Pandaemonium Part 22

Julie nods.

Gillian leads her up to the wall and nudges the mirror aside, revealing the spyhole. Julie leans against the cornflower plaster and closes one eye. She squints, wiggles her head unsatisfactorily.

'Cannae see anything,' she whispers. 'Too dark.'

'Let me try.'

Gillian presses her head to the wall, keeping the mirror levered away with her elbow. The lights have been switched off next door, right enough. She gestures Julie to flip off their own switch. 'Quietly,' she mouths.

She looks again, shapes gradually forming in the dark, black becoming minutely distinct shades of grey. There is something moving, writhing, definitely, but with one eye and limited depth perception, it remains shapeless. They must be under the bedcovers. Just have to be patient, and all will be revealed.

Julie's nudging her.

'Let me.'

'Just a sec.'

'Come on.'

'Just a sec.'

She hears a slapping sound, a guttural breathing, deep and masculine. There are more p.r.o.nounced stirrings, a peak appearing in the bedclothes, which seem imminently about to fall off and finally reveal what they are covering. Then Julie uses her bulk to shove Gillian out of the way, side-swiping her with her hips. There's delight, disbelief and mirth in Julie's eyes.

Gillian stumbles, off-balance from the way she was leaning. Stupid cow's probably given the game away doing that. She looks up, sees Julie shove her face against the plaster, mouth open slightly in concentration. Then just behind her, through the darkened window, she thinks she catches a glimpse of movement. How ironic would that be: getting spied upon while spying upon Liam and . . .

Gillian feels her entire body seized and shaken as though by some invisible giant as the window shatters and something hurtles through it, smashing into Julie with a crunch of bones. They end up on the floor a few feet from where Gillian has collapsed, having lost her footing in fright and slid backwards down the wall. She sees limbs tangling, clothed and bare, two heads, one Julie's, one bald, a thousand fragments of gla.s.s glinting in the moonlight on the floor.

Julie ends up face-down, the intruder on top, his head bowed so that Gillian cannot see his face. She can see Julie's, though, suddenly racked with pain and fear as he grips a long, jagged splinter of wood and drives it into her back.

Julie reaches out a hand to Gillian, but though she'd only have to come forward a foot to reach it, she cannot move, will not draw an inch from where she is pinned against the wall. He tugs and twists at the splinter, Julie screaming, reaching, Gillian paralysed, morbidly entranced.

Then the intruder lifts his head and looks at her.

It is as though white light and white noise have filled her head, some kind of information breakdown inside her brain. Though she doesn't close her eyes, she sees nothing for a few moments, hears nothing. When sound and vision return, it is to show the intruder thrusting its claw inside the wound in Julie's back, a scaly knee pressed into the base of her spine. Then it lets out a roar that shakes the room as its muscles tighten, commencing a wrenching action that silences Julie's cries forever.

The sound of the roar awakens something in Gillian, something so deep and automatic that she feels suddenly possessed, as though it is not her own will or even her own energy that moves her, scrambling backwards on her hands, feet, bottom, out of the room and into the corridor. Her body is no longer her own, but she is condemned to remain inside it, like a helpless pa.s.senger. Control of her eyes has been surrendered also. She wants to look away, wants to turn her head, wants to close them, cover them, but she cannot take her gaze from the creature. It climbs slowly to its feet and begins moving forward, rendered a dark silhouette now that she is in the light of the corridor. There is something in its hand, something dripping.

She has to climb, has to get upright, but it's almost as though she's forgotten how: as though whoever has possessed her needs to learn how to walk again. She pushes herself against the wall as the creature fills the door frame. Light hits it.

Oh Jesus.

There was no breakdown, no brain malfunction. She imagined nothing in the half-light. It really is a demon. And it's holding Julie's spinal cord in its fist, her head still attached, dangling like a mace.

Something inside reconnects, her own consciousness abruptly thrust back into the driver's seat in her brain. She's on her feet. She runs. She makes it to the first corner then slams into Liam, naked but for a towel wrapped around his waist, come to investigate. He reels, grabs her shoulders to steady himself and tries to hang on to her. She struggles to throw off his grip, wants to shout, to scream, to tell him, but her brain reboot hasn't fully completed. Instead her eyes convey the message. Liam turns to look just as Julie's head smashes into his face, crushing it like a bowling ball hitting a coconut.

