Harvest (32 page)

Vicki heard Craig shout “KID!”
objectionably after her as she popped her ear phones into her ears.
She half-skipped to a dance-tune from her MP3 player as she headed
to the fire door for the stairs. She had liked to think she
understood men, what they wanted, what they wanted from her when
they looked at her the way Craig did.

At university she had noticed
that guys seemed happiest when they were with other guys, and what
they really wanted was a best friend they could shag and love. She
had watched blokes change around women, adapt to what they thought
women wanted and Vicki had never wanted that, she wanted a man to
be genuine with her. At university she had learnt to drink like a
man, chow down a kebab in the early hours of the morning,
occasionally shag without feeling. Although she didn’t have sex
like that anymore. After the first couple of times she had learnt
it didn’t lead to anything. She wanted a boyfriend. Instead she had
mastered making guys she liked content with the possibility that
sex could happen some time. Yet Craig’s eyes wanted something
different from her.

She was sure there was mutual
attraction between them. She had often thought that it was their
sibling-like chemistry and also her idea that he was somehow a kid
because he was two years younger, that had stopped anything from
happening, but something in Craig’s eyes when they had bantered
with each other back at the door made her realise that he was the
one that was holding back, waiting. She could see what he wanted
from her and it frightened her. He wanted her to be genuine with
him, he wanted the real Vicki. Only she wasn’t sure how to be that
person.

She could kick herself; she
hadn’t wanted guys to change who they were for her, but she had
gone and changed for them and lost touch with herself in the
process. The Gavin Parker smile she had just experienced was the
real her, he had made her stomach flutter, her heart soar. That was
love before she got her heart broken a couple of times, before sex
would change love into something else, something less simple and
innocent. Craig had helped her find it again.

She laughed at herself. All
this time she had treated Craig as a kid brother, the sad naïve
softy, when she had yet to grow up since university herself. She
had been right, blokes loved the way she was, her mix of easy
company and unpredictable wildness, but although she had a phone
with numbers of guys she could go for a drink and have a laugh with
she was still single. Maybe it was Craig’s innocence that drew her
to him. She swung the fire door open and stepped onto the landing
of the stairwell, letting the techno beat in her head carry her
blindly forward in the routine of leaving the building. She
wondered how long Craig would wait for her to let her defences
down, even though she didn’t understand herself enough to know if
that was what she wanted.

She heard the squeal over the
electronic tunes in her ears and she stopped dead as she found she
wasn’t alone in the stairwell. A ragged stain of a man stood on the
landing, a contrast to the stark white and grey of the stairs with
his drab clothes smothered in stains of varying shades of evil. His
face a mask of grease and drool beyond what was probably a living
beard. He stood motionless, startled by her intrusion.

Vicki froze in disgust, not at
the foulness of his being, but because of the cat that he held in
his hands by its tail. It was limp and motionless and there was a
brownish red impact smudge on the wall. She gagged and stepped
backwards into a cloud of buzzing fat black flies and clutching
hands. She turned sharply, breaking away from their grip.

The dark figure stood tall
before her, black crepe hanging over the brim of its top hat, a
veil of flies darted in energetic flight around a craggy face of
fat and flesh, dried, cooked and raw, fused and knitted to a
skeletal face that squirmed with pockets of bloated maggots. Before
she could let loose a scream at the grotesque that confronted her,
the creature grabbed her arms with sinewy fingers and rammed her
backwards.

Vicki yelped with the
force and braced herself to be winded against the wall, but instead
she
was cushioned by a softness that moulded to the
shape of her body and pressed against her bare neck with a cold wet
touch. The boggy surface, where the wall should have been, matted
her hair and crawled across her scalp.
The ‘thing’
that scarred her sight pushed against her, its face
emotionless.

She kicked her feet furiously
at the ground in an attempt to keep her balance and resist the
direction she was being forced in. She clenched her eyes against
the face that made her want to fold and wretch and managed a scream
as the cool viscous sensation crept over her ears onto her cheeks.
The substance took hold of her in an unrelenting grip and the
creature leaned against her, forcing her further into the seeming
depths that consumed her.

The sides of her head became
lost in the thickness that engulfed her. The refined crispness of
her MP3 played a thrashing Techno beat through her head. Vicki
pursed her eyes and mouth shut tight as the lumpy cold concrete
oozed over her cheeks and forehead and it smothered her completely.
It set solid, fixing her limbs and body in place and pressing snug
to her face in a tight gritty mask that bit at her soft flesh with
the smallest flex or twitch of her muscles. The heavy oppression of
her black surroundings pressed against her psyche with a crushing
claustrophobia.

Devoid of the choice between
fight or flight Vicki’s terror and panic ached in every muscle and
tendon that strained in futile resistance at her incarceration.
Rage and frustration erupted from her constricted chest in a scream
forced into a muted groan through the gritted teeth of her clamped
jaw. She exercised the only movement available to her and wrenched
her eyes open. The grit scratched her lids and the displaced dust
burnt like white-hot needles against the exposed surface of her
eyes. Dust irritated the sensitive lining of her nose and lungs and
crunched between her teeth and gritted her tongue, soaking up her
saliva. Her music was joined by the only other sounds; the rush of
her own blood and the beats of her frantic heart.

The undertaker stood sentinel,
its head cocked as it inspected its work.

It watched through the
undertakers eyes. What had been a perfect white wall was now an
area of grey cement marbled with white paint where the female had
been. It had left a small hole, no more than a centimetre to filter
air to her nose, curious at how long her mature body could last
without sustenance, how long her mind could withstand her
ordeal.

