, too. They won’t find us.” He shook his head manically, as if trying to convince himself. “They won’t ever find us in here.”

“They will!” countered Sandor. “And we’ll be cornered like rats. That’s no way to die, Carl. We have to fight our way out of here, like we agreed!”

“How?” challenged Carl. “The corpse shadows will be cut down in two minutes. What kind of a diversion will that be? You won’t stand a chance.”

“I want help,” came a deep voice from the back of the room. Shadow-Sandor put down a book he was looking at and approached them. “I want help you escape,” he said. “I want fight bad soul shadows upstairs.”

Sandor grinned and clapped his double on the shoulder. “Good man!”

“No!” pleaded another, higher voice that Estelle immediately recognised as similar to her own. She watched as her shadow now stepped forward. “Shadow-Sandor not need to fight. Spirit-Mother say she make new soldiers to fight.”

“New soldiers no good for fighting,” insisted Shadow-Sandor. “I want help.” He looked distraught at the effect of his words on the girl, who then broke down in tears. Estelle ran to her and held her in her arms as sobs wracked her body.

“It’s OK,” she whispered.

“Shadow-Estelle is afeared that – that he will d–die.”

“Don’t worry,” Estelle soothed. “Whatever happens, I promise that I’ll come back for you.”

The girl immediately looked up on hearing this and ceased her crying. Her eyes were startlingly clear and trusting. Estelle had made the vow without really thinking, and now wondered if it had been the wisest thing to do.

Estelle and Sandor went to work massaging the Edmunds’ ancient limbs. It may have been Sandor’s over-vigorous technique or maybe it would have happened anyway, but just five minutes after being born, the third and weakest of the Edmunds quietly expired. That left an “attack party” of two Edmunds and Shadow-Sandor, to be followed up by Estelle and Sandor. Carl, who could not be persuaded to go with them, would remain behind the sealed door of the Sustaining Room with Shadows-Carl and Estelle.

When the time came for the off, the whole party reconvened in the lab. Carl had flooded the room with the sustaining form of zeta-pro radiation to give the soul shadow contingent an extra burst of vitality before their ascent. From above came a clamour of mallets and drills being applied to the flooring.

The elder Edmund looked around the lab. “This was once our little temple,” he muttered. “Now it seems the setting for another form of dark magic.”

“So that was your mess, was it?” grumbled Carl. “It took me ages to get rid of those blood stains and remove the pentagram carvings from the walls.”

Shadow-Estelle hugged her man and then her spirit-mother, while Shadow-Carl shook hands with everyone. Then Carl impatiently shepherded them back up the passageway to the Sustaining Room. A door was slid across the arch-shaped opening, and it looked remarkably like just another piece of wall – as Carl had intended.

A button was pressed and the pole descended, topped by a small square of flooring from the cupboard under the stairs.

The two Edmunds and Shadow-Sandor stepped onto the platform, and Estelle was uncomfortably aware that they were sending them to their deaths. However much she told herself that they were just shadow-creatures – not really human – that wasn’t how it felt.

Sandor had gathered some makeshift weaponry from the lab. Carl had kept a couple of sharpened kitchen knives there for self-defence, and Sandor took one for himself and gave the other to Estelle. He handed his shadow the large metal-headed mallet. “Do as much damage as you can,” he told him.

“Yes, spirit-father.”

“Let’s have none of that,” said Sandor. Estelle was surprised to note that his eyes were moist. “I never had a brother,” he said. “It feels great…” He laughed, and wiped his eye. “I’d be proud to call you brother.”

“And I, too… brother.”

“Remember,” added Sandor. “The light up there is bad! It’ll turn you bad like them!” He handed smaller hammers to the two Edmunds. “Kill as many of those things as you can, then get out of the house. You won’t live long in the sunlight, but at least you’ll die as you are now: as good… as good… men.” Again, he rubbed his eye.

