THE KILLER OF THE DARKNESS

EPISODE TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-THREE

McQueen squinted at his new cards for the third time, knowing he held a sure thing in his hand.

"Come on, Mick, where are you?"

He called, showing no patience at all.

Silence.

Rodwell completed lighting his tobacco-pipe and put his matches down beside his cards. He shuddered.

"Bloody hell, flipping freezing in here. There must be a fault."

McQueen sniffed.

"Do you sense something?"

Rodwell groaned.

"You're not going to joke about my tobacco, again, are you?"

McQueen got up.

"No, fresh oil. He must be having trouble."

Leading the way, he walked out of the room and round the corner into the back passageway.

"f*****g hell!"

McQueen ran forward, and reached the central heating unit, his feet splashing in the flammable liquid which flooded the area. He turned off the supply.

"f**k me, what a shamble. Where is the f*****g clown?"

"Mick!"

Rodwell's call echoed down the walkway.

McQueen gestured to the place where the tool bag was stored.

"Tools are gone. Must be outside, the f*****g i***t!"

He yanked the door open.

"Mick? Are you out there?"

The only sound coming back to them, a dull metallic clunking.

"Mick?"

Still no answer.

Rodwell added, his voice, unable to keep the concern out of his tone.

"Mick, stop f*****g, about, will you?"

Nothing. Only the clanking. They regarded each other. McQueen spoke first.

"Maybe the clumsy i***t fell over and knocked his head?"

Without further hesitation, they ran out to the tanks.

Rodwell's foot kicked into something, causing him to stumble.

"Here's his toolbox. Mick!"

Rodwell's shout made them both jumps. McQueen pointed down.

"See if the flashlight is still in there."

The other coast guardsman produced the heavy-duty electric lamp.

"Here it is."

McQueen reached out and flicked it on, the white beam reflected from the illuminate.

"Oh s**t!"

McQueen pointed down at the blood.

They drew nearer to each other, as the clanking came again, close to. Rodwell's voice sounded shaky.

"Mick? Can you hear us?"

A soft moan emanated from the back of the tanks.

Huddled together they moved at a slow pace to the corner.

"Mick?"

This time, McQueen only spoke the words. The groan came again, ending in a little sigh.

They stepped out around the corner. The streak of light lanced out across the blizzard and played on the distant rocks. It took a second for it to register that nothing stood before them. Only when McQueen moved the torch around did the dangling, boot-covered foot leap into their vision, almost within touching distance of their faces.

"f*****g hell! He's fallen and hung himself!"

Rodwell rushed forward and took the weight of the body as McQueen swung the light up on to Pendergrass's face. The distress of what they saw made Rodwell let go and stagger back.

Pendergrass, suspended by a chain around his chest, stared at his colleagues with eyes bulging out of their sockets. Where his gullet had been, just a red gash with parts of the oesophagus sticking out.

Even as they scrutinized the blood that ebbed and flowed from an artery, formed a red cascade down his chest and legs, fluttered and stopped.

But, bad as the injuries showed, the face riveted their attention. Apart from the popping eyes, the mouth had been slit at the corners, elevating an upward curve on either cheek to expose the dentures at the side of the jaw.

The overall effect developed to be like the unbalanced, laughing face of a dummy on the seaside pier.

They backed away and ran full tilt for the door. McQueen stumbled and cannoned into Rodwell.

"Get the guns! That thing has come back!"

They lodged in the entrance, elbowing each other in panic. Together they barged into the corridor and stood stock-still.

There on the floor before them an odd emission in blood and lubricant, leading down the gallery where it petered out.

"It's in here with us!"

McQueen's voice only a whisper but reverberating the hallway with sound.

Rodwell headed away.

"Let's go to the dormitory and barricade the door."

McQueen tightened his lips.

"f*****g hell, we can't run away from the f*****g thing. The armoury is only down there. It's our only hope."

"Are you f*****g crazy! We're dealing with a f*****g crazed mad man!"

McQueen stood in indecision until Rodwell pulled at his sleeve. He brushed the hand off and made up his mind.

"We don't know if it can use them. It might be in the food store. There's a possibility I could find a firearm and finish the f*****g thing off."

Rodwell kept on retreating.

"You're not a murderer of monsters for f**k's sake!"

McQueen ignored his colleague, started treading with careful steps, flattened to the wall, down the long-darkened entranceway.

Rodwell appeared frozen to the spot as McQueen reached a corner. He glanced back fleetingly, bent forward, and peered around.

Without looking back, he gave the thumbs-up and vanished from view.

Rodwell peeked around. Even the half-open door into the illuminated mess-room behind him was sinister. Perhaps the thing had come this way, the marks only a blind.

He shook, and started to move after McQueen, anything would be better than being on his own. He reached uncaring the mass of emollient and started into it.

Halfway through he almost fainted with shock.

The most terrifying shriek shattered the silent building, carrying on, and on, longer than any man could hold his breath, and yet he recognized McQueen's voice.

It gurgled away to nothing.

Rodwell froze, his stiff arms and legs arrested where they were.

