Darkness Demands Part 2

"But Dad-"

"We'll get another f.u.c.king bird, OK?"

"Keitha" Audrey's voice, calmer, but still trembling. "Keith, stop swearing at the girlsa please."

Keith's voice cut through the air sharp as a knife. "Audrey! Get in that f.u.c.king car!"

"I still haven't locked the back door of the house. I thought-"

"For pity's sake, womana"

John took the path to the lane, keen to see if Elizabeth was still there, but he walked with his head to the right, trying to look through the hedge at the fabulous sequence of events unfolding next door. The hedge was too thick. All he could rely on were the sounds of the fear-shot voices. This time it was like listening to an old time radio play.

Keith screeched, "Stella, where on earth are you going? Stella! Get back in that d.a.m.n car. Now!"

"I'm getting Archie."

"I told you! Forget the birda" Then under his breath, but loud enough to carry through hawthorn. "Oh, f.u.c.king Jesus H. Christ."

If the Haslems operated a swear box (as once the Newtons tried to implement when Paul went through a 's.h.i.t this' and 'b.a.s.t.a.r.d that' stage when he was eight), then Keith Haslem was well on the way to personal bankruptcy.

"Get back in the d.a.m.n car!"

"Keith, stop swearing," Audrey begged piteously. "The neighbors will-"

"I don't care about the f.u.c.king neighbors. If the neighbors had any f.u.c.king sense they'd be clearing out, tooa Stellaa Stella! Oh, all right then, but the cage will have to go on your knee. Credit cards! Credit cards! Audrey did you pick up the credit cards?"

If the neighbors had any f.u.c.king sense they'd be clearing out, tooa John's curiosity was wriggling like a toad on a hook now. Why the h.e.l.l should we be leaving the village? What on earth was happening?

John quickened his pace. That tickle of disquiet had become a fullblown itch. He'd rest easier once he'd seen Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, at a break in the hedge he glimpsed Keith's bald head, now a dangerous shade of blueberry and slick with perspiration. If the man didn't slow down, he'd drop dead in his tracks, with a ruptured aorta spurting like a garden hose.

The man shouted, "Audry, get a move on! If we don't get away from here now we'll be too late!"

The world, John decided without a shadow of a doubt, was turning very weird, very fast.

2.

John opened the garden gate. Up the lane to the left, the old man in pajamas and straw hat still hobbled up the lane in tiny mincing steps as if his life depended on it. Now John saw Martin Marcello, who ran the village post office. He followed the old man, that much was clear, but he walked slowly enough not to gain on him.

"Curious." John murmured to himself.

There was no sign of Elizabeth up the lane. He decided to turn right downhill. Possibly Elizabeth had cycled toward the village on the off chance she could find one of her playmates. Even so, she'd been told dozens of times not to go into the village without John, Val or, at a pinch, Paul.

Seconds after heading downhill along the track John nearly lost his life to the hood of the Haslems' car as it sped out of the driveway. John leapt back. Like a photograph the image stayed glued to his mind of the terrified looking family in the car: Keith clutching the steering wheel, his eyes wide, his mouth still hammering away in over-drive as he shouted at his family and maybe the world in general. Only the sound of his voice was now drowned beneath the howl of the car's motor.

At least with a nod toward neighborliness John lifted a hand at the Haslems in greeting but they ignored him. They were locked inside some private drama; nothing else mattered now. Seemingly, they were on a mission from G.o.d (and running well behind schedule), or they were fleeing for their very lives. John noticed the canary in its cage on one of the laps of the little girls. In the end it hadn't been left to starve.

