Harvest (59 page)

She danced hurriedly on the spot
trying to delay the ignition point of her clothes. The creature
thrashed its broad head wildly from side to side, trying to shake
her resistance and regain control. It roared a barking roar that
was like a punch to the head from some strike at her psyche, the
creature gained another half-metre on her and it filled her field
of vision, it’s legs stamping the ground, it’s spear-like arms
lunging, it’s mandibles gnashing, it’s black hole eyes expanding
and contracting, suckling the energy from her, weakening the last
of her barrier.

The lift doors slid open and she
leapt within. The coolness of the metal box was an instant relief.
She stabbed frantically at the button for the ground floor where
she hoped Craig and Kelly waited. Within the sanctuary of the lift
her control waned and she lost her focus on the space between her
and the creature. Suddenly unleashed, it lunged forward as the
doors of the lift lazily closed. The creature slammed heavily
against them and the lift trembled as the outer doors buckled and
came loose from the wall.

The creature thrashed against
the closed doors of the lift, pulling at the metal in frenzy,
yanking the door panels free. The heat built within the basement as
the flames consumed and replaced the oxygen around it. Cat knew the
fire door was too small for the thing to escape through, even the
stairs beyond would be too cramped for its current frame. The
second lift that was on its way, or the lift shaft itself would be
its only option.

Cat held her breath listening to
the sounds of the outer door being mauled as the lift slowly left
the basement. Now heading away from the danger she became aware of
the blood dripping from her wounded ear, brow and bloody nose, the
pain was remembered too, from the surface injuries and the deep
pain that tore at the fabric of her brain. The sound of the second
lifts descent rumbled through her and she found she was holding her
breath as she waited and braced herself.

The second lift arrived and the
creature crouched down to enter, prepared to follow its quarry. The
atmosphere within the lift ignited abruptly around the creature in
a rushing ball of blue yellow flame. The wall of fire receded,
devouring its way back along the gas flow revealing four gas
cylinders swallowing the fire. The creature staggered backwards
screaming; a burning wreck. They ruptured the instant the flow of
gas expired and violently disgorged an expanding rushing sphere of
explosive light. The lift disintegrated and shattered upward and
outward. Superheated flame and white hot ribbons of metal sprayed
out, boiling over the creature in a storm of fire and shredding
shrapnel.

Cat slammed against the metal
wall of the lift as it shuddered violently and surged upward riding
the explosive demise of its companion car. The lights flickered and
Cat’s stomach lurched as the lift dropped suddenly as gravity
overpowered the force of the fiery blast, the fall forcing her onto
her hands and knees.

The lift hung perceptibly
swaying on its protesting cables. Cat swallowed the pounding
cadence that threatened to choke her as she saw the lift display
flicker between the basement and ground floor. The floor was hot.
The lift creaked and groaned over the constant muffled roar of the
flames burning below her and the lift cables squealed as they
quivered and strained overhead holding the lifts weight. Cat held
her pose, afraid her movements might send the lift plunging into
the fire below.

Chapter
Forty Eight

Craig stood back from the lift
maintenance cupboard with the stink of smoke hanging heavily on
him, watching over Kelly who checked Alec for a pulse. Jason was on
his haunches in the corner at the back of the cupboard, his face
blank and blanched. The boy would have just sent down the second
lift to the basement as they had planned. He wanted Alec to be
alive; even if Alec had been possessed by the entity, he didn’t
want Jason to have his murder on his conscience for the rest of his
life. Everything ached but Craig ignored it. He just wanted to get
to Jason and comfort him.

“
I have a pulse.” Kelly
called over her shoulder as she checked his ears and began to feel
his cranium, looking for signs of a serious injury.

“
He was trying to stop
me.” Jason said for what must be the tenth time since they had
stumbled upon the scene.

“
It’s okay mate. You did
the right thing.” Craig reassured him as he helped Kelly drag the
body out of the cupboard. He left Kelly to finish putting him in
the recovery position and stepped into the cupboard. He took the
crowbar out of Jason’s firm grip and tucked it through a belt loop
of his jeans and pulled Jason up on to his feet.

