When Hoheria woke in the morning she lay on her mattress trying to remember the events of the previous night. But there was a big blank. The last thing she could recall was holding Eric’s head out of the water. Had the lavender bath worked? Where was the Ponaturi? Something wasn’t right. She looked across at Cheryl and Eric, lying with Paki on the other side of the room. Paki’s face looked battered. And where was Kevin? Where was his warm, familiar shape, his fresh-cut hay smell? Maybe he’d already arisen and was getting breakfast, or wood for the fire. Worried, she turned her head and looked around the room. To her relief, there was Kevin. She could see his straw-coloured hair poking out from his blanket. But why wasn’t he beside her? Why didn’t he have his arms around her, his face snuggled into her neck?
While she lay there wondering, Kevin woke. She watched as he twitched back the blanket and turned towards her. She gasped. Someone had given him a terrible beating. His nose and eyes were swollen, leaking blood. He tried to stretch and winced instead. Who had done that to him? Why was he looking away? Why wouldn’t he meet her gaze? What was going on?
‘What happened to your poor face?’ she called.
Kevin looked disbelieving at her. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘And what’s up with Paki?’ Kevin sat up carefully. He pulled his blanket around his shoulders.
The movement made dust motes dance in a beam of sunlight shining through the still-shattered kitchen window.
‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘The monster’s in you. It made you beat us up.’
Hoheria’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re kidding!’
‘I’m not. And you’re too strong for us. Even Paki couldn’t hold you.’ Hoheria was shocked into silence. She continued to gaze at Kevin as the questions flooded, but in the end he answered the question burning in the front of her mind. ‘Don’t worry. We won’t give up on you.’
The conversation woke Cheryl. Immediately, she looked across at Hoheria and recoiled, her arms tight around Eric. Paki snored on. ‘Are you okay?’ Hoheria called. Cheryl didn’t reply. Her mouth tightened. She pulled the blanket snug around her family.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Hoheria. ‘I hurt Paki.’
Kevin answered her. ‘You sure did. He tried to stop you. You broke his arm and some of his ribs. You knocked him out.’ Silence followed. Cheryl glared, a mixture of fear and hatred.
Hoheria looked horrified. ‘What can I say? I’m so sorry…’ She wanted to move to Paki, but she didn’t want to alarm anyone further.
Cheryl spoke, for the first time. ‘We know it wasn’t you. We know that thing’s inside you now. But we can’t let it happen again. No way. You might kill somebody.’
Hoheria burst into tears. ‘I knew Eric felt bad, but not this bad,’ she sobbed. ‘I love you all. How could I do this to you?’ Awake now, Paki struggled to sit up. Hoheria looked in horror at his strapped chest, his arm in a sling.
‘It’s nothing,’ Paki said. Cheryl’s expression said she disagreed entirely. ‘I’ll heal. But we’d better get that thing out of you before somebody gets really hurt.’
Kevin heaved himself to his feet. He stepped across the room to Hoheria and embraced her. Silently they clung to each other.
‘The blue fire!’ Paki said suddenly.
Hoheria turned her head. Her sobs had stopped, but her face was streaked with tears. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You must be able to use it to stop that thing. We just have to figure out how.’
They spent the next two hours discussing what might be possible, and in the end they were no further ahead.
‘It’s too risky driving it out,’ said Paki. ‘What if it gets in me? I’m a big, strong bugger to begin with. I hate to think what’d happen.’
‘I agree,’ said Hoheria. ‘Best it stays in me. We just have to keep us all safe.’ She looked quizzically at Paki. ‘What’s it doing now?’
Paki unfocussed his everyday vision and looked hard at Hoheria. After a while he raised his head. ‘It’s in there, but it doesn’t look happy. I think it wants out.’
Hoheria thought for a moment. ‘I remember this old man from somewhere way up north, a friend of my grandfather’s.’ She looked far away. ‘I didn’t like him. He scared me. But he said something once that stuck in my mind. He said you had to gobble up bad things and make them part of yourself.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I suppose I’m halfway there.’
‘I’ve got it,’ said Cheryl. ‘Eric changed at night, and it looks like you’re the same. So we just have to find a safe place and lock you up before it gets dark.’
