Kristin Read online

  He left his his case in the road and approached the disfigured place of worship. A stillness hung over the building like a halo of death. No cars were parked outside, nobody waited, there was no need, the large, oak doors were wide open. He passed beneath the arch and whimpered, grabbing the wall — St Anne’s Church had been desecrated beyond all recognition.

  Irreplaceable tapestries lay shredded on the cold floor slabs. Mosaics had been hacked out of their frames. The white marble figure of Christ had been smashed from its wooden cross and lay in pieces at his feet. In the east transept rare triptychs had been plastered with what looked, and smelled, like human faeces.

  He shuffled up the nave. The altar had been doused with red pigment. When he stood before the ceremonial table he realized the awful truth — the altar was awash with blood! It dripped from the corners of the white, silk altar cloth, collecting in the hollows of the large flagstones. He rushed back down the nave, ducked into the pews and vomited, then wandered outside in a daze. Rectangles of paper blew in swirls around the headstones in the small graveyard.

  Gilbreath pushed open the gate and caught one: “St Luke, 21, Destruction of Jerusalem”. He gathered each and every bible page and slipped them into his jacket pocket. Then something else caught his eye. From the muddy mound of an eighteenth century grave something glinted. He squatted and dug the magnificent gold and silver altar cross out of the frosty turf. Gilbreath gritted his teeth in fury and re-entered the church. He marched briskly back up the nave and returned the cross to its rightful place. Then he turned, locked the doors and left.

  Reverend Colin Gilbreath would not see St Anne’s Church again.

  In Colchester, Essex, a well-dressed man in his thirties mounted a frost-covered bench and bellowed for attention.

  ‘All of you, listen to me! As we have known since the emitting of the siren there is an alternative to the liar, God, and his bogus son, Jesus Christ!’

  Two passers-by stopped.

  ‘One who doesn’t lie, or deceive, one whose teachings are pure and true!’

  More gathered.

  ‘We should worship her, do her bidding! We should cheat, steal and lie in her name! We should rape, murder!’

  The impromptu oration sparked the growing crowd into a frenzy. But two exceptions were a mother and her young daughter, standing mournfully on the periphery of the crowd.

  ‘You know of whom I talk, you’ve felt her hunger, her presence! And as our faith in her grows, so does her power! Some have chosen to retain their belief in Christianity! We will find them, convert them, or kill them!’

  The horde screamed deliriously as he unfurled a tapestry of Christ and set it ablaze with a petrol lighter.

  The speaker’s attention was suddenly drawn to the motionless, weeping women. He pointed at them. ‘For example, take this pair of Christian slags!’ he jeered. ‘Look ... they still believe in their saviour, their Jesus! We should teach them a lesson, don’t you think?’

  His proposal met with howls of approval, and the rabble turned on them like a pack of wild dogs. Their clothes were torn from them and they were positioned facing each other in the centre of the crowd.

  The speaker stepped down from the bench, pushed his way through the masses and grinned lecherously at the daughter. He unzipped his trousers, moved between her slender, callow legs and thrust feverishly to climax as her mother screamed for help. Then the mob took over — teaching, slashing, raping, murdering.

  From the windows overlooking the street a cultured man noted the events unfolding below as he sipped his brandy. Then he closed the book he was reading and went to get something more interesting from the shelf.

  The rising sun cast its light upon the decaying walls of the run down apartment block midway up Rua Miguel Pereira.

  On the twentieth floor, Carlos Almeido awoke on his stomach. He sat up, stretched, and looked at the fat woman beside him. He would let his wife, Juanita, catch up with her sleep. It had been a long night, and both of them had drunk too much Merlot.

  Unrest had been growing in the city over the last few days. There was a sense of unease that Almeido had never experienced before, and couldn’t explain. He’d listened to the radio reports of course, watched the television, heard people talking about the things that were happening in Europe, but he didn’t believe any of it. And he was convinced that the pictures of the carnage at Lourdes were nothing more than a sick hoax. But when his brother, Ricardo, had turned up with his wife, Lucia, recounting stories of beatings and murders at the waste disposal plant where he worked they’d started drinking and hadn’t stopped until the small hours.

