Kristin Read online

  ‘Thom ... what the fuck is happening?’ he groaned, clinging to his friend.

  Thom led him upstairs to the bathroom. He opened the cabinet and took out some antiseptic cream and bandages.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘I was attacked ... by this big, black guy. I could see him staring at me from a window above a shop. Next thing I knew he was out in the street, laying into me. When someone’s that size and they’re driven by hatred there’s not a lot you can do.’

  ‘This needs stitches, it won’t stop bleeding.’

  ‘Forget it, I’m not going out there again.’

  ‘What did he use on you?’

  ‘Broken bottle. What happened to your arm?’

  ‘ ... Did you hear the tone, the siren?’

  ‘I smashed my place up, tore up photos of my family. I was being manipulated. Something was making me do it.’

  ‘I saw a man attack a pregnant woman on Hill Rise.’

  ‘ ... A pregnant woman?’

  Her cadaverous figure materialized in the doorway, unnoticed.

  ‘He just ran at her, unprovoked, waded into her with his case. He was going to kill her and ... ’

  Nathan glanced up, waited for him to continue.

  ‘ ... I killed him. I think she died too, but I’m not sure. If only I could believe she’d survived then it would mean ... I’d feel ... vindicated.’

  ‘ Christ, you poor bastard. But you’re not alone, it’s going on everywhere.’

  ‘Can I help?’ she asked.

  Nathan's eyes met hers and he fell from the toilet seat onto the floor.

  ‘ ... Nathan, this is ... Kristin.’

  He stared at her open-mouthed, unable to draw breath.

  She left the doorway and returned with a fine needle and a length of thread. Then, perched on the edge of the bath, she proceeded to close Nathan’s wound with compassion and dexterity.

  ‘We should eat,’ she said, when she’d finished. ‘I’ll make us something.’

  They moved into the lounge as she rummaged through the dwindling supply of groceries in the kitchen

  ‘Jesus,’ Nathan shivered.

  Thom looked at him.

  ‘How long has she been here?’

  ‘A few weeks, why?’

  ‘Those eyes. How can you have no whites to your eyes, Thom? They look like they’ve lived a hundred lifetimes, all of them bad. She’s overwhelming, abnormal ... ’

  Something fell noisily in the kitchen.

  Thom stood at the door. She’d dropped a roasting pan onto the floor, spilling used oil over the tiles. They looked at one another without exchanging a word then he opened a cupboard near the sink, found a bottle of single malt and returned, pouring them each a double.

  ‘How did you meet her?’

  ‘She was in the foot tunnel, sleeping rough.’

  ‘Bit of a risk, wasn’t it?’

  Thom held the glass to his lips, drank half its contents and breathed out before considering his words carefully. ‘Listen, I don’t know what’s happening out there, and I don’t know what’s happening in my head, but I do know she’s all I care about on God’s Earth, and I cannot explain that.

  ‘Everything was fine when she moved in, but then things, unaccountable things, started to happen.’

  ‘Things?’

  He knocked back the rest of the whisky. ‘ ... Today I imagined I saw her commit an atrocity — two atrocities, in the park. I saw her burn the park to the ground, Nathan, saw her kill hundreds. She blew up an airliner! They were pure acts of will. And in this room, tonight, she metamorphisized into something too terrible to put into words. But I know none of it was real, how could it be?’

  ‘I wish I could tell you that you were imagining everything, but the park did burst into flames today, there was a major civil aviation disaster directly over the city — an airliner bound for Zurich. Three hundred died.’

  Thom dug his fingernails into his scalp.

  ‘I’m not sure what’s happening out there either, some sort of mass psychosis, maybe? According to the reports things seem localized at the moment, but there’s talk of disturbances outside London.’

  Nathan drained his glass.

  ‘Get rid of her, Thom, throw her out. At best, she’s a nutter or a psychopath. But maybe she’s something much, much worse?’

  ‘ ... Oh, Nathan, come on.’

  ‘Everything ties in with her arrival, doesn’t it?’

  ‘ For fuck’s sake.’

  ‘How well do you really know her?’

  ‘I know I love her, that I must have her.’

  ‘I assume you’ve already had her, Thom? Now get rid of the weird fucking bitch.’

