The Jonah (35 page)

The voice was faint in her ears, for the deafness had not yet fully cleared. It sounded like Kelso. She forced her head around so that she could see.

He was on his knees between her and the monstrosity, one hand on the floor to keep his exhausted body upright, another hand raised against the creature.

Kelso looked at the sister who had never left him, who had been there all his life, seen only as something lurking in shadows, or sometimes in the periphery of his vision. An ugly, deformed
sister, who had not lived after birth, who had been abandoned with him by a mother they had never known. But the sister had refused to succumb completely to death; her spirit had wanted to live, to
experience life just as her brother would. She had clung to his life, living off him as a parasite lives off its host. Her spirit, her soul, had grown, just as his earthly body had grown, for she
fed on his psyche, and had developed with him. Always there, always watching, the manifestation of her spirit always strongest on the anniversary of their birth. Who was their mother? What woman
would so cruelly reject her offspring? And what manner of creature could spawn such an abomination?

He gazed up into the dull black eyes and his own filled with tears. Thoughts that were not of his consciousness were pushing into his mind. Their mother was unimportant: she had paid for
perverted copulation and the abandonment of those whom she should have cherished, yet whom she considered to be the physical marks of her own shame. She was dead but her torment went on.

And through the alien thoughts, Kelso knew this miscreation despised him, envied him the life that had been denied to her, his sister. And yet she loved him, also. The twisted seed of hate had
grown as they themselves had grown, but her torment of him had been tempered always by that stronger instinct of kindred love. She protected him because he was her life-force; without him there was
nothing but dark eternity for her. She loved him and despised his loves. No one would share him with her. Not even the couple who had reared him as their own. No friends. No women. No one.

Kelso’s tears stopped. He stared at the creature in disbelief. ‘No!’ he screamed. ‘Oh, God, no . . .!’

He struck out at the figure before him, but his fist touched nothing.

‘Leave me alone!’ he cried. ‘Stop haunting me! For God’s sake . . . please . . . please . . . leave . . . my . . . life . . . please . . .!’

He bent forward, his face buried in his hands, body swaying backwards and forwards.

Ellie hardly understood what was taking place; she reached out for him, but was afraid to move closer – the creature was too near. She could only watch, emotion wrenching at her, pity and
a burning love for this man who knelt before the strange gargoyle, fighting against the terrible dread she felt inside.

She watched, the dread deepening until it clawed at her throat, as the hunched figure touched Kelso’s head with its withered hand.

And then it was gone, fading into the shadows like an apparition.

Kelso had raised his head, was looking around, searching. Searching for something that was no longer. When he turned back to Ellie, she knew the burden had been lifted, for she could sense the
new hope in him, could feel it emanating from his exhausted body and flowing towards her.

For one brief moment, she felt a sickening apprehension, the dread returning like a swift debilitating disease. Her mind spun and she thought she would collapse. But it quickly passed. She held
her arms out towards him.

They sat huddled in the back of the boat as it sped them, and others, towards the safety of higher ground. The rain was just a thin drizzle and the wind no more than a chill
breeze. The daylight was still grey, wintry, but it held no threat.

Kelso pulled the oilskin further down over their heads and smiled at Ellie. ‘It’s all over,’ he told her.

She smiled, but did not reply. She gazed into the distance towards the low-lying hills where warmth and comfort waited.

The helicopters had come at dawn, one appearing at the open end of the mill, coming into view like a giant dragonfly projected onto a huge grey screen. The dust and grain its whirling blades
disturbed blinded them at first, even though they were far back inside the building, perched at the top of the metal stairwell, the only structure in the mill that they still considered safe. Kelso
had stumbled forward, waving his arms and shouting, and the pilot had given him the thumbs-up sign in acknowledgement. Later, when the boat had arrived to collect them, they learned that the RAF
had been particularly curious to study the damage done by old World War Two mines that had been uncovered from tombs of silt and raised to the surface once more by the floodwaters. Apparently the
feed mill had not been the only building in the area damaged by the old defence weapons.

Ellie shivered and Kelso slipped a hand around her waist, pulling her closer. He was tired, his eyelids heavy, his limbs aching dully. And he was dirty, his chin unshaved, his hair matted and
full of dust. But he felt a lightness inside, the feeling of just having overcome a long, wearing illness. He was exhausted, but he felt alive, exhilarated.

‘She’s gone, Ellie,’ he said again, for he had tried to explain everything to her before they had fallen into an exhausted but troubled slumber. ‘She listened to me.
Maybe somewhere inside her she knew it was wrong to cling to my life. Maybe she really loved me enough to let me go.’ The sound of the boat’s engine drowned his words from the others
around them.

‘Or maybe the power she had just burned out.’ Kelso shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said simply. ‘The LSD made me regress, made me see what had been
happening all these years. It unlocked my mind, Ellie, and I think that was also the key to her manifestation. It unleashed some psychic power in me that she used. Oh, God, how she used
it.’

He thought of the explosion. He thought of Bannen’s horrific death. And Slauden’s.
He thought of the flood itself.

Kelso wiped a tired hand over the stubble of his chin. He needed a smoke, but felt disinclined to ask for one from the dispirited people in the boat. Their homes and lives had been wrecked by
the flood; they had their own wounds to lick.

‘She came to me that first night in the cellar. I didn’t know if it was for real or just part of the nightmare. Even now I’m wondering if it wasn’t all some mad
hallucination.’ He laughed quietly. ‘But you were there too; you saw what happened.’

She nodded and her hand closed over the top of his.

‘I feel free, Ellie,’ he said. ‘I can start again. No more bad luck – no more than anyone else gets, at least. No more Jonah, Ellie. Just me, on my own. Unless you want
to be part of my life. I’m kind of counting on you.’

She squeezed his hand and smiled, then turned away, releasing his hand to pull the slipping oilskin back over her shoulder.

Kelso stared at her as she continued to gaze into the distance. His face had drained white again. Had he imagined it? Was the drug still playing tricks with his mind?

For one brief instant as he had looked into her eyes, they had been totally black. No whites, no irises. Just a dull, reflective black. But before she had turned away again, they had become a
clear blue, the pupils large but normal. He shook his head: it had to be his imagination. He was too tired and too much had happened. Jesus, he was going to sleep for a week after this.

A slight stinging sensation made him glance down towards his hand. He froze. Parts of the skin were pressed inwards: five tiny but deep indents. Indents that looked as if they had been made by a
clawed hand.

He looked up at Ellie, but her face was turned away from him. She seemed to be scanning the distant hills as though discovering a new land.

James Herbert
is not just Britain’s number one bestselling writer of chiller fiction, a position he has held ever since publication of his first novel, but is also
one of our greatest popular novelists, whose books are sold in thirty-three foreign languages, including Russian and Chinese. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his twenty-three novels have sold
more than forty-eight million copies worldwide.

Also by James Herbert

The Fog

The Survivor

Fluke

The Spear

The Dark

Lair

Shrine

Domain

Moon

The magic Cottage

Sepulchre

Haunted

Creed

Portent

The Ghosts of Sleath

‘48

Others

Once

Noboby True

First published 1981 by New English Library

This edition published 1999 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2011 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-447-20327-8 EPUB

Copyright © James Herbert 1981

The right of James Herbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
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liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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