As the demon rains down a second blow, Rebecca emerges, also towel-clad, through the fire door connecting the boys' and girls' corridors. She suffers no similar disconnect between eyes, brain and vocal cords. As Gillian runs, flat out, it feels like the entire pa.s.sageway is vibrating with the scream.

'Did you hear that?' Blake asks. 'Sounded like a window breaking.'

'Heard gla.s.s, yeah,' says Kane.

'I'd better go and check.'

'More likely somebody dropping a bottle outside. Just stay put - it won't be the last tonight, and we can put the kids on clean-up duty in the morning, when they can actually see what they're doing.'

'Yeah, okay,' Blake agrees. 'It didn't sound like a bottle to me, though.'

They hear some screams, muted slightly by the music from the dining room, but audible nonetheless.

Blake looks concerned. Hasn't spent quite enough time around kids, then. If you reacted to every shriek, thinking it was a scream of distress, you'd never be at peace.

Kane sighs, Blake once again very effectively hot-wiring his conscience.

'Should probably check it out,' he says, getting up. 'About time we relieved the others anyway.'

As he opens the door, a female voice echoes down the corridor, and Kane feels every hair on his flesh p.r.i.c.k up in response.

'That was was a scream.' a scream.'

Caitlin felt this odd sense of achievement when she realised Rocks was coming. She had to stifle a giggle as inappropriate and possibly insulting, but there was something simultaneously elating and comical about it, to say nothing of laughing at her own startlement when she felt the spasms and looked down to see the resultant jets.

She looks in his eyes, knows she won't be able to stem laughter if she sees it in his face too, but instead he seems disoriented, like she's just shaken him awake.

He looks down.

'Oh G.o.d, I'm sorry,' he says.

The now palpably doped-up Theresa puts two fingers down the collar of Marky's shirt and leads him towards the door of the outbuilding.

Marky languidly complies, though one of his hands is also holding one of Yvonne's. Giggling, she moves off too, three in a chain, reaching a hand out to Beansy. Now this is promising.

The jay is done and disposed of, the remains of the roach ground into the frozen-hard earth. No danger of conflagration, but better watch they don't trip over a lawnmower or walk into a big steaming pile of freshly laid cows.h.i.te.

Theresa stumbles a little, causing their wee chain to halt and disconnecting Yvonne's fingers from Beansy's. Beansy jogs ahead a wee touch, making it to the door first and sliding the heavy wooden crossbeam out of one of its joists. One side of the door swings open slightly. Theresa releases her fingers from Marky's collar and steps unsteadily into the gap, where she stops with a shudder.

Must have seen something she doesn't fancy. Maybe there is is a big steaming pile of freshly laid cows.h.i.te. But then she jerks her head back and stretches, as if on tiptoes, except that when Beansy happens to glance down, he sees that her feet aren't touching the ground. The la.s.sie is f.u.c.king levitating. Mental. a big steaming pile of freshly laid cows.h.i.te. But then she jerks her head back and stretches, as if on tiptoes, except that when Beansy happens to glance down, he sees that her feet aren't touching the ground. The la.s.sie is f.u.c.king levitating. Mental.

'Check oot David Blaine,' Marky says. 'How are you doing that?'

She rises higher, just a few inches, then Beansy hears this bubbling noise, followed by a dripping. Something's running off her feet on to the ground. Something dark.

She begins to turn in mid-air. That's when Beansy sees that she's got a pitchfork driven through her stomach and is being pivoted on it by . . .

'G.o.d in Govan.'

The light is very dim inside the barn, spilling in through high windows and the open door, but it's enough to make out what is holding the pitchfork: to see it from head to . . . tail.

Horned head. Pointed tail.

With a sudden swing of two powerful arms, it hefts the pitchfork from side to side, whiplashing Theresa off her impalement, then drives the fork through Marky as he stands there, helplessly gawping.

Beansy, instantly sobered, slams the door closed with his shoulder and pulls the crossbeam back down on to both its joists. The blood-soaked points of the pitchfork splinter through the door as he does so, the nearest spike stopped a centimetre from his eye.

He throws himself back, lands sprawling on the hard earth, then scrambles to his feet, grabs Yvonne by the waist and drags her off, running.

'f.u.c.k me. f.u.c.k me. f.u.c.k me.'

'Oh Jesus. Theresa. What was that?'

'I don't know. I don't know. But I'm no' slagging Marilyn Manson ever again.'