  Although they spoke in hushed whispers, Kristin’s hearing was acute and she digested Nathan’s every word. Her flesh prickled, her brow darkened.

  Fifty minutes later they sat at the dining table picking at the meal she’d prepared, the silence punctuated by sounds of turmoil from the streets outside. The considerate, gentle woman who’d tended Nathan’s lacerated face so humanely had gone and he squirmed each time she looked at him, her eyes probing deeper and deeper, devouring him from the inside out. She had heard them.

  ‘So, Nathan, how long have you known Thom?’ she asked, watching every move he made.

  ‘Long time,’ he answered, brusquely. ‘Long enough to recognize when he’s made a serious error of judgement.’

  Thom stopped pushing the food around his plate.

  ‘ And do you think he’s made one?’

  ‘I believe he sometimes thinks with his heart instead of his head.’

  ‘Nathan, leave it.’

  ‘No, please,’ she insisted. ‘I’d like to know if Nathan doesn’t agree with something, doesn’t approve of me.’

  ‘I’m not saying that I disapprove of you, I just don’t know you.’

  ‘You mean you don’t trust me … ?’

  ‘I mean I don’t know you.’

  ‘I don’t know you, but I’m not prejudging you.’

  He strained to keep his eyes on her. Her grip on the wine glass tightened. ‘I’m not prejudging you, I’m using my eyes, my ears ... ’

  ‘To see what ... to hear what?’

  The peculiar scent of the perspiration evaporating from her lilywhite flesh in waves made his stomach turn.

  ‘Everything that’s happening. Can’t you see it, can’t you hear it?’

  ‘All is as it should be,’ she muttered, her voice extraneous, hollow.

  He pushed his chair back from the table. ‘ ... What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘Nathan, just leave things,’ Thom urged.

  He backed down, and they sat in silence for some time.

  ‘Thom told me what happened in the park,’ Nathan resumed. ‘He thinks it’s all in his head. But the park is burned, hundreds of people are dead. There are dismembered, rotting remains of people on streets all over London and nobody cares. Nothing is as it should be.’

  She exhaled noisily, and the glass exploded in her hand.

  ‘Nathan, shut the fuck up!’ Thom shouted.

  Kristin slammed her fork into the table, narrowly missing Nathan’s hand, and Thom grabbed her wrist. A stream of bright red blood trickled from her nostrils and her eyes were wild as she shook her head in vehement denial.

  Nathan felt an invisible hand constrict his heart. ‘ ... Why don’t ... you tell us what you really are ... you goddamned freak?’ he groaned.

  Thom lunged and caught him with a sharp blow under the chin, knocking him from his chair. He picked himself up, laughed bitterly and staggered to the bathroom.

  ‘.... He’s scared, that’s all,’ Thom said, presently. ‘He’s searching for answers, we all are.’

  ‘And so you defend him?’

  ‘There are things happening out there that are impossible for the human mind to grasp, it’s bound to lead to overreaction.’

  ‘No, the fucker thinks I’m responsible for all the bad thi
ngs that are happening. Did you see the way he looked at me? So certain. He wants me to go, he wants to finish us, but I cannot let let him do that.’ She glared at the table and twitched imperceptibly. There was a strangled scream from the bathroom, a loud snap.

  Thom rushed to the door, hammered on it, ‘NATHAN?’ He banged in desperation, ‘NATHAN?’ He put his shoulder to the door and barged, but the wood was oak, the lock brass, and it wouldn’t yield. He stepped back and kicked out — the frame splintered and the door flew open, crashing against the wall. Thom brought his hand to his mouth.

  Nathan’s lifeless body lay slumped forward over the edge of the bath, but his face pointed at the ceiling. An immense purple bruise circled his neck and a string of bloody mucus streamed from his open mouth onto the linoleum flooring.

  There was a sharp intake of breath behind him.

  He leapt at her, pinning her to the wall, and grabbed her throat. ‘You’ve killed him you bitch ... you’ve killed him!’

  She grabbed at his hair. ‘ ... Thom ... let me go ... I can’t breath!’

  ‘NEITHER CAN FUCKING NATHAN! TELL ME WHAT YOU DID ... TELL ME!’

