Darkness Demands

  So, that was where the little white lie came in. It was there to protect Val, not deceive her. He didn't want her worrying needlessly at this stage. Hell, didn't he go through this crisis of confidence with every book he wrote? That comes with being a writer. Once you become cocksure about your talent that's when you fall slap-bang on your face. Like taking an exam, or going for a job interview, a little fear was good for you. It spurred you on to make a greater effort. At least that's what he was telling himself now.

  "John… John?"

  He looked up, snapping out of his gloomy trail of thought.

  "John." Val gave him a direct look. "Seeing as Elizabeth is engrossed in watching television and Paul's out." She smiled. "I thought I'd have a shower. Come up and have one after me." Her voice was silkily casual. "Finish your coffee first, it will give me a couple of minutes to get ready."

  Elizabeth was completely engrossed in the TV-the wonder that is Cartoon Network would keep her entertained for another hour at least.

  Shooting him a provocative glance, Val left the room. Smiling to himself, he cleared away the plates to the kitchen, finished his coffee, returned the salad to the refrigerator, then locking the house doors, he told Elizabeth he was going up to shower.

  "Mum, too?" Elizabeth asked in a disinterested kind of way. She'd seen this before.

  "Yes, hon. Shout if you need anything."

  His daughter nodded her bandaged head. "Enjoy yourself," she added obliquely.

  He found himself coloring a little as he climbed the stairs.

  Val lay beneath a white sheet. She lay on her back, hands behind her head, gazing up at the ceiling.

  "Right on time." She smiled and pulled back the sheet so he could climb in.

  Her body looked taut, almost cat-like, as she lay there naked. As he shed his own clothes, she stretched luxuriously. "I think we both need this." Her voice grew husky. "It will be therapeutic."

  "I need some special therapy, I can tell you." Smiling he slid in beside her. Once more he marveled at how cool her skin felt against his. Her touch was deliciously gentle. Instantly the heat of sheer desire prickled through him. Lightly, he kissed her breasts, paying particular attention to her nipples, which he feathered with his tongue. God, this felt good after all the shit today. The dull wearing ache of that two-hour hospital wait evaporated. He didn't think about the book. Or anything about the world outside.

  He was going to escape into passion. And passion as hot and as sizzling as he could make it.

  Already Val breathed deeply into his ear as she squirmed beneath the workings of his tongue. His hands joined in; either firmly massaging or caressing lightly.

  "Oh, John," she sighed, pulling his head down to her nipple. Gently, he took the bud of hardening skin between his teeth and applied pressure.

  "Harder." She moaned. "Bite harder."

  The cry that came from her lips was powered by sheer pleasure.

  Excited now, feeling a flame crackle through him, he rolled her fully onto her back. Her thighs closed round him, gripping his waist. He looked down at her face, her eyes were closed, her mouth partly open. Now her lips had grown big and red and moist. Her hair was a crazed veil half hiding her face.

  "Now," she said urgently. "Now!"

  He gripped her waist and drove himself into her. With every push of his hips, with every surge of her breathing, with her every moan of pleasure, the outside world-along with his baggage car of cares-receded into the distance and finally died away to nothing.

  CHAPTER 5

  1

  Sunlight struck her face. It seemed nothing less than a physical blow as she ran from shadow to open ground. The place was an infestation of weeds, bushes, creepers, vines and acre upon acre of gravestones bulging from the ground like scabs.

  Jesus Christ where is it?

  She paused, sweaty, hot, breathless, a pain digging so deep into her side she cried with every breath she took.

  Where the hell was it? It had to be somewhere near here. She'd seen it plenty of times as a kid; she'd even freewheeled her bike across it once. It was a dare all local kids had scared themselves with at one time or other. Now the graveyard looked different to her. But then again it was fifteen years since she'd actually been in the place. The last time had been to offer up her virginity on some Godforsaken tombstone shaped like a four-poster bed. The Virgin Buster they had called it… that's where many a Skelbrooke teenager had finally cut loose from Planet Childhood… hell, she was rambling like a lunatic. This thing was hitting her hard. Oh Jesus, she was so scared; she'd never been so scared. But where in Christ's name was the stone? She needed it now. She needed it so badly.

