It was a bit after midnight when I heard something. I’d been watching the stars moving through the window when it happened, listening to the waves on the shore for four hours and wondering about all the faiths and beliefs and lives I’d laughed at over the years.
There it was: a click or a shuffle from the refectory to my right. I sat bolt upright, my trance broken. The knife almost slithered from my fingers but I caught it, my hands sweating, hurriedly grabbed the bolt-cutters, moved aside the pedal bin and went silently to the door, my heart thudding. Careful not to make a sound I rested my ear against the door. I imagined Blake, sitting upright in the chair, his eyes wide, hands on the table. I imagined a beast next to him, rising up tall in the refectory, almost to the ceiling, pawing the ground. A sweat broke out all over my body. Another noise, slightly muffled, the kind of noise you’d expect if someone was sliding a chair back. OK, OK, I told myself. It’s nothing. It’s all going to be straightforward. Blake was dead. The noise was probably just a pig. Probably just a pig.
Except…you closed…the fucking door…
I shook my head, like something was clinging to my hair, took a breath and stepped out into the cafeteria, the bolt-cutters raised above my head. ‘Come and fucking get it, Malachi,’ I yelled, teeth bared. ‘Come and fucking have it!’
I stopped. The sliding door stood slightly open, and beyond it the sweep of grass was grey in the starlight. Blake was exactly where he’d been, motionless in the dark, but now something tall and stooped was bending over him, its back to me. It was wearing an old and filthy man’s coat and heavy boots, and dragging from under the coat, as it straightened from Blake’s bloodied remains, was the tail. There was just time for a thought to flash at me, It’s feeding, I’ve interrupted its meal, then it was gone, bounding away to the door, slipping away into the night.
I stood, paralysed, my mouth drooping. I was there for almost a minute, my hands above my head, not breathing or moving or blinking, only staring at the point in the darkness where it had disappeared. It wasn’t Malachi. It wasn’t Malachi in a strap-on tail. It was too tall and sinewy. My chest was about to burst. I let out all my breath at once, swung the cutters down and bolted after the beast.
At the top of the slope above the community I stopped and scanned the forest ahead. I had a good idea this chase was leading me back to the gorge. Even before I saw the dull shape moving away from me down the path, going rapidly through the trees and heading to the ledge, I knew I was going to end the night back at the mine. If I’d had any sense at all I’d’ve turned the other way and locked myself into the refectory. Lexie or the boat-owner would’ve raised the alarm eventually. But something was in me. Lex would’ve called it dumbness. I went forward.
I dropped myself over a boulder, down where the path snaked a few feet below, scattering gravel. I paused just long enough to get my balance, then I was off along the path, the bolt-cutters bumping along beside me. The thing was fast – it knew its way: I was getting glimpses of it ahead, moving unhesitatingly along paths through the trees, flowing kind of, like a ghost. I bolted noisily after it, branches breaking underfoot, up the path. I was covering ground fast – past the gargoyle, and suddenly, so suddenly it was like a flash of the moon, I burst out into the gorge, coming to a juddering halt on the ledge.
I stood there, panting hard, scanning the ledge, thinking I’d lost it. Then I saw it – a movement: a dull patch below me, a moving part of the rock that was slightly paler than the rest heading away into the gorge.
‘You fucker!’ I bellowed, looping the bolt-cutters round my neck so the jaws were hard against my throat, the handles sticking out over my shoulders like bony wings. I wasn’t wasting time going across to the streambed: I was going straight down here. I turned my back to the drop and fell to my knees, throwing my feet out backwards into the darkness, over the lip. I paused for a second, my eyes screwed up, thinking about the drop below, feeling the fuck-awful thrill of adrenaline weaken my fingers. Just do it…
And I was off, dropping into the darkness, at best half crawling like a spider, at worst bumping and sliding for what seemed like miles, my T-shirt rucking up to my chest, the rocks and gorse tearing into my thighs and stomach. I was ripped to pieces, pouring blood by the time I hit the bottom, but I didn’t stop. I was up, running into the gorge with that indistinct shape ahead of me, dodging the drums, my feet springing off the chemical skin. My heart wanted to burst out of my chest, my throat was raw flesh and my tongue was huge in my mouth. But I’d drop dead right here and now before I left the chase. On and on I went, my moon-shadow running along beside me companionably.
It was a lifetime before I got to the other side and threw myself at the slope, going at it like a lizard, legs and arms pumping up and down like pistons, using the sore inside of my calves to get traction, losing my grip every few feet and sliding back, grabbing on to gorse and heather to get purchase. At the top I allowed myself exactly one minute to rest – lying on my back, panting and sweating, counting the sixty seconds with metronomic severity. I was running with blood but my head was clear, my thinking tight as a drum. Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty – and I was up, dragging my feet a bit as I started, still bent over low with my arms hanging, but picking up speed until I was upright. Through the open gate. And there again, that wisp-like flash of something among the dark trees ahead. Proof that I was on it – still going. The air and the trees rushed past my face. I pumped my arms. ‘FUCKING MOVE!’ I screamed at my legs. ‘Keep. Fucking. Going.’
