Harvest (51 page)

Chapter
Thirty Eight

Cat stood in the street
and stared up at the three high-rise towers. Other than the boarded
up shops at the base of her building all three towers were
physically identical, although through her eyes she could see that
her building was different. It was darker, as if in shadow. It was
like a twisted twin tower had taken its place. She had noticed the
difference when she first returned to her flat; the walls in the
corridors, stairwells and even her own home were tainted. No, she
corrected herself, she couldn’t
see
the difference she could
sense
it. She had thought it was her experience
before her coma and the stories that Rachel and the others had
related to her that coloured her perception, but it
wasn’t.

Cat knew the difference between
imagination and the supernatural. She could just about remember the
times when she had been a kid and had talked to people that were
not there. Rachel had picked up on it straight away and encouraged
her, but she had seen the look on her mum’s face. It scared her.
Her mum would never have said how she felt, but Cat knew it had
worried her so Cat ignored the dead. It seemed the dead soon get
tired of not being listened to because she couldn’t remember seeing
or hearing anything after the age of about eight or nine.

Those experiences were so
long ago she almost doubted them. She couldn’t remember feeling any
different, just she could see and hear things that others couldn’t
or maybe didn’t want to see. It was different now. Since she had
been awakened from her coma
she
was different. Changed somehow. The thing in
the tower that had come to her that stormy night, a night that only
seemed like yesterday but incredibly was three weeks ago, had left
something of itself within her head. It wasn’t physical, she didn’t
have any scars on her scalp; it wasn’t in her brain. Whatever it
was it was in her mind, the intangible part of herself. She had
seen a documentary on parasites on the
Discovery Channel,
things that invaded the body
and influenced the mind using chemicals, this was the psychological
version. Now her mind was awakened to another level of
consciousness.

It enabled her to see that the
building had cancer in its fabric, her sense was like x-ray and she
could see that the walls and the floors were all run through with
malignant shadowy veins that crawled with blackness, like bugs in
fast flowing slime or spiders scurrying in shadows, radiating out
and rushing back in on themselves. She had sensed it converge on
Malik at the hospital, then on Harry before he had died, and on her
floor during Rachel’s visit last night. She daren’t look at
herself, for she knew she would see that same dark energy flowing
through her too. The source was below the ground in the basement.
Her destination.

In
Parasites Attack
or whatever it had been called,
the narrator had explained how the parasite influenced the host to
do things that put them in danger, making snails go up high where
they would be prone to being eaten by birds, just so the parasite
could spread. Was she going to get eaten? The thing in her head
seemed to swell with her fear and she focussed on her breathing. In
and out. Calming and relaxing. The way she had dealt with the panic
attacks after mum had died and she had moved out of
Rachel’s.

As her fear subsided a little,
the thing in her mind settled too, but it didn’t go. It stayed,
ready to pounce. She couldn’t put this off any longer. She crossed
the road, passed through the lobby and headed down the stairs to
the sepulchral basement.

Cat looked over the large
metal door to the basement. She pushed at it but it refused to
move. That strange alien presence brooding in her head clung to her
rising anger and fear, riding it; begging to be remembered, urging
her to use its power to rip the obstructing door from the wall as
she had when she had reduced the fire door to kindling the previous
night; but
she couldn’t risk wasting her only weapon.
S
he was unsure if any use of it would deplete it and
she planned to use her power to destroy the evil within the flats.
The power recoiled then strained in her head at the very idea,
causing a dull ache behind her eyes. It was as if the power had a
separate intelligence that worked against her, urging her to
release it, to spend its strength, leaving her defenceless before
the ‘thing’ in the basement she planned to face.

She clenched her eyes and
took a deep breath, calming herself and bracing her concentration
against the force in her head as if denying the discomfort of a
migraine. It squirmed and became still. She opened her eyes and
smiled to herself, that’s it. Behave yourself. There was so much
she didn’t know and couldn’t hope to understand about the thing in
her head, only last night it had chased her anger and struck Kelly
down.
How much of that action had been her
will and how much of it had been the will of the thing in her
head?
Just how much control did she have
over this?
No matter, she dismissed. She had to face
the evil that had turned her life upside down and forced her into a
group she wanted no part of.

Bitterness at being made to
‘belong’ festered within her, fuelling her resolve. She fought and
kept her mind contracted against the raw, squirming presence. She
was not going to be able to open the door, but if the group’s
guesses were right there was another way into the basement. Cat
mounted the stairs with a determined pace and crossed the lobby to
the unused staircase marked with a strict sign ruling that the door
be kept locked. It opened freely. Cat slipped inside. The landing
beyond was dark and cool. Shafts of hazy dust-filled light cut
through the air above her from the out of view windows on the
landings above. The charcoal gloom forced her to take careful steps
and feel her way along the smooth cold handrail until the stairs
finished and she had descended as far as she could.

Hell was quieter and colder than
she had imagined.

The small window in the
door before her was a vacant void of black. She peered through. In
the barely definable light she could see dust and scraps of litter
and what looked like a battered fire extinguisher congealed in
slime. Kelly had fought off the thing that had attempted to snatch
Cat at the foot of the stairs, when it had retreated and receded
into the light the extinguisher Kelly had used for a club had gone
with it. Was this proof that the portal of light led somewhere down
here
?
Strangely Cat didn’t need a
discarded extinguisher to tell her this was where it was:
She knew
.

The door was a heavy fire
door but it opened easily. She fumbled for a light switch as the
quicksand darkness swamped around her. Her courage retreated from
the dark and hid behind the tense concentration of her mind and the
force it held back, as if it was a totem of faith that could ward
off whatever might be lingering in the dark that surrounded her.
Her fingers fumbled, desperate for a switch that would banish the
dark, while her mind was poised, ready to relinquish her control of
the power in her mind. Doubts soaked into her from the dark. If she
held a splinter of the entity, then would
part
of this power be enough against the
whole
?

