The road passed through a golf course, manicured fairways either side of them, old guys dressed like boring clowns clacking their balls into the air. It was only ten minutes since he took Mrs Cross from her house in Longniddry. Lennox had never been to East Lothian before, it looked rich and exclusive, not for the likes of him.
He slowed the car as they entered Gullane, a high street of boutiques and big old houses. He glanced at Mrs Cross in the passenger seat. She was holding her belly and Lennox thought about the baby inside. Then he felt weird for thinking about Mrs Cross’s womb. She saw him looking then glanced behind them, but there was no way her husband was driving that Range Rover, Lennox had done a job on it.
‘Are you old enough to drive?’ she said as they left the village.
‘I can drive.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’ She smiled. ‘And whose car is this?’
‘Geoff’s.’
‘Who’s Geoff?’
‘Runs the children’s home.’
‘I didn’t know you live in a children’s home.’
Lennox didn’t want to say anything about that.
She looked out the window. ‘Does Geoff know you’ve got his car and are driving it underage?’
They passed a turnoff for Dirleton, but his phone said to keep going.
‘Not exactly.’
This was all weird. The stolen car, a pregnant teacher, criminal damage. But then everything that had happened since last night was weird.
He hadn’t thought twice about it when she gave him her phone in the hospital. He went back to the children’s home in Northfield, where Geoff gave him a bollocking for being out all night, not realising he’d spent it in hospital. Lennox didn’t bother telling him. Then when Geoff was distracted with some other shit, Lennox walked out with the car key, headed to the address in Longniddry.
‘Where are we going?’ Mrs Cross said as Lennox signalled left.
He gave her a look. ‘I think you know.’
She went pale and rubbed her stomach.
‘Mrs Cross, are you OK?’
She swallowed. ‘It’s Gallacher, Cross was my married name.’ She touched his arm. ‘But call me Ava.’
‘Ava.’
Her hand was still on his arm. ‘And thank you. For back there.’
Lennox took the turn, the road running through wheat fields, heading towards some pine trees. The sun was low to their left, giving the air a golden shine. They drove in silence until Lennox saw the grassy car park, a few cars and campervans around. The road ended at a sign for Yellowcraigs Beach pointing through the trees.
Lennox parked and they sat there, engine ticking as it cooled, crows flapping in the trees.
‘You felt it too,’ Ava said eventually.
Lennox looked at her. Her red hair was striking against her pale skin. He touched his frizzy mop and nodded.
Ava touched the back of her own head. ‘What’s happening to us?’
Lennox sucked his teeth. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Last night.’ Ava looked out the window, up at the sky. ‘Did you see it?’
He didn’t have to ask what she meant. ‘Yeah.’
‘Where?’
‘Figgate Park. It saved me.’
Ava held his gaze. ‘How?’
Lennox rubbed at his wrist. ‘I was in trouble. Some dickheads.’
‘The boy in the other bed?’
‘And others.’
‘The ones the doctor said were dead.’ Ava rubbed her neck. ‘Why aren’t we dead?’
Lennox held his hands out. ‘You’re asking as if I know what’s going on.’
‘Sorry, I just…’ She trailed off and stared at the sign for the beach.
Lennox nodded at it. ‘Maybe we should find out.’
It was easy to spot where the creature was. A handful of short wooden posts were stuck in the sand near the water’s edge, tape strung between them. A woman stood behind the barrier. Even from here Lennox could tell it was the woman from the ward. He looked at Ava as they trudged over the sand. She huffed at the effort, waddling with her extra weight.
He took in the rest of the beach, dog walkers in the distance, a family with two kids in the rock pools. It was as if this didn’t matter. A creature washed up on the shore and everyone moved on.
The woman turned as they got closer and didn’t seem surprised to see them. Somewhere inside him, Lennox had expected to see her too. There was something connecting them and he needed to find out what.
‘Fancy seeing you again,’ the woman said.
Ava smiled. ‘Yeah.’
‘Heather.’
‘Ava. This is Lennox.’
‘So,’ Heather said, nodding at the creature.
Lennox walked past her and stared at it. It looked the same as they’d seen on television, but somehow different too. The screen hadn’t really conveyed its colours, he wasn’t sure if it was blue or green or something else with no name. When he looked from one part to another it seemed to shift colour like swirls of paint were running under its surface. The head was around two feet from the rounded dome to the fringes below, where five long tentacles stretched out, each about four feet long. They were darker in colour but still not quite definable, light circular suckers lining them from top to bottom. Its eyes were closed, one side of its body covered in a thin layer of wet sand.
‘Why are you here?’ Ava asked Heather.
‘Why are you here?’
Ava folded her arms. ‘Lennox saved me.’
Lennox blushed and didn’t look round.
‘From that shit of a husband?’ Heather said.
Ava laughed nervously. ‘Yeah.’
‘Good.’
Lennox looked at them now. ‘We should all be dead, that’s what the doctor said.’
Heather looked down and shuffled her feet. Ava hugged her shoulders against a breeze coming off the firth.
Lennox turned back to the creature. He ducked under the flimsy tape and stepped closer. Crouched down and stared, soaking it up.
‘What are you doing?’ Ava said.
He reached out and touched its smooth head, it wasn’t exactly warm, but not cold either. He stroked it from the top to its eyes.
‘Be careful,’ Heather said.
He moved his hand to the tentacles, touched one. And suddenly he was flying through darkness, unimaginable distance, dots of light scattered across his vision. He somehow sensed it was brutally cold but he didn’t feel it. He spotted a blue-and-white ball in the distance which grew in size until he could see jets pluming from its underside into the surrounding blackness. It seemed like a planet or moon, pockmark craters along the top hemisphere and icy-blue tiger stripes or giant claw marks across the south pole. He shot towards it, avoiding the streaming jets, but close enough to feel heat from them. He flew so fast he couldn’t breathe, yet it felt effortless as the moon grew to occupy his field of view. He caught a glimpse of a large brown planet with rings before he plunged through jets of hot vapour, then layers of thick blue ice, then he was underwater in dark blue, flashes all around him, glowing blue and green and white, and larger throbbing red lights down below, and he looked down at his body and he wasn’t human, he was the creature, tentacles shivering in delight as he propelled through the water, head expanding and contracting like bellows, body talking to him, his limbs alive and sending messages, agreeing, arguing, resolving, and he felt like he was half a dozen creatures combined.
Then suddenly he was hauled back out of the water, through the ice and into black space, hurtling through nothing, a small blue-green ball in the distance getting larger. He felt a voice inside him, somehow recognised it, a voice that was part of him already.
<Help us.>
Then everything went black and he was lost.