The Circle Line (4 page)

‘Trick or treat!’ said a childish voice on the other side of the door followed by the giggle of a small girl.

Sam let out the breath he had been holding and Valerie began to laugh as she walked forwards and opened the door. A small figure stood on the step, a devilish mask on top of a black witch’s cloak.

‘Who is that in there?’ Valerie said to the mask.

A small girl pulled the mask over her head and grinned, showing several missing teeth. ‘It's me!’ she said delighted.

‘Well, hello Sophie’ said Valerie. ‘And hello Steve’ she said looking over to a man, standing on the pavement, his arms folded and a faint smile on his face.

Hi, Valerie’ he said with a wave, ‘Happy Halloween.’

Sophie thrust a basket in the air above her head, it was already half full of chocolate and sweets.

‘Okay’ laughed Valerie ‘Let me see what I've got.’ She turned and walked towards the kitchen.

‘Do you like my costume?’ asked Sophie turning to Sam, suddenly serious and scowling. ‘Look, I've even got extra toes.’ pointing Sam towards a pair of latex slippers which covered her own feet. 'Daddy says I'm an ab-om-in-ation.' she added, struggling with the word.

Sam steadied himself against the wall; his heart was still hammering in his chest. He had forgotten it was Halloween. He was so on edge at the moment. It was ridiculous. He was just about to relax and answer Sophie when a scream came from behind him and he heard Valerie exclaim. He rushed into the kitchen. She stood with one hand curled against her chest, her other hand outstretched, her index finger pointing towards the table. It took Sam a moment to realise what she was looking at. He looked at the kitchen table, at the cutlery he had put out a moment ago. With a gasp he realised that it had all moved, every fork, knife and spoon had shifted and now all pointed in the same direction as if drawn by some giant magnet. Looking again, he saw that every drawer and cabinet had opened. Someone, or something, had been here.

Sam lay in bed. It was still early, and he was not sleepy, despite an emotional and tiring day, but Valerie had wanted to turn in, unnerved by the events in the kitchen.
What was happening?
thought Sam. There had always been odd things in the house, but he thought it was only really him that had noticed them before, and certainly nothing had ever moved in the way that the cutlery had moved this evening. That was poltergeist activity, Sam thought with a shudder. Valerie had certainly been quite scared by it and had been unable to stay in the kitchen to eat the meal she had prepared. Sam had had to make her two cups of strong sweet tea to settle her nerves and she had only picked at the pie as they ate in the lounge in front of the television and a reassuringly banal sitcom. At first she had found the evening news even too much, stories about a gas explosion in a pub and a worker who had become lost in the London Underground.

In the faint moonlight coming through the curtains Sam looked around the room, noting the shapes of his possessions, most of them gifts from his grandfather. He reached for the glass of water next to him and knocked his wallet onto the floor. Stretching he picked it up and opened it to see the photo of him and his grandfather, taken in happier times. He switched on the torch he kept nearby and looked at it. He didn't look much like Adam Hain. Sam's hair was brown; his grandfather’s was blonde before it went grey. He tossed the wallet into his open rucksack and lay back down facing the wall. Eventually he drifted off to sleep.

Sam's breathing was shallow and he slept soundly until a faint noise began. It was partly a chime, partly a hum, the noise of a small coin spinning in the air waiting for someone to call heads or tails. Sam stirred, still asleep. Thin wisps of fog began to escape his nostrils as the temperature dropped in his room, twin Chinese dragons of mist rising above his head. He stirred again drawing the covers closer under his chin, a small shiver causing his body to shake slightly. On a shelf above his head stood a Galileo thermometer, one of the many presents from his grandfather. It was a glass cylinder, filled with a clear fluid in which were suspended five round glass bubbles each of a different size. Depending on which vials floated or sank one could read the temperature. As Sam slept the bubbles all slid soundlessly to the bottom of the thermometer.

But then the hum slowly faded away with the cold air and the glass bubbles rose back up the tube. Sam slept on.

