S.O.S (24 page)

“ It's Zack, he's left a message. She must have gone to this address. She...They...have gone to Jenny's... but why now, so suddenly without saying anything? Something must be very wrong”.

It took Molly less than half an hour to get to the road where Jenny lived and, as she made her way along it, she kept thinking about what she was doing. If Dev was right and dark matter was causing the world to spin slowly away from the sun, if Zack was right and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was making a weapon of mass destruction and if she was right and the light really did absorb dark matter and eliminate it then she had to save the light. It would be the most important thing she would ever do in her life.

And if Chris was the light then she had to get to Jenny and warn her. If they were smart enough to work it out, two seventeen year olds and a dead boy, then people with far more at stake would be equally as smart, maybe even smarter. Molly hurried along the road, counting the house numbers until she saw Jenny's house up on the right. The lights were on in the front room and upstairs and it looked homely, welcoming and normal. Molly let herself relax a fraction.

At the front door, she rang and waited. She heard the noise of the telly and was about to ring again when Jenny shouted to her.

“Come round the back, its open! I'm just putting Sophie in the bath!”

Jenny must have been expecting someone else. Molly bent down and opened the letter box. “Hi, my name's Molly,” she called through it, “I know Father Tom. Are you sure it's ok?”

There was a short silence and a splash. Molly could see a polished wood floor and a long rug that ran the length of the hall way, but downstairs looked empty. She waited for a reply.

“Yup! Tom rang. Come on in.”

How did Father Tom know that Molly was headed to Jenny's? He and Dev must have taken a good guess. Standing, Molly went round the side, through the gate and opened the back door into the kitchen. The house was clean and tidy, but it looked as if dinner had been left half eaten on the table. Molly wandered in.

“Hello?” she called, “Hello, are you upstairs?”

“Yup...”

“Shall I come up?”

There was no reply, so Molly climbed the stairs. There was no more splashing and it was quiet.

“Hi, I'm coming up now,” Molly said loudly. “Are you in the bathroom? Shall I wait on the landing?”

“In the bedroom,” a voice called. Molly stopped. The voice sounded strained, uneasy. There were four doors on the first floor, three were open, two were children's rooms and were empty. The other was a bathroom, again empty. Molly went to the closed door in the middle of the four and turned the handle. Despite feeling a bit uneasy about intruding, she opened the door and walked in.

“Hi, I hope you don't mind me coming up, I...”

Jenny sat on the bed, absolutely still and a small girl sat beside her. They held hands. Molly stood, motionless, and the door swung shut behind her. She didn't need to turn; she could feel his breath behind her.

“Take the rope and tie her hands behind her back,” he said to Jenny. Molly waited.

Jenny stood and picked up a piece of nylon rope from the floor; it hadn't been visible when Molly had first entered the room, but now she saw that he'd had it there ready for her. Jenny came across to her. Her face was drained of colour and her lips were pinched hard together. She was breathing heavily, trying to contain her fear.

“I'm sorry...” she murmured. She went behind Molly and Molly clasped her hands behind her back ready to be tied. He came out from behind her then and she saw the gun. She began to shake.

“Now go downstairs,” he said to Jenny. “Take the child. Wait, and pray for him to come.” He nodded at the door. “Call him, make contact. Do whatever it is you do when the light appears.”

Jenny nodded and a small sob escaped as she picked up Sophie. She carried the girl out of the room, but she couldn't look at Molly; she was too afraid.

“Bathroom. Now!”

He opened the door for her and Molly walked out. She wondered about making a run for it, but she knew that he would shoot her. He was here to finish the light, to destroy it, and he wasn't going to let anything get in the way.

In the bathroom, she stood while he turned on the taps and ran the bath. Molly began to cry. She hung her head as the tears streamed down her face. He tied her feet with rope and edged her into the half-filled bath. She wasn't going to drown; the water wasn't deep enough. Lying in the semi warmth, Molly watched horrified as the young man tied a wire round her ankle and attached it to a table lamp from the bedroom that he plugged in on the landing. He placed the lamp out of her reach on the far edge of the bath and switched it on. She couldn't move; if she did, she would trip the lamp into the bath and she would be electrocuted.

