Kristin Read online

  Glenister’s proclamation generated uproar. A glass struck his left shoulder, hurled from across the house. Two of his backbenchers clambered over the seats to get at him, but they were beaten back by members of his cabinet. A woman grabbed his hair and pulled hard, screaming at him. He spun and caught her in the face with an open hand, sending her flying into the benches. But many celebrated the leader’s words, and sheets of paper rained down like confetti.

  Behind him, John Birch, a lifelong friend, got to his feet and shouted above the din. ‘DAVID, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND TOO?’

  Glenister barely moved, ‘Sit down, John!’

  ‘NO, I WILL NOT SIT DOWN!’

  ‘ORDER!’ Ormerod decreed.

  ‘This is an open forum in which I can express my views, that is its purpose!’

  ‘And you’ve expressed them! Now sit down and shut up!’

  ‘Mr Birch, you must request permission to speak!’ he was reminded.

  ‘Permission, are you joking? It’s appalling ... draconian! What sort of society do you want us to live in, David? Think what you’re doing man ... think!’

  ‘MR BIRCH!’

  ‘How on God’s Earth could you do it, David ... murder them, your own family ... Stephanie, Oliver, Luke? How could you kill them in cold blood? Why, David, tell me why ... because they hadn’t lost their minds to this resident evil, like you have? Security ... arrest the premier, he is a murderer!’

  Glenister twisted and looked at him with cynicism. ‘It’s not God’s Earth any more, is it, John? Keep him quiet!’

  On his word, two security officers bared down upon John Birch. They held his hair and rammed his head into the varnished wood of the bench in front again and again, until his skull cracked from the right eye socket upwards, and left him to die.

  Ormerod swallowed hard and turned his attention back to proceedings. ‘Mr McKenna ... ?’

  The leader of the opposition rose. ‘Mr Speaker! I concur with the honourable gentleman!’

  ‘Very well! All those in favour of the new law?’

  The crop of raised hands was dense, the support almost total.

  ‘All those against the new law?’

  The middle-aged lady backbencher lifted her arm. So did George Wyndham, the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs. Others to disapprove included Carol Norman, Glenister’s Minister for Defence, and Lord Burbridge, who’d sat at his Prime Minister’s side throughout, a static figure. ‘I will not recognize this law!’ he exclaimed, standing.

  ‘The ayes have it!’ Ormerod confirmed. ‘This session is over!’

  Glenister stared at his chancellor with disgust and wagged over the security officers. ‘All those who voted against the prohibition of Christianity,’ he told them. ‘Take them outside and slit their throats ... bleed them like pigs.’

  Fifteen

  Kristin lifted heavy lids to eyes that had become the windows to a tormented soul. She tried to raise her hands to wipe them clean of congestion but was unable to move — she’d been trussed-up in some type of restraining vest. The white garment was made of an uncomfortable, abrasive fabric whose over long sleeves bound her arms tightly to her torso. A wide band of a different kind of material, like the seat belt in Thom’s car, lashed her upper body to the back of a hard, steel chair, cutting painfully into her skin beneath her thin clothing. An identical belt strapped her legs securely. The seat was bolted to a non-slip floor in the centre of an icy cold, white-tiled room measuring around thirty feet square. Most of the wall facing her was taken up by a large, sparklingly clean, mirrored window. Above the glass screen a spotlight was mounted, and its dazzling beam was trained upon her, making her squint. The air stank of disinfectant. Why was she here? Why was she being treated like a dangerous criminal? Where was Thom?

  The handleless door beeped, rattled and opened. Two armed police officers walked into the room. They were followed by a short, bald-headed man wearing round, blue-tinted glasses. The officers passed behind her and took up position in opposite corners, whilst the bald-headed man pushed the door shut. She heard the sound of it locking. He took two paces forward, stared intently and began to circle her. When he’d moved behind her, reached her blind spot, she became terrified. Perhaps he had a hypodermic hidden in the pocket of his crisply laundered, white jacket, which he would plunge into her neck? Or a knife? Or a gun? Maybe he would blow her brains out?

  The soles of the man’s shoes adhered to the black, newly cleaned, rubberized surface with each step, making a tacky sound. Her tension grew. Had they just washed the blood of his last victim from the floor?

  He came back into view, stopped directly in front of her and smiled disingenuously, his lenses glinting ominously in the powerful light. ‘Your name is Kristin, so they tell me?’ he said.

  She was too confused, too afraid, to speak at first.

