Ingrid shook her head. ‘You tell us to … What was that you said? To run like all the monsters and devils of hell are chasing us? Intent on ripping us apart! My God, Samantha, what’s wrong with you? It can’t just be because you’re drunk, is it?’
‘No, Ingrid. I am here to warn you to get away! To flee! I’m warning you, because I like you, I like John, I like your family.’ Swaying unsteadily, she looked from face to face in the garden – Ingrid, John, Vicki, Jason and Philip.
John looked in the direction of the house. Ben and Oliver sat on the sofa in front of the TV. Ben was shooting glances back at the drama unfolding in the back garden; he must be wondering what the hell was happening to his new family.
Philip spoke in a formal way. ‘Good evening.’
Samantha nodded at the new arrival. ‘Philip, thank you for coming.’ She pointed at the lines she’d chalked on the patio. ‘I’ve been explaining how the mummy family and the Tolworth family are converging. They grow more alike, physically, every day. It is all beyond coincidence. This is destiny.’
Vicki was clearly alarmed. ‘Is Samantha saying we’re going to turn into Egyptian mummies?’
Ingrid snorted. ‘Samantha is drunk. She should be home in bed.’
Samantha disagreed: ‘Nope, I’m not drunk enough. I’m scared about what will happen when the mummies eventually become identical to you all.’ She stamped her foot on the asterisk chalked on the slabs. ‘When that happens, the “Event” will occur.’
Jason was bewildered. ‘What event?’
‘The big event, Jason, my dear … an event with fatal consequences.’
‘Mother, you are drunk.’
‘I wish I was totally pissed. I wouldn’t feel as scared as I am now.’ She beckoned Philip. ‘Come on over. Tell everyone what happened to you back when you were eleven.’
Philip stepped on to the patio. Moths flitted out of the darkness above his head. In the candlelight, they resembled sparks of fire. John looked into the man’s wounded eyes and felt a cold, cold dread seeping through his own veins. John knew what was coming. He didn’t want to hear those grim words again.
Philip spoke in a calm voice, telling them, simply, what happened to him that night thirty years ago: ‘I went up into the castle tower. The mummy collection was housed in a room there back then. John accompanied me.’
‘Dad was there?’ Vicki’s expression was one of astonishment.
‘John lived with his family in the castle grounds. John wanted to see the mummies. I obliged. I began to remove the sheet that covered Kadesh, the mummy that sits on the chair. That’s when the light went out. We were plunged into total darkness, couldn’t see a thing. All black. Absolute black. Within seconds, I felt something grip my wrist. I know what gripped me were jaws. Then there was a pain of such intensity that I can’t begin to describe its magnitude. Teeth bit through the skin, veins and bones of my wrist.’ He looked at each person in turn. ‘Kadesh bit off my hand.’
Ingrid turned to John. ‘Did you see any of this?’
‘No. As Philip said, it was completely dark. Philip shouted for me to get out. I ran down the tower steps and returned to the main part of the castle. When Philip came down I saw …’ John couldn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he found his eyes drawn to Philip’s arm that ended in a stump, not a living hand.
Ingrid took a deep breath. ‘Samantha, if you’re claiming that Kadesh is somehow one and the same as Philip, why did Kadesh attack him?’
‘A reflex action. Besides, as I’ve said, the transformation process is gradual. Thirty years ago Kadesh still had two hands. He hadn’t yet begun the metamorphosis into Philip.’
‘Samantha. Please go home.’ Ingrid pointed at the driveway. ‘Just go! I’ve had enough of your deluded fantasies about time twins, clones, and portents of doom.’
Philip’s expression was grave. ‘Listen to Samantha. She’s an intelligent woman. She is telling the truth. After you’ve heard her out, put your family in the car and drive away. Never come back. You’re in danger here.’
Ingrid pointed again. ‘You can go, too, Philip. Good night.’
Philip said, ‘Samantha, tell them about the translations of the Egyptian documents.’
