Pandaemonium (35 page)

This is it. He has to move now, strike before his approach is detected. He alters his grip on the stick, scans the forest floor, chooses his path, takes a breath and begins to accelerate.

Matt senses the movement, turns in time to see Kirk emerge from cover. His face is a picture of hate, his mouth wide to issue a roar, a battle-cry. Matt knows he has no time, Kirk is moving too fast. He covers his head with his arms, the sight of the swinging stick the last thing he sees before closing his eyes. There is a crunch of contact, a howl of pain, but he feels nothing except the vibration of falling weight upon the ground nearby, followed by scrambling sounds and urgent breath. Matt opens his eyes and removes his arms from view, in time to watch Kirk circle around, placing himself between Matt and the demon that had been about to pounce upon him.

Kirk has lost the stick. He got a good crack in there, but couldn’t keep hold of it as they tangled on the deck in the after-math. He touches his face, feels warm dampness, glances down at his shoulder where it is stinging. Claw marks. He looks across at his foe: crouched, circling, keenly returning his scrutiny, its tail moving with each step, clearly an aid to balance.

A phrase leaps to mind, something from a wildlife documentary: ambush predator. Aye. That’s what he’s looking at. Something that likes to surprise its prey: less cocksure when it finds itself facing a square go. It doesn’t look as big as he remembers. Either his fear had blown the creature up in his mind or he’s not looking at the same thing as killed Dazza.

He checks the horns. They’re small: not truncated like Hellboy’s, but wee, budding, trainer-bra efforts. Definitely not the thing that killed Dazza. In demon terms, he’s looking at a midget or a wean. He recalls the ten-second rule, and though they only clashed for a moment, it was more than enough. He understands. He has the measure. There will be no paralysis by fear. There will be no subconscious surrender to superior mental force and aggression.

In short, he can take this cunt.

Kirk touches the wound on his shoulder, glances at the blood on his fingers, then stares back at the demon.

‘You fight like a fuckin’
lassie
,’ he shouts.

The demon charges in response, as much in panic as in anger, and hurls itself towards him with an inhumanly impressive leap. Kirk stands his ground and sends the head in. He can feel as well as hear the crunch of breaking bone as his forehead connects with the demon’s face.

Kirk reels, a little dazed from the impact, but nothing compared to the demon. It staggers drunkenly, struggling to get back on its feet, black blood spurting from its nose and mouth.

Kirk doesn’t hesitate. He kicks it in the face with everything he has, knocking it on to its back. With it lying there stunned, he kicks and stamps on its head - again and again and again - until he feels a hand on his arm, tugging him back.

‘It’s dead,’ says a voice. It sounds miles away, but that’s because his ears are filled with the whooshing of his blood around his head as he thrashes away with his feet. ‘Let’s go.’

Kirk wheels around and sees Matt standing beside him.

He looks down at what’s left of the creature’s head, realises he’s trembling with the adrenalin, sweating despite the cold.

He’s never killed anything before. Christ, look at it. What a fucking mess. He looks at Matt, thinks of what he felt less than an hour ago, thinks of what else could have been lying at his feet, thinks of what he wanted for Barker, thinks of Dunnsy, thinks of Dazza, thinks of Ewan. He feels something welling up, something he knows he can’t stem. He pulls Matt closer, throws his arms around him and starts to cry.

By a dim glow of light through the trees, she is able to deduce that they are just north of the Fort Trochart compound. From memory, the barn should be the first thing they come to, as good a place as any to fortify themselves.

‘I’m guessing if Adnan was here,’ Cameron says very quietly, ‘you’d be finding it pretty hard not to say “I told you so”.’

‘Why?’ she asks, with pronounced consternation.

‘You’re the one who already believed in all this stuff. Demons, I mean: that’s what we saw, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m into Tolkien as well. Doesn’t mean what we saw were orcs. I believe in the power of myth, but that’s not the same as believing the myths themselves. Reality is what you’re left with when you
stop
believing in things, so it doesn’t matter what these fuckers are: what matters is how we keep them from killing us.’

‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any pointers on that score: do we need stakes through the heart, silver bullets . . . ?’

‘Pointers? Yeah.’ She glances towards the dark grey shape of a two-storey structure just distinguishable against the black of the night. ‘We barricade ourselves inside there and wait for the cavalry.’

‘Okay,’ Cameron says. He strikes her as too scared to dissent, even if he did disagree. The one good thing about the blind leading the blind is that the follower is unaware that the leader can see fuck-all either.

Having caught her breath just enough, they both set off at a cautious jog, trying to cushion their footfalls as they proceed. While they were aimlessly running, it never occurred to them to exercise any such stealth, only to put as much distance as they could between themselves and whatever was tearing Bernadette apart. As soon as they had a goal, however, despite neither making an entreaty to that effect, they were both instinctively endeavouring to conceal their movements. There is a palpable fear of being set upon from any angle at any moment, ramped up the closer they get to their destination, a thought that hadn’t crossed their minds either of the times they fled in panic.

They reach the outbuilding at its rear, Cameron accelerating when he sees the narrow door at the left-hand corner of the gable end. Marianne can’t shout, so she has to draw upon the last of her reserves to catch up with him before he can open it.

‘No,’ she says. ‘We need to do a circuit. We don’t know what’s already in there.’

They make their way cautiously around to the front, where they can examine the main entrance.

‘It’s okay,’ Marianne concludes. ‘It’s still locked from the outside. Give us a hand with this crossbeam.’

