The Dead Tracks (54 page)

    We
moved on.

    Out
of the dark emerged more shapes, defined and frozen in the glow from the phone.
More coffins. More women. All blonde, all posed Exactly the same as they lay
submerged. When I moved to the next, I could see she'd had the same surgery,
except her chin had been cut open too, a piece of silicone visible where the
stitches hadn't been closed properly. April Brunei. The second woman to be
taken. The coffins were in order.

    Then
behind me, another noise.

    A
dull clunk.

    I
waited for it to repeat, but there was nothing. Just a buzz. I knew then I was
right: it was a generator.

    The
lights came on.

    For a
second I was disorientated. Then I realized why: the light was purple. Above
us, a series of strip lights ran the length of the room, a dull glow travelling
along them. It created a watery effect, as if the room's colouring had been turned
up a notch on the dial. Every shape in the room suddenly emerged, without being
fully defined.

    The
room wasn't anywhere near as big as it had seemed in the dark, but the ceiling
was high — maybe sixty feet — and a half-oval shape, like the mid-section of a
railway tunnel. There were crates all over the place, but congregated mostly on
my left. Coffins in a row to my right. A big archway behind them, leading into
a room full of more mannequins, standing like an army.

    On
the other side of the room, in the far corner, was a whitewashed wall with
photos of the missing women in two rows. Four on the top. Five, including Jill,
on the bottom. Each of the women had dotted lines marked on their faces.
Surgical marks. Around the pictures was a network of other documents: newspaper
cuttings, anatomical drawings, cross-sections of faces, blueprints of
buildings. Other photographs. Markham. Frank White. Jamie Hart. Charlie Bryant.
My house. My kitchen. My living room. Liz and me standing on the front porch of
her house.

    Then
the lights went out again.

    Complete
darkness.

    Megan
moved in even closer to me, her face pressed against my chest, her eyes still
closed. I could feel her crying, the movement of her jaw, the soft sound as she
tried to dampen the noise. I pressed a hand flat to her head and kept her
close, then started inching forward.

    Six
feet ahead, there was a dull orange glow on the floor.

    
Healy's
phone
.

    On
the very edge of the light, I could see a hand, the gun about a foot from it.
As we took another step forward, Healy emerged, lying face down, trails of
blood running from his head. Next to him, its muzzle at his chest, was the dog.
The patch of skin on its face looked infected. It darted a look at us, eyes
turning to pinpricks of light, and then turned and headed off in the other
direction.

    
If
the dog is inside here, the exit must be too
.

    I
squeezed Megan to let her know we were going to move again, and then edged forward.
When I got to Healy, he was making quiet noises, like air escaping from a
balloon. He was still alive — but only just. His blood was smeared across the
floor and over the coffin next to him.

    The
sixth one.

    Leanne.

    She
was looking up through the lid with wide eyes, her skin the colour of snow. In
that moment, it was like every ounce of Healy's vengeance had transferred to
me. I felt his pain. His burning rage. His need to hit out.

    '
Uhhhhhhh
…'

    As
Healy groaned, the generator clunked and purple light erupted right above us
again. In my peripheral vision, something moved. A blur, darting right to left.
Feet slapping against the floor.
He's trying to confuse me
. I squeezed
Megan tighter, looking down at her.

    And
that was when I saw my hands.

    They
were fluorescent orange, my fingers, my palms, my wrists, glowing. It was all
over the sleeve of my jacket as well. I checked my body and there were marks on
my trousers and shoes. Megan's shoulders and her vest were glowing too, where
I'd had my arms around her.

    I
glanced at Healy.

    Exactly
the same: hands, arms, legs, clothes, shoes, everything illuminated. And
suddenly I realized — too late - what was happening. The residue I'd felt on
the way down the ladder wasn't dew or oil. The bulbs above me were ultraviolet
black light. Virtually no light and no visible effect — until they reacted with
fluorescent paint.

    And I
was covered in it.

    'Hello,
David.'

    I
turned. He was standing behind me, all in black, glass shard on a chain at his
throat, surgical mask over his mouth and nose. His eyes flared, widening as if
trying to draw me in.

    'You're
easier to see when you're lit up like a Christmas tree.'

    And
then he stabbed me with a surgeon's knife.

    In a split
second I pushed Megan to the side and brought my arm up. The knife went into
the flesh just above my elbow. The blade wasn't more than two inches, but I
felt the pain instantly. It shot up my arm and exploded out across my chest.

    I
heard footsteps as Megan ran off into the darkness, and I felt a second of
relief that she'd got herself away. Glass followed the noise too. By the time
he'd realized his mistake, I was on him: one punch to the face; one to the side
of the head; one to the chest, next to the heart. We crashed to the floor. The
knife pinged off the ground and spun away. He was dazed, but still fighting:
hands came up to my throat, surgical gloves clawed at my face, fingers grabbed
at my nose and eyes.

    I
pushed him away and hit him again. All my anger and revulsion channelled into
the punch. Something cracked. In the darkness, both of us semi-lit by Healy's
phone, his eyes rolled up into his head and I realized I'd broken his nose.
Blood slowly soaked through from the inside of the mask.

    He
lay still. Eyes closed.

    Getting
up, I searched for Megan in the dull glow of the black lights. 'Megan?'
Silence. I moved towards the shadows at the back of the room, feeling the
breeze. 'Megan? It's okay, honey. Everything's okay. I just need to know you're
safe.'