Samantha nodded. ‘John, as you know, has been reconstructing ancient documents. We’ve received the first translations of the hieroglyphs, and they show that an Egyptian family experienced a terrible tragedy in 1000 BC. A mother and father lived with their three children on the banks of the Nile. The father had an enemy who’d travelled a long way to exact revenge, or simply to attack them. We haven’t discovered the assassin’s motive yet. For some reason, the father was prevented from protecting his family. Instead, his friend tried to do just that. The father’s enemy arrived, and there was a terrible … event. The friend attempted to protect the family but failed. The mother, daughter and two sons were killed. The friend died, too. The father buried his family in the Gold Tomb, together with a written record of the murders. His friend was embalmed and placed on a chair to keep watch over the mummified family, and to protect them in the afterlife. At some point, tomb robbers broke in and destroyed the papyrus letters in the adjoining chamber. What happened next is conjecture, but I believe the mummy that we call Kadesh came to life, killed the tomb robbers, and resealed the tomb from the inside before resuming his place on the seat. And there he sat, guarding the family of his friend for the next three thousand years.’
Ingrid’s eyes burned. ‘Samantha, you’ve had sex with my husband, haven’t you?’
John gasped, ‘What?’
Philip retained his composure. ‘Listen to me, Ingrid. For years I’ve seen mummies – they have a way of projecting their faces on to people I meet. The face of Isis is superimposed on to your face now. I can see strips of binding material around your neck. Vicki wears the mummified face of Amber. When I look through that window into your house I don’t see Ben and Oliver, I see Bones and Ket. To me, they are mummified dead people with dried-out faces and eyes that have sunk into their skulls. Their bodies are wrapped in bandages. They have the dust of the tomb in their hair. I know you see them as living people – I, on the other hand, see dead flesh.’
Ingrid lost it. She covered her ears with her hands and screamed, ‘Enough! This isn’t about death, this isn’t about dead Egyptians. This is about sex! Samantha’s trying to disguise her indiscretion with my husband by inventing fantasies about mummies being transformed into my family!’ She pointed at Samantha. ‘You’ve got drunk, and you’ve recruited this lunatic.’ Her eyes flashed at Philip. ‘You’ve recruited him to back up your lies, because the poor devil doesn’t know any better. Yes, I believe he sees mummified corpses when he looks at us. That’s because he’s mentally ill!’
‘Samantha and I haven’t done anything wrong,’ John protested. ‘I’ve never touched her. She’s a colleague!’
‘So?’ Ingrid turned on him. ‘When did working together prevent people from getting naked together?’
Vicki burst into tears. Jason immediately began to comfort her.
Philip went on in that calm voice, ‘Please, John, I care about the safety of you and your family. Please leave here tonight. You see, I can’t take any more. When I look into a mirror, I don’t see my reflection. I see Kadesh.’
‘Go! Get out!’ Ingrid went truly ballistic. She hurled herself at Philip, shoving him backwards. ‘This is my home! You’ve tried to frighten my family. Just go!’ She turned around, grabbing Samantha by the arm. ‘You, too! Get out!’
John could only stare in shock as his usually self-composed, ultra-rational wife wrestled with Samantha on the patio. When Samantha refused to move, Ingrid grabbed handfuls of that blond hair and dragged the woman along the drive.
‘I haven’t had sex with John,’ Samantha grunted. ‘I’m only trying to help. I’m—’
‘Go home, sober up. Don’t ever come back on to my property again.’ Ingrid tugged so hard on Samantha’s hair that she yelled in pain.
Everyone followed as Ingrid hauled Samantha to the gates. At that moment, a car roared up. John saw Tom Oldfield, Samantha’s husband, behind the wheel. The youngest Oldfield son, Mark, sat in the back seat. He stared out in horror as his mother was cruelly dragged towards the car.
Philip walked alongside John. He watched what happened, saying nothing. He still maintained that air of weary dignity, yet there was such pain in his eyes. ‘Leave, John,’ he whispered. ‘While you still can.’ He walked away into the gloom.
Meanwhile, Tom sprang from the car. John thought he’d join in the fight. John had a mental image of the Tolworths and the Oldfields throwing punches at one another. However, instead, Tom snatched his wife from Ingrid so violently that it left strands of Samantha’s yellow hair in Ingrid’s hands.
Tom panted, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve never seen Samantha like this before. God help her, I think she’s had a nervous breakdown. She drank half a bottle of brandy when she came home from work. I thought she was in bed. I’m sorry. I can’t apologize enough.’ He bundled his wife towards the car.
