Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother (34 page)

 
          
He
halted,
then
he ran. He ran past George, toward Clare,
growing, growing faster. She watched him grow. She wondered whether Chris would
see him.

 
          
“Shit,
no,” Chris said. Some life had returned to his voice.

 
          
Alice
glanced where he was staring. “It’s all right, I’ll talk to him,” she said, but
Chris had already dodged into the house as if it were home. He ran along the
hall, peered up the stairs at a sound up there, wavered by the doorway to the
cellar. Clare realized he was afraid to go into the cellar to hide.

 
          
That
distressed her, in a distant generalized way. The sight of Edmund, looking
about quickly as he reached the house then stooping to the gutter for the metal
bar she’d carried out of the house, seemed closer; at any rate, her revulsion
was. “Call the police,” he said rapidly to Alice. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t
get away.”

 
          
Clare
saw Chris glance into the cellar as Edmund ventured toward him. Suddenly Chris
wasn’t there. He’d dodged into the cellar, and immediately she knew he’d gone
to get the spade for a weapon. She was hardly aware of clambering out of the
car to see what would happen.

 
          
She
was almost glad to reach the house, for support—even the support of the oozing
walls. Alice and George were murmuring together urgently, and hadn’t noticed
her. She stumbled forward, doing her best to hold her head steady on her neck.
She was almost at the cellar before Edmund turned and saw her.

 
          
“Go
back,” he hissed, “I’m handling this”—and Chris appeared on the steps behind
him, raising the spade.

 
          
She
couldn’t warn Edmund. She didn’t know if she would have if she could. He must
have read something in her eyes, for he whirled just as Chris swung the spade
to chop him down—swung it with such force that it tore through the low ceiling.
Plaster rained down, turning Chris’s hair and shoulders grey. Clare heard wood
splinter, and a creaking.

 
          
The
spade had lodged in timber, like an axe.
As Chris wrenched at
it amid the dusty rain, the splintering and creaking increased.
Get out
of there, she wanted suddenly to cry. “Try that with me, would you?” Edmund
snarled. “Get down there where you belong.” He drove the iron bar into Chris’s
stomach as George and Alice came into the hall.

 
          
Chris
doubled up but kept hold of the spade. A last uncontrollable
splintering,
and the rotten timber gave as he lost his footing on the steps. A plank and its
burden of broken glass came ripping through the plaster overhead. The plank
caught him on the shoulder, flinging him backward into the mud.

 
          
For
a moment that seemed to be all, except for the creaking, louder and more
ominous. Clare wasn’t sure if the ceiling of the cellar had begun to sag
violently or whether that was just the way she felt. She wasn’t sure if a
smooth pale face had appeared at Chris’s shoulder as he floundered stunned in
the mud. Perhaps one of the stones had; surely there were no pale arms to go
with the face, no arms reaching out of the mud to embrace Chris. Then the
rotten floor gave way overhead, and a wardrobe that she took at first to be a
coffin came crashing through the plaster onto Chris. She saw him break and
writhe, saw him die. She felt nothing.

 
          
When
Alice reached Edmund she slapped his face as hard as she could.

 
          
The
hall walls clapped. George stared at her, bewildered,
then
he looked up toward the cries of panic. In their midst a baby was wailing. As
Alice saw Clare begin to shake and came to hold her, he went upstairs.

 
          
Saturday, April 17

 
          
If
I hadn’t followed George in case he needed help, Kelly might be at large today.

 
          
But
we did more than stop a criminal from committing further horrors. George went
back to the house to rescue that baby, and George does what he sets out to do.
I like to think that by starting the search for Kelly, I helped save that baby.
I think that makes everything worthwhile.

 
          
The
End