In the three-quarter darkness of the outbuilding, Marky lies on the floor, transfixed and paralysed by injury, pain and fear. Hyperventilating, convinced he's dreaming or delirious, he watches the demon pull the implement from the door. It stands there for a moment, pitchfork in hand, a tableau of one of the images he saw in that book Marianne was pa.s.sing around at lunchtime. That's good. He's seen the image before. That means he is dreaming. But dreams never hurt like this. In dreams, you couldn't feel the chill of the earthen floor and your blood turning cold as it soaked your clothes.

The demon strides across to where Theresa is crawling, laboriously and quivering, leaving a blood-streaked trail on the ground. She's heading away from the door, no destination in mind, knows only that she has to move. The demon drives its weapon through her head, pinning both to the floor, then steps away, leaving the pitchfork standing upright, towering over the twitching body.

Marky enjoys a moment's hope that it has abandoned its weapon. Then he sees the demon stride towards the far wall, upon which hangs another pitchfork, a spade, a rake, a hoe, an edging tool, a fire-axe, a baling hook and a chainsaw.

Kane hears the screaming abruptly stop as he and Blake hasten along one of the link corridors, replaced by the sound of running and gasping, desperate, panicking breaths. They emerge into the main corridor leading from reception to the dormitory block, and are almost bowled like skittles as Gillian clatters headlong into them. Kane just manages to stay on his feet, putting his arms out to help Gillian retain her balance too, but she immediately starts struggling to get away. Her head is down, pressed against Kane's chest as though she's trying to charge through him, her breathing a series of anxious whoops.

'Gillian, keep the heid. What's wrong?'

'No, no,' she gasps, her legs thrashing as her feet seek better purchase to wriggle free and push past him.

'Gillian,' Kane says more firmly, taking her chin in his hands and raising her face so that she will look at him. That's when he sees that her face is spattered with blood. Her eyes are like headlights, stretched wide and flitting restlessly, unable to focus on any single thing, almost like they're attempting to escape from her head and flee on their own.

'Jesus, what happened?'

She's still struggling. Blake puts an arm around her, starts talking softly just so that she'll hear his voice.

'Gillian, it's Mr Kane and Father Blake. It's all right now, you just need to catch your breath, then you can talk to us.'

Kane hears more footsteps in the corridor, turns to see Heather walking briskly towards them.

'Just calm down,' Blake continues. 'Breathe slowly.'

Gillian's eyes focus on each of them just long enough to convey that she thinks they're insane.

'Let me go. Let me go.'

'It's all right. You're all right. Just breathe-'

'It's not all right,' she shouts, her limbs suddenly still. 'It's coming. It'll kill us all.'

Kane, Blake and Heather look at each other. Kane's thinking booze and teen hysteria, but there's the blood.

'What's coming, Gillian?' Blake asks.

'The Devil. We've got to run. Let me go. Let me go.'

With this last, Gillian's voice crumbles into sobbing and her legs give too, like an act of exhausted, hopeless surrender. She clings on to Kane, crying and trembling. Definitely teen hysteria.

Heather steps in, putting an arm around her and tugging her gently away from Kane.

'Come on with me, we'll get you a seat,' Heather says.

Gillian lets go of Kane, leaning into Heather now for support. Then she suddenly shoves Heather aside and bolts down the hall towards reception.

'I'll go after her,' Heather says. 'What do you think?'

'Prank gone wrong? Bang on the head?' Kane replies. 'We'll check out the dorms.'

Heather has never seen Gillian move so fast. The girl is normally slowed by equating enthusiasm with dweebdom, as much as her pal Julie is by her bulk, but tonight Heather knows she's not catching her before she reaches the end of this corridor. In her haste, one of Gillian's legs catches the end of a sofa in the sitting area and she goes sprawling to the floor. It buys Heather only a couple of seconds, as Gillian's on her feet again very quickly, heading for the dining room, shouting. Her voice can't compete with the music, but Heather can hear it well enough, and so does Sendak, who is just emerging from the double doors along the pa.s.sageway beyond the far end of reception.

'We've got to get out of here! We've got to get everybody out of here!'

Sendak looks to Heather quizzically over the approaching Gillian's head. Heather gestures to him to grab her.

'Hey, hey hey, let's just settle it down,' Sendak says, intercepting her before she can reach the party, then forcibly escorting her back towards Heather.

'You've got to let me go. We've all got to get out or we're all dead. It's inside. It's coming.'

'What's coming?'

'The devil. The devil is here.'

'She's hysterical,' Heather says redundantly, as Sendak sits Gillian down on one of the armchairs, crouching in front of her so that she can't run.