Samantha yelled, ‘We’re leaving here right now! You should do the same!’
Tom managed to get Samantha into the passenger seat. ‘She insisted I pack suitcases. We’re going to stay with friends in Barnstaple. I’m sorry. I never even realized she’d left the house.’ He began to shout, ‘Jason, get in the car. Jason!’
‘I want to stay with Vicki,’ Jason protested.
‘Please get in the car, Jason. We’ll sort this out later.’ Apologizing again, Tom closed the door, shutting his wife in. When Jason was in the back seat, alongside his terrified brother, Tom drove away, headlights blazing into the darkness.
Samantha opened the window. ‘Leave, leave! The Event is coming. The mummies are changing into you!’
After the shouting, the anger, and the mayhem, there was silence as the Oldfields’ car vanished into the night.
For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Vicki erupted. ‘It’s not fair! You’ve done all this to stop me seeing Jason, haven’t you?’
Ingrid was trying to catch her breath after tussling with Samantha. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. This is nothing to do with you and Jason.’
John added with some heat, ‘And it’s certainly nothing to do with me having an affair with Samantha. I haven’t touched the woman!’
Vicki stormed into the house, and Ingrid gave John a hard stare before following her indoors. John shook his head. He stood there by himself on the driveway and wondered how on earth he’d convince Ingrid that he’d done nothing wrong.
‘Oh, wow,’ Micky said, chuckling. ‘That was amazing. I wish I’d filmed it.’
The back lawn was illuminated by candles and lanterns. He’d witnessed everything. The shouting, the arm waving, then the two women brawling. That was so frickin’ cool. Of course, he didn’t know what had caused the argument down there; he couldn’t hear actual words from this distance, but what a show! That had beaten television drama. Even from way up here, he could tell that the dark-haired woman had wanted to kill the blond. Then the car had turned up, the blond and the teenage kid had got in, and the car had gone roaring away like it was being pursued by cops. Micky shook his head in astonishment. He only hoped the next stage of the drama tonight, the one he was just about to initiate, would be half as exciting and, well … VIOLENT.
Fletcher’s dad had explicitly told Fletcher to stay indoors while he went to the hospital. Fletcher didn’t obey the order. He left the gatehouse apartment and walked along the drive in the direction of the castle. He sensed electricity in the air tonight. Something would happen. He was sure of it. Stars blazed in the sky, and Fletcher told himself that each and every one twinkled with anxiety. Even the stars flashed a warning to those on earth who knew how to interpret the signs. But Fletcher walked confidently through the darkness.
When he approached the big main doors of the castle he saw they were wide open. There were no lights on inside. Fletcher had watched the men installing electronic locks on these doors a few days ago. He knew that the doors could be locked and unlocked by a computer inside the castle. Now the doors were very much unlocked; they yawned open, like the doors of a tomb in a horror film.
He saw something, else, too. The mummies walked. He made out the silhouettes of five figures in the distance – five slow-moving figures that had strips of cloth hanging down from their limbs. The mummies had left the castle, and Fletcher knew that people would die tonight.
Everyone’s gone nuts. Crazy, shouting, fighting nuts. That’s the conclusion Oliver had reached as he sat watching television with Ben while the grown-ups yelled outside. Just five minutes ago, Mr Oldfield had driven away with Mrs Oldfield, Jason and Mark.
Oliver worried about what was happening. Was his family going to move into different houses? He’d got friends whose parents had split up. Was this happening to his mother and father? The shouting had been so violent and frightening.
‘It’ll be alright, Ollie,’ said Ben, sitting on the sofa beside him, the leg in the cast stretched out. ‘Everyone argues.’
‘I’ve never heard Mum and Dad argue like that before.’ He could hear his mother stomping around in the bedroom upstairs now. Vicki was in her own bedroom. She’d run upstairs crying and saying stuff about her mother trying to stop Jason from seeing her. ‘Why do people sometimes act like their brains have gone wacko?’ asked Oliver.
Ben shrugged. ‘It’s human nature. Often we get angry with the people we care about.’
‘I hate this. If families like each other they should stay friends and not yell.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. Just wait until tomorrow; everything will be back to normal again. People will be smiling and happy.’