The lights snapped on and
exposed the crisp white hospital room around her.

The aggressive determination
that she had brought to the basement seemed alien now she stood in
the brightly lit private ward. She blinked rapidly as she adjusted
to the light and received snippets of information from her
surroundings; the scuffs on the floor, drooping daffodils in the
vase, battered Venetian blinds against the windows, the high back
chair upholstered in a dusty-pink leatherette. Each image not only
built a picture of the room, but shaped her thoughts and emotions
even though she felt like an ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle piece that
couldn’t be placed. Cat’s eyes acclimated to the glare of her new
environment, and although she recognised the room, it was the fear
and grief that helped her recognise the moment.

She allowed herself to look upon
the final image that would complete the room. The hospital bed that
held her mum. Rachel pulled Cat close to her. The gesture and the
feel of Rachel’s clothes, the warmth of her body, even her scent
was familiar and welcome. This was a time when she would have
readily accepted Rachel and her embrace. The fear-stoked anger and
determination that had fuelled her into the basement subsided
within the seductive comfort. They stood together for sometime,
wordlessly sharing the view of her mother.

Cat remembered the tiredness of
that day, and the memory of it spread from her psyche into her body
and bones. The months of waiting had left her emotionally numb and
physically broken. She had spent all that time being strong for her
mum to make it easier for her, and now the journey was almost over
she could feel her defences against the grief falling. The
desperate agonising sorrow and twisted anger frightened her.

Rachel must have sensed her wilt
within the embrace. “Cat, she needs rest. She’s weak. You need to
rest too.”

Rachel had found Cat at college
that morning before her first class had even started and told her
that the hospital had called and they expected it to be today. Cat
had left college with Rachel and they had watched over her in
turns. It was now late, the early hours of the next day, but there
was nothing they could do but wait. Each barely discernible breath
that her mother took, each protracted sigh was the cocking of the
gun and the snap of its trigger in the Russian roulette guessing
game of which breath would be her last, Cat being desperate for it
not to happen on her vigil.

Although Cat knew it was coming,
she was still startled by the weak gravelly rattle that wheezed
weakly from her mother. Rachel’s grip on her shoulder
tightened.

“
Come on, you need to rest
or you will be asleep on your feet.” Rachel’s tone was light but
there was a sense of urgency about her.

Eighteen months ago Cat had
allowed herself to be shepherded to the door, she let the adult
take over, gave Rachel responsibility of the vigil. She had known
what the change of breathing meant and she had been grateful for
Rachel sparing her from it. There was a row of seats in the
corridor which both Rachel and herself had taken turns in using as
a bed. That’s where Cat had retreated to. She had even managed to
sleep. She must have slept deeply because when she awoke she had
found that her head was on Rachel’s lap and she didn’t remember her
joining her on the seats.

Rachel had stroked her hair then
whispered. “She’s gone.”

Her mother had been alive, then
dead and Cat had been spared the pain of what had happened in
between. The grief and anger she had hidden from had possessed her
so completely and with such strength and suddenness it had
frightened her, she remembered hearing a terrible shrieking and
finding it was her own hysteria. The hatred for Rachel had been
instantaneous but she hadn’t fathomed why until many months
later.

Cat wrenched free of Rachel’s
arm that once again shepherded her towards the seats and the sleep
that she had taken eighteen months ago. She wouldn’t let Rachel
take away her last moments with her mother. Not this time. Cat
should be the one to say the final goodbye.

“
I will stay with her. I
want to be with her.” Cat stepped away from Rachel, and stood
defensively between Rachel and her mother. “I want to say
goodbye.”

The muscles in Rachel’s face
twitched and flickered with the confused thoughts that must have
been playing through her mind. She emitted several sounds before
forming hesitant words. “Of course.” Rachel hugged Cat but the
embrace stiffened when Cat just stood in her arms and made no
effort to return the gesture. Rachel waked backwards to the door,
looking reluctant to leave. “I’m going to get a coffee and stretch
my legs. Just down the hall. I’m not going far. Come and get me
if…” She hesitated in the doorway. “I know! I will get you a hot
chocolate while I get a coffee. I will bring it straight back. I
won’t be long. Please, please get me if… Please call for me.”

This was all new. Cat had
changed how things had happened. The script of the past was
discarded and the memories stopped here. Rachel was gone and now
Cat would be the one to say goodbye. These would be her mum’s last
moments and she would no longer have to rely on Rachel’s
description of them. She could feel the despair ball in her stomach
like a smooth hard boulder in her gut that weighted her insides
down to ripping point. Something wet touched her hand and when she
held her hand up she found a clear rivulet, it was joined by
another and another until she realised she was crying. She touched
her face and was shocked by the stiff and contorted mask that
creased up around her tears. Until the sobs wracked her body it
seemed her grief was just a torture of the flesh with the cramps,
spasms and seizures that took hold of her body, but as she
approached the bed to watch her mum die she knew her the pain would
come.

She found her mothers hand in
the bed covers, it felt like a bundle of sticks. The cancer had
eaten her away. Her face had changed so much from what she had
known before; her cheeks shallow and her eyes sunken; her hair dry
and pale like sun scorched grass. She was unrecognisable as the
woman that had played with her, told her off, laughed with her,
taken her to school, made her packed lunch, sent her to her room,
taken her to the park, sung to her. She had loved to sing. She
could barely whisper now. This was it. Her mother was dying and
there was nothing she could do.