  Brazil was experiencing the coldest weather in recorded history, and it was with great reluctance that he slid from the bed and padded barefoot to the tiny bathroom. He pulled the light cord and prepared to do what he’d done more or less every day for the last twenty-two years — drive a taxi around the busy streets of Rio de Janeiro.

  Almeido was a creature of habit, and when he’d washed he followed his routine and crossed the sitting room to open the tatty net curtains covering the north-east facing window. Dazzling sunlight flooded into the utilitarian apartment, making him squint, and he heard Juanita groan.

  The city seemed unusually quiet. There was no rumble of early morning traffic, no honking of car horns. He rubbed his eyes, made a visor with his hand and peered out at the urban sprawl far below. Nothing was moving. He looked up. No planes were coming into, or leaving Galeão International Airport; the city was dead. Perplexed, he let his eyes drift further north, to the foot of the Corcovado mountain, and roam upwards to find the holy statue, the Cristo Redentor. As if punched by an invisible fist, he lurched back from the window. ‘Mary, mother of Jesus!’

  Juanita woke and rushed through to him, met his wild eyes. ‘Carlos, what’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s vanished ... Christ the Redeemer has vanished!’

  As one, they moved to the window and Juanita covered her mouth with her hand; the Cristo Redentor had gone!

  ‘... Carlos, it hasn’t vanished,’ she said, looking closer, ‘it’s been destroyed!’

  Minutes passed in silence as they stared at the scene of sacrilegious destruction.

  Again it seemed their eyes were playing tricks on them: one of the enormous demolished block started to move ... then another ... and another. One appeared to levitate and settle upon the others. They strained their eyes, holding on to one other.

  Gradually, the great bricks shifted up and down and from side to side, shuffling position, losing portions here and there, until they’d formed a distinctive shape ... a human shape. But it did not resemble Christ. Juanita screamed: the blocks had remodelled themselves into the effigy of a woman.

  The drive through the municipality of Humaitá was a vision of hell. Mutilated corpses lay in the streets and on the pavements, slumped at the wheels of cars. Every few minutes, Almeido brought his cab to a halt and they checked the victims. All were dead, or beyond the limited help they could provide.

  On a corner, outside a plundered jewellers, some youths lashed out with fists and feet at something on the ground. With horror Juanita realized that the target of their violence was a child. ‘Carlos, help him!’ she cried. He skidded across the icy road, floored the gas pedal and aimed the vehicle at the group. They scattered just in time, disappearing down alleyways, over walls.

  Juanita jumped from the cab and held the child in her arms. He was a boy, no more than ten years old. And he was dead. Her instincts, as the mother of a daughter who’d died in infancy prevented her from leaving the child where he was. She picked him up, carried him to the car and lay him on the back seat. Then she climbed in, slamming the door, and her husband nodded his approval.

  ‘Carlos, what’s happening?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know, my dear ... I just don’t know.’

  ‘Have things spread from London, from Europe, are we damned too?’

  He shook his head.

  They left Rio’s back
streets and emerged onto the Avenue Epitácio Pessoa, the main northern arterial route out of the city. Windows of boutiques, restaurants and bars, banks and offices had been smashed in, their interiors ransacked. On both sides of the wide thoroughfare, and in the road between the abandoned cars, masses of people trampled the dead or dying, shuffling mindlessly towards the distant statue of the girl.

  Almeido wiped sweat from his brow: These people may no longer know their own minds, but he did. He would take it upon himself to investigate the monstrosity that infested the sacred site, the present evil that was brainwashing, terrorizing the city. He would not be afraid. He’d confront whatever it was and find a way of destroying it, even if he had to blow it to pieces himself. And then he would rebuild the Cristo Redentor — with his bare hands if need be, if he was the only citizen of his native city who’d retained his sanity.