  She took a path that forked to her right downhill. Trees reared over her once more like beasts from nightmare. Stone angels were overgrown and overwhelmed with bindweed. Nettles all but exploded from this tract of earth that held more than eighty thousand dead. As she ran, the carrier bag swinging from a balled fist, she read the headstones.

  Corporal Stanley Harold Strong. Died of his wounds, Somme 1916. A glorious death… Alice Wincanton Goodall, wife of Montgomery Neshit Goodall, yielded the spirit, December 25th 1879… Huxley Peter Wrathler, released by the Lord God of his suffering 1867, aged 93… Victoria Sefton, aged 6, drowned in the Water Mill Mere, July 2nd 1911-short was her race the longer is her rest, God called her hence because he thought it best, weep not for me my parents dear…

  "Damn." The path ended, blocked by a pyramid-shaped tomb that was a full ten feet tall. Turning, Mary Thorp retraced her steps. She was thirty years old. Too young to die.

  Again she toiled up the path, plunging into shadow before bursting into sunlight, sunlight so bright it felt as if laser beams where burning right through her eyes to sear her brain.

  Dear God, where is it? It must be near here. She remembered the pyramid tomb; she remembered the statues of children on the Necropolis wall…

  …sweet little children taken into the arms of the lord… not dead, but sleeping… don't weep for us parents dear…

  She was a slim blond woman, she looked fit, but this was taking a toll of her. A dozen different pains speared through her thigh and buttock muscles. As she ran a branch speared the carrier bag, dragging her to a dead stop.

  "Shit! You bastard shit!"

  Startled birds flew up from the bushes.

  After dislodging the impaled carrier bag and checking that her precious gift was safe, she ran on, stopping every so often to read a headstone inscription, before howling with frustration. Mary Thorp prayed she found what she was looking before he found her. Him. Joe Budgen. That bastard was hell-bent on tearing her apart. So she didn't wait for him while he was in gaol. What was she supposed to do? He'd gone down for eight years. How did she know he would be out in four? Damn prisons. Why don't they keep killers behind bars forever? Everyone knew that Joe Budgen had gone up to Harrison's place with the intention of killing him. Cops were so fucking blind.

  Now Joe Budgen was out. He'd learnt she was living with Stevo; that she'd had a kid by him. And, Christ, Joe hated Stevo; he blamed him for grassing him up to the cops over that Ecstasy scam. And Joe would be even more pissed if he found out that Mary fell pregnant with Liam within about three weeks of Joe being sent down.

  She cut from the main path to wade through long grass. Sunlight forced her to squint so tightly she barely saw at all.

  Where was that damned thing?

  She had to find it soon. Had to.

  Because now that was the key to everything.

  She paused long enough to look round. Hell, the cemetery looked different from when she was last here fifteen years ago. Trees that were mature then had toppled in winter storms; those that were saplings would now be full-grown trees, altering the look of the place entirely. And there was that damned ivy; it was everywhere, snaking up over the faces of angels and cherubs like some spidery green cancer.

  She climbed onto the back of a fallen Virgin Mary, trying to find some highpoint where she mig
ht see that distinctive tombstone. The one with the statue of the little weeping kid. Of course it might be gone now. Some teen stud showing off to his girlfriend (no doubt bound for the Virgin Buster) might have simply shoved the thing over into the nettles.

  "Oh Christ, no… not yet."

  The words came out in a groan. She hadn't seen the gravestone with the weeping kid. Instead she saw a denim-jacketed figure striding up the hill. Although he didn't wave or shout, she knew that he'd seen her.

  "Oh, Christ," she groaned again. "He can't have found me that quickly… shit, shit."