Finished with the unconscious
caretaker Kelly jogged in the direction of the lobby and Craig
followed, herding Jason with him. As they arrived there was a
deafening crack as the second lift arrived and exploded. The lift
doors in the lobby rattled violently and dust and grit fell from
the ceiling as the foundations of the building shook.

Kelly pulled Jason to her side
as they waited for the silent lift to arrive on their level and
Craig put his arm round her. This was it. If their plan had worked
then the creature had been firebombed and Cat would be making her
way to their floor in the lift. His wish that it was all over
desperately clawed from his mind at reality, but fear and doubt
savagely fought the hope back, leaving him in a stupor.

The lift gears screamed harshly
as they bit into the cable and the motor recovered from the trauma
of the explosion and began to pull the lift to the ground floor.
The doors shuddered open and Cat flopped onto the floor, crawling
from within an atmosphere of thick black smoke, violently hacking
her lungs out.

Kelly lunged to the floor and
Craig followed her, ducking under the ceiling of thick smoke to
drag Cat free of the heat and suffocating smoke that poured up from
under the lift and around the top half of her body and into the
lobby. To think of losing Rachel was like a jab in the gut, but to
have Cat safe was euphoric. Cat wriggled fiercely along the ground
into Craig and Kelly’s arms.

Halfway out of the lift, the car
lurched violently upwards, and Cat slid back towards the lift.
Smoke poured out through the lift doors and an orange glow filled
the car. The floor of the lift Car had fallen away and Cat’s bottom
half had slipped back after it. Seemingly in sickening slow-motion
he watched in impotent shock as she slid into the burning shaft.
She slapped a hand on the ground and grabbed the lift door with her
other hand, leaving only her chest and head on the ground floor. He
and Kelly dashed forward and crouched before her and tried to get a
grip on her arms without dislodging her tenuous grip or falling in
after her.

Cat craned to looked behind her.
“It’s not dead. It’s here!”

A flaming skeleton lurched up,
the creatures flesh devoured by the fire. Seven gashes stared
intensely from raw green energy that became flame burning at the
heads borders. It screamed in pain and anger and drew its javelins
back, ready to impale Cat.

Cat screamed and then suddenly
calmed and was taken over by an intense concentration. The creature
was struck back by what must have been an invisible freight train
judging by the force that took it off its feet and slammed it
against the far wall of the lift. Craig grabbed Cat’s wrist and
although Kelly hadn’t managed to get as secure a grip as he had he
pulled with all his strength. The pain from his injured muscles and
joints was hell, but seeing Cat drawn from the shaft helped him
bite down against the agony. With Cat free he allowed himself to
collapse backwards with her draped on top of him and Kelly, and he
hacked his lungs free of smoke. The lift doors shut on the creature
in the furnace lift shaft.

He screamed from a raw throat.
“Burn you fuck!”

The lift doors wrenched open and
spidery legs braced them apart. Craig cursed and kicked his feet at
the floor to get himself away from the lift and Kelly copied. Craig
bit his lip and ignored each kick that Cat delivered to his shin as
she tried to get the same leverage against the ground while on top
of him and Kelly. The lift groaned as the creature gripped the
walls of the lift car to pull itself off the burning floor of the
basement. Flames flickered around its burning body like eager
tongues of undulating orange light licking swathes of its flesh
from its bones. A vertical gash appeared in the flesh under its rib
cage and its abdomen parted in two, pulled apart like a mouth.
Green light spilled out, carrying the snatcher with it; it’s long
spindly arms reaching from its skeletal torso, it emerged from the
spider with its hands slapping frantically at the floor, walking
itself towards Cat. The snatchers bone-caged mouth yawned wide and
unleashed it choral howl.

Craig felt Cat’s weight suddenly
shift as she was dragged off them as it attempted to do what it had
failed to do on the landing the night before. She slid helplessly
along the concrete floor back to the lift with Craig Kelly and
Jason all scurrying after her, grabbing at her reaching arms while
the creature snatched at Cat and swatted at them desperate to claim
its victim.