  ‘My name is Hassin Baabda. I’m a clinical psychiatrist, I work for the police force.’

  ‘ ... Where am I?’ she asked eventually, her throat dry with fear.

  ‘Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Why am I here, what do you want?’

  He started another circuit of the gleaming chair in silence.

  ‘Where’s Thom?’ she asked.

  ‘Tell me, Kristin, do you recall anything of the happenings earlier today?’

  ‘ ... Happenings?’

  ‘At the flat you share, with Thom?’

  ‘Where’s Thom? Why have you put me in this fucking thing?’

  ‘Do you remember, someone came to the flat to speak to you? They asked you questions.’

  She struggled frantically, trying to loosen the restraints.

  ‘They are quite secure, and exceptionally strong — could hold down a bull elephant.’

  ‘They’re hurting me, undo them!’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, not at the moment.’

  She wrenched her slight frame against the straps in three, progressively more forceful thrusts. ‘What do you think I am, an animal? Let me go!’

  Baabda dragged up an orange plastic chair and sat down opposite her. He looked beyond her aberrant, jet eyes into her mind and didn’t like what he saw. Never before had he detected such a void. The vacuum was total. And for the first time in a long, eminent career, the psychiatrist felt afraid of his subject.

  Perspiring, Baabda reached slowly into the breast pocket of his white jacket. Paralysis gripped her. But he merely pulled out a photograph and held it in front of her face. ‘Have you seen this woman before, Kristin?’

  She stopped jerking about and concentrated on the smiling face. At first the woman looked familiar, stirred a distant memory. But she would surely have memorized such a pretty, pretty slut, with her golden hair and piercing, sapphire eyes? And she would, almost certainly, have done something about her — dug those perfect jewels from their sockets, trampled them into cold earth.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ he commented.

  ‘Beautiful?’ she repeated, aspirating hoarsely. ‘Cruelty. The totality of death. The biting cold of an endless night, these things are beautiful.’

  She was responding ... the void was beginning to fill. He moved his chair closer. ‘Do you know her?’

  She glared at him over the top of the photo and shook her head.

  ‘You’re certain?’

  She nodded.

  ‘This is the person who came to your flat, the woman who asked you the questions. She was a television presenter, her name was Greta Johansson.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘She died, just a few hours ago, in your flat, under the most peculiar of circumstances. Indeed, there is no precedent. She seems to have been murdered through sheer power of thought.’

  She cracked a sickly smile that almost pared his soul from his body.

  ‘ ... Can ... can you tell me what happened, Kristin?’ he asked falteringly, leaning forwards, his face close to hers.

  Her possessor replied for her, gnawing at the remnants of her human soul like a rat. ‘She interfer
ed, asked too many questions. I made the bitch die.’

  The ugly, dry voice hit him like a fist and he whipped off his glasses ... multiple personality! ‘ ... You willed her to die? Do you think that’s possible?’

  ‘It went out on television, don’t you believe your own eyes?’ she scowled, reverting to her own voice.

  ‘The mind is a powerful tool, I know, but ... ’

  ‘Didn’t you see her inflate, hear her harrowing cries for mercy? Didn’t you watch her burn alive?’

  Baabda leaned back in his chair and narrowed his gaze. She was sobbing desperately. ‘Do you need help, Kristin?’

  She ignored the demands of the babbling entity inside her head and drew hard on upon her surviving human resources. Of course she needed help. And if she didn’t ask for it now, it would be too late. ‘Help?’she whispered. ‘Yes, I need help — help to end my life.’

  ‘ ... Why should you wish to end your life?’

  ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘The only way?’

  ‘The only way to kill it.’

  He put his hands together, intertwining his long fingers. ‘When you say it ... ?’

  ‘The badness ... Set her free arsehole, that she might do my work!’ it bristled.

  ‘ ... And this ... badness, the part of you that you don’t like, did it just speak for you?’

  ‘No, they aren’t my thoughts, my wishes. I hate it, I want to see it dead ... Tough, whore, I will never go, never leave thee in peace!’

  Baabda’s mind swirled with excitement. ‘Your host has identified you as the badness. Are you known by any other name that I might know?’

  ‘Many. Call me what thee will. All that matters is that thou recognize me as thy completeness and thine overlord.’

  Baabda had treated the psychotic — murderers, rapists, paedophiles, and many, many schizophrenics, but never before had he encountered such convincing delusion, and he found that he was able to converse freely with both the girl, and her inner demon, in turn.

