Shelter, page 25
But Laura?
When the lake began to subside she could see that even though he was clearly damaged, it was still Brian Tanner that emerged. There was only one of them that he was interested in. So she ran. She ran away from the others, she ran away from the house. In close proximity to the lake was the maze. She ran there.
The yew was over seven feet tall, far too high for her to see over. As she entered the maze and ran purposelessly along its tracks she could only hope Tanner had seen her and would follow. Moments later she knew her idea had worked; the crashing and thrashing of the foliage told her something was blindly following her scent.
She ran then, pushing stray strands of leaves and branches away with her hands, conscious that the heavy sound of pursuit was getting closer. There were noises like footsteps and she imagined Brian Tanner’s face contorted with rage and the effort of running; then there were noises like a great body being dragged along the ground and Laura had to fight against the images in her mind of what might have overtaken Brian.
She came to a crossroads in the maze. A junction in the green walls where she could choose left or right. The noises behind her were closer. She chose left. It was a dead end.
“Shit, fuck.”
There was no time to turn back, the walls of the maze were too thick for her to break through, whatever was following her was too near, she could hear that. She could try to turn back the tide, but even as she panted in an effort to regain her breath she knew that was impossible. She recognized Brian Tanner as he lolled down the avenue toward her. He was still wearing that same leering look on his face, and his clothes were just about hanging on his body, but there were huge changes. His skin broken and black, the clothing torn, and through the rips she could see that the flesh of his stomach was crisscrossed with small red slits. Bloodied, like raw meat, the edges of the slits moved, and from inside the slits, sharp, coral-pink spines emerged, protruding viciously, their tips glistening.
“Fancy me now?” The voice was slurred as though it was from a mouth that was under water.
Laura had no idea whether there was any humanity left in the Brian Tanner that remained; there hadn’t been a great amount in the original, she thought, but her instincts took over.
She pressed her back against the end hedge of the maze and cast her eyes downward. “I treated you badly, Brian, I know that.”
“Humility from the Ice Queen, how quaint,” Tanner mocked. “Do anything to save yourself, would you? Suck on this like you sucked my cock.” A thin sharp spine flicked out toward her, but she ducked and it retracted into the now heaving mass of the body.
Tanner’s face was undulating as though immense forces were playing behind the skin. His body was rippling in a way that made it seem as if all his muscles, all his veins and arteries were quivering.
With a visible effort Tanner lurched toward her. “I hate you with a passion, Laura. As much as I loved you, and I did, I despise you. I’m dying, I can’t hold this, this thing, off any longer, but at least I can take you with me.”
Laura screamed. Tanner lunged forward to grab her. The slimy flesh of his body slithered against her. His head opened from the top of the skull and thin protruding spikes thrust out quivering in the air before moving to Laura’s face. Tanner had come so close; touching distance. In the end he had failed. As in life Laura had deserted him, and there was no coming back. As the Verani asserted its full dominance the echoes of Brian Tanner reverberated away into the memories of time. Only the tattered remnants of the body existed.
Then the bushes in front of her burst open as the Range Rover smashed through the hedgerows of the maze and spun around a few feet from her. In turning it caught Brian Tanner, thrusting him to the ground.
Richard yelled, “Get in!”
Shaun leaped from the side of the vehicle and pulled Laura to her feet. “Come on, girl, move yer arse.” Between them they both scrambled into the Range Rover.
Laura jumped into the passenger side, Shaun in the back, and Richard spun the wheel. “I’ll try to run it over. What the . . . where is she . . .”
Catherine had opened the back door and was climbing out. She was calling out, “David, David.”
By the time Richard had maneuvered the car around, there was no sign of Catherine. She had disappeared into the darkness of the maze. There was no sign of the Verani either.
“I was sure I hit it.”
Laura was pointing at the ground. “What’s that?” Illuminated in the headlights was a shriveled and bloodied blanket of skin. They were looking at all that was left of Brian Tanner. Before anyone could speak Catherine came running into view. Shaun pushed open the door and helped her inside.
“Where the hell did you run off to?” Richard shouted.
“Just get us back to the house,” was all Catherine said.
It was already getting dark as dusk crept up onto the terrace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The drawing room was dark, with only a couple of lamps switched on to break the gloom. Catherine was slouched moodily on a couch. Shaun tried to get her to drink some water, but she pushed his hand away. It was only when Laura stroked her hair that she offered a small smile.
“Thank God,” Laura said. Looking at Catherine. “So, why the hell did you run off?”
Richard shut and locked the doors behind them. “I could ask you the same question about running into the maze.”
Laura patted Shaun on the shoulder. “I had a good idea. . . .”
“Not one of your ‘good’ good ideas?”
Laura gave a tight smile. “Sort of a decoy idea?”
“And that comes into the ‘good’ category, does it?”
Laura flopped into a chair. “Best I could come up with at the time. So, what now?”
Catherine ground out her half-smoked cigarette in an onyx ashtray and stood. “Did you see . . . I mean, what did it . . .”