In the darkness of a cellar a mouse seemed to hang in the air, almost impossibly still, although alive. The skin at the nape of its neck pinched where it was held, four feet above the floor. A patch of light fell upon the mouse from a cigarette lighter above it.
Clunk, chink, clunk, chink
. The lighter opened and closed, the light of the flame flashing on and off. A pale hand moved forward from the darkness, dimly visible in the faint light, meaty fingers pointed towards the ground in mimicry of the mouse's legs and tail.  The hand made a twisting movement and the mouse, still hanging in mid-air, began to twist lazily. A voice spoke in the darkness.

‘What is your report? Are you certain he is there now?’

‘Master Ferus,’ came the reply ‘the space between continues to thin although the doors are not predictable. It is Halloween. The boy is asleep. But,' the voice hesitated, 'I do not understand why we need to be so secretive. If this boy is the subject of the prophecy then....'. The voice trailed off with a choking noise.

‘Do not ever question me again. Now is the time to act, but I do not want to reveal our interest in him less someone intervene before his death. If he is the one then this must seem like an accident. He senses our presence and that cursed dwarf has already been sniffing around.’

The hand hovering above the mouse suddenly clenched into a fist and the small grey furry body crumpled with a series of small but still sickening cracking sounds. The hand opened and withdrew into a dark sleeve. The mouse's misshapen body fell to the floor sending a small puff of dust swirling and twinkling in the dim light of the flame.

Chapter Four

Aleksy Nowak awoke with a start, utterly disorientated. He was lying on a rough stone floor, cold and damp. He sat up and looked around wildly, feeling slightly dizzy as he did so. There was not much light to see by but ahead of him and above and to the sides he could see only grey stone walls. He felt a draft behind him and slowly turned his head and then his body, still sitting on the cold floor. The last wall was not a wall as such. Thick iron bars stretched from ceiling to floor.

Aleksy climbed slowly to his feet wincing as he did so and moved over to the bars. Where on earth was he? He ran his hands over the smooth metal. He could see little beyond the bars, a dark passageway stretched away to either side. He was in a cell. How had he got here? He fought the rising panic and tried to calm himself. He cast his mind back. He had been walking along the Circle Line section of the Underground. He was still wearing his high-visibility jacket and work trousers. And then there had been another tunnel, and a hum, and a... he frowned... and a force that had pushed him towards a doorway. He ran a hand over his closely shaved head, he could remember nothing else. Had he been abducted by aliens?

A sound shook him from his thoughts. The scream of hinges on a distant door perhaps, then a clang which echoed through the darkness. Aleksy backed away from the bars suddenly certain that whatever was coming wasn't going to be good. It was as he reached the rear wall and put his back to it that he realised what the cell was missing. He turned franticly, studying each of the bars, the walls, floor and ceiling in desperate panic. He was locked in a cell that had no door. Then as footsteps approached he began to feel something change. His mind felt as though it was being driven out of his head. Another mind seemed to be quietly slipping inside his brain and before its terrible power his own mind became increasingly opaque. As a figure wearing a black cloak arrived in front of the bars Aleksy felt the last of his own coherent thoughts disappear like birds flying silently over a distant horizon. A tiny and far away part of him faintly registered surprise as the bars at the end of the cell parted as though the cloaked man had simply opened a curtain and then even that thought winked out of existence and he was transfixed.

Ferus lifted his meaty hands and drew the hood of the black cloak away from his face exposing his pale face to the dark night, his black hair accentuating the pallor of his skin as he stood silently in the garden. A grin briefly shaped his square jaw and he closed his eyes and put his hands out before him and toward the house, fingers splayed like a blind man feeling an unfamiliar shape. But Ferus was far from sightless. He moved his hands gently to and fro and then after a few moments his hands stopped their search and another grin flashed briefly in the shadows. His fingers wiggled slightly.

Opening his eyes Ferus saw that within the house a faint orange glow had appeared at one corner of the quiet building, just visible through one of the windows. Ferus allowed one arm to fall to his side but kept the other outstretched as though studying his fingernails. He turned his wrist. Quickly a flicker of flame was reflected in a window as a flame curved and snaked hungrily as it tried to find its way through the building. It came across a small breath of air where a window had been left open slightly and sucked in oxygen. Buoyed by fresh air the flames twisted towards some heavy curtains and began to eat them. They were soon alight, a sheet of orange and yellow hanging and then falling, dropping to the floor. Dark smoke coursed upwards travelling across the ceiling, boiling and churning, desperate to move up and out of the room to choke the life from the living above. The fire crept along the floor, eating and melting the carpet it found there, searching for fuel to feed its hunger. It came across a sofa and shrieked in delight as it engulfed it in its molten embrace. Suddenly, a shrill and piercing alarm rang out above the crackle of burning wood and fabric. The fire seemed to roar in answer and continued its infernal spread as quickly as it could, devouring everything in its path.