The scream came again, higher, breaking into a pleading, coughing sob that tailed off into a word.

As soon as he heard McQueen call for his mother, Rodwell ran, forgetting about the lubricator on the floor. He fell, arms and legs thrashing in the black fluid. Still moving on hands and knees he fought clear and stood-up, slithering into the end wall, leaving a trail on the floor.

In the bunk room he slammed the door shut and slid the latch across. Terror threatened to shake his body apart.

He studied around. The same fear gave him strength. He ran to the end of the large wardrobe beside the door, and the superhuman intensity of the demented, got his shoulder behind it. Teeth clenched, whimpering, he pushed. It barely moved. He repositioned himself and bulldozed again and again. And again, every time grunting with the extreme effort. It was only a quarter of the way across the door when he heard it.

Paralysed with horror, not panting because of the racket it would make, he listened. Footsteps. Ordinary footsteps. His eyes widened, and he let his breath out. McQueen must be alive! McQueen had killed it.

He straightened up. The footfalls were fading, going into the mess-room. He peered around the room, at the cupboard now at a crazy angle, at his dishevelled, wild appearance and acute embarrassment welled up in him.

He tried to do something about his clothes, but his hands were still uncontrollable, shaking like butterflies as he tried to straighten his tie. He moved to the door.

"Hello? I'm in here!"

The heavy footsteps stopped.

He put his hand on the door and tried to open it, forgetting about the bolt. The door shook as his hand slid off. The stomping started again, coming out of the mess-room.

Shame at the thought that McQueen would see his hysterical selfish barricading caused him to pull the security device back.

He started to open the door.

"I am getting the defences ready in case you..."

The door stopped after six inches, arrested by the side of the closet.

Nobody in sight in the dark aisle, and he could see across into the mess-room through its half-open door that directed a shaft of light between the two rooms.

Embarrassed at the narrowness of the opening through which a fleeing McQueen supposed to have gone through, he put his shoulder to the unit, and gave a shove, talking again to McQueen who must be there, checking something.

He lived because his toughness is only half that of the deranged man who had shoved the cupboard in a frenzy only half a minute before. It did not budge.

"I didn't hear the ..."

His voice choked off as his stomach jerked into spasm, forcing the gastric juices upwards. Out of the gloom, right beside him, moved a remarkable, frightening figure.

*

Joanne woke up screaming. She screamed on and one even as I, heart pounding, burst into the room. She sat up her face still transfixed with slumber.

"Joanne."

I grabbed her shoulder and shook her. Still, she did not respond. In desperation, I slapped her face.

The scream stopped, and in the silence, she gazed at me in shocked bewilderment. Then her face collapsed into recognition. She clung to me as sobs racked her body.

"What is it, darling?"

I stroked her hair and held her to my chest, talking soothing words as I would have done my own scared child.

"It was awful!"

Her body convulsed again.

I gave her another hard hug and rocked from side to side.

"You were having a nightmare, nothing more."

Her bawling subsided. I felt her stir against my chest, and I released my grip a little."

She sniffed. Her voice small.

"I'll get my handkerchief!"

I let her go as she searched beneath her pillow. When she found the dainty, embroidered cloth, she gave a very ungainly, fierce blow of her nose into it.

Still affected by the excitement, I began to relax a little.

"Wow, which is a big one."

She gave a weak smile and used the clean corner of it to dab her eyes.

"I must look a mess."

I shook my head and reached out to lift away a hair that had fallen across her face.

"Not to me."

She smiled her thanks, but it drained away.

She gave a shiver.

"What's the matter with me? I haven't done anything like this since I for years."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You're upset, that's all. God, who would not be with what is going on here. Two horrible murders..."

Joanne trembled again and interrupted him.

"I know, but I feel..."

She hesitated.

"...different."

I must have looked puzzled because she gave a wince.

"You think I'm just being a daft, terrified woman. Well, I'm not!"

I started to contradict her, but she would not let me.

"Ever since I saw that..."

She made a face of revulsion.

"... thing on the film, it's as though some basic human confidence in me has turned to jelly. And what frightens me is that it happened just like that..."

She clicked her fingers.

"...like the touch of a switch. I told you before. Somehow that horrible shape, got right into my soul."

My anxiety gave way to scepticism.

"Oh, come on, Joanne -- your soul?"

Her eyes flashed.

"All right, perhaps I'm not saying the correct word. Call it the basic primordial part of the cerebrum, whatever you like. But you know what I mean. All the deep instinctive fears that we manage to lock-up in our own polished twentieth century life, with this bloody war and dead loved ones, the bombing, the fighting, and so on. I can live with all that, but this thing comes along and everything I am petrified of, comes to life."

I raised an eyebrow.

"A bit heavy for this time of night, isn't it?"

"Maybe, but you explain to me why tales of the bogey-man exist. You will never convince me they just happened. They're used by parents to control naughty children, but I ask you, what is their origin?"

I took a deep breath.

"You mean the source of the bogey-man are lost in time? That in our past or in our future they are real?"

She fell on to the bedding, frowning in exasperation.

"Oh, I don't know."