Richard put his arm around her shoulder. “Still looked pretty much like Tanner, so far as I could see,” he said gently.
Outside in the grounds the dark had taken hold. Dusk had disappeared and in its place were pools of shadow, hulking shapes of trees and bushes made unrecognizable by the blackness of the night.
Darkness surrounded the room, peering in at the windows, rattling the door handles, adding an air of isolation to the small group.
“We could make a break for it in the Range Rover,” Shaun suggested.
Richard shook his head. “Possibly, but to be honest I don’t much fancy it. We have no way of telling how quickly it might be able to move—”
Catherine gave a strangled sob.
“I’m sorry, Catherine,” Laura said. “But it’s no use pretending. It was Tanner’s discarded body back there. I think the Verani has taken over.”
A small tear escaped from Catherine’s eye and trickled down her cheek. She dabbed it away impatiently with a tissue.
“Something occurred to me,” Laura said. “I think we’re in bigger trouble than we first thought.”
“It couldn’t get much worse,” Richard said.
“Oh, but it could. In fact I think it already has. The fact that Tanner’s body is being discarded—assuming it is—can mean only one thing. The Verani has mated.”
Richard closed his eyes and swore quietly. “Of course,” he said. “But who?”
“That’s something we’ll probably never know.”
The room lapsed into silence as they all retreated into their private thoughts. None of which were pleasant.
In the room the four occupants were conscious of their fear. Each was aware of small sounds outside the french doors. They could imagine crawling creatures slithering below the windows, scratching at the glass to be allowed in. They could believe they could hear whispering behind the drapes, feel a cold draft of night air on their shoulders, and if they turned around . . .
“Can you hear something?” Shaun asked after a while.
They all listened. There was a scuffling sound coming from above them.
“Does this room have a flat roof?”
Richard shook his head. “Not flat as such, it’s a pitched and tiled roof.”
Shaun snorted angrily. “Never mind the building specs. Is there space up there for something to get onto?”
“Yes.”
“Right.” Shaun stood. “I’m going to take a look. I would guess the front landing will give me a good enough view over this room?”
“It will but I’ll come with you.”
“Far be it from me to order a lordly gentleman about, Richard, but you’d be best occupied right here.”
“He’s right, Richard,” Laura said.
The house was darker than Shaun expected. He found his way across the vast entrance hall and stumbled up the grand staircase. The front of the house was fed from a long hallway from which opened several doors. Most of these he found to be bedrooms.
Shaun was looking out the window, trying to see if there was anything on top of the drawing room roof, when the door to the bedroom, the door he had carefully closed behind him, opened.
A table lamp was switched on and in its warm glow he could see Catherine. She was smiling. She was unbuttoning the front of her dress.
“Catherine?”
“We may not have much time, Shaun. I know you want me.”
She was naked underneath the dress. Her breasts were visible now, the nipples already erect.
Shaun held out his hands in a dismissive gesture. “Catherine. No, I . . .” Then he watched as the dress fell in folds around her feet. Watched as she reached out her arms for him. Watched the flesh of her stomach crisscrossed with small red slits. The edges of the slits moved, and from inside the slits, sharp, coral-pink spines emerged, protruding viciously, their tips glistening.
“You do want me . . . don’t you?” Catherine leaped across the room before Shaun could move.
It held Shaun aloft, slammed him against the ceiling, stunning him, and then drew him toward the needle-sharp spines that protruded from its body.
Shaun screamed as three of the spines punctured his back. They threaded through his body like hungry worms, piercing his liver, seeking out the nutrients in his kidneys. Shaun screamed again as the mouth-slits in the body of the Verani started to suck the life from him. His body squirmed and shook as it began to drain him.
It was Shaun’s screams that alerted the others.
Richard was the first to push open the bedroom door and run in. He had already raised his shotgun in readiness to shoot, but what he saw froze him to the spot. Laura moved to his side, her own shotgun ready.
Catherine turned to face them and if she recognized her own son she gave no sign.
Laura lifted her shotgun, pointed it at Catherine. Before she could fire the gun Richard grabbed the barrel and forced it toward the floor.
“You can’t.”
Catherine lifted Shaun away from her, threw him against the wall, and rushed out of the room.
Laura and Richard ran to where Shaun lay, motionless on the carpet. There was no movement, but Laura could see from the steady rise and fall of Shaun’s chest that he was still alive. His shirt was drenched in blood.
Richard took him by the arm and tried to drag him into a sitting position, but it was hopeless. Shaun was a deadweight.
“Laura, I need you to help me lift him.”
“He shouldn’t be moved,” Laura said, but together they carried Shaun to the bed, laying him down gently.
Laura was sitting on the floor, next to Shaun, watching him intently. She looked shaken, scared, as she had every right to be. She still managed to smile at Richard as he crouched down beside her.
“Are you all right?” she said.
He shook his head. “My mother . . .” was all he could say.
Laura stroked his hair. “It must have happened at the maze.”
“The new host. It means she has a few days left, that’s all.”