“Fear not, I know all about the evil light,” said the older Edmund (the younger, weaker one, had yet to find his voice). “I was its captive for too long during my living years, and I remain only too aware of its allure. As for death, I welcome it. I only pray that, before it reclaims me, I will have done my duty and killed as many of those demons as my strength will allow.” He made a practice swipe with the hammer, which almost sent him tumbling to the floor. Estelle caught him and helped him back onto the platform.

“Go get ’em, Father,” she smiled.

Sandor pressed the “Up” button, the platform began its ascent and its cargo gradually disappeared from view.

Estelle felt awkward. She could see Sandor was in distress and wanted to comfort him, but didn’t know if he’d welcome it. He gave a short, brutal laugh. “There I go, watching another young soldier go off to his death.”

“He’s a shadow,” she reminded him gently.

“Looked human enough to me.”

Much quicker than she expected, the platform began its descent, while from upstairs they heard a sudden roar of voices and sounds of clashing wood and metal.

Shockingly, a black-shirted soul shadow came into view, crouched on the descending platform – it must have leapt on as its previous occupants got off. Its black eyes fixed them in a pitiless gaze, while its giant mouth, jagged with teeth, grinned malevolently. When the creature was still halfway to the floor, its arm shot outwards, doubling in length, and it grabbed Estelle’s neck. The pressure on her windpipe was intense. Her arms flailed wildly as she tried to draw breath. Then came a flash of steel, and the hand, together with a short stump of arm, dropped lifelessly to the floor. Sandor’s knife flew again and the soul shadow fell from the platform, the blade stuck in its belly. He plucked the knife, which was smeared with greyish foam, from its stomach, and hauled himself onto the platform. After pressing the button marked ‘Up’, Estelle jumped on too.

“Remember, just get out of the house as fast as you can,” Sandor murmured.

The platform arrived in the cramped cupboard, and through the gap in the door, she glimpsed the kitchen, gutted almost beyond recognition – the walls were bare brick, the floor a giant mound of plaster fragments, broken cabinets, smashed furniture and shattered crockery. Everything was seen through the filter of a nauseating yellowish glow – the light in the Sustaining Room had been a similar colour, but didn’t make her stomach churn like this. Sandor threw wide the cupboard door and began limping at a fierce pace up the corridor. There were no soul shadows in immediate view, but the sound of approaching footsteps told Estelle they were close. To her right, she glimpsed the front room, which was in a similarly vandalised state. The rear of a van could be seen, parked very close to the smashed front window, its back doors wide open so its interior was in view. The van was flooded with the same yellow light, and framed in its entrance was the unmistakable figure of Derek Atkins.

Estelle didn’t have time to do anything more than observe this disturbing sight as she dashed past – she wasn’t even sure if he’d seen her. Ahead of her, Sandor was manoeuvring himself around a fallen figure – the younger Edmund Craven, now as motionless as any self-respecting corpse ought to be. The elder Edmund lay slumped just beyond him, but he was still stirring. He looked up as Estelle passed him, and gave a mad laugh. Most of his teeth were missing, having perhaps been smashed out of his head by his own hammer, which lay on the floor beside him. There was a gaping hole in his chest.

“Good lady, you should have seen me,” he wheezed. “I was magnificent. I came out swinging and I clouted that demon, as clean a hit as you could ever wish for.” He looked ecstatically happy. But Estelle saw that the new teeth already pushing through his shrivelled gums had a distinctly sharp look to them. Sandor spotted this, too, and dropped one of his crutches so he could drag the corpse shadow to the front door. Leaning against the wall, he pulled open the door and sunlight washed through the corridor. Estelle was about to follow him outside when she felt herself being hauled back and thrown to the carpet. A black-shirted soul shadow loomed above her, baring its teeth. A red light glowed in the centre of its forehead. She used one arm to try to drag herself out of its range, while the other struggled to extract the knife from her belt. As the creature swooped towards her throat, she drove the knife upwards into its chest. It collapsed on her, and with some effort, she threw it off, pulling the knife out as she did so. Sandor was now back in the corridor, urging her to get out. But like a nightmare, another soul shadow leapt out from the front room, once more cutting off her escape. She saw Sandor lunging at it with his crutch, prompting it to twist its head 180 degrees, while its body remained facing her. Its arm dislocated itself and flailed like a bullwhip towards Sandor, causing him to collapse in the corner by the front door.