They lift the beam from its brackets and lower it to the ground as quietly as possible, before Cameron tugs the door open. Marianne glances back, anxiously looking out for possible pursuers, then follows him inside. They both stop as they feel a squelching underfoot.

‘Shite,’ Cameron says.

‘Probably.’

‘Hang on, is that a light switch there?’

‘Yeah. Let me close the door first, though.’

‘Got you.’

Marianne pulls the door to, then Cam flips the switch. They look down and see that he is standing in a puddle of blood, more dripping into it from above. Slowly, reluctantly, they look up, just in time to see a baling hook swing down into Cameron’s chest. He gets hauled rapidly upwards out of sight, blood spraying around his wildly kicking legs.

Marianne turns and runs, pushing the door open only to slam into another creature, who grips her around the throat and lifts her up. The image of Fizzy’s death flashes into her mind and she wets herself as she spots a knife in the creature’s other clawed hand.

Marianne closes her eyes but the blow doesn’t come. Instead, she hears a guttural issue that she deduces must be speech. She looks again and sees another, larger creature approach, gesticulating towards the main building as it talks. The one holding her gives a growled response, then carries her, still by the neck, into the building, where she is thrown against a pillar and drops to the floor. She feels the ground cold and tacky under her hands and looks to her side where she sees two bodies lying close by, naked and mutilated beyond recognition. The larger demon looks overhead and growls some form of command. This prompts movement above, and she glances up to see a third creature perched on the overhang of the upper level, blood smeared all over its mouth and chest, the baling hook in its hand.

There is a discussion, or possibly an argument, after which the one with the baling hook briefly disappears from sight, then rather angrily shoves Cameron over the drop. His arms flap as he falls, thrust out in front just before impact, then he cries in agony as snapped bone rips through muscle and skin. Marianne instinctively gets up to run to him, and is promptly sent reeling back against the pillar by a blow that lifts her feet off the ground. The creature then seizes her by the left wrist and drives its knife through her palm, pinning her in place.

Her scream threatens to shake the barn, shake the night.

Then the creature giving out the orders looks at her thoughtfully, very thoughtfully indeed, and says something in what sounds unmistakably to be Latin.

‘Okay, people, the good news is that I made a call and help is on its way. The bad news is we’ll be lucky if it gets here inside two hours, and as you are all aware, party crashers never come alone.’

‘Where are the rest of the kids?’ Kane asks, though he’s dreading the reply.

‘Games hall. It’s the best place to defend. Two exits, no windows. Creatures took the dining room, killed at least one of the kids, I couldn’t see for sure. Some of them ran outside. It’s sealed off now. Guthrie didn’t make it either.’

Sendak fires it out, blank and neutral. No sorrys, no plati tudes, just pertinent information. Kane understands: they can’t afford anything else right now.

There’s another crash at Sendak’s back.

‘What about Heather?’asks Blake.

‘She’s in the games hall, got my shotgun. And that’s where we gotta fall back to. This door’s not gonna hold much longer.’

A section of veneer tears away, sprinkling sawdust beneath it as the plywood starts to crumble.

‘That door opposite leads to the kitchen. I need some of you to get inside, get hold of something heavy and stand by to barricade it as soon as I get through.’

‘The kitchen?’ asks Kane. ‘But you said they took the dining room. Aren’t they connected?’

‘Only by serving hatches, and they’re sealed by roller-shutters. There’s a door leading back out to the corridor, then round one corner we’ve got a clear run to the games hall.’

‘How long a run?’ asks Blake, mindful of having carried Rebecca on the last mercy dash.

‘The longest one you’ll ever make,’ Sendak replies.

‘Hey, don’t sugar-coat it, give us the truth.’

Sendak offers him a grim smile, then shakes as the next crash impacts.

‘Get moving, people.’

Blake helps Rebecca through to the kitchen. She still seems dazed, but she has resumed the ability to perambulate herself from one spot to another, which could be the difference between life and death for both of them. She and Yvonne stand out of the way as the others assess what kitchen appliances would make the best barrier. The consensus is the huge double-doored Maytag fridge opposite the hobs. It takes Kane, Blake, Rocks and Beansy to manoeuvre it across next to the door, and they all hold their position as they wait for Sendak to make his move.

The Sergeant waits for the next crash, forces the sideboard back one last time, then sprints for the kitchen, Caitlin slamming the door as soon as he’s clear
.
They shuffle the fridge in front of it, but Sendak directs them instead to tip it on its side.

‘Less likely to topple, and we can pile some more shit on top of it,’ he explains.

As they set about further bolstering this barricade, they can hear the rending and splintering of wood as the adjacent dining room is breached. The first slam against the kitchen door follows seconds later, accompanied by a horrible guttural roar that vibrates through all of them like pins and needles.

‘What . . . are . . . those . . . things?’ asks Caitlin, shaking.

‘They’re fuckin’ demons, man,’ Beansy replies, his tone implying it’s an astonishingly stupid question. ‘Demons from Hell.’

Caitlin turns to Blake and forces the question that, like the demons themselves, he’s been able to evade so far, and which he still hopes to remain a step in front of.

‘You said there were no demons, Father.’

He is resolute and grave, answering to more than Caitlin and Beansy.

‘There are monsters, of that there can be no dispute. But we don’t know what they are, and we damn sure don’t know where they’re from.’

Kane happens to catch a glance at Sendak, whose expression betrays that he just might have an idea regarding this latter question.