‘Got to keep the herd safe,’ muttered Paki.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. It’s an old Stephen King story with a good-guy werewolf in it.’
‘I remember that story!’ said Kevin excitedly. ‘The werewolf was a shepherd and once a month, on the full moon, he’d lock the sheep in a barn so he couldn’t get at them!’ He looked around the room at everyone. ‘Maybe we should get used to sleeping locked in a jail cell. We’d probably be safe there.’
Paki shook his head.
‘We might be safe but nobody else would be.’
‘We can try it,’ Hoheria said. ‘We can lock me in the police cells for the night.’ She giggled. Kevin heard a note of hysteria. ‘There’s a first time for everything.’
‘I can’t remember my first time in a cell,’ said Paki. ‘It’s too far back.’
Late in the day they walked to the police station, carrying food and drink and a bundle of bedding.
‘You might get cold,’ Paki said. ‘Keep wrapped up warm.’ They found a set of keys hanging on the wall near what must have been the sergeant’s desk. It was scrupulously tidy, with two files sitting on a pristine desk blotter and a photo in a gilt frame of a woman and two children. Everything was covered in dust.
‘The cleaners haven’t been for a while,’ commented Cheryl wryly.
Out the back they found two cells, equipped with stainless steel basins and toilet bowls. A single cot in each had a hard and thin plastic-covered mattress with a single blanket folded neatly on the end.
Paki stepped forward to one of the open doors. ‘If you need anything just ring for room service,’ he joked.
‘I wouldn’t choose to stay here,’ said Hoheria. ‘This colour scheme is definitely not for me.’ The walls were a sort of institutional green. They could see graffiti showing through the paint. Underfoot were grey lino tiles.
‘I’m going to spend the night outside the cell,’ announced Kevin.
Paki gave him a sad look. ‘You’d better not, bro,’ he said. ‘No telling what she might talk you into.’
‘He’s right,’ said Hoheria. She marched into the cell and checked her bedding and food on the mattress. ‘Please let me out first thing, though. I hate being shut in.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Paki. ‘We’ll be here.’ He turned to Kevin. ‘You’d better say your goodnights.’ He looked around the cell. Light came dimly through a small barred window high in one wall.
Kevin stepped forward and embraced Hoheria, kissing her and stroking her hair. ‘I love you, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I hope this goes well for you. And please don’t hurt yourself trying to get out of here.’
‘I don’t think I will,’ she said. ‘You’d better go, it’s starting to get dark.’ She went to caress Kevin’s face, but was stopped by the sight of his swellings, now turned green and purple. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ She turned her back on Kevin, and he had no choice but to step away, out of the cell and into the corridor. Paki shut the heavy steel door and turned the key in the lock.
‘I hope she’s okay,’ Cheryl said during their sombre walk home, each of them, even Eric, infected by the faint air of despair and hopelessness that still clung to the cell.
‘I hope so too,’ said Kevin. ‘It’s horrible locking her up.’
Paki nursed his broken arm and tried not to breathe too heavily. ‘Don’t walk so fast, you guys,’ he said. ‘It hurts if I have to puff and pant. I shouldn’t be walking around at all. I should be lying down.’ They stepped out onto the road to avoid a hedge that had grown untrimmed over the footpath. Paki was grey with the strain of walking with his broken ribs, hissing with pain when he stumbled.
‘We’d better have you flat on your back soon,’ Cheryl said. ‘Not far now.’ She turned to Eric, who was walking beside her, holding her hand. He looked up at her, and she nearly melted at the love and trust in his eyes. He held her hand tightly and smiled.
‘What d’you reckon about that blue fire?’ Kevin asked Paki when they were back home, Hoheria locked in her cell. Full of rabbit stew and chunks of bread, they lay on mattresses around the stove, watching the candlelight dance in occasional breaths of wind through the broken window.
‘It’s probably the answer,’ said Paki. ‘But buggered if I know how it works. Love’s the key to it. That’s all I can say for sure.’ He lay on his back looking at the ceiling, his cracked and broken ribs twingeing with his breathing. ‘Whatever it is, she has to do it when she’s still herself. It’s too late after she’s changed. We found that out the hard way.’