As far as Laura was concerned Catherine, the real Catherine, had already died. Once the Verani had taken over she was lost. “I feel like a rat in a trap,” she said quietly.
“You and me both,” Richard said grimly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Laura knelt down next to Shaun. She took her shirt off and used it to swab away the blood, much of which began to soak into her camisole. “I can’t see how much damage has been done to him,” she said as Richard came over to join her.
“Well, his arm’s definitely broken. Can we roll him over? I want to see what those spines did to him.”
“What are they anyway?”
“It’s how they feed,” Richard said. “It was going to suck everything out of him.” His voice sounded as if he was reading from the notes his mother had researched, and in a way he was. There was only one thought keeping him sane at the present: how he could stop Catherine suffering any more.
Richard had a mental flashback to the basement of Brian Tanner’s house and Jim Raymond’s hideously wasted body. He shuddered.
They rolled Shaun onto his front and pulled up his sweatshirt. There were three puncture wounds, each no more than a quarter of an inch across. Blood seeped from them, but they didn’t appear to be life-threatening.
“We’ve got to get out of here and get him to a hospital,” Laura said, and then noticed the look in Richard’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” Laura said, putting an arm around his shoulder solicitously.
Richard looked at Laura. They moved across to one another and in an act as primal as the instincts of the Verani haunting them, their lips locked and pressed together in a passionate desperate cry for help. Their faces merged together like raindrops on a windowpane, separate but entwined.
In truth Catherine had little experience in the kitchens, having enjoyed a pampered existence where others helped her with most of life’s mundane tasks. That might have mattered if she had any intention of preparing food. The kitchen just happened to be the room the Verani stopped in as it ran to the ground floor of the house.
Catherine knew enough about the layout of the rooms in Dunbar Court to know that the kitchens led through a side door onto the rear terrace. Once the door was opened the night poured through with all its cold embrace. Although she shivered she was hoping, anticipating, in what was left of her humanity, that the Verani would find the exit enticing. If it left the house, perhaps back to the lake, then her son might be safe.
But the Verani was too strong now. With Catherine taken, there remained only Richard. Too late in years to exact revenge on those that deserved it most, it would be some consolation at least to kill Richard.
It would happen soon enough. If it waited here eventually Richard would come. It was good at waiting, it had years of practice.
“We can’t wait here,” Laura said.
“What do you suggest?”
Laura studied his face carefully before replying. The wrong word here and she would be on her own. “We intended killing the Verani while it was Brian Tanner. We still have to kill it, even if . . .”
Richard pulled away from her embrace. When he stood she thought he was walking out on her. Instead he picked up his shotgun. “Come on then. What are you waiting for?”
They searched the rooms on the first floor, before checking the ground floor. Eventually they came to the kitchens.
Catherine was sitting at the pine table, calmly waiting as if ready to prepare tea.
Richard and Laura entered the room together and then separated. Laura with her back to the ovens, Richard against some cupboards.
Without warning Richard raised his gun and fired. The blast hit Catherine full in the chest.
Black jellylike flesh poured out of the chest, hitting the floor with a soft plopping sound. After it came long, coiled lengths of scaly black flesh that uncurled on contact with the floor. Next the legs, articulated, long, covered in leathery skin. The rasping sound stopped as the skull split open and the Verani’s head emerged into the shade of the room.
Catherine was disintegrating with soft popping noises as bones broke, muscles snapped, and sinew and ligaments tore from their anchors. Like someone shrugging off a sodden raincoat the Verani hauled itself free from the carcass and stood in the center of the room, a shimmering mass of lashing coral spines.
The head was large and misshapen, great saucer eyes placed on each side, like a lizard’s, but coal black and glistening. The mouth that split the head midway was nothing more than a lipless slash, but when it opened to take in air, Laura could see row after row of jagged teeth, yellow and sharp. A thin red tongue flopped over the teeth, flicking backward and forward, as if tasting the air around it.
And then the Verani turned to look at her and she screamed.
At the sound of her scream the Verani lurched forward, lashing out, slapping savagely at the pine table that was Laura’s only cover. With a cry she pushed herself away from the table and backed against the oven. With a cry of rage, the Verani lashed out again, but Laura had already made her decision.
“Richard,” she yelled. “Get out. Now.”
“No chance.”
“Richard, do it. Get out now.”
Richard shook his head, and raised his shotgun to his shoulder. “Only if you come too.”
“Right behind you.” Laura had her gun raised as well. “I promise I’ll be right behind you.”
“Together. Otherwise one of us will get trapped.”
The Verani had pushed the table aside. Before it could get any closer, Laura ran to the terrace door. Richard ran to the internal door.
He raised his shotgun. The Verani turned to look at him. Laura knew he would hesitate. She wasn’t angry that he did, not even disappointed, it was inevitable he wouldn’t be able to finish it.
It was he who fired the vital shot though.
Richard’s final shotgun blast hit the ceiling in the center, smashing wood and plaster, but most importantly distracting the Verani.
Laura took careful aim. Both barrels needed to hit the head. She was fairly certain she could kill it with a shot to the head.
She was right.