“Why don't you kill me?” she whispered.

He turned to look at her then and she could see the deadness behind his eyes, the blank emptiness where feeling and regret and even evil should have been. There was nothing.

“I don't need to,” the assassin said, “you will kill yourself.” He switched off the light and Molly could hear his footsteps on the stairs as he went down.

*

Zack was running as fast as he could. He was quick; he'd had good practise at running away from things. It was only as he got to the small parade of shops that he realised he'd gone wrong. He headed back and checked the street sign. A hundred or so yards up the street, he began to slow. He had memorised the number and he started looking for numbers on houses. He passed a man with a dog and the dog stopped dead still and whined. The man dragged him on.

“Come on boy,” he said, “I'm freezing out here, let's get on with it.” The dog reluctantly let itself be pulled away, but its ears were up and it knew that Zack was there.

Half way along the road Zack found the right house. The curtains were drawn but the lights were on so he made his way around to the side of the house. He peered in through the windows at the back – a neat kitchen, a meal half finished, left on the table. No movement. He walked in through the half open back door and followed the voices. The door to the lounge was open and a woman sat in there on the edge of a sofa. She was silently weeping. Next to her a little girl was curled up, hugging her knees into her chest, her face buried.

“Speak to him again!” a voice demanded.

The woman continued to weep. Zack felt a moment of panic. He edged closer but there was no sign of Molly. He headed up the stairs.

At the top he turned towards the bedroom, but as he did so he saw her, lying in the bath, her eyes closed.

“Molly?!”

Suddenly she snapped them open and her face froze in a mixture of joy and fear.

“Zack, Oh God, I'm...” her voice trailed off.

Zack followed the lead from the lamp. It was plugged in outside the bathroom. The switch was down. “I've got it,” he called. “Don't move.” He sat on the ground and stared at the switch. He focused his mind, focused his energy and willed himself to a physical presence to move the switch on the socket....

*

Father Tom pulled up outside Jenny's house and slung the car onto the pavement. He and Dev climbed out, but they didn't slam the doors. Even ten yards away they moved silently and stealthily so as not to be heard, not to disturb. At the house they crept to the front window, crouched down so as not to be seen. Underneath the window Dev raised himself up to see inside. There was a young man, a woman and a child, but no Molly. He ducked down again.

“She's not there,” he said.

Father Tom looked at him. They both knew she was in there; there was nowhere else she could be.

“She's somewhere in that house,” Tom whispered. He didn't add what they both thought; either alive or dead.

Dev nodded. “Come on...” Still crouching to miss the windows, he led the way around the side and in through the back door. He motioned for Father Tom to wait there while he crept into the house.

He could hear talking, a woman's voice, pleading, thick with tears. His heart hammered in his chest. He didn't know what to do. He was no hero; he was terrified. He thought fast. He needed to get upstairs to check that Molly wasn't up there. Creeping along to the staircase, pressed against the wall, Dev began to climb up backwards, keeping one eye firmly on the closed door of the lounge.

As he rounded the curve in the staircase, he turned and dashed up the rest. At the top he saw the open door and headed for it. He stopped.

“Molly?” he murmured, “Molly, oh my God...”

Molly lay fully clothed in the bath; her eyes shut tight, tears streaming down her face. Dev inched into the room, he took in the wire and the lamp, Molly's feet and hands bound and he had to stifle a gasp of horror. He looked at the bulb, it was off then he took a step back onto the landing. The switch on the plug was also off.

“Thank God.” He whispered. He came into the bathroom and with trembling hands he leant down and touched Molly on the shoulder. She started violently and her eyes snapped open.

“Dev?” She had to hold in a sob that caught in her throat and he put his finger to his lips.

“You're safe,” he whispered, “the lamp is off.”

“I know,” Molly said. More tears rolled down her face, “He's gone. Zack did it and he's gone...”