  Alongside the eastern banks of the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas lake more bodies floated. They passed out of the bright sunshine into the green light of the Tunel André Rebouças, the underpass that stretched for two miles deep beneath the base of the Corcovado Peak. When they came out Almeido turned left into the Tijuca forest and joined the Estrada do Corcovado, the narrow mountain road that wound through successive hairpin bends hewn from the heavily wooded mountainside. At the top he swung the cab into the car park, turned off the engine and they listened to the sound of absolute silence. Almeido counted ten other unoccupied vehicles, parked haphazardly, their doors hanging open.

  They climbed from the car and stood motionless, gawping up at the incomprehensible, grotesque effigy raking the blue sky, then ascended the white stairs to the viewing platform. As they neared the top they noticed something dark and wet spilling over the edge. They stopped for a moment, then carried on climbing. On the penultimate step Juanita grabbed his arm and convulsed — the platform was brimming over with blood! Within the spreading pool lay burnt shoes, fragments of scorched clothing, and human bones. The blood had been diluted by a foaming, repellent effluence that ran down the legs of the statue.

  He swallowed, crossed his chest and walked forwards, but she pulled him back. ‘I have to know what it is,’ he said. ‘Wait here for me.’

  Almeido masked his face with a handkerchief and picked his way through the remains, slipping on strips of partially dissolved skin. He heard frantic, splashing footsteps behind him and turned to find she’d followed him.

  Through the nauseating stench he isolated and identified a new odour ... burning rubber! He looked down — the soles of his boots were melting. ‘Acid ... quickly!’ he bellowed. He grabbed her and they struggled to a dry spot at the foot of the effigy, kicking off their smouldering footwear.

  Tipping their heads they stared up at the sheer wall of soapstone that formed the shape of the statue. It had been expertly rendered. The feet were tiny, perfect, the waist slender. The breasts were gentle, underdeveloped mounds, the facial structure beautiful, its mouth open, enticing. Once they’d looked upon the idol, they couldn’t turn away.

  ‘ ... What in the name of God is it?’ she asked.

  He was mesmerized.

  ‘A statue can’t just build itself, Carlos.’

  ‘She built it. She made it in her own likeness, just as God created all of us in his.’

  ‘ ... But it isn’t humanly possible.’

  ‘It isn’t human, it doesn’t belong in this world.’

  ‘It’s just a pile of stones, it couldn’t have crippled the whole city, torn all these poor people to ribbons.’

  ‘The Cristo Redentor was just a pile of stones, but look at the hold it had over Rio’s population.’

  ‘But it was a power for the good. How could anything, however evil, do this?’

  ‘It could, and it did.’

  ‘But how, why?’

  ‘It embodies something very bad, I can feel it,’ he mumbled, unable to tear his eyes from the statue’s beautiful face. ‘It wants to impregnate us with its malevolence.’

  ‘ ... How do you know?’

  ‘It’s talking to me.’

  ‘Talking, how can it be talking?’

  ‘It’s inside my head, wants me to do something important for it, something to prove my allegiance.’

  ‘What, Carlos, what does it want you to do?’

  ‘This!’ In that moment his memories of life as a human being, a good man and a devoted husband were stripped from him — he knew what he had to do. Almeido turned on his wife, forced her to the ground and proceeded to throttle her with large, dry hands. The presence was pleased, he could feel its pleasure.

  She appeared to be mouthing something. He became curious and before he stopped any more oxygen from entering her lungs he loosened up enough for her to splutter a name.

  ‘ ... SOFIA!’

  He pondered the name for an instant, but it meant nothing to him and he proceeded to strangle his wife.

  ‘ ... Remember … your daughter ... Sofia!’

  ‘Sofia?’

  ‘ ... Yes ... we had a ... daughter together, a lovely ... little girl.’

  ‘A daughter?’

  ‘ ... We named her ... Sofia ... after your mother ... she died when she was ... four months old ... don’t you remember?’