John continued down the hill, the loose stones rolling and grating beneath his feet. The lane itself, according to a plaque at the junction, was two thousand years old. Roman road engineers had run this track as straight as a pool cue ninety miles across what would be England's waistline linking Leeds with Whitby on the coast. Along it had marched conquering legions. Most of the road was lost beneath fields and cities now, of course. But here for half a mile or so it still ran straight and white as bone. Faint grooves could be seen that marked the wear of ancient chariot wheels. Over the centuries it had been downgraded to little more than a track and the once mighty Via Constantine was even demoted by name to merely the Back Lane. Where travelers once might have seen a discarded legionnaire's javelin or come across a coin bearing the head of Caesar now there were the usual scattering of gum wrappers, cigarette b.u.t.ts and shards of broken beer bottle that caught the morning sun in bursts of dazzling light. Across an edging block that an Etruscan navvy would have levered into place with hands as hard as boot leather there was a condom. It had been stretched out of shape to near shocking dimensions. ("Oh, look, Dad," Elizabeth had exclaimed on seeing it yesterday. "Someone's lost a pink balloon!" "No, sweetheart, don't pick it upa" "Why not, Dad?" "Youa" He'd paused. "You don't know where it's been, hon.") Flanking the lane were the houses of bank managers, lawyers, businessmen-and a writer of true-life crime stories, namely one John Douglas Newton, age thirty-five. A man with a little more than three days-that's seventy-two little hours-to find a follow-up to Blast His Eyes. His agent had been right when he'd telephoned John after reading the Blast His Eyes ma.n.u.script and announced 'the book's going to be big box officea d.a.m.n big box officea' and he was right. d.a.m.n right. Was his agent right now? That already Tom was predicting Without Trace would be dismissed as a warmed over collection of missing persons stories? h.e.l.l. Tom had sowed the seeds of doubt. John was beginning to catch a scent surrounding his new book. And that scent was definitely hinting Crock O' s.h.i.t.

This wasn't a nice experience.

As if seeing himself from outside his body, say from that sparrow's eye view as it sat high on the telephone line, he saw himself walking down the road in a T-shirt, jeans (with a fist size hole in one knee), and wearing untied shoes that flopped on his feet.

Witness one John Douglas Newton. In three days Mr. Newton must deliver a hotshot idea to his literary agent. Meanwhile he's in search of one absent daughter, age nine, with a pa.s.sion for Killer Whales and strawberry ice cream. John Douglas Newton, a man innocently walking along a peaceful country lane in the old country. A lane that will take him into a territory populated with fear and miserya a place that lies between darkness and lighta Yeah, he thought, all that's needed right now is the pitter-patter notes of the Twilight Zone theme to come tip-toeing out of those trees across there.

Ignoring the mind chatter, John pressed on. Now the main road that cut across the Back Lane was in sight. Beyond that, the village proper with its stone cottages, pub and green bounded on one side by a pond. It would be the English Tourist Board's vision of the idyllic rural village if it wasn't for the vast Necropolis-AKA City of the Dead-on the hill. A hundred acre cemetery once served by its own miniature railway system that pa.s.sed beneath an archway on which was inscribed: BOUND FOR GLORY.

Now there was sense that the old lane was getting ready to run underground, the level of the lane dropped, the banks rose so he was fully enclosed on three sides with only a strip of open blue sky above him. In the distance came the tolling of the cemetery bell.

It was then that he found Elizabeth.

As simply as that.

Her bicycle had been dropped on its side. Elizabeth lay on her back on a sunlit swathe of dandelions and clover.

John Newton took one look at her, and in a curiously dislocated way, and more in surprise than shock, said to himself: "My G.o.d. Her throat's been cut."

CHAPTER 3.

1.

Her throat's been cuta At that moment the world vanished. Or at least to John Newton it did. The lane, the trees, the stone cottages, the swan on the village pond, even the blue sky. Everything blurred and was sucked to some other place.

Everything, that is, but Elizabeth.

He stared down at his daughter. She lay with her eyes wide open. Blood covered her throat in a broad wet slick. From there it drenched her yellow T-shirt.

There was so much soil mixed with the blood. It looked as if a handful of brown dirt had been poured onto it, so it still stood proud and dry of the blood flooding down his daughter's body.

Her throat's been cuta The words churned through his mind. Now they made no sense to him.

All he could do was stand, starea while those dumb, meaningless stupid words rolled round the inside of his uncomprehending skull.

Her throat's been cuta At that moment Elizabeth sighed. She pulled herself onto one elbow as if she were in bed waiting for her goodnight kiss.

All of a sudden words gushed from his lips. It was the question parents always ask: "Elizabeth! What happened to you?"

The world rushed back into focus around him; he was down on his knees beside her, helping her sit up on the gra.s.s.

Elizabeth struggled to draw breath, then she said, "I fell offa stupid thing!" She tried to kick the bike.

Elizabeth's answer seemed as obvious as John's question. But at least it explained everything.

"Jesus, Lizzie," John said, feeling concern burst like a bomb inside his chest. "I thought you were-" Dead? Seamlessly he moderated what he was saying. "I thought you were really badly hurt."

"I am badly hurt," she retorted. "It's that stupid bike. It's no good."

"Herea let me have a look. No, hon, lift your chin up for mea uha that's a bad cut, sweetheart."

"Are my shoes spoilt?"

"No, they're okay, hon."

"I'm not going to the hospital."