  She looked around. There was no one in sight. No one to run to. Not that it mattered. He was a fucking headcase. Once in the early days when they were together she'd bad mouthed him in a pizza restaurant and he'd simply leaned forward and stuck his fingers through her lips and tried to tear out her tongue there and then. Three stitches-three fucking stitches she'd needed at the hospital-then like an idiot she'd told the police that she'd bitten her own tongue eating pizza. God, she'd been stupid then, but yeah… same old story… she'd been in love with the thug… she'd believed he'd settle down; he'd change his ways… that they'd have kids and everything would be sugar 'n spice and all things nice. But Joe always said he'd never have kids ('Can't stand the little turds,' He'd spit the words out. 'Kids fuck you up.')

  Now there he was. Mary Thorp stared in horror. He was going to tear her apart. Hadn't he telephoned her the same day he'd gotten released to tell her just that?

  "Mary. Consider yourself fucked," he'd breathed down the phone. "I'm going to come down to Skelbrooke. Then I'm going to fuck your whole life away…"

  She believed him.

  With a shout she ran uphill through a wilderness of brambles and trees and shadows and headstones. Her feet rapped against the ground hard enough to carry tremors down to the bones in their coffins, startling the rabbits that had nested there. The heat blazed in her face. Her eyes blurred with tears that came out in big glistening gobs.

  Oh, God… it wasn't as if she didn't know this was going to happen. She should have seen it coming. But she'd ignored that square of paper weighed down beneath a hunk of tombstone outside her front door.

  "MARY!"

  The voice hit her like the blast from a grenade. Stung by its force, a yelping sound spurting from her throat, she started running.

  "Mary… you can't run away from me."

  She glanced back. Joe Budgen, his face oozing menace, was perhaps a hundred yards behind her. Even though he wasn't running, he surged through the grass like a tank. Her knees turned weak. For a moment she looked down at her legs, convinced they'd buckle, dropping her down in the grass, where all she could do was lie and wait for him to find her.

  In terror she found herself crying out. But she wasn't crying out to him for mercy. She cried out to the source of her misfortune. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry. Listen… I've been away… I never saw your letter. Look!" She held up the carrier bag to the trees as if invisible eyes watched her. "Look! I've brought you what you want. But I can't find the gravestone!" Her eyes flashed with hysteria. "It's here! I've got what you want!"

  She struggled on, half stumbling, ever conscious of Joe Budgen getting nearer and nearer.

  "Please listen. I'm sorry I ignored your letter. But I've got what- what you want now… pi… per-leezze…" Her voice disintegrated into a stammer. "I-I got it. I-I goddittt!"

  At that moment she looked back. Joe Budgen had paused to glare at her through his psychotic eyes. The man should have been laughable there in his faded denim jacket and black turtleneck with a gold Albert chain; his hair flashed blond. He looked more like a rent boy than local hard man. For a second their eyes locked. Nothing moved. A bird sang on the still summer air.

  Then suddenly he began to run.

  Turning, she ran too.

  At that moment a crazy idea struck her. If she could only find the headstone with the crying boy statue everything would be OK. Magically she'd be safe like a child crying 'Den' during a game of catch. She ran hard. Her eyes scanned the thousands of headstones looking for that single distinctive statue.

  All she need do was find that, and to drop the carrier bag onto the slab.

  Then she'd be safe. Joe Budgen could do nothing to harm her.

  Now she could hear his feet pounding through the grass as he chased her. And as she ran she found herself crying out over and over, "No, no, no, no…"

  2

  "Miranda?" Paul looked over the ranks of headstones. "Did you hear someone screaming?"

  "Screaming?" She shrugged. "There's always someone shouting or carrying on round here. It's nothing but a kid's playground these days."

  Paul turned his head to hear the voice again. Although it sounded distant he could hear real distress running through it.

  "Lover's tiff," Miranda said then pointed with the toe of her sandalled feet. "Look. See that?"

  He noticed her toenails were painted a red so luscious that all he could do was stare at them, nothing else.

  "See what's written on the back of that headstone? Peace Be Unto You, Until You Follow Me."

  He grinned. "In other words, take that smug look off your face, because it won't be long until you're pushing up daisies, too. Where now?"

  "Who knows, who cares?" Slipping her arms around his neck she smiled. "Kiss me."