    Suddenly,
everything descended into darkness again and I heard footsteps. I spun on my
heel, preparing for Glass's approach - but it didn't arrive. Instead the
footsteps circled me. I heard crates tumble and something fall to the floor
with a clang. And then a rectangle of creamy light burst open in the space
beyond the coffins.

    A
door.

    Glass
looked back at me — and then disappeared inside.

    I
sprinted after him. The corridor looked like it had been some kind of service tunnel.
The walls were crumbling, the cement turning to dust. At the end was a
stairwell, zigzagging upwards and out of sight. Glass glanced back again from
the steps, then started moving up to the surface.

    The
stairs rose for about thirty feet. At the top, a door had been sealed with a
welding torch and a series of boards. To one side, there was daylight coming
through a disused air vent. Glass dived inside the vent, clattering against the
metal. As I got to the landing area, I headed after him. The vent opened up in
a straight line for about forty feet, before angling upwards. When Glass
reached the end, he hauled himself up. Feet dangling. Then he was gone. I
slowed down five feet from the end and looked up.

    Above
me, the same LED light alarm system was in place. The covering for the vent -
sitting half over the hole - was a piece of wire mesh. I could see a thick
canopy of trees and snatches of blue sky. He wasn't at the lip of the hole. But
it didn't mean he wasn't close. If he'd picked up Healy's gun, he would have
fired it already. But he might have had another knife — and I wasn't about to
fight him from below.

    Slowly,
quietly, I manoeuvred into position.

    Then
I gripped the edges at the top of the hole and pulled myself up. The air vent
opened into a small brick building with a concrete floor. No roof; trees
overhead.

    Behind
me, stacked against one of the remaining walls were a series of railway
sleepers, cobwebs clinging to them. The railway line that had never been laid.

    
The
Dead Tracks.

    I
searched for a weapon and found a rusting shovel propped against the sleepers,
then quickly circled the building. To my left there was a vague path through
long grass; to my right, a path that continued for sixty feet before hitting
impenetrable woodland.

    I
headed left.

    The
canopy was thick and the path quickly became mud and stones. Further along was
a length of railway track, cutting across the trail, from one side to the
other. I carried on, looking over my shoulder the whole time, the shovel up and
primed. Moments later, a wind passed through the woods, the leaves in the trees
whispering. A few seconds later it came again, and this time it clearly sounded
like a voice. Or maybe I was spooked. I wasn't sure now. I looked around, feeling
like someone was watching me.

    On my
right, I noticed the grass had stopped growing. It had been flattened, ripped
away in places. And in the spaces that remained were a series of white posts,
spaced equally apart, each one numbered.

    An
odd sensation shivered through me.

    And
then I realized why: he's behind you.

    I
turned. His eyes widened above the bloodied mask as he raised the knife at his
side. I ducked away from him - but too late. The blade came fast and pierced
the skin at the top of my shoulder. I sucked in the pain and rolled away,
keeping my grip tight on the shovel.

    He
came at me a second time, stabbing the knife towards my throat then cutting
across in one swift motion. I stepped back but he was keeping me closed up,
forcing my arms in against my body as protection, not allowing me to open up an
arc for the shovel. The third time he got me in the folds of my top. I heard
the tear of fabric, felt the tip of the knife blade come all the way through to
my skin. But then, as he was drawing away, I swept the shovel in a half-circle.
It thudded against the top of his arm and he slipped on the wet ground, falling
to his side. As I went for him again, he raised a forearm, and the shovel
clanged against the bone. He screamed out in pain, the noise echoing out
through the Dead Tracks. I went again, catching him in the small of his back,
and he thumped against the turf like a sack of cement.

    Still.

    As I
edged closer, shovel up, I could see the posts more clearly. There were thirteen
of them, all recently driven into the earth. Each one stationed about five feet
apart. I stopped, eyes moving from one post to the next, a sickening
realization forming. This is it. A wind came through the trees towards me.
Brief and violent, like the last breath of the thirteen women Milton Sykes had
killed a century before.

    
This
is Sykes's burial ground
.

    Glass
had found it. Nurtured it.

    I
stepped up behind him. The water from the grass had soaked through his medical
scrubs. The mask had been pushed up to the top of his head. Long grass covered
his features. 'Roll over,' I said to him, teeth gritted. He didn't react. I
prodded him with the blade of the shovel. 'Roll over, you piece of shit.'

    Nothing.

    Forcing
the shovel in under him, I flipped his body over. He rolled on to his back.
Eyes closed. And suddenly he became someone else.

    Someone
I knew.

    Aron
Crane.

    But
it wasn't the Aron I remembered from the support group. The man who'd sat next
to Jill. Even unconscious, he was different: darker and more dangerous. He
wasn't the man who'd been concerned about Jill. The man I'd thought I'd bumped
into by accident the day before. He wasn't anyone I remembered.

    'Aron?'

    He
moved fast, grabbing my ankle, trying to turn it, trying to twist it the wrong
way to force me to the ground. Teeth clenched. Eyes flashing. Adrenalin surging
through his system as he saw a last chance to turn the tables. He forced me
into a half-turn away from him and was on his feet within a second, grabbing me
by the neck and pushing me to the ground. Suddenly I was beneath him, his body
on mine, his hands tightening at my throat. As he closed off my air, I started
to lose the sensation in my hands: my fingers numbed, my palms, my wrists.