"I'm afraid you are." Now he could see what looked like a second open mouth just under her chin. The skin had well and truly split wide open. Still he found himself shocked by the amount of soil in and around the wound.

"You've really taken a tumble, haven't you?"

"Am I going to die?"

"No." He quickly hugged her and made sure she saw his rea.s.suring smile. "But we've got to get it sorted outa or you'll end up bleeding all over the furniture."

"Stupid bike."

"How did you fall off?" Again he realized it was another one of those all too obvious parent-questions (it belonged in the same file as 'If you break your leg don't come running to me').

"A stone," she said, now more angry than shocked. "There was a stone that did it."

He looked. There was no stone. More likely she'd just been going too fast, then simply lost control of the bike. His priority now was to get her to the hospital. He didn't like the way her blood trickled so freely from her chin. If anything those ruby red drips were coming faster than ever.

"Come on, Elizabeth" he told her gently. "Let's go and get you sorted out."

Instead of waiting to be helped to her feet she grabbed the bike, stood up and began pushing it back up the lane in the direction of home.

"Waita it's all right, hon. I'll do that," he told her quickly, surprised at her resilience. If anything she seemed angry rather than hurt. But then she'd always had a high pain threshold; visiting the dentist never fazed her; she hadn't even cried as a baby when she received her infant inoculations. Mingling with the shock of seeing her as b.l.o.o.d.y as this, he also felt a good shot of pride. Elizabeth was made of tough stuff. If she could take life's knocks with such aplomb she'd go far.

He'd taken the bike from her by now and he wheeled it along the lane. Elizabeth walked with her head held high, seemingly defying the injury to ruin her self-composure. She walked with her hand cupped a few inches below her face, catching the dripping blood, until a pool of glistening red formed in her palm.

G.o.d, she was a tough cookie. He shook his head in wonder and followed his daughter along the grooves worn by the long gone Roman chariots.

2.

In the front of the car, Elizabeth sat calmly on the bath towel he'd spread out for her. Another towel covered her lap, while she held a fistful of kitchen tissue to her still bleeding chin. She looked like a midget Santa Clause figure complete with bushy beard.

Patiently she gazed in front of her as he rushed round the garden, urging the dog into the kitchen where he'd have to stay penned until their return. He tried telephoning Val to let her know what was happening. Her mobile was switched off. No doubt she'd be embroiled in a meeting. He thought about leaving a note for Paul but took the gamble he wouldn't be back for a long time yet.

By this time John allowed himself the luxury of trembling a little, which must have been partly relief at finding Elizabeth more or less in one piece. Even so, he was just about holding everything together and made a point of locking shut windows and setting the burglar alarm. But then canceling it because he'd forgotten his wallet and some coins. Even though you might have broken your leg or gashed open your head the hospital still demanded that you pay to park your car there.

At last he'd switched on the radio in the kitchen (the dog would bark and worry the rugs if left alone in silence), then reset the alarm before going out to the car. Now Elizabeth's kitchen tissue beard had turned red against her chin as the blood soaked through.

When he jogged to the end of the drive to open the double gates he heard agitated voices-one male, one female-coming from the lane itself.

Despite his urgency in getting Elizabeth to the hospital he found himself tuning into what was being said. Perhaps it was the emotion in the voices that caught his attention. If anything the woman's voice sounded fearful while the man's veered more to anger.

"I tell you," the still unseen woman was saying. "It was the letter. That's why he was so upset this morning. He's never gone off before like this. The letter must-"

"Why on earth did you show it to him, then?"

"I didn't intend to. I left it on the table. But he came in asking for breakfast while-"

"Breakfast! He's always asking for breakfast."

"He saw the letter and-"

"You should've thrown it away."

"I didn't have time, Robert. When he saw it he just cried out. He was like a little boy screaming as if he'd hurt himself."

"Dear G.o.d." The Dear G.o.d was laced with irritation.

"Robert, he was terrified."

"He read it, then?"

"Yes."

"Why on earth did you let him run off like that? In his pajamas! We must be b.l.o.o.d.y laughing stocks. Why can'ta"

John now saw the couple as he swung open the driveway gates. The man had seen John, too, and clammed up.

John showed that he wasn't paying any attention to the couple. But the truth of the matter was the writer side of him never switched off. Even in the present circ.u.mstances with his daughter dripping blood into a towel.

It wasn't deliberate on his part; it was fully automatic now. Even at funerals some part of his mind would absorb details for future work, whether images, the things people said, or peculiar incidents.