The Darkest Corners (4 page)

A ragged shape lay there in the middle of the aisle. As I drew closer I recognised the tattered remains of Joe Crow. They squirmed as if alive, and I saw his body begin to reform, like footage of rotting fruit played in high-speed reverse.

‘S-see you, boy,' he slurred. A half-formed hand reached out for me. ‘Don't you g-go nowhere.'

I clambered over the pews beside him, not daring to get too close. The rest of the aisle passed in a blur as I raced through the inner doors and out through the exit into the world beyond.

A foot stuck out from round the doorframe and I tripped. My momentum carried me down the stone steps and I landed on my back on the damp, dirty ground.

My dad stood at the top of the steps, laughing as he looked down. And there, beside him, was Ameena. My dad and Ameena. Together.

There had been a little hope inside me, buried deep down. A hope that somehow everything was going to be OK. A hope that, no matter how bad things seemed at the moment, they weren't broken beyond repair.

That hope died when I saw them standing there together. My dad was grinning, but I didn't look at him. Instead I just stared at Ameena and asked her, ‘Why?'

She shrugged and pushed her hair out of her face. ‘Nothing personal.'

‘Nothing personal?' I said. I was on my feet in an instant.
‘Nothing personal
; are you nuts?'

I began to climb the stairs towards them. Ameena raised her fists and bounced on to the balls of her feet. ‘Don't,' she warned.

I stopped. Not because I was scared of her, but because I suddenly had no energy left to climb with.

‘So, what?' I asked croakily. ‘The whole time? It's all been a lie?'

‘Bingo,' laughed my dad. ‘All that stuff about you making her, about her being –' he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers – ‘“a tool”? All rubbish. None of that was true.'

‘Then why say it?' I asked. ‘What was the point?'

‘The point was what it's always been,' he continued. ‘To make you care about her. To make you want to protect her.' His grin widened. ‘And you do, don't you, kiddo? You care about her
a lot
.'

I didn't answer. Ameena tried to hold my gaze, but glanced away.

‘Man, that must be a kick in the teeth,' my dad chuckled. ‘There you are falling for her charms, and all the while she's just trying to get you to use your abilities so you break down the barrier and she can get the Hell away from you.'

‘It was you in that brown robe all along,' I said. ‘It was you.'

‘
Bzzzzt!
Correct answer,' cried my dad. ‘And I think if you're honest with yourself you always really knew that. You just didn't want to believe it. Am I right?
Kiddo?
'

I didn't answer, just kept staring and waiting for it to sink in. She'd been working against me. Right from day one, she'd been working against me.

My dad put a finger behind his ear and pushed it slightly forward. ‘You know, the walls between this world and yours must be paper-thin now. If you listen, you can hear your little friend Billy screaming.'

He was right. Billy's screams were muffled, but there was no mistaking them. They came from high up in the church, a whole other world away. They were screams not of panic, but of pain.

My dad and Ameena stepped apart, leaving the path to the door clear. ‘You've got maybe a minute to get back there and save him,' said my dad. ‘Or you can stay here and chitchat with us. The choice is yours.'

Far away, Billy let out a squeal of agony. My dad's face lit up with a manic grin.

‘But whatever you decide, you'd better do it quickly.'

I
threw the church doors open and sprinted along the aisle. I was still in the Darkest Corners – it was too dangerous to jump back into my own world until I was up the ladder and inside the tower itself – and Joe Crow had almost finished pulling himself back together on the ruined church floor.

He was drawing himself up on his stubby legs as I ran towards him. The sackcloth mask he had been wearing hadn't made the trip back with him, and his wrinkled, old-man face twisted into a scowl at my approach. He snarled, revealing dozens of tiny, shark-like teeth poking out from his pale gums.

‘I see you came back, boy,' he spat; then he stopped talking as the sole of my shoe slammed hard into the centre of his weather-beaten face. He stumbled backwards on to the floor, and then I was past him, through the door behind the pulpit and scrabbling up the rusted ladder.

I was halfway up before I realised I couldn't hear Billy screaming, and all the way at the top before I realised I couldn't hear anything from within the tower at all.

As soon as I was through the hatch I focused on a spark and moved between worlds. To my relief, Billy was there, almost exactly where I'd left him. He was kneeling down, facing away from me, his hands hanging limply by his sides so his knuckles were almost touching the floor.

