Chapter Fourteen

The Cherubim

“It shouldn’t be getting dark so quickly!”

They had reached the outskirts of the park and Alex gave voice to what was worrying everyone. “We haven’t even had six hours of ‘daylight’ yet.”

The journey back through the ruins had been like a stage-managed effect solely designed to enhance the nightmare. Shadows had descended amidst the ruins, the grey becoming black, the shadows growing deeper and longer. Just as if someone somewhere really was turning off switches as Alex had fantasised. No one spoke as they hurried through ruined and empty streets back to the one place where they might find a fragile safety. Every shadow was a threat; every darkened corner a possible hiding place for further horrors. Were there still bodies in the rubble? Would they turn another corner only to find another shambling line of the dead blocking their way? Even the boy, in his safe place, could sense it; and he clung tight to Lisa as they hurried on.

“If we…” began Annie angrily, then stopped herself from saying make it through another night. Instead she said: “When it gets light again, Lisa and I are definitely going to get something sorted. On the lights front.”

There was no time to ask what she meant.

They could see the dark mound of the bonfire up ahead, still smouldering but not yet alight. Stacks of splintered wood and other flammable debris had been stacked beside it, at a safe distance. Cans of paraffin and petrol had been positioned carefully out of the way behind one of the piles.

“That’s good,” said Alex, as they hurried across the grass.

“Mostly my work, I’m afraid,” replied Lisa, without pleasure. “Look, I’m sorry. Maybe I should have stayed and got the fire started. But Candy…”

The sound of running feet made them whirl in alarm. It was Wayne and Damon.

“Have you done it?” asked Annie.

Breathing heavily, both looked back the way they’d come.

“Is it finished?” asked Alex.

“Finished,” said Damon. “Yeah.”

“Where’s Jay and Gordon?” Annie strained to look back.

“They’re…” Wayne waved vaguely back in the direction from which they’d come. “They’re coming.” Before anyone could ask further questions, they both ran on ahead to the bonfire, seizing cans of petrol.

Alex stopped to look back, searching for any sign of Jay or Gordon.

“Where…?”

But now flames were leaping high as the first pitched stream of petrol ignited on the still-smouldering embers from the previous night. Annie and Lisa began to pick up timber from one of the piles, throwing it into the centre of the bonfire. Clouds of sparks soared high. The boy threw a small stick, and missed the fire completely. The unfurling tongues of flame bathed them in bright orange light, but now seemed to accentuate the darkness that had fallen all around the ruins and on the shattered crags and pillars that had once been Edmonville.

“I’m going for Candy!” said Alex, when he was sure that the fire was well under way, and he headed off in the direction of the mini-mart. Lisa looked back and waved to wish him luck, then grabbed more wood from the pile and threw it into the flames. Alex didn’t look back, concentrating on the growing darkness beyond.

Something wasn’t right. Something about Wayne and Damon’s demeanour. But there was no time now to stay and ask further questions. He had to get Candy back to the fire straight away. Was the Black Stuff even now seeping over the rim of the chasm and heading their way?

The mini-mart was less than five minutes away, on the periphery of the park. But as Alex ran, it seemed to him that the first outlines of the ruined side street were getting no closer as he ran. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by the feeling of how isolated they were on this bizarre plateau. He could feel the immensity of the chasm on all sides; could feel how pathetically small they were in their new and hopeless situation. Was he really running frantically on the spot, not moving at all? And hadn’t that been what their lives had been like—Candy’s and his—running on the spot, wearing themselves out, tearing each other apart? Candy trying to wash away the pain with liquor, just as she was doing now. And no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he persevered, no matter how much he argued, it seemed that everything he did was no good at all. Every one of his responses only seemed to enrage her further.

“Candy!”

He began to shout even before he cleared the park and reached the first rubble on the grass. What if she’d left? What if she’d wandered off somewhere and fallen asleep in the ruins? Oh Christ, let her still be there! He paused for breath at the corner, leaning against the cracked brickwork of a rear wall before heading off down the side street. At the next bend, he could see the frontage of the mini-mart just ahead.

“Candy!”

There was no sign of movement in the darkened windows. Alex struggled on, looking around on all sides. The words of the dead man in the liquor store seemed to echo in his head.