  ‘ ... Nothing!’ she choked. ‘What’s happened to him ... what’s happened ... to Nathan?’

  His tears trickled down onto her hands, which clenched his, trying to force them away from her windpipe. ‘What are you ... in the name of Christ, what are you?’ He cracked her head against the cutting, textured wall until it left a bloody mark. ‘What are you ... what are you ....?’

  ‘Kristin!’ she spluttered, her vision blurring. ‘I’m ... Kristin!’

  ‘Kristin would have no reason to do something like this!’

  ‘Kristin did not have a reason ... I did!’ the monstrous voice gargled.

  He let her go.

  He was awake, sentient. His oldest friend lay contorted, dead at his feet and his lover had just spoken to him, but in a voice that didn’t belong to her.

  ‘ ... Why?’ he asked, in the surreal stillness.

  ‘He would have ... been a problem, would have represented a threat to my purpose.’

  ‘... Your purpose?’

  ‘Find the Christ. Fuck the Christ. Kill the Christ.’

  ‘ ... Why have you chosen her?’

  ‘She is just a vehicle for my use, the reason for her selection is irrelevant, she was chosen at random two thousand years ago.’

  ‘Chosen?’ By whom?’

  ‘ By the true child of God.’

  ‘The true child?’ God only had one child, a son, Jesus Christ.’

  She roared bestially and hurled herself at him, slashing his face with nails suddenly sharp and deadly. She spat in his face as he struck her about the head with his fists. She forced her head down to his neck and opened her mouth, revealing pointed, blackened teeth and he smelt her suddenly putrid breath. But as she was ready to close her jaws she squealed with pain and collapsed.

  On his haunches, he looked deep into her hollowed eyes and could see her tormentor had left her, that she’d won this battle for her soul.

  As she lay unconscious he sat on the bloody floor, transfixed by Nathan’s distorted body. Some time later he stood, went to the bedroom, pulled a sheet off the bed and wrapped Nathan’s body in it, knotting each end. He picked it up gently and carried it down the stairs.

  Outside, he fumbled with his car keys, folded the stiffening corpse into the undersized boot and slammed the door. He leaned heavily on it, white and sick: When he was done he’d tell Nathan’s parents that their son had been attacked and killed out on the street. How could he tell them the truth?

  Thom drove along a Trafalgar Road darkened by malfunctioning or defunct streetlights. Memories of his long friendship with Nathan flashed in and out of his mind; a friendship that had been torn from him by a force from hell that occupied the body of the only woman he’d ever loved.

  He brought the car to a halt by an old, rotting jetty on the Greenwich Peninsular, got out and swung the boot open, losing his balance when he glimpsed the bloodstained, white-shrouded remains crammed inside. He hoisted the cold corpse onto his shoulder, struggled to the end of the boardwalk and shifted his weight, allowing Nathan’s body to slip into the icy depths. Then he sat on the edge, said a short prayer, and broke down.

  Eleven

  Kristin sat on the floor, shivering, her back against the bath, legs lying in a pool of bloody saliva that Nathan Van Allen had ejected in the throws of death.

  Not for the first time she wondered why Thom had left her when she was at her most vulnerable, when she was so confused, so isolated, so afraid. She recalled that he’d been angry with her but couldn’t remember doing or saying anything in particular to upset him. When he got back she’d ask him what was wrong, get it cleared up, she didn’t want anything to harm their burgeoning relationship, their love for one another.

  She’d known, since first opening her eyes to the world in the dark, damp room near Rakovnik that there was something very bad indeed inside her. It was always there. She didn’t know what it was, why it was there, or what it wanted of her. It was impulsive, capable of taking over from her if given the chance, but she’d always managed to contain its bad intentions, used her willpower to prevent it from causing any harm.

  Kristin had been honest with Thom when she’d told him she had no idea how she came to be in the foot tunnel, but she sensed that fate or design had drawn her to his side. He would be the only love of her life, a life she knew would be short. But the badness inside her also wished to be close to Thom, and that disturbed her.