‘I don’t want you to leave, Ben. I like you. It’s great having a big brother.’
‘Cheers, Ollie. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to the coast tomorrow, aren’t we? We’ll play frisbee on the beach, and you can try out your mask and snorkel in the sea.’
‘I haven’t got a mask and snorkel.’
‘In that case, I’ll buy you one.’ Grinning, he ruffled Oliver’s hair. ‘You can swim out and catch a shark.’
Oliver laughed. Even so, he still felt worried. He remembered only too vividly that Ben had that packet of white powder in the bottom of his rucksack. Oliver wasn’t so naive to believe that powder was sugar, or soap powder. Drugs. Just thinking the word made Oliver shiver. Drugs are illegal. If the police know that Ben’s got drugs, they’ll take him away. He’ll go to prison. Those drugs could be the reason that he leaves us.
‘Where you going, champ?’ Ben asked.
‘To get a drink of milk. Want one?’
‘Why not? Cheers.’
Oliver went straight to Ben’s room at the back of the house. Ben, being in the lounge, wouldn’t realize where he’d gone; he certainly couldn’t follow easily with that busted leg, either. Oliver’s mother and sister were upstairs. His dad was outside in the garden, sitting all moody and bad tempered on a patio chair. Oliver couldn’t make everything all right with his parents, but he could keep Ben safe from being caught with the drugs, and getting arrested and thrown into a cell. Oliver didn’t hesitate. He unzipped the rucksack, dug his hand down inside, and pulled out the plastic box containing the bag of white powder. After that, he darted upstairs to his bedroom. Carefully, he tucked the plastic box, with its evil contents, under his bed.
Minutes later, he returned to the lounge with glasses of milk and sliced cake on a tray.
Ben used a ruler to scratch an itch down inside the cast. ‘I was beginning to think you’d gone to bed.’
‘I couldn’t find the cake. Mum had hidden it at the back of the pantry.’
‘Hey, dude. We’re eating stolen cake. That makes us partners in crime.’ Laughing, Ben high-fived Oliver.
Oliver laughed, too. If anything, he felt a massive sense of relief that he’d had the good sense take the drugs from Ben and hide them away. Tomorrow,
he’d dump those drugs in a pond out in the forest.
Micky Dunt read the text from Gurrick. ‘I want my property. Confirm you have it back. NOW!’
Micky didn’t reply to the text. However, he knew the time had come to act. If he didn’t retrieve the coke from Ben Darrington, Gurrick would soon be threatening Micky with the kind of punishment that would make even a medieval torturer turn queasy. ‘Time to go, Micky.’
He headed down through the trees towards the house where he knew Ben was staying. At least some of the people had left after the fight in the garden earlier. As far as he could tell, there was a woman and a teenage girl in the house, along with a young boy and Ben. Even from here, he could see the only guy left at the property. He sat on a chair on the patio. The light from the candles and lanterns illuminated him clearly enough. And that guy was the only serious obstacle to Micky taking control down there. Ben, with his busted-up leg, couldn’t offer much in the way of resistance. And apart from Ben, there was only the woman, the girl, and the little kid.
Micky checked that his phone was in a side pouch of his bag. He’d been ordered by his mobster boss to film torture in the house. Gurrick wanted gruesome footage to post on the web, proving that he wasn’t a guy to be messed around. The police wouldn’t be able to link the footage to Gurrick, but Gurrick’s associates and rivals would be told that he’d orchestrated the torture vid and had made sure it was uploaded as a lesson to others. Yup, phone fully charged, good to go. He pulled out the handgun. Fully loaded, too. Micky’s trigger finger started to tingle. Already, he could imagine aiming the pistol at someone’s head, then using that tingly finger to pull the trigger.
The obvious first step was to destroy the guy on the patio. If he was removed from the equation, then holding up the rest of the household, retrieving the drugs, then filming someone being hurt – screaming-puking-eye-bulging hurt – would be straightforward.
In the event, the first part of the plan worked out surprisingly well. Micky padded up the drive and crept to where the guy sat on the patio chair; he was staring into space, his mind on other things. Micky slammed the pistol into the side of the man’s head. He just gave a funny-sounding grunt. After that, he flopped sideways on to the ground.