Two streets away, the family was gathered around a woodstove, mattresses close together on the floor, the only illumination moonlight through lace curtains. A man and a woman slept in each other’s arms, beneath a duvet and a crocheted rug. Snoring lightly was a teenaged youth, his beard downy and his face hardening into adulthood. Two young children shared a mattress, snuffling and snorting as they dreamed.
The thing that peered in the window at them looked barely human. Pointed shark teeth stretched its mouth and fish eyes bulged. But still, it was familiar. Anyone who knew her would have recognised Hoheria. And they would have wondered where the nightmare came from, strange and terrifying, someone they knew, yet horribly twisted, turned into something ghastly.
They woke when the creature crashed into the room, shattering the window and showering glass over the sleeping family. The man threw back the duvet and jumped to his feet. The creature knocked him insensible with a closed fist, then picked up the woman by her hair. It hurled her against the wall and she sank to the floor, unconscious. Then it turned to the young man, now on his feet and facing the creature, a knife in his hand. The figures stood out in the pale light. The two children, propelled by terror, burrowed beneath their blanket. The young man gulped and swallowed. He held his knife out before him. The creature knocked it out of his hand and seizing him around his throat, locked eyes.
The young man tried to look away but the creature’s gaze was irresistible. Moonlight glinted on scaly skin and he found himself pulled into its eyes as if he was being sucked down by a swirling river current. As the creature squeezed his neck he felt a mounting horror. It wasn’t just killing him, it was drinking him. A weakness grew in the pit of his stomach. He felt his strength vanishing into the creature. His hands hung by his side, and his legs all but gave way. What vision he had left began to blur. He went limp, almost unconscious, and the creature shook him in anger. The last thing his numbed brain took in was the creature bending down towards him, its mouth opening and the moonlight shining on its teeth. He passed out as the teeth sank into his skin and he didn’t feel a thing as it ripped his throat out. With a snarl of fury the creature let the young man’s corpse drop, turned and leapt out the window.
Kevin was awake at first light. He soon had the fire lit and water boiling for a cup of tea.
‘C’mon,’ he cried to everyone. ‘Up and at ’em. We’d better get down to the cell and let Hoheria out.’ Within half an hour they were at the police station. Kevin turned the key in the lock and swung the door wide.
Hoheria was sitting on the edge of her bed, ready to go, with her blankets rolled and tied.
‘Am I ever glad to see you guys,’ she said. ‘That was a really long night.’ She seemed puzzled.
Kevin gave her a searching look. Was that blood on her clothes? ‘What happened?’ he said.
She followed his gaze. ‘I cut my hand,’ she said. It was wrapped in a torn scrap of sheet.
‘Did you change?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so. Maybe not. I’m really worried, Kevin. I think something happened, but I just can’t remember.’ She looked nervously at Kevin and Paki, then around the cell. ‘Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the heebie jeebies.’ She helped Kevin pick up her gear. ‘Whatever it was, I’m okay now.’ None of them looked upwards at the small high window, its bars bent and shatter-proof glass smashed out.
Back home they sat around the table breakfasting on barley cakes and fresh fruit.
‘Well, where do we go from here?’ asked Kevin. Hoheria seemed cowed, distracted and worried.
‘Best you go to the markets for the day,’ said Paki. He hadn’t moved from his mattress on the floor. ‘At least you guys can. I’m staying here till I feel better.’
‘Sounds like a good idea,’ said Kevin. ‘We can find out from other people what’s going on around the place.’ He looked at Hoheria. ‘You know, if anyone else is possessed.’
The markets were buzzing.
‘Wonder what’s happening?’ Kevin said to Hoheria. She shrugged, and carried on helping Cheryl set up their trestle table. While they were loading it with the seedlings they were selling and trading they heard a loud scream. When they looked up in surprise, a woman standing nearby was pointing, straight at Hoheria.
‘It’s her!’ she shrieked. ‘Look out! She’s a monster!’
Kevin turned to Hoheria, a sinking feeling growing. Something must have happened. But what? The young woman looked baffled.