Suddenly I was there, in the opening next to the cottage, coming to a juddering halt just in time to see the dull yellow movement of the beast disappearing round the corner, just in time to hear the door slamming, the sound of bolts being thrown.
I dropped my head and rested my hands on my thighs, shaking my head and spitting on the ground, waiting for my heart to stop pounding, for my lungs to stop stinging. It didn’t matter now, no need to run. The fucker was mine – trapped in the cottage. When at last my legs had stopped trembling and I raised my head, I saw the window was being silently, secretively closed, a shadowy figure reaching out a hand under the lace curtain.
‘NO,’ I roared, launching myself at the house. ‘No!’ I grappled for the window. But I was too late: it had closed neatly and tightly against the frame. Furious, I jumped away, almost dancing with rage, swinging the bolt-cutters to one side and then back, in a perfect golfer’s swing, straight into the pane. The glass shattered in a star shape, broken pieces tinkling down into the living room. Quickly I pulled off my sweatshirt, wrapped it round my fist, punched out the remainder of the glass and unhooked the window. I was inside in seconds, slithering through like a worm, falling on my shoulder, rolling on to my side in the scattered glass. With a clumsy, crabby motion, I pushed myself up into a crouch, squatting bright-eyed and alert, moving my head side to side in a series of jerks. I was alone in the living room.
The child’s windmill on the shelf rotated creakily, like it was pleased to see me. Slowly, moving very quietly, I drew the bolt-cutters along the floor towards me and straightened. Around me the cottage had gone totally silent.
I went quietly to the wall, switched on the light, then stood very still in the centre of the room, trying to focus on all the air in the cottage, feeling its vibrations move along my skin. Nothing. No movement, and no sound. I turned, my head on one side, my skin crawling with concentration. Slowly I lifted my chin and looked up at the ceiling. Something had moved up there, only a few feet above my head, a subtle, infinitesimally small creak of a floorboard. I opened my mouth in a smile, breathing out, whispering softly, ‘Ah, there. I’ve got you, ya beaut.’
Stealthily, the cutters at the ready, I moved towards the staircase. The night was absolutely silent now, a cobweb on the light-fitting above floating spectrally over my head, like a draught was coming through. I placed my hand on the banister and, slowly, slowly, testing every inch of every step, crept up the stairs. I paused at the top. I could see three doors ahead – two open and one, on the left, closed.
The word trap, trap came back to me, making my skin crawl. I ground my teeth, giving in to a moment’s nerves, then inched forward along the corridor, stopping at the closed door, facing it with my feet a pace apart, solid – ready for something to come tearing out at me.
I took in five long, deep breaths. You can still walk away, mate… raised the cutters above my head and, in one quick move, booted the door in. It flew open, a rush of stale air and darkness, and I saw the creature instantly. It was in the corner, its back to the wall, crying and shrinking away, its feet pedalling furiously. ‘It’, I saw instantly, was a ‘she’ – a woman in her teens or early twenties. Her hands were over her head, a terrified keening noise coming from her mouth.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ I stood with the cutters at the ready – out in front of me like a sword – ready to swing them if she moved so much as an inch towards me. My breathing was coming so rapidly that I had to stop between each word. ‘I said, who the fuck are you?’ When she didn’t answer I made a fake lunge into the room, raising the cutters like I was going to attack. ‘Tell me – NOW – tell me who you are. Who are you?’
‘Don’t don’t don’t!’ She shrank back against the wall, her hands out to defend herself, her face streaked with tears and blood. She probably wasn’t much past her teens with chopped-around black hair so short you could see the scalp in places. She had the underfed, dingy look of a thirteen-year-old boy on drugs. Whatever the tail trick was, she had either disposed of it or had it tucked neatly down beneath her. All I could see were the tops of her bare knees, crusted with hardened, white skin. ‘Please don’t!’
‘Stand up!’
‘I can’t!’
‘I said –’ I made another lunge towards her ‘– stand up!’
‘No!’ she sobbed. ‘No. I can’t stand up.’
‘Stand up or I’ll hurt you.’
She shook her head and sobbed louder. I approached, my eyes on her hands, bending cautiously. Her nails were bitten, the tips of her fingers red and sore. Before she could see what I was doing I grabbed her right hand, wrenching it so high and so quickly that she was caught off balance. ‘NO! No no – please please please.’ She flailed, trying to grab me with her left hand, but I dropped the cutters and grabbed that too, yanking it up to meet the other, crunching the wristbones together.
