Harvest (56 page)

Alec lunged strong hands out to
restrain him.

Although Jason’s grip of the
tool was awkward he swung it upward wildly between him and Alec in
an attempt to ward him off. Alec stepped away, startled by Jason
proving that he was willing to fight.

With the extra space and
time his swing had afforded him Jason took a better grip of the
crowbar, blood rushed in his ears and his heart pounded
uncomfortably in his throat. Poised to strike and inflict an
injury, Jason was suddenly detached from himself. A misplaced blow
from the crowbar could kill.
This was
Alec!
Someone his mum always had a hello for. A sense
of doing wrong slithered in his gut. Jason knew he shouldn’t be in
the lift maintenance cupboard and it was Alec’s job to look after
the building. To stop vandals. That’s what Jason was in this
moment, a vandal. Alec had the
right
to be there and to evict anyone that
trespassed or damaged things, he was the caretaker –
the adult
. The others in the
basement were relying on him, he had already failed by opening the
door he wasn’t going to fail by losing control of the
lifts.

Alec took advantage of Jason’s
confusion and took a sudden step into the cupboard. “I told you to
get out.” He snarled.

Jason had no choice. He swung
the crowbar wild.

Chapter
Forty Three

The noise of Kelly’s jog up the
stairs was masked by the shrill alarm bells that echoed and chased
up and down the shaft of the stairwell. She stepped onto another
darkened landing and peeked cautiously through the glass panel of
the fire-door, saw the corridor was clear and quickly checked the
bolt; it was unlocked as the previous six floors had been. It
seemed clear to her that this was how the thing stalked the
building unseen. She quickly slid the bolt home as she had with the
others and would with any more she might find unlocked, hopefully
ensuring that if the undertaker was stalking the corridors it
couldn’t get back to cut off the others retreat. Her heart skipped
a beat and she nearly lost her grip on her axe as something snagged
at her jeans.

Her heart fell into a tremble as
her phone vibrated again in her hip pocket. She pressed the phone
to her ear and took the call, not taking her eyes off of the
landing ahead in case the undertaker or whatever-else might
suddenly step into view.

“
You okay?” Craig asked,
barely audible above the bells.

“
Yeah. I’m half-way up.
Nothing to tell you yet, though. I take it it’s not with
you?”

“
No,” there was a pause
before his tone turned grim. “Not yet. We have set the fires. There
is lots of smoke, but nothing has come out to investigate or
challenge us yet.”

“
Yeah the smoke is coming
up the middle of the stairwell. It’s not affecting me, just makes
it a bit difficult to see if anything is on the landings or stair
cases ahead until I get on top of them. We won’t have long before
the services get here. Maybe it knows that. If there’s nothing up
here it looks like it will be down to you guys. When I’m done I
will move straight to the bottom and guard the escape route as we
planned. I’m going now, I don’t like standing still too long.”
Kelly wasn’t sure how to end the call after Craig had asked her out
so she wished him luck and ended the call.

Kelly looked past the shifting
column of black smoke that flowed upwards to the landing at the top
of the stairs ahead of her. A dark silhouette was standing against
the frosted glass window making it hazy and indiscernible at first,
but then she recognised the shape. She looked down to the rose in
her hands and she knew the night, the time and the place. She
immediately felt the comfort and familiarity of being home, the
feel of the carpet under her bare feet, the paint colour she had
chosen for the hallway walls. This wasn’t her flat, it was her
house.

“
I am so sorry I missed
the meal you made for me,” Ian apologised sensitively from within
the black silhouette.

Kelly remembered the words and
could feel the frustration of the moment rise within her. She knew
the anniversary meal would be sitting on the table in the dining
room behind her. It was spoilt. She had kept it heated for as long
as she could but it had dried up.

“
Things have just been so
busy, what with work.” She saw his shape move as he put a hand over
his face in shame. “There’s no excuse; I’m sorry I forgot our
anniversary.”

“
It
doesn’t matter,” she found herself repeating words she had spoken
before. The words lacked conviction and seemed ill-fitting and
squirmed within the mould of her past statement. She marvelled at
how weak she had been.
Of course it
mattered!

“
I haven’t been a very
good husband have I?”

Something was wrong with
Ian’s words: Ian had admitted his failings that night, but now
there was a depth of emotion to his voice which hadn’t been present
before. “
You
don’t think I have been a
very good husband do you?” There was no drunken slur, no spite.
Memory suddenly seemed useless, not preparing her for the turn in
her memories and his heartfelt tone.

“
Are you staying?” she
said, following the script in her head despite the anomaly. Her
emotions formed into a hard smooth snooker ball in the back of her
throat.

“
Yes
–
if you want me
to.
”

Her heart tightened and
she almost forgot to breath. Her thoughts scrambled over these new
words. He was meant to turn her down, say his friends were waiting
for him.
What was happening?
She had never played with ‘what ifs’ around that night, too
much had happened for her to consider staying with him. That night
had been the latest unhappy times in a chain of unhappiness that
ran through the last two years of their time together. His words
and actions had been her closure that night, but now there was no
descent into inevitable finality. The lingering flicker of hope,
which she had desperately nurtured until that night returned with
its warm glow. She found herself yearning for something she thought
was lost.

He rubbed his face in defeat. “I
don’t even know where things started to go wrong. I always wanted
someone – someone to be with, to love, to love me back.”

“
You changed.”

“
I
know.
I can’t believe I have let this all
go wrong
– That I could forget what made us
work.
I’m so sorry
…” his
voice strained to word his realisation.

Kelly watched him fall apart in
front of her under the weight of his own self-awareness.