He was half hidden by the shadows, but as I took a step closer I saw the spots of blood on the side of his face. I thought back. He hadn't been bleeding after Ameena hit him, had he? In all the panic, I couldn't remember.

‘Are you OK?' I asked. ‘What happened?'

Billy didn't answer. Up close I could see that his whole body was vibrating. His breath was whistling unsteadily in and out, and he gave the occasional soft whimper as I took another creaky step closer.

‘I heard you screaming,' I said. He flinched, but didn't turn round. I took another step towards him. ‘What happened? Why were you screaming?'

Billy's trembling was becoming more and more violent, as if his body was going deep into shock. He flinched again as I laid my hand on his shoulder.

‘What's wrong, Billy?' I asked. ‘What happened? Talk to me.'

With a sob, he slowly turned his head. I felt my guts twist in horror. I stumbled away from him, swallowing the urge to throw up. His eyes bored into mine, ringed with red and filled with tears.

I tried to speak, but no words came. Tried to scream, but my throat was closed tight. Instead I raised a shaking hand and pointed. Pointed at his face; at his mouth; at the thick black stitches that threaded through his lips, pulling them tightly together.

He tried to say something, but the words came out as a jumbled mumble of syllables. His fingers brushed against the stitches, then pulled quickly away. His eyes bulged. His nostrils flared. He let out a high-pitched moan that would have been a scream if he could open his mouth.

‘Wh-who…?' I began, but a blast of music answered my question before I could even ask it.

It came from the room below, loud enough to shake the floor beneath us.

If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise…

‘No,' I whispered. ‘Not him. Not here.'

If you go down to the woods today, you'd better go in disguise…

Of all the fiends I'd faced so far, Doc Mortis was up there with the worst of them. He was a sadist, a madman who believed himself to be a surgeon, and who kidnapped innocent people and performed grotesque operations on them. I'd barely escaped his hospital. I thought he was dead. It appeared I was wrong.

A
crash
of breaking wood temporarily drowned out the music from below. One of the wooden boards that had been fastened over an opening in the tower wall was smashed in right behind Billy.

Before he could even turn, a freakishly thin figure reached through the gap. I caught a glimpse of its bald head and its surgical mask. Eyes that were no more than buttons stitched on to skin flashed at me through the gloom, and I recognised one of Doc's porters.

A scarred hand caught Billy by the back of his jacket and dragged him towards the hole in the wall.

Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic
…

‘Billy!' I cried, reaching out a hand. His fingertips touched mine, but then he was gone, dragged out into the chill night air. I ran to the broken wood and looked out. Screechers heaved through the streets, but there was no sign of Billy or the porter anywhere. They couldn't have gone far, though. I had to find him. Too many people had suffered because of me as it was.

The wind pushed against me as I squeezed out through the gap and on to the roof, which led down at a steep angle from the side of the tower. The roof extended a few centimetres past the top of the wall, and beyond that lay a dizzyingly long drop to the ground.

With great care I inched away from the tower, trying to get a better view of the roof. My feet slipped on the snow-covered slates and I had to grab for the broken board to stop me sliding off.

My legs kicked frantically, trying to back-pedal to safety. I dug in my heels and pushed until I was finally able to get back into a standing position.

I spent a few seconds getting my nerves back under control, then looked around for Billy. Aside from mine, there were no footprints in the snow. I craned my neck and looked at the top of the tower, but nothing moved up there in the dark.

‘Billy,' I hissed. ‘Where are you?' But only the wind replied.

Dozens of panicked screeches began to rise up from below. I leaned out, trying to see over the edge and down to the street. I held on to the wood with my fingertips, craning my neck in an attempt to—

Something slammed against my fingers from inside the tower. There was no time to turn and see who or what was responsible. My feet slipped out from under me and I began to slide towards the edge of the roof.

The sparks fizzled behind my eyes, and I had to grit my teeth and force myself not to give in. Billy had been right. Using my abilities was playing right into my dad's hands. Was playing right into
Ameena's
hands. He –
they –
were trying to make me end the world. He'd told me right from the start I was going to kill everyone on Earth. I wasn't going to let him be right.

I closed my eyes and let myself go limp. It was the best I could come up with at short notice.

The edge of the roof came up quickly, the ground almost as fast. The snow was thin beside the wall, the church sheltering that spot from the worst of the snowfall. I landed with a
crunch
on icy gravel. The impact forced a yelp from me and a dozen deformed figures turned to look in my direction.