Dev bushed his hand against her cheek. “I'm sorry,” he said, “he was...”

“Is!” Zack interrupted, “He is! I'm still here.”

“Zack? Zack are you really? I can hardly see you!” Molly's voice was just above a whisper, but still it was too loud. Dev shook his head.

“Sssssh, he'll hear us,” he said, “he's downstairs.”

“He wants to get the light, finish it,” Molly told him. “He wants Jenny to call to her son, make him appear.”

“Can she do that?”

“I don't know, I...” Molly broke off. She could see Zack now, vaguely. He had faded and was sitting in a heap on the floor. “Zack, you saved me,” she said simply. He shrugged. He had saved her and he knew that it was probably the last thing he would do. He was glad though, it was the last and the best thing he would ever do.

Dev looked at Molly. “Can you stay there for a bit longer? It'll be too noisy trying to get out. I need to call the police; I'll do it outside the house where he can't hear me. They should be here in minutes. Is that OK? Will you be ok?”

She nodded. “I need to talk to Zack anyway.”

Dev leant forward and kissed Molly on the lips. “I'll come back for you,” he said. “I promise.”

Moments later he was gone.

*

The assassin stood outside the lounge and fastened the lead apron across his body. The case he had been carrying around lay open and it was almost empty. He had already removed the anti-particle storage system, APS, from its case, a long cylinder with a bar of clustered cells that ran along the centre of it, like a neon strip light. The cells absorbed light, but they also gave off a toxic radiation. The assassin wasn't interested in the complex science of it, he knew what he had to do and he was intent on doing it. The lead apron was a protection against the radiation, but it was heavy. He knew that once on, he didn't have much time or dexterity. He had to turn it on and radiate the light, annihilate it within seconds. He looked at Jenny in the lounge and motioned with the gun.

“Hurry up,” he said coldly...

*

Dev was at the turn in the staircase and he could see the young man, just a couple of metres away from him. He was just outside the door. He had placed some sort of device in the centre of the lounge, that much Dev could see as well, but any more was hidden. Dev glanced down at the floor. His palms were sweating; he could hear nothing as the blood thundered in his ears. He took a step down, silently, then another and on the bottom stair, holding his breath, he took the edge of the rug that ran the length of the hall floor and gripped it hard. The assassin was only five feet away from him looking into the lounge. He took a breath and yanked with all his might.

The rug came up. He held onto the edge of it. The assassin, weighted by the lead apron, had the ground ripped from underneath his feet. His legs went up in the air and he landed hard, with a resounding crack onto the floor. His head came down and smacked against the door frame. He lay unconscious.

“Jenny?!” Father Tom was into the hall and then into the lounge as fast as he could get there. In the centre of the room a long cylinder lay on the floor. It was buzzing and a crackle of energy was coming off it in waves. Tom bent and turned it over in his hands. There was a sickly purple glare that came off it and his hands were hot, they were burning, but still he turned it and held it. “I've got it!” he suddenly shouted, “I've got the switch....”

Just as his words left his mouth he felt an enormous pressure behind his eyes, a blinding light. He heard Jenny's voice cry out and his heart wrenched.

“Chris! Chris! Please, don't...”

Upstairs Molly too saw the light. It was so bright that it lit the whole of the house. She struggled to sit up, to grip the side of the bath.

“Zack?!” she cried, “Zack, hold on to me, please. Focus on me Zack, Zack please...”

His voice was barely audible. “I can't Molly,” he said, “Not this time...the light... It's pulling me in... I want to go...”

Molly was openly crying now. She knew he was right. “Zack I never said, I need to say...”

She had to strain to hear him, to hear anything against the suffocating silence that was beginning to descend. “Zack I went to Newcastle,” she cried, “I found...” her voice failed her, strangled in a sob. “I found out that you're my brother! My twin... Zack...” She began to shout his name as he faded. “Zack! Zack, please... ZACK...”

The light burned brighter than ever. The whole world was bathed in the luminosity of it.