“
I always knew
relationships had the years where things are stagnant; I guess I
thought they righted themselves. I got lazy. I guess I was so happy
with what I had; I didn’t realise I had to keep working at a
relationship. I forgot about the things that made us happy; the
things that we planned for. I let it all slide and I don’t know why
because I love you so much. I love us so much.”

Kelly couldn’t see his eyes but
she knew that he fixed them on her, trying to read her face for
some response he could cling to as a sign that he could save their
relationship and himself. It didn’t make sense to her but the
nervous anxiety at the thought of being able to save what they once
had was building around her.

“
I’m so fucking stupid.
All I had to do was take an interest in our life together, do
things I know I enjoy. Hold you now and again, show you how much I
want to keep you by taking hold of you; to keep you wanting
me.”

I always
wanted you! I never stopped!
The thoughts nearly
escaped to her lips but she held them back. Things weren’t so clear
now.

He started to walk slowly down
the stairs towards her. “Is it too late?”

Was it too
late?
Her mind had been led down a path she hadn’t
thought possible and now the way back seemed lost to her; she had a
purpose that now evaded her. She looked to the rose in her hands,
its presence nagged at her. The labyrinth of confusion sprawled
suddenly endless around her and she knew that if she wanted what
Ian offered she had to accept it now – if she hesitated, it could
all be lost again.

She stood frozen in motion as
her mind drifted with the direction of the moment. It had been so
hard since she had left Ian, selling the house, trying to find a
future for herself. She could get her dreams back.

She had loved Ian so much.

Ian closed in on her, his
outstretched hand ready to slide over her shoulder. She knew his
touch and she yearned for the feel of his hands on her flesh. It
had been so long since she had been lost in the comforting familiar
passion Ian’s body offered.

The silhouette stepped on to the
landing and drew a knife from within its borders. The undertaker
reached out with one hand towards Kelly, its gnarled fingers
closing on the soft flesh of her throat.

Chapter
Forty Four

Rachel stood in the whirl of
flame that lapped at the walls of the basement, her skin tightening
with the heat while fine fibrous tendrils of black smoke teased the
sensitive interior of her throat. The acrid air that stung at her
nose and eyes suddenly sweetened and became like sherbet as the
choking smell became a hauntingly familiar scent; the scent Helen
had always used. The flickering gloom of the basement was replaced
by the grey light of an overcast day. The wall before her had been
replaced with the view down into the basin of the city from
parliament hill. As if a cinema screen had been lowered in front of
her. The sky was a cool grey and a cool breeze stirred the golden
brown trees before filtering down over her in a welcome relief from
the heat of the fires.

Helen’s scent grew stronger and
Rachel felt her presence at her side.

Rachel couldn’t be shocked by
the dead. She had always hoped and wished, but never thought, she
would see Helen in this way. Rachel turned to her calmly, aware
that the others may clearly see her talking to something they could
not see, but she would not let embarrassment restrain her. She
scanned Helen from her autumn red hair that fell around her
delicate face of snow, to the slim figure wrapped in her large
chunky-knit grey jumper, and jeans.

They would often take walks
together, Parliament Hill. Highgate cemetery, Primrose Hill, Little
Venice. Autumn was their preferred time of year. They both loved
the colours, but for Rachel it was a time when Helen became one
with the colours of nature and while everyone else was drained of
colour Helen glowed. She was always a warm fire on a cold day. She
missed those times, being alone together, laughter, tears, long
comfortable silences in which she always wanted to tell Helen how
she felt about her.

“
There’s so much I haven’t
told you…” Somehow Rachel was no longer in the basement but wading
her way through the leaves with Helen.

Helen took her hand. “I
know,” her tone was comforting and reassuring. “I know
now
. I only wish I had realised in
time.”

The ache that had lived with
Rachel since she had met Helen built into an abrupt pain as she
gave in to all the regrets and chastisement she had for her unsaid
words, but then the pain was gone and there was only a feeling of
completion and satisfaction. Helen finally knew.

“
We all have regrets. I
shouldn’t have been so blind,” Helen said kicking lazily at the
autumn leaves as they walked.

“
It all feels so real,”
Rachel said remotely, feeling the sadness that this perfect moment
couldn’t last.

“
In here…” Helen turned
and put a hand on Rachel’s chest, “It’s real enough. The heart and
the mind can work magic; we just let reality ground us. All our
dreams and hopes are stored here. We can recreate any moment past
or any future you wish with a single thought. You are luckier than
most because you can actually see and interact with what would
normally be gone and be in the past.”

Rachel smiled with the
sentiment, wishing the tears away. Helen had a gift of saying
poetic things and making life seem magical.

Helen turned around and Rachel
followed her, they faced a large screen and they could see into the
basement. Rachel could see herself standing with Cat and Craig,
waiting for the beast to emerge.

“
I’m sorry Cat has been so
painful for you.”

“
I wanted to be there for
her, for you. To help her. To grieve together.”

Helen stroked the image of Cat.
“There is a future for you and Cat. A future where she can let
herself love you as she does me.”

Rachel’s eyes brimmed with
tears. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob and spoke
through her faces rigor. “There is?”

“
You have a hole in your
heart since I left.”

“
The hole is for Cat. I
kept it for her. Plenty of room for her when she is ready. I’m
patient.” Helen looked distracted. The same face Helen she had seen
when Helen had told Rachel of the cancer, and then the day she had
told her she wouldn’t win her battle.

“
That hole might devour
you.” Helen breathed. “You have always given everything to me and
Cat – so much so you may have little left should anything happen to
Cat.”