Chapter
Twenty Five

Craig awoke with a start,
flailing from the sofa as if he had physically fought himself free
from sleep. He stood wearily in the middle of his lounge, his heart
pounding and adrenaline surging redundantly and uncomfortably. He
rubbed at his eyes; they ached with the effort of defining his
surroundings.

He felt shaken.

In his nightmare there
had been an attack; someone was being pushed; smothered. It had all
been so vague, just sensations, yet somehow he had been in the
thick of the struggle with…
With
what?
In the waking world his nightmares, that had
been so vivid, had degraded into shadows and uncertain images and
sounds.

He needed a cuppa to wake him
up. He stumbled through to the kitchen and flicked the kettle on.
He leaned against the kitchen cupboards, aware of his groin aching
distractingly against the tight crotch of his jeans. That part of
himself always woke up before the rest of him. He ignored it, the
play would be joyless anyway with the shame that somewhere someone
else might have suffered through his nightmares.

The nightmare victim’s
fear and terror still lingered, quivering in his chest. He was sure
in previous dreams he had even experienced the savageness of their
pain – as if he had been there;
been the
victim
. His thoughts stalled with a sudden acuity he
had not reached before.

He had not just been the
victim.

The ache in his jeans
subsided.

He was reluctant to
confess it even in thought, but in his nightmares he had felt a
fascination, a
curiosity
and
a
pleasure
from knowledge
acquired through the application of terror, pain, amputation,
murder and dissection. The feeling of curiosity summoned a memory
from childhood. When he was young he had dismantled his first
camera, his mum had been furious that he had ruined it and in his
defence he had explained that he had done it because he wanted to
see how it worked. Back then his
curiosity
had overcome his consideration of the
outcome for something he cherished. Was that disregarding curiosity
still within him?

Had his disregard increased?
No. He wasn’t capable of any of the things he had dreamt. He felt
sick. Just bad dreams. That’s all it was. Except that he had long
subscribed to the idea that dreams were the window into the
subconscious; the suppressed or unprocessed urges and tastes. No,
if he had a fascination with biology and psychology it would have
manifested itself in his waking life. He would be hooked on medical
procedure programmes, be getting books from the library, not
resorting to extreme violence and messing with people’s heads.

Making himself a tea he
remembered Vicki and the pictures she needed, he checked his watch
for the time and found he had been asleep for two hours. She would
be livid. Careful not to spill his tea he headed into his bedroom
set his tea down and popped his camera’s memory card into the port
on his PC. He was grateful for the mundane routine of work, it
anchored him in sanity. The sickening guilt yawned in his gut at
the thought of Vicki, it seemed out of proportion, he had only been
delayed a couple of hours. She would be pissed at him for making
her wait but she would still be pouring her story into her keyboard
about now, obsessing about every sentence and word.

He opened his photo software
and the file from his camera on his own computer. He jumped as his
mobile rang out. He answered it while he flicked through the files.
He frowned. “Is that you, Kelly? Why are you whispering?”

“
Rachel called in on me.
I’m calling you from my room so she can’t hear me.”

“
Okay… I think.” The
first picture he opened was of him doubled over with motion blurred
vomit caught mid-descent. Attractive, he commented to himself
before dragging it to the Recycle Bin and dumping it. Vicki wasn’t
going to have that one.

“
Rachel has an
acquaintance that lives at The Heights, but for some reason she is
in a coma at hospital and Rachel is concerned about someone who is
hanging around watching over her friend. She wants me to encourage
him to move on.”

“
And you’re okay with
that?” Several of the images were of PC Balin in a similar pose to
the one Craig had been in. With several clicks and drags of the
mouse he prepared several versions of the better pictures by
composing them, re-cropping them and increasing their
brightness.

“
Not really, I said I
wouldn’t abuse my power as a police officer, such as it is, but
Rachel is really worried for her friend. Only there have been some
happenings at the hospital which she thinks are connected to
whatever is going on here.”

“
Happenings?”

“
Rachel will fill you
in.”

“
She will? When?”
Suddenly concerned she might be on her way up to him. He didn’t
fancy her company unless Kelly was going to be with her.

“
In about ten minutes
when you meet us downstairs. Please come with us. I know I have
seen things now, but you know I am having a hard time getting my
head around all of this. I am scared that if I go with her on my
own she will have me believing that Elvis is alive and kicking or
believing in leprechauns or something.”

“
In the lobby in ten
minutes?” He confirmed checking his watch for no reason except
habit.

“
If you are not busy. Did
I wake you?”

“
No, I am just finishing
up some work.”

“
You sound tired. You
didn’t have too much wine last night did you?”

He smiled. “No. No. The wine
and last night was nice, thanks. Just bad dreams.” The smile faded
and he rubbed his face. “I will come with you. It gets me out of
this place. I need to clear my head.”

Kelly’s tone became
conspiratorial. “Did you hear about the murder? It’s awful. I
didn’t know them but I had seen them around. She always seemed so
normal.”

Craig decided not to
mention he had been to their floor to get pictures. “I didn’t know
them either.” Yet he could see glimpses of the butchery. He didn’t
know if it was imagination or memory of a nightmare, or something
he had seen firsthand. No, that
was
ridiculous. The officer at the door, Craig’s
vomit partner, had
described
the scene and the crime. Craig’s imagination had done the
rest. He opened the photographs of the bloody handprint that Vicki
had taken. With a quick bit of editing they were ready. He attached
them to an email with a brief note, decided on a kiss after his
name, deleted it then punched it back in again and sent it. That
would be Vicki happy.

“
Ok then, I better go and
freshen up and meet you in the lobby.”

“
Thanks,
Craig.”