‘NOO! Leave me alone. Please DON’T! Let me go.’
‘SHUT UP!’ I slammed her hands into the wall above her head. ‘Now, you’re going to—’ She wriggled, trying to kick me, to jerk her hands away. ‘Stop that! Now just fucking stop struggling and stand the fuck up.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Do it. Fucking do it.’
I rammed her hands against the wall again, harder now, and this time she stopped struggling. She raised her eyes to mine and we studied each other, both breathing hard. She had these swimmy, inflamed eyes the colour of mud, and a tilted-up, defiant nose.
‘Well?’ I was trembling so hard I could almost feel my teeth chattering. ‘Are you going to stand up?’ Her mouth moved shakily, but no words came out, only a scratchy murmur. I shook her again. ‘Are you?’
‘I – I will. I’ll stand up if you don’t hurt me.’
‘I won’t hurt you.’
She dropped her eyes, her whole body trembling, and shuffled her feet together, tucking them as tight under herself as she could. Pushing her head forward so her weight tipped over her toes, slowly, stiffly, she began to straighten. I raised her hands, lifting her, running them up the wall, drawing her up, my arms arching over her head. She was tall – almost six foot at a guess, and as she straightened I was aware that a part of her, something heavy and fleshy, didn’t come with her and dropped heavily on to the floor. I could see it in the light coming from the hallway. I released her, grabbed up the cutters, and was back where I could see her properly.
‘Don’t move,’ I said, holding up the cutters.
She dropped her face into her hands and stood pitifully in the centre of the room, her shoulders drooping. ‘Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.’
‘I’m not going to kill you, for fuck’s sake.’ I licked my lips. ‘Take a step forward.’
She obeyed, not dropping her hands, shuffling forward dejectedly.
‘That’s it. Stop. Now…take your coat off.’
She unbuttoned it and let it fall. She was wearing a man’s shirt that reached to her knees and you could see her arms and chest, thin as a young boy’s. Her bare, muscular legs were crammed into a pair of lace-up boots. I took a sideways step, circling her, staring in silence at what dangled from under the shirt – like something she had deposited there: an obscene, fleshed growth, the skin pale, rather yellow in places. It hung loosely between her legs, all the way down to the floor, ending in an odd, spatula-like shape of flesh. I could see instantly it wasn’t a trick. This belonged to her. There was a vein in the top of it that was pulsing from the effort of the chase.
‘Please,’ she begged, making a grab for it, trying to conceal it. ‘Please don’t look.’
I stared for a long time, not knowing what to do or say. I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out in a long sigh, shook my head. ‘My God,’ I muttered, lowering the cutters to my side. ‘What the fuck is going on in this place?’
‘I don’t know – I don’t know. Please let me sit down – please!’
I nodded to the bed. ‘Go on.’
She dropped down, pulling the coat over her. She arranged the duvet hurriedly, so that whatever the growth was, it was squashed out of view just behind her left leg, making her sit slightly tilted to one side. I stared at the place it was hidden, my mind racing. When I looked up I found her staring back at me, like she was saying, ‘ I can’t do anything about it. It’s not my fault.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ I said, a wave of tiredness taking my feet out from under me. I sat on the floor with a bump, rubbing my eyes. ‘What is going on? Who are you?’
‘Angeline,’ she said. ‘Angeline. I can’t help it.’
‘Angeline?’ I said the name distantly, like it was the strangest name I’d ever heard. ‘Angeline?’ I frowned. There was an odd, muffled quality to her voice – something sticky about the consonants, something I couldn’t place – like she wasn’t used to speaking.
‘Angeline?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you deaf, Angeline?’
She shook her head.
‘Not deaf?’
‘No. I can hear you.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘And what the fuck have you been doing today? Eh?’ I nodded to the window. ‘What did you do to Sovereign? And to Blake? What was that all about then?’
She dropped her hands and blinked at me. ‘What have I been doing?’ she said, wiping her nose. ‘No – not me. I haven’t done anything.’
‘Someone has.’
‘Dad,’ she said, hurriedly rubbing at the tears on her cheeks. ‘My dad. He’s gone crazy. There was an explosion and—’
‘Dad?’
‘I followed him. He waited until they were in the chapel and then he—’ She wiped her nose with her shirt sleeve. ‘He nailed them inside. He knows about explosives. He’s always known how to blow things up. I saw it. I saw it all.’
‘And who the fuck’s your – Jesus Christ.’ I dropped my hands disbelievingly. It was all coming straight now. What a mangled fucking truth. ‘No shit,’ I muttered. ‘No shit. Malachi? He’s your father?’
She stared back at me, her face closed and defensive. ‘They couldn’t get out. Are they going to think it was me?’