Estelle cried out in anguish, and the creature’s head jerked around to face her once more, its rattling breath coming in short, excited gasps as it studied her. This one also had a mysterious red light in its forehead, like an evil third eye. Feeling the staircase against her shoulder, she hurriedly climbed to her feet and began backing her way up the stairs. It was following her, as she had hoped it would – her only thought at this moment was to coax it away from the unconscious Sandor.

That’s it. Forget about him on the floor! Come this way!

About halfway up, she turned and raced up the remaining stairs, skidded around the newel post at the top and dashed along a short corridor into a large bedroom at the front of the house. It was empty, thank goodness! The bed, like every other piece of furniture in the house, had been senselessly smashed and was now an unrecognisable heap of broken timber, springs, pillow feathers and bedding. The boards that had covered the two windows had been ripped out, adding to the general mess, but both sets of curtains, bizarrely, had been carefully closed, and were now billowing gently in the breeze.

Through a doorway in the wall opposite was a tiny bathroom, containing a shower, washbasin and toilet. A soft creak in the corridor outside told Estelle her pursuer was close. As quietly as she could she edged her way into the bathroom, closed the door and slid home the little chrome bolt. She leaned against a small patch of wall between the shower cubicle and the door, cooling her cheek against the white tiles and clutching her knife to her chest like a talisman.

Another creak of floorboards sounded, this time closer, followed by the squeak of the bedroom door. Her breath was loud in her ears and she tried to quieten it by breathing through her nose.

There were sounds of movement in the bedroom. The wall she was leaning against shook after being punched or kicked. She heard the gravelly respiration of the creature as it searched for her. Was there a tone of frustration in that sound? Why didn’t it try a different room? Could it smell her? Tremors coursed through her body as the wall behind her received another hefty thump. A small cry escaped from her throat.

Did it know she was in here? Was it playing games?

The door handle next to her turned, and the door was pulled forcefully back against the bolt. The handle began rattling furiously. Soon the entire door was shaking under the frenzied attack. The noise resounded through the tiny washroom. Estelle clutched her ears and shut her eyes. “Go away!” she screamed. “Leave me alone!”

Suddenly, it stopped. She blinked and opened her eyes. Her skin was now clammy with sweat. Glancing to her right, she saw that the screws fixing the little bolt to the door and its frame were looser than before, but they had held.

The silence persisted. Had it given up?

She was about to open the door to peek out when she heard that groaning breath again, very near, and then –

BANG!

The entire door bulged inwards with the force of a massive blow. Estelle screamed. Cracks had appeared in the door at about the height of her head, and the screws holding the bolt were now half an inch clear of the door frame. Before she could even draw another breath, a second blow sent wood splinters flying. A hole had opened in the door and a yellow-clawed fist streaked into view. The fist, at the end of its pliable forearm, whipped around blindly like the head of a scourge, smashing at the interior wall of the washroom, missing Estelle’s head by fractions of an inch. Terrified, she collapsed backwards into the shower cubicle and tried to close the folding door, as she watched the bolt finally give way and the door was ripped backwards.

The creature leaned into the little room and hauled back the shower door. It sounded to her ears like a hysterical steam-driven machine as its glittering black eyes feasted on her cowering figure. She glimpsed a long black tongue flickering between its needle-sharp teeth, and the red light in its forehead seemed to brighten, as if with excitement. A hand lashed out and pinioned the wrist of her knife hand against the shower tray. The other hand grabbed her left arm and hauled her painfully upwards, closer to its mouth. She felt the slime of its tongue across her cheek, smelled the fetid vapour of its breath, and prayed that death would be quick, that the teeth would find an artery, and sudden, massive blood loss would end this unbearable terror.

Instead she heard a voice calling her name.

“Estelle?”