In the garden Ferus raised his hands to the black cowl and drew it back over his head making it seem as though he had vanished into the shadows, the only clue that he was still there was the orange flicker in his eyes as he watched the fire. Then after a few moments even that tiny sign disappeared and he was gone.

Sam was dreaming of cloaked men and crows, standing amongst gravestones, when a piercing shriek entered his visions. Groggily Sam turned over and reached for his alarm clock but as he began to wake he realised that was wrong.
Smoke
, some primal part of his brain told him.
Fire, smoke, wake, move.
Sam was awake then, falling sideways from his bed, already grabbing for clothes. He could smell it clearly now and hear it too, the unmistakeable noise of a substantial fire. The crash and pop of it. He dragged on jeans and a t-shirt as quickly as he could, feeling conscious that Valerie should not see him naked despite the obvious danger. He caught sight of his rucksack and grabbed it, stuffing a discarded jumper into it as he leapt over the books and dirty clothes that covered his floor. He pulled his arms through the straps of the rucksack and shouted Valerie's name as he opened the door.

The wall of heat and light hit him like a punch and he felt his hair move and lift as the hot wind rushed past him. The hall ahead of him was ablaze on one wall, the fire seemingly desperate to cross it, licking at the ceiling, searching for a hold. Sam put his head down and ran down the corridor towards Valerie's room, feeling the heat strike the side of his face and thump at the soles of his bare feet. He crashed through the door into the dark bedroom, which immediately felt cool after the infernal hallway behind him. The bed was empty. He shouted for Valerie again, but there was no answer. Desperately he looked under the bed and in the wardrobe, the only two places she could have possibly been. Belatedly he realised that he shouldn’t have rushed into the room as he did. He remembered seeing a film in which even experienced firemen had been blasted off their feet by fires hiding behind doors which exploded with the sudden inrush of oxygen. He had to be more sensible.

He turned back towards the corridor. Despite having been in the room for only a matter of seconds the fire had intensified and had moved across the hall. Both walls and the ceiling were alight, smoke rolling and fighting to get into the room with him. Looking into that hallway was like looking into the entrance to some hell. The other end was black, a void in the maelstrom of orange and yellow daggers that ringed the passageway. Looking around him in increasing panic Sam saw a pair of pink, fleecy, rubber-soiled slippers lying next to the door and he hastily pulled his feet into them before taking a deep breath. He ran.

The fire snatched at his clothes and hair as he sprinted down the hall. The heat was immense and he felt as though his skin was screaming in protest. As he reached the end of the hall he saw that the painting of the beautiful girl that had fixed his attention for so many years had caught alight. In a moment the fire had eaten through her face, holes appearing in her perfect cheeks. Her hair caught and the painting curled as she disappeared forever.

Sam turned and stopped at the sight from the top of the stairs. The fire here was even hotter, fiercer. A fountain of flame thrust up through several collapsed stairs about halfway down. Sam couldn't see what was on the other side. He briefly considered turning back but then, without having really thought about it, he was moving down the stairs as quickly as he could, as he reached the missing stairs he closed his eyes and leapt blindly.

He landed awkwardly on the bottom stairs and spilled forwards, scraping his forearms along the floor and banging his head on the wall to the side of him. A white flash filled his vision as his forehead connected with the skirting board. Heat pressed onto him from all sides and for a moment he felt as though he was pinned to the floor, pressure seemingly holding down every part of his body. Panicking he got his hands underneath him and pushed backwards, managing to rise to his knees. He had been lucky, he had landed in a patch of floor that was not yet ablaze but fire raged ahead of him and as he watched part of the ceiling ahead of him collapsed. The way to the front door was blocked.