I climbed clumsily to my feet, using the church's brickwork to pull myself into a standing position. A jolt of pain shot up my spine from where I'd hit the ground. I glanced frantically left and right, searching for a way past the screechers, but the screechers were busy with problems of their own.

Something that was more Beast than anything else pounded through the snow on all fours, its huge head lolling left and right. Hot saliva dripped from the monster's mouth, melting the snow where it fell. It advanced slowly on the screechers, then occasionally leapt at them and snapped its vast jaws.

I pressed myself in tight to the wall, half hidden in a narrow alcove. The screechers who had seen me hesitated briefly, but the beast-like thing began to gain on them and their instinct for survival forced them to leave me behind.

I waited, holding my breath until this new Beast had herded the screechers away, then I crept out across the snow and into the street. The darkness was drawing in, and only a few of the streetlights were working. Staring into the gloom, I tried calling Billy's name again – quietly, so as not to attract unwanted attention.

No such luck. A screecher appeared in the doorway of the church. Its black eyes scanned the street. Its nose, now elongated into a narrow snout, snuffled hungrily at the air. Its head snapped in my direction and I began to run, tripping and stumbling through the deep snow.

The house I'd hidden in with Ameena and the others was right ahead. The door was closed, but I knew it was unlocked. The howls of the screecher grew louder behind me as I slipped and skidded along the path. I grabbed for the handle and tumbled inside, kicking the door closed just as the screecher launched itself towards me.

There was a
thud
and the letterbox flapped open. My fingers were too cold and my hands were shaking too badly for me to work the lock. It took four or five attempts before I managed to slide the snib closed. Outside, the screecher gnashed and snarled as it hurled itself against the door.

Turning and running for the stairs, I took them two at a time until I reached the top. One of the doors on the upper landing was in pieces. The body of the screecher that had once been Billy's cousin lay just beyond it. Gusts of icy wind blew in through the room's broken window.

I picked another door and found myself in a small bathroom. The light switch was outside the room. I flicked it on as I ran past, and slammed the door behind me.

Either the screecher was no longer hammering on the front door, or I was too far away to hear it. I put my ear close to the bathroom door and listened for any sign of the thing.

Nothing. There was only silence in the house.

I crossed to the toilet, closed the lid, and sat down. I had to figure out what to do next. I realised quite quickly that the list of options wasn't long.

With Joseph dead, Billy missing and Ameena working against me, there was no one to help me. For the first time since all this had happened I was truly on my own.

I forced myself to focus on the problems one at a time. All the villagers were mutating into monsters. That was a biggie. More than that, though, the barrier between the real world and the Darkest Corners was almost gone. If I used my abilities again it might collapse completely, letting the horrors of that world flood fully into this one.

Billy was gone, taken to… where? I had no idea. But his stitched-up lips and the sudden appearance of the hospital porter had me convinced that Doc Mortis was not only alive, but somewhere close by.

And then there was Ameena. Ameena, the girl I'd thought of as my best friend, my
only
friend. Ameena, who I thought would always have my back, no matter what horrors we were facing.

Ameena, who had been playing me like an idiot right from the very start.

I bent forward, letting my head rest on my hands. When I thought back, dozens of niggling little doubts swam through my mind. My dad was right, I'd had suspicions about Ameena from early on, but had ignored them because I was too scared to go on without her. Too scared to do anything without her there beside me.

And now she wasn't there. And I was terrified.

So, to recap – everyone I loved was dead; the world was on the brink of disaster, and I was almost certainly to blame; the one person I thought I could trust was now my enemy; and Billy, the enemy who had become a friend, had been snatched away.

Oh, and I was locked in a bathroom with monsters roaming outside. But hey, at least it couldn't get any worse.

I regretted that last thought the moment it popped into my head. What had I said in the tower earlier? It could
always
get worse.

There was a
click
from the hall outside and the light above me went out, plunging the bathroom into darkness. I held my breath and listened for movement outside the door, but the next sound I heard came from right there in the bathroom with me.

It was a giggle, like the one I had recognised earlier. It came from over on my right. I stood up. My eyes were adjusting to the gloom, allowing me to make out a figure standing in the bath, half hidden by a plastic shower curtain.

My throat went dry. Even in the dark, I recognised the outline. Terror cut through me like a knife blade as a voice came in a scratchy sing-song whisper.

‘Peek-a-boo. I seeeee you!'