And then the creature’s head seemed to cave in from the top as a heavy black mallet head came crashing down on its cranium. The soul shadow fell backwards, revealing… Sandor. No, not Sandor: his shadow. The injury in the right leg, and the mallet, told her that. Brave shadow!

Estelle staggered to a kneeling position, and then to her feet. “Thank you,” she gasped. “Thank you so much.” She stumbled out of the cubicle. “Sandor will be so proud… Now we must… get out of here.”

She hadn’t really looked at him properly yet – just threw an arm around him and began coaxing him towards the door. It was only when he didn’t move that she glanced at his face. And then, with a plunging heart, she took in the inky eyes, the ravenous, spike-edged grin spreading across his face.

“Oh no!” she screamed. “Please no! You’re not one of them. You’re Shadow-Sandor. One of the good guys. Don’t you remember? Let’s get you out of here. Quickly!” She began pulling at his arm, despite her growing fear of him, despite the yellow talon-like nails that were now pushing out of the ends of his fingers. She turned to face him, desperate to find some remnant of humanity in the void of his eyes.

“Remember Shadow-Estelle? She loves you! She’s waiting for you!”

Something flickered in his eyes when she said that – some doubt or memory made him hesitate. His grin faded, his eyes softened and shrank. But it didn’t last. When he turned to her again, the evil smirk was back and she knew he no longer saw her as anything other than meat. His talons bit into the flesh of her wrist. He pulled her towards him… and screamed in pain.

The curtains of both windows had been flung wide open and the zeta radiation was immediately banished in a torrent of bright natural light. There was a bustle of activity in the room. She sensed blackshirts around her – humans this time, not soul shadows. But her eyes remained on Shadow-Sandor, who had now fallen to his knees and had raised his arms to try to shield his head from the dazzling onslaught from the window. Already, his arms were disintegrating, crumbling into fine powder. She felt sad to see him like that – sad for Sandor, sad for Shadow-Estelle. It was no way for a soldier to die.

“Ahem.” A throat was theatrically cleared by the bedroom door. She turned to see Derek standing there. He was holding a bulky black box topped by a red light. “What a pleasure to see you again, Estelle,” he simpered, waggling his eyebrows at her.

“Where’s Sandor?” she asked flatly.

Derek nodded towards the two blackshirts stationed at the window and they closed the curtains. He came further into the room, adjusting the controls on his black box. Into the room stepped two black-shirted soul shadows. They were still and erect, like two human soldiers standing to attention – the only clue to their shadow-identity being the shiny black eyes, now mostly hooded, and the red lights implanted in their foreheads. Between them was the semi-slumped figure of Sandor, his face red and swollen from a recent pummelling.

He opened his puffy eyes as much as he could, and saw her. “Hullo, Es,” he slurred. “I’m afraid they got me.”

She rushed towards him but her arm was grabbed tightly by a soul shadow standing behind her. It was the same one who’d just attacked her in the shower cubicle. He now seemed recovered from Shadow-Sandor’s mallet attack, yet was apparently no longer interested in eating her. In fact, as soon as she stopped struggling, the soul shadow released her arm.

Derek pressed a button on his black box and suddenly she felt the soul shadow’s hands on her again. One hand slid and slithered all over her body. She tried to get away, but the vice-like grip of its other hand wouldn’t allow it. When the disgusting ordeal was finally over, Derek raised his eyebrows at the soul shadow. “Find anything?” he asked. “No? That’s good.”

He turned to Estelle, stroking his black box affectionately. “Brilliant, don’t you think?” he purred. “Tame soul shadows. And with one flick of a switch, I can turn them back into killers.”

“Why would you want to do that, Derek?” Estelle demanded. “Carl Henrison told me this whole thing began because you wanted to develop spare organs for transplant. How did that turn into creating remote-controlled flesh-eaters?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he shrugged nonchalantly. “Mission creep, I guess!… We created these things. It was our responsibility, don’t you think, to figure out how to control them?”

“And was it also your responsibility to terrorise a fellow scientist?”