The real truth is simple. You see, you both killed your son.

“Candy, for God’s sake, are you in there?”

There’s a darkness in you both that will destroy you.

Alex stumbled and fell in the rubble. He clawed forward on hands and knees. Was there something moving in the darkness on either side of him as he ran?

Alex, your wife thinks that you killed your son. And Candy, you think that Alex is responsible. That’s why you hate your husband so much. And don’t you know that no matter how much forbearance you show—you hate her just as much as she hates you. That’s the darkness.

“I don’t hate you, Candy. It’s not true what he said!”

And then, in his mind’s eye, he could see the dead man with the smashed face, standing in the darkness just beyond the light of the bonfire: The facts won’t go away simply because you want them to go away. I know. We know. You both murdered your son.

“You didn’t kill Ricky. Neither did I… Christ, Candy, we only let him out into the garden on his own for a minute. A minute!”

Alex was clear of the rubble and up on the fractured pavement.

Something moved beyond the darkened windows of the mini-mart. Something bright that flashed too quickly to register.

“Candy!”

Alex shoved the door open and stood in the doorway, getting his breath back and trying to adjust his vision to the gloom inside. He was overwhelmed by the feeling that there had somehow been a great deal of movement in here only moments before he’d shoved open the door. There was a silent expectancy, the feeling that someone or something other than Candy had fled into hiding at his sudden appearance.

“Candy, are you in here?”

Something whimpered in the gloom.

Had the sound come from behind the serving counter?

With growing apprehension, Alex moved into the shop, carefully stepping over the detritus that littered the floor. Had something happened to her?

“It’s all right, love. I’m here.”

A bottle rattled on a shelf to his right, for no apparent reason. Once again, he felt that there was not one but several presences in the dark. Watching him, and waiting. The air was too still. Or was it that the approaching night and the horrors they had all endured were fraying his nerves even further?

Behind him, the door juddered. Alex whirled in alarm, heart racing.

There was a silhouetted figure standing in the doorway.

Flinching back, he looked around desperately for some kind of weapon.

And then the figure asked: “Well, is she in here, or not?”

It was Wayne.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Lisa’s got some food and bottled water back at the bonfire. Collected it while we were searching. But that’s all she’s got. And your wife isn’t the only one who needs a proper drink.”

Wayne strode brusquely into the store and began searching the shelves. Alex relaxed, but remembered the whimpering and moved quickly to the counter. Behind it there was a shape huddled on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, head down. A brandy bottle rolled at her feet.

“Candy, it’s me.”

“Oh Christ…” Candy looked up at him from the floor, and he saw the tears gleaming in her eyes. More than that, he saw the naked fear there.

“It’s all right,” he said, carefully leaning down and holding out a hand, as if any sudden movement might make her fly into a panic. “Come on, I’ve come to take you back to the fire.”

“Christ, Alex. Don’t move!”

Now he could see that she wasn’t staring in fear at him, but at something that seemed to be directly behind his right shoulder. Alex could feel its presence. Fear prickled in his neck and down his spine.

“Here,” said Wayne from the gloom. “Look what I’ve found. A torch and batteries.” There was a fumbling and rattling as he unscrewed the torch and began to fit the batteries. “Might come in handy.”

Slowly, Alex began to turn.

At first he could see nothing but the shelving set into the far wall, perhaps four feet from where he stood. The shelves were deep and high, stocked with breakfast cereal packets and other comestibles. Strangely, there was a doll’s head resting on top of a packet of cornflakes. One of the larger type of dolls, the head about the size of a two-year-old’s. Short but extravagantly curled blond hair. It had a cherubic expression, with rosy cheeks. The gender was indeterminate, in the way of some politically correct children’s playthings. The blue eyes seemed to have an eerie luminosity in the gloom.

And then those eyes blinked, and the cherubic face smiled. The head shoved itself forward and the packet fell from the shelf to the floor, spilling its contents.

Alex could not move.

Impossibly, a completely naked two-year-old child was pushing forward on all fours to the edge of the shelf and smiling that impossibly angelic smile at him. He could not react, could not take in this sudden and bizarre sight. The child braced its smooth pink arms on the shelf, perfectly formed fingers gripping the edge. It looked down to where the cornflake packet had fallen, and then back up to Alex again.