He forced his way from his knees to his feet, slightly dizzy from the effort and the blow he had taken. He threw himself into the room to the side of him. The fire raged here too and the smoke was thicker. He began to cough uncontrollably and the dizziness intensified. There was nothing for it but to fight his way to the back door. He plunged through smoke and flame, one arm above his head. He felt something strike him between the shoulder blades but the rucksack took the brunt and, although he staggered, he kept his feet. He was almost there when the fire let out an unearthly scream as though it sensed that he might make his escape. It rose up before him like some hellish beast. Sam dodged sideways and saw that a window had broken. Without thinking he dived for it and threw himself through it. It was like plunging into a cold bath and he managed to take half a breath before the ground rushed up and hit him, knocking the smoky air from his lungs. With a tremendous effort Sam again scrambled to his feet and dashed down the garden. He reached the back wall and turned to look at the house as the fire shrieked again. He wheezed and coughed, his throat raw.

The entire building was ablaze, part of the roof had collapsed, flames surged from the windows curling around the painted brickwork leaving it blackened and burnt. As Sam watched the chimney tottered and fell through the roof sending a new gout of flame billowing upwards to chase a million sparks that danced above the inferno. Sam wiped a sooty hand across his forehead, smearing a trickle of blood across his face. Everything he owned. Everything his grandfather had given him. Gone, in a matter of minutes.

He again thought of Valerie. She might have made it out. She would be at the front of the house. With no way to pass the burning building Sam climbed gingerly over the back wall, landing on the path that ran behind it. He jogged slowly along it, turning twice to reach the road at the front of the house. He could see Valerie there looking up at the fire and the massive column of thick smoke that piled into the air as if a hole had opened in the ground and the very centre of the Earth was fighting its way out.

Sam was about to call out to Valerie, her attention fixed on the sight in front of her but then he noticed something that made him stop and flatten back against the corner of the wall. Valerie was there, standing alone and staring at the house, her hands to her face in horror as she shouted at the house, barely audible over the roar of the flames. But behind her and in the shadow of the trees, where she could not see them, stood three cloaked men. From the position of their bodies Sam saw they were not staring at the building, but at Valerie's back. Instantly Sam felt a sense of unease as he saw them. As he stood there a moment, the feeling increased. Suddenly, Valerie seemed to make a decision and she took a few purposeful steps towards the burning building. But as she did Sam saw a flash of movement. Suddenly, Valerie was falling to the ground as if she had been stuck

Then Sam saw flashing blue lights appear back in the village. If there was a siren it was not audible over the roar of the fire. The men saw it too and as a trio suddenly turned and walked into the woods behind them. In a moment they were gone. Sam sprinted to Valerie and skidded to a stop beside her on his knees.

‘Are you okay? Are you hurt?’ gasped Sam

‘No, not really’ she said, struggling to stand ‘I'm a tough old bird. What happened? I thought you were still in there, and then... and then...I think something must have hit me on the head’. She raised her hand to the back of her skull.

Sam felt anger flash through him. He looked to the gap in the railings where the men had vanished, and he looked ahead to the blue lights. He made a decision. Those men had done something. Patting Valerie's hand, he gave her a smile then turned and ran. He threw himself towards the woods, anger and adrenaline driving him forward. He dived through the gap in the railings and felt the cold darkness of the woods envelop him, shutting out the crash as part of the house collapsed behind him and Valerie called out his name in fear and despair.

Sam blinked furiously, trying to see amongst the black trees. The image of the fire still danced across his vision and he felt even angrier as he wasted valuable seconds waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. The coolness and damp of the leaves around him was welcome though and it wasn't long before he dashed forwards towards the broken road, ears and eyes straining for any sign of the men who, he was sure, had taken everything from him. He felt, before he saw, the buckled tarmac under his feet and he pressed forwards, turning his head from side to side, his throat still raw from the smoke. It felt like he was trying to swallow razor blades. He thought that he could see someone moving up ahead and he quickened his pace.

All of a sudden a heavy weight hit him around the waist and he was thrown into the bushes to one side. He landed heavily, face down, mud and leaves bitter in his mouth. The weight rolled with him and he wrestled with it, trying to throw it off, until he realised that it was moving. Someone was holding him down. He had been caught.