Craig caught a good grip of one
wrist with both hands and Kelly grabbed the other and joined him in
straining against the creatures tugs on Cat’s legs. Seeing that she
was suspended between Mr Sparky and the others and wasn’t going
anywhere, she thrashed her legs and managed to get several kicks
into the things face. It reeled but continued to walk its hands up
her legs, pulling her towards its burning host in the creaking
remains of the lift. The creature was receding into the green light
emanating from within its burning spider-body; into the corrosive
sac where so many others had been taken to form its now dying body.
Taking Cat with it.

The lift car protested under the
creature’s weight and with the final damage of the floor being
ripped out. The lift collapsed abruptly around the spider-creature
and it and the lift dropped back into the flames. The snatchers
scream turned into a shriek of panic and cry of pain, it released
Cat and desperately flailed its arms to stop its descent as it
rushed back into the lift shaft after its host. A howling began to
rush into the air from above as the lift cars counter weight, no
longer having anything to suspend it, fell from the top of the high
rise. Smoke and air billowed out of the open lift doors as the
weight slammed the creature to the bottom of the fiery shaft below
them with an abrupt explosion of sound as it smashed through the
lift and the creature.

Craig flopped onto his back. Cat
dragged herself off of Kelly and stood before the pried open lift
doors and stared into the tumultuous orange and black shaft. If
there was a place like Hell then that lift shaft led to it.

“
I can’t feel it. I can’t
sense it down there. It’s over,” she announced coldly. “It’s
dead.”

Epilogue: The
Scattered Remains

Craig watched three young lads
in the black and red uniform of Hampstead School walk towards him
along Haverstock Hill road. He didn’t recognise the beaming kid as
Jason at first, as much as Craig had made Jason laugh during all
the difficulties they had faced together the humour had been
strained, the belly laugh Jason was having with his friends made
him look like a different kid. Seeing Craig, Jason waved goodbye to
his two companions and jogged the little distance to meet him.

“
How are you then, kid?”
Craig handed him the small chocolate shake he had bought him from
the McDonald’s while he had been waiting, and took a short drag on
his own.

“
Thanks. I’m
good.”

They walked together. “How’s is
school going? Is it as bad as you thought it would be?”

“
I wasn’t
worried.”

“
That’s not what you were
saying on MSN last month.”

The boy looked embarrassed to
admit he had been nervous. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would
be. Not many from my old school going there. It’s like starting
over.”

Craig nodded over his shoulder.
“They your mates?”

“
Yeah,
they’re ok. They are coming round mine next Friday for an
X-box
night.”

“
Cool.” The kid obviously
didn’t have anything to worry about after all. “We are overdue a
death-match ourselves. I will have to track you down online and
kick your butt again.”

“
Are you having those
dreams that you think are real again?”

The kid had a good sense of
humour, but it was too soon to joke about that time. “Haha.” He
said flatly. It was strange, because although he was sensitive
about those experiences they didn’t seem real anymore. He wished
they hadn’t been. “You over what happened?” He shook his head at
his question. “Stupid question. Me neither. Nor Kelly. She’s still
a bit jittery at times.”

“
Yeah, but she has you to
comfort her.” Jason cooed.

They loved each other and they
had both shared their weaker sides together, but he didn’t like to
think who wore the trousers in their relationship. The woman with
the truncheon was likely to win hands down any day. Luckily he
didn’t care about things like that. “You’re getting cheekier, you
know that.”

“
Yeah, I know it. How’s
work going?”

“
Pretty good actually.” It
felt good to say it. “I am still doing the usual unreliable studio
work and freelance stuff, but when I was back home my brother got
some companies to use my pictures, so now there are a couple of
calendars and some websites using my stuff and I am in talks with a
gallery back in Bath.” When Kelly had returned to Bath with him
after everything that had happened he had shown her pictures he had
taken since he was a kid. Kelly had pointed out how good his
pictures of Bath were and Darren reminded him of all the posh
gallery shops there were in the town centre. It was ironic that he
had stayed in London to have the best chance of getting his talents
recognised, but it was only returning home that he found a
market.