With shocking swiftness, the child slithered its legs around and pushed itself over the shelf-edge. Instinctively, Alex lurched forward to save it from the fall. But in that instant, something seized his trouser leg, making him wince at the pain where his flesh had been pinched. It was Candy.

“Alex, don’t move!”

He saw the fear again, and turned back to look.

The child wasn’t hurt. It had fallen miraculously and lightly on all fours in the littered cornflakes. Now Alex could see that it was a boy, its small penis curled in the groin, testicles not yet descended. It was still smiling up at Alex, who watched in ever-mounting incredulity as the child, without taking its big round eyes from him, took a handful of the cereal and brought it up to its mouth. The boy sniffed…and then opened his mouth to cram a handful of cornflakes inside.

In that brief instant, Alex saw the child’s teeth.

They were not the teeth of a two-year-old boy.

There was a full set top and bottom. Dentally perfect, white and aligned. All the same size.

And each one pointed, like the teeth of some wild animal.

The boy continued to smile, not taking his gaze from Alex, cramming more cornflakes into his mouth as he crouched there.

“That’s better,” said Wayne. A beam of torchlight swung around the store.

The boy reacted instantly. In a flurry of cornflakes, he was suddenly gone. Moving almost too fast to register, he was halfway up the shelving unit again; one small foot braced on a lower shelf, one hand gripping an upper shelf, with the other arm and leg dangling in space at his side. He hung there, peeping around the outside edge of the unit to where the torch beam explored the store, and with all the agile grace of some beautiful feral creature. His eyes glinted impossibly blue in the reflected gleam of the torchlight as Wayne scanned bottles on the other side of the store. Now Alex could see two fleshy protuberances on each of the boy’s shoulders, two raised ridges of bone which couldn’t be seen from the front. Whatever Alex was looking at, it surely couldn’t be a human child.

Candy was trying to rise. Carefully, Alex stepped back and, without taking his gaze from the boy, began to help her up. The child gave him no more than a glance before returning his attention to Wayne and his torch. The smile was gone, and there was an uncannily adult expression of wariness on his face now.

Wayne moved to the liquor shelf and hoisted down two bottles, shoving them into his jerkin pockets. “That’ll do for now. Better move fast.”

“Wayne…” began Alex.

And suddenly there was movement all over the store.

“Don’t move, Alex!” gasped Candy, her voice breaking. “Just keep still.”

Bottles crashed from the top shelf where Wayne had gathered his supply. He jumped back as they shattered on the floor. Something seemed to fly through the air from the top shelf to the units on the other side of the store, too fast to see. The strip light on the cracked ceiling began to pitch and sway from its chain fastenings, as if it had been hit by the invisible passing. Now other packets and containers began to fall from other shelves, all over the store; a packet of flour exploded on the floor, sending up a powder-white cloud.

Wayne staggered back, spinning now in alarm at the commotion, the torch beam swinging wildly around the store. It came to rest on something that had emerged from hiding on the top of a freezer unit.

“What the fuck…?”

It was another child. Naked, like the other, with the same tightly curled blond hair and cherubic face. The same small ridges of bone on either shoulder. But this was a girl, perhaps three years old. She raised one arm to shield her face from the torch beam and then, with the same astonishing speed and agility, leapt from the freezer unit to the shelving beside the window. Jars clattered from the shelf on which she had landed as she quickly pushed herself out of sight on all fours. When Wayne swung the torch beam away to a clattering of tin on the floor, the girl poked her head out again. Wayne had caught another figure on the floor; another naked boy, the same age as the first boy, hair slightly darker but with the same cherubic face and bony ridges. Wayne flinched when the boy hopped, skipped and jumped across the floor, raising a cloud of flour dust as he moved. Pausing to crouch on all fours, he suddenly disappeared from sight, moving so swiftly as he leapt that his passage was invisible. Bottles rattled as he vanished somewhere on the booze shelves.