  Where was Thom? Why had he been gone so long? Where was his friend, Nathan ... had he gone with Thom? She liked Nathan. The cut on his face was a bad one and she’d surprised herself with her ability to close the wound so proficiently, given her lack of medical training. He would be left with a bad scar, of course, but things could have been much worse had the slash been a couple of inches lower. Higher, and he could have lost an eye.

  Red-tinged slime had spread across the floor and soaked into her thick tights. She got to her feet, went to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. Sorting through the rail, she noticed that the little fingernail of her left hand was much smaller than the others, as if it were new. She frowned, pulled on more of Shannon's clothes — a clean pair of denims, crisp white blouse, and waited patiently at the kitchen table.

  One hour later she heard the sound of the key in the door, the laboured trudge of feet on the stairs.

  Thom sat slowly at the table and stared at her numbly, enslaved by love, consumed by hatred, white with fear.

  ‘Where’s Nathan?’ she asked

  ‘ ... Can’t you work out where I’ve been?’

  ‘ Is he coming back? I should check his wound.’

  ‘Coming back? No, Nathan won’t be coming round again.’

  ‘Why not, I thought he was your friend?’

  ‘He was my friend, a very dear friend. But now he’s dead.’

  ‘ ... Dead?’

  ‘From a broken neck. And I don’t understand how, because it’s impossible for a man to die that way, on his own, in a fucking bathroom.’

  She brought her hands to her face. Had she been negligent, inattentive, for even one moment? Had she let her resident evil gain control?

  For the first time her possessor permitted her a glimpse into its ancient, hateful world, revelling in her suffering as murderous memories from its previous incarnations streamed into her mind. And then it let her see the things it had done since she’d been its host: Now she could hear the vertebrae in Nathan’s neck snap, taste the blood filling his mouth, feel his terror as he stared down his own spine in the certain knowledge that he would live only seconds longer. Now she could feel the utter malevolence of the badness, its power beyond imagination, and its lust for much, much more.

  In vivid colour she saw the burning agony of those who’d perished in the convent. She heard the little girl’s screams for the mother she’d never see again, moments before a dis
tressed beam fell from the roof of St Mary’s Church, crushing her immature ribcage and vital organs inside.

  In the park, men, women and children were cremated alive and fell to the blackened grass. And aboard the doomed airliner she watched as three hundred people vaporized in a cloud of burning kerosene.

  She experienced Mother Superior Mary Clayton’s agony as she collapsed in the road, her terror when she awoke inside her temporary coffin, and unable to prevent the flow of atrocious images and sounds from inundating her mind, she observed with horror as the blood-soaked, pregnant woman twitched on the frozen ground, helpless against the unrelenting barrage of blows that rained down upon her and her unborn child.

  The torture of each individual slaughtered by her black shadow, the desolation of each soul it had corrupted flashed into her brain, building to a maelstrom of misery that she couldn’t bear. When she thought her ordeal was finally over, she was in the bed she shared with Thom and felt his excruciating pain as his heart seized: The bastard had tried to hurt Thom, it had tried to kill him! How could she have forgotten such a terrible thing? Her weakness had allowed the Beast to commit acts of shocking brutality. She had to end it now, before these random acts of violence escalated into the permanent debasement of the human spirit, the destruction of humanity itself.

  ‘My dear Thom,’ she smiled. ‘If only I could find the words. You’ve shown me such kindness. You gave me a home, let me live in your life. And you loved me, even though I wasn’t deserving of your love. I’ve always known it was there, repressed, but there deep inside me, waiting to get out. I should have been stronger, but I’ve failed you. I’ve failed all of us. If the world ever recovers I will be the most reviled person in history. I’m nothing but a whore and a liar, a plague upon humanity. Please forgive me.’

  She looked out at the night sky. ‘ ... Nathan ... ’ Then she pushed back the chair, went to the drawers and took out the biggest, sharpest knife she could find before closing her eyes and drawing the blade quickly across the artery in her left wrist, and her lifeblood spurted free across the room. Thom grabbed some tea-towels and hurled himself at her, wrapping one around the wound and tying the other off in a tourniquet just above her elbow. The cut was deep, it had sheared through flesh, vein and tendon, right down to the bone. It was a fatal wound. But the fountain of blood slowed, and then stopped altogether.