  Her husband remembered, and fell to his knees as the monstrous presence continued to chatter to him, to berate him. ‘Juanita, I’m so sorry!’ he wept. ‘Can you forgive me? It had me this bastard, this antichrist, I didn’t know what I was doing. It was urging me to kill you’ ... Thou shouldst have killed her, Christian pig, thou shouldst have slain the whore!

  He scrambled to his feet, shaking with rage, picked up a rock and threw it at the idol’s shins. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT, YOU FUCKING BITCH ... WHY ARE YOU ON THIS MOUNTAIN, ON THIS EARTH?’ ... I am here to claim humanity as my own, imbecilic wanker! Why didst thou not do as I instructed, why didst thou not murder that obese dog? ... ‘I will not kill my wife! I will do nothing you command, I do not fear you! You can’t turn my head, gain my soul!’ ... Very well, I will kill her. ... ‘You will not!’ he promised, moving in front of her. ‘I will resist you the best I can! You’ll find others like me, we will not let you spread your disease of the soul here without a fight, you piece of shit!’ ... Then thee all will die! ... ‘I’d rather die now, with her, than live in your world!’ ... Moron, as thou wishest!

  The statue rained a shower of burning fluid down upon them and they ran. The effigy grated round on its pedestal and issued a second cascade of deadly bile that hit the platform surface ten feet behind them, splattering and blistering their legs.

  They staggered to the car. Almeido punched the lever into drive and they sped from the park, meeting the first bend so fast that the rear of the taxi snaked out of control, taking them perilously close to the edge: Now he believed the news from the other side of the Atlantic. Now he could accept the terrible images from Lourdes as reality. Now he could appreciate the horror that had beset London.

  Juanita touched the bubbling skin of her calves and grimaced.

  ‘ ... Whatever it is, it may have gained the upper hand against the people of Rio, but it will never consume the heart of this great city, nor will it enslave humanity. I’m just a man, just one mortal, but there must be other people — strong-willed, good people like you and me who haven’t been perverted by this ungodly scum.

  ‘I know my way around this city like I know my way around our apartment. We’ll search every street, every alley, every back yard and find more like us. We’ll rally them, go back to the Corcovado and kill that bastard, I swear it, in the name of God! And then we’ll reinstate the Cristo Redentor.’

  Near the foot of the mountain he brought the car to a standstill beneath a sprawling pepper tree. Together, they carried the body of the boy into the woods, lay him down and covered his stiff, white body with fallen branches and leaves.

  Back in the car, she turned to her husband. ‘I know you would never have hurt me, our love has endured for all these years, it runs too deep,’ she said
, and kissed him.

  Thirteen

  The sleek, white, Mercedes transit van had parked directly opposite the building. The driver, a man with severely cropped red hair sat motionless at the wheel, but something told Thom that he was being watched as he opened the door to the flat and he shot a glance over his shoulder. There was a shout, the van doors burst open and a group of eight or nine sprang out and charged across the road towards him, headed by a striking woman with flowing, blonde hair.

  Following closely behind stocky, sweaty men wielded video cameras and sound equipment. The inertia of the crew swept him inside, up onto the landing.

  ‘Stop! What do you want ... who are you people?’ he shouted.

  ‘Greta Johansson ... BBC ... could we speak to the woman?’

  ‘What woman? ... there’s nobody else here, get out of here!’

  ‘Just a couple of minutes with her?’

  ‘ ... How did you find us?’

  ‘Ministry of Defence.’

  ‘Listen to me ... ’

  ‘Five minutes, Mr Sharman?’

  ‘You have no idea what you’re dealing with ... ’

  ‘I’ll take my chances.’

  ‘They’re not good odds.’

  ‘Don’t you think the public, people unaffected by the siren, and there are many, have a right to know if this woman you’re harbouring is ... ’

  ‘I’m not harbouring her.’

  ‘ ... Have a right to know if she’s the cause of ... ’

  ‘What do you think? Do you think an ordinary girl could have made all of this happen?’

  ‘Ordinary? It’s my job to establish facts, Mr Sharman, not to speculate.’

  ‘Really? Here’s a fact for you to consider very carefully, Miss Johansson, if you go into that room ... ’