Small heads and figures were appearing all over the store. From around crates stacked in corners, on the tops of units, hanging from shelves. Two were peeping through the bead curtains behind the counter, which led into the living area of the store. And each time that Wayne swung his torch beam to shine on one of these bizarre children, he or she would vanish from sight in a blur of motion. Not one of them could be more than four years old.

“It’s the light!” Alex had found his voice. “Wayne, they don’t like the light.”

Wayne ignored him, swinging the torch again when a small figure sped through the air from one of the shelves in a blur, heading for the front window or the door. Using his torch as a club, Wayne struck out. The blow connected. There was a sound not unlike a small child crying out, and the next moment one of the small figures was lying on the floor at Wayne’s feet; by the look of it, it was perhaps three years old. It struggled to rise as Wayne shone the torch directly down on its writhing body.

Wayne raised his foot.

“No!” shouted Candy. “Don’t…”

But it was too late.

Wayne stamped down hard on the child. Whether it was a boy or a girl was difficult to tell. When the child screeched, Candy cried out, and Alex moved forward to the counter in horror. It twisted to get away. But Wayne followed it, his lip curled in disgust, and stamped on it again. The creature began to croak, waving its arms feebly. Wayne stamped again.

It was dead.

Something hissed in the darkness, flashing through the air.

Wayne was flung back against the shelves, hitting them so hard that bottles began to fall around him. Dazed, he tried to push himself away, as the boy who had hit him in the chest with both feet suddenly appeared on the floor next to the dead creature and began pulling it away across the store floor. Something else streaked towards Wayne from the other side of the counter, and when a naked little girl suddenly appeared crouching on the front windowsill, Wayne yelled in pain and grabbed at his side. He brought his hand up to his face, shining the torch on it. His fingers were wet with blood, and when he looked down at his side he could see that a chunk had been bitten out of his shirt, and out of his flesh. Moaning, he shone the torch at the little girl.

Her face was the face of the angel.

But her lips were bared in a snarl, revealing the sharp teeth, and the blood on her chin.

“You little shit!” shouted Wayne.

He grabbed a bottle from the shelf and hurled it at the girl. But in a puff of flour dust she was gone. The bottle smashed through the front window.

“Wayne!” shouted Alex, moving around the counter. “For God’s sake, don’t move!”

But both Alex and Candy reared back when a small figure previously hidden from sight suddenly bounded up in the air from the other side of the counter. In one lithe motion, a naked two-year-old boy was suddenly crouching on the counter before them. They could not see the details of his face, but knew that he would have the same angelic countenance as the others. Blue eyes glinted in the darkness, his lips parting to reveal the same pointed teeth as he gave a low snarl at them both. The body language was unmistakable. Don’t make another move.

Beyond, Wayne screamed, clutching at the back of his neck. He staggered away from the shelves as more bottles began to fall around him.

“Oh Christ,” said Alex.

Suddenly the air was full of flashing movement as Wayne began to whirl violently on the spot, his arms lashing out around him. Shadows leaped and pranced, the torch beam swinging crazily all over the store. Tins, packets and bottles were falling all around Wayne as he shrieked and beat at the air.

“Don’t,” said Candy weakly. “Please don’t.”

The boy before them did not respond, merely inclining his head marginally over his ridged shoulder to look briefly at them as Wayne made a break for the door.

Another flash of movement, and suddenly the door was slammed shut, sending the flour gusting into the air again. Another flash, and Wayne shrieked once more, clutching at his face but refusing to let go of the torch. Something hit him hard from behind. He straightened in pain, his back arching as he was flung forward. He flailed with the torch. The sounds of ripping fabric and rapid, invisible movement all around him filled the air.

“Please,” said Alex. “Make it stop.”

The boy on the counter did not move.

And suddenly, Wayne was hugging his body with both arms and tottering to a standstill in the centre of the store. The flashing movement stopped. Wayne was still moaning, but no longer thrashing. In shock, he tried to take a step forward. The torch was shining up from below into his face, making it look like a Hallowe’en mask. But in that short moment, Alex and Candy could see what damage had been done to him.

Wayne’s face had been bitten in several places. A flap of skin hung from one cheek. Three diagonal gashes on his forehead were bleeding copiously, the blood running down into his eyes and dripping from his nose. It pooled at his chin, splashing down his shirt front—a shirt front that was also ragged, bloodied and torn where the creatures had bitten further chunks out of him. His hands were lacerated. Small bite-sized chunks had been taken out of his jeans and the flesh of his legs.