  ‘Everything that’s happened — the hatred, the distortion of human nature, the mass murder, the supernatural occurrences, they’re all my fault. I should have stopped it, found a way to ... Thou wert weak, and now thou art helpless!’ it belched. ‘I have thee and soon I will have the rest!’

  ‘ ... Kristin ... does the badness speak to you, command you to do things you don’t want to — did it tell you to kill Greta Johansson?’

  ‘This isn’t psychology.’

  ‘Did you kill Greta Johansson?’ he repeated, redirecting the question.

  ‘Clever, clever,’ it ululated.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Thou wouldst never understand, even a being of thy moderate intelligence lacks the capacity to appreciate my capabilities.’

  ‘But you made Kristin use the television camera ... as a transmitter for your thoughts?’

  ‘Maybe I can yet find a use for thee, hairless wanker!’

  He replaced his glasses. ‘What was hidden in the flash of light, what did you communicate?’

  ‘Communicate? Instruct.’

  ‘What did you tell those who received it to do?’

  ‘To lie, cheat, steal, defile, desecrate, hate, torture, rape, kill — to worship me, the outcast, the true child of God!’

  ‘ ... And you are responsible for the siren, this was your initial attempt to gain mastery over the human race?’

  ‘Hah! Most mortals have shit for brains!’

  ‘ ... I can’t kill myself!’ she blurted. ‘I tried to die, drew a nine-inch kitchen knife across my wrist ... the wound healed in front of my eyes. I can’t die because it won’t let me. I’m immortal, destined to face eternity as a slave to evil. Can you imagine that fate, doctor?’

  ‘I want to help you, Kristin, but before I can we need to understand why, how, this facet of your psyche devel ... ’

  ‘Cunt! I am not a part of her mind!’

  ‘ ... Then what are you?’

  ‘I own her soul. She is nothing more than a vessel filled with my poison, to be drunk of by all humanity, and with each drop consumed my beautiful world blossoms.’

  Baabda stared into her haunted eyes. ‘If you are so powerful, why must you hide behind the flesh and bones of this woman?’

  It fell silent.

  ‘ ... Christ lived in human form so that he could do God’s work,’ she said. ‘This bastard is the same, except that it’s parasitic and wishes only harm ... UNGRATEFUL BITCH!’

  ‘You say you will never die, but I wager you can be drawn out of her mind and that if you are, you will cease to be.’

  Baabda had struck a nerve.

  ‘Too much talk, arsehole!’

  ‘Too much, or am I too close to the bone?’

  ‘I am of the soul, not the mind. Anyway, I would soon find a new host, there are no shortage of candidates on this forsaken hunk of rock — the weak-spirited, the immoral, the corrupt ... LIAR!’ she screamed. ‘I was chosen two millennia ago, nobody else is prepared.’

  ‘You see?’ Baabda continued. ‘There will be nowhere for you to go.’

  She balled her fists. ‘Simple motherfucker! Dost thou believe I can be so easily expunged, driven out to evanesce into the ether, one so ancient, so noble, so perfect?’

  ‘Easily, no. But you will eventually leave.’

  ‘NEVER, FUCKER ... NEVER!’

  A purple patch appeared below her right eye. It transformed into a pattern of fine veins that mutated — thickening, darkening, spreading over her face like black worms. ‘Find an artist ... run a rusting blade slowly across his eyes ... watch the jelly seep out ... take a pianist ... crush his fingers with a hammer ... rip out thy mother’s womb, make her consume it!’

  Behind her, the guards received her instructions. They cocked their automatic rifles and obliterated each other in a deafening hail of bullets. Then she turned her attention to the door lock, rendering it useless. She rocked back and forth, her head lolling. It flicked right back, her eyes gawking senselessly at the ceiling, and then whipped forwards, and a shower of stinking black slime caught him in the face. ‘KILL HIM, KILL HIM! ... But he can help me! ... We do not need his help, we are as one, we are content ... kill him ... kill the cunt now, before I am hurt, before I am lost!’

  Against every last shred of her human instincts, she obeyed her master.

  A dull, throbbing pain began deep inside his head, reminiscent of the onset of crippling migraines he’d suffered in adolescence, intensifying until he felt as though his skull were in a closing vice. He held his head and bawled.

  The liquefaction of his brain started in the cerebellum and radiated outwards, decimating the hippocampus, destroying a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and memories. Baabda toppled from the chair and fell before her, arms flailing like a spastic. ‘Tell me how? I ... must ... learn!’

  ‘No