She seemed to have struck a nerve with that question – Derek’s cool façade cracked just a little. “Carl was threatening to go public on us before we had a chance to get the situation under control!” he said impatiently. “That would have killed the whole project stone dead. We’ve learned how to control the lab-grown soul shadows – you’ve seen the results here today. But the wild ones – the ones that grew from the radiation leakage in the forest – they’re a tougher proposition.”

Estelle was standing a short distance from one of the windows. As Derek talked, she glanced through a narrow gap that had been left between the two curtains. She could see that the window itself was smashed to pieces and was now just a gaping hole in the wall. Directly below it was the roof of the van…

“Carl wouldn’t see reason,” Derek continued. “He failed to see the bigger picture: the vast potential rewards, scientific and financial, of our project.”

Without turning her head, Estelle glanced quickly through the broken window again. The van’s roof was a relatively short jump from there. Just two quick strides, a hop through the window, another hop to the ground, and she’d be away. If she acted with sufficient suddenness and speed, the nearest guard wouldn’t even have time to react.

Derek was confidently droning on, “We had him nicely pinned down here though. We’d scared him enough to ensure he’d sit tight for at least a few more weeks, until the wild soul shadows had been dealt with. But then you two had to show up on his doorstep. Thanks to you, we suddenly had a crisis on our hands. He could pass his secret onto you, and then you could pass it onto the press. Luckily, it would appear he didn’t pass it on to either of you.”

“What secret would that be?” asked Estelle, edging very slightly closer to the window.

Derek smiled. “He didn’t tell you then, did he? It’s a rather long and complex formula, and smart as you are, I don’t think you’d have been able to memorise it. I’m pretty sure this one hasn’t either.” He gestured to Sandor.

Derek’s face grew more kindly as he registered the rising anger in Estelle’s. “You forced this on us, my dear. But it’s over now. In fact, you know what, I’ll willingly let you two go free. Call it a favour returned. You rescued me once, and one good turn deserves another. I’ll let you go, and tell my bosses – the ones who ordered me to haul you both back to the Facility – that you died in the siege. You haven’t got the secret, so there’s no real risk. All you need to do is tell me where Carl is, then you can walk away.”

“Why do you want Carl all of a sudden?” Estelle asked him. “You’ve known where he’s been for months.”

“The powers that be have become nervous. After today’s little incident, they’ve decided the safest thing would be for Carl to be permanently neutralised.”

“You mean killed? If you kill him you’ll never find out his secret.”

Derek laughed. “I’m afraid you misunderstand. We don’t want his secret. He can go to his grave with it for all we care, just so long as he doesn’t tell it to anyone else before he does. And while he’s alive, there’s every chance he might.”

“You’re talking about cold-blooded murder! What secret could possibly be worth that?”

“What do you care? You only met him this morning. Just tell me where he is and you can forget all about this whole unpleasant business… And don’t tell me he’s in the basement lab. We’ve found that and he’s not there. In fact we’ve stripped out the entire house. But I reckon there must be some little nook or cranny we’ve overlooked. I know he hasn’t left the house today, so there has to be some other little hidey-hole we’ve yet to find. Now if you could just –”

“I have no idea where Carl is,” said Estelle.

Derek nodded and smiled to himself, as if he’d expected this. “Just like your boyfriend said.”

“He’s not my boyf –”

Sandor suddenly let forth a howl of pain. Estelle was shocked to see that one of the soul shadows supporting him had deliberately dug one of its talons deep into his shoulder. It had done so just after Derek had adjusted a control on the black box. Once Estelle realised this, her shock changed to fury.

“Boyfriend or not, I detect a soft spot there, Estelle,” sniggered Derek. “But don’t worry, I’ll try not to be jealous, although – well, put it this way – I wouldn’t shed too many tears to see my love rival entirely removed from the picture…”

Estelle felt like she might explode with rage. She wanted to rush at Derek and rip that little box out of his hands.

“So what’s it to be then, Estelle?” smirked Derek. “Freedom for you and your friend, or do you want to see Sandor really start to scream? Your choice.”