Somewhere out of sight, one of the children mewled in distress over the body that Wayne had stamped on.

Wayne took another step towards them.

“Help me,” he said simply, and fell to his knees.

The torch fell from his nerveless fingers and rolled across the floor in an arc of light until it bumped against the serving counter. From below, the light shone up on to the boy who was keeping Alex and Candy back. He flinched only slightly, raising an arm to cover his cherub’s face.

And suddenly, the air was alive with flashing movement again. All around Wayne.

He pitched forward, out of sight.

This time they could see the children. Bouncing down from shelves to where Wayne lay. A ripping of cloth and another guttural moan of pain before a small figure flashed away into the darkness. Another angelic but bloodied face, snarling before it vanished once more. Like a wild and feral pack, the children continued their remorseless assault. Striking, flashing out of sight. Striking again, and vanishing into the darkness.

Finally Wayne stopped making any kind of sound at all.

Now there was only the ripping of cloth and a flurrying of flour dust.

Then, silence.

No movement. And no sign of the children, apart from the boy who crouched on the counter, standing guard.

His pulse pounding in his temples, Alex looked at Candy.

Her face was drawn and white. But there was more than an expression of horror on her face now. Throughout the encounter, she had clutched Alex’s hand, like him too afraid to move lest they should also be attacked. But now her gaze remained leveled on the one remaining boy. And it was a gaze that spoke of other things. Something way beyond the horror they had witnessed. Some kind of awful, impossible revelation, even more bizarre and terrifying than anything they’d yet seen in the hellishly transformed city that had once been Edmonville.

The boy was looking around the store, still shading his face from the torch beam. Was he checking to make sure that all of his companions had gone now? Was it his task to be the last to leave?

“Alex,” said Candy. It seemed that she was using all of her remaining energy to utter just that one word.

The boy turned to look at her. This time there was no threat. This time it was just the curious face of a young child, or an angel.

“Oh good Christ, Alex,” said Candy. She seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating. “Look.”

Alex looked at the boy.

And refused to believe what he saw.

“No,” he said simply. “No, I won’t believe it.”

They recoiled in alarm at a flurry of motion.

And then the boy was gone, raising plaster dust from the counter. The strip light swayed crazily; the front door of the store jarred open.

They were alone.

“No,” said Alex simply again, moving carefully around the edge of the counter in case any of the “children” were still in the store.

Wayne lay face down and still amidst the debris on the floor. It was impossible to tell whether the dark pool in which he lay was from the myriad broken bottles or whether it was his own blood. But Alex didn’t have to examine him closely to know that he was dead. Stooping carefully, looking all around, he switched off the torch and picked it up.

“Come on, Candy.”

He held out his hand.

“Alex, did you see…?”

“Come on, Candy!”

Fingers trembling, Candy reached out and took his hand. Step by careful step, they made their way over the broken bottles and littered floor. Candy refused to look at Wayne, keeping her eyes tight shut and letting herself be guided.

Outside, night lay heavily on Edmonville, the ragged and fractured outlines of ruined buildings all around them as they clambered away from this latest nightmare.

“We’ve got to hurry,” said Alex. “The Black Stuff may come back.”

Candy was silent as they made their way back down the rubble-strewn street. Suddenly, it was as if she’d never had a drink that day.

In silence, they reached the end of the street and turned in towards the park. They could see the flames leaping from the bonfire. It evoked a deep and primal response within them both. To get back to the light and take refuge by the roaring flames. To keep the darkness and the terror that hid in the dark at bay.

“It was,” said Candy simply as they moved.

“It wasn’t!” snapped Alex, hanging on to her hand and dragging her after him. And then, later: “Christ, Candy! It couldn’t be!”

They plunged on through the darkness, towards the light.

But both knew what they had seen, even if they could not comprehend it.

The cherub on the counter, the one that had kept them back while the others killed Wayne. The face of an angel. A face they knew only too well.

The face of their own son, Ricky.

Killed at the age of two in a garden accident over two years ago.