‘Look after her,’ he said to Cheryl. ‘I’m going to find out what’s going on.’ He moved across to the woman and started talking. Cheryl could see her, wide-eyed and white-faced, no longer screaming, but still pointing and talking excitedly. ‘Monster’, Cheryl kept hearing, and then, to her horror, ‘…killed him…’ She saw Kevin’s shoulders slump. When he turned back to Hoheria, his look was one of despair and hopelessness.
‘We’d better check the cell,’ he said when he returned to the stall. He looked at Hoheria and took her hand. ‘You did change, and somehow you got out and back in again.’
‘I thought so,’ said Hoheria in a resigned voice. ‘I hoped it wasn’t true. Tell me what I did.’
Kevin put an arm around Hoheria and hugged her. ‘This is horrible,’ he said. ‘You killed this young man. You tore his throat out with your teeth. You knocked people out.’
Hoheria’s jaw dropped. Her mouth opened. ‘I didn’t –’
‘You did, girl. They’re terrified of you. You’re too strong for them. Looks like you’re too much for that jail cell too.’
The woman had moved across to the stall, in front of Hoheria. She raised her arm again and pointed. ‘I know how to stop you,’ she said. ‘We’ll kill you. See how you like being shot.’ She sounded righteous as well as scared.
‘Steady on,’ said Kevin. ‘You won’t have to do that. We’ll take care of her.’
The woman looked doubtful. ‘Like you did last night, I suppose.’ She glared at Hoheria, who was looking frightened and vulnerable.
Kevin just couldn’t imagine her harming anybody, until he thought back to the way she’d attacked him and Paki. ‘Look at her,’ he said. ‘Does she look like she’s enjoying this? She’s possessed by one of the Ponaturi.’ He was starting to raise his voice now. ‘She got that way saving a young boy.’ He put a protective arm around Hoheria’s shoulders. ‘I won’t let you hurt her. Leave her alone.’
The woman took a step back. ‘I’m going to get Jim,’ she said. ‘He’ll blow her away. You won’t be able to stop him.’ She gave Hoheria a final glare, turned and stalked off.
‘I know that Jim,’ said Cheryl. ‘If you’ll pardon the expression, he’s as mean as catshit.’ She patted Hoheria’s hand. The young woman was crying, quietly and despairingly. ‘You’d better get out of here while you can.’
‘Where can I go? Where can I hide?’
‘Try the other police cell,’ said Kevin. ‘I’ll lock you in.’ He thought for a moment. ‘We have to figure a way of keeping you safe tonight. We have to find out how you escaped and got back in.’
‘I know,’ said Cheryl. ‘You must have got out through the window bars. There isn’t any other way.’ She looked awestruck at the thought of Hoheria smashing the safety glass and bending the heavy iron bars. Then a thought struck her. ‘Maybe we can use heavy chain and padlocks.’
‘Sounds gross,’ said Kevin. ‘But it might work.’ He spoke to Hoheria. ‘Do you mind? We have to do something. We haven’t got much time.’
‘Of course I mind,’ said Hoheria. The tears had stopped. She sounded angry. ‘But I don’t have a lot of choice.’ She looked around the market. ‘We’d better hurry, too, before Jim gets here.’
They found some heavy chain and a padlock in a hardware shop on the way to the police station.
‘Quick,’ Cheryl hurried them along outside the police station. ‘It’s getting late in the day, and I need to get back to Paki.’
‘We’ll try the other cell,’ Kevin said. ‘I don’t want some redneck fool poking a rifle through the window.’ He raised an eyebrow at Hoheria. ‘The thought of you breaking out of a jail cell is just mind-boggling.’ He wound the chain around and through Hoheria’s legs, and padlocked it. ‘I’ll be back shortly with food and bedding,’ he said. ‘I’ll lock the door in the meantime. Safer for you.’
Hoheria gave Kevin a sorrowful look. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ she said. She threw her arms around Kevin’s neck. ‘Whatever happens, just remember how much I love you.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ Kevin said. ‘You’ll be okay.’ He started moving towards the door, stopped and turned. ‘I’ll wait outside while Cheryl gets your gear.’