  Paul kissed her. Her lips seemed like vast cushions of velvet. He couldn't imagine anything as soft. Or exciting.

  "Mmm…" she pulled back her head.

  He found himself gazing into her eyes. Wonderful eyes that sent a zillion shivers through him.

  "You know, Paul," she whispered. "You can touch me with your hands when we kiss."

  This time when they kissed she took hold of his fingers and guided them down to her breast.

  3

  Mary Thorp ran through a tunnel of green as she sped along the path between the bushes. In and out of sunlight she ran. Plunging from deep shade to brilliant light, then back again. She raced through swarms of insects that hung like clouds of gold dust. Ivy snagged her feet. Sweat drenched her.

  All the time she could hear his feet pounding behind.

  The carrier bag swung at the end of her arm. It smacked stone crosses then rebounded back against her thigh. Jesus… where was that headstone… she was sure it was close. She could have sworn she remembered that painted Jesus Christ standing with his hand raised like a traffic cop.

  But where was that stone with the weeping child? Hell… Deep down she knew if she could only slap that bag down onto the stone all this torture would end. Joe Budgen wouldn't tear her to pieces. He'd go away. He'd leave her and little Liam in peace.

  This was only happening because she'd paid no attention to the letter that came in the dead of night a week ago. A folded piece of paper lying there, as if butter wouldn't melt. Damn it. If only she'd done what had been asked of her. Joe Budgen wouldn't be here. He wouldn't be chasing her.

  God, if he caught her. He'd really hurt her this time. She cried out as a hand tore at her blonde hair. Stopping, she turned to fight him. She wouldn't go down as easy as that. Not submissive, not merely waiting for him to head-butt her, or batter her face against a tombstone. She'd…

  No… a low hanging branch had snagged her hair. It held her as surely as if it was his fist gripping her. With her free hand she struggled to disentangle the mass of frothy hair from the branch.

  Just thirty yards away Joe rounded the corner. His eyes bored into hers.

  "Mary. There's no way you're gonna get away from me. Did you hear me, Mary?"

  She raged: Damn hair, damn hair-I'll shave you off!

  At last she was free. Leaving a few golden strands hanging there, she tore along the path, weaving by tree trunks, leaping over toppled stone crosses. Rabbits scuttled aside. A squirrel raced up a tree trunk.

  Behind her she heard his footsteps. Closer… closer…

  Breathing didn't come easy now. Her throat burned. It was closing-the trachea narrowin
g to little thicker than a drinking straw.

  "Where's that grave?" she yelled at the trees. "Where is it?" Then added in a pleading voice while shaking the carrier bag. "Look. Just like you asked. I've brought it!"

  At that moment the sun slipped behind a cloud. Darkness crept out at her. For all the world it could have been creeping from the graves-a graveyard darkness that had all the dead power to seize her and draw her down into one of the coffins, where the lonely dead waited.

  "Leave me alone!" she screamed. "Leave me alone!" And for once she wasn't screaming at her pursuer. Because she thought she'd seen a face look through the branches. A stark, white face with veined eyes that bulged obscenely at her.

  Footsteps closed behind her.

  She ran even more desperately. Now a path cut into the hillside took her into an artificial gully.

  The Vale Of Tears.

  Yes, yes! She recognized this now. The Vale Of Tears. A whole labyrinth of channels cut below ground level. Enclosed on three sides, with only the top open to the sky, it formed a complex of individual family crypts; hundreds of them lying behind iron doors. This was the heart of the Necropolis-the city of the dead.

  She couldn't be far from the tomb now with its crying boy.

  Not far now, not far now… the words thudded to the rhythm of her heart.

  She ran along the stone channels that were narrow enough, if she'd had a mind to, to span with her outstretched arms. Here, roots from trees growing at ground level above her head burst through the walls. Or they forced themselves through the crypt doors. And like scaly tentacles they reached out at her, tugging her hair and clothes as she brushed by.

  Nearly there… I'm nearly there. Her heart beat faster.

  Now a spark of hope flickered. All she had to do was set the bag down on the grave and cry out in triumph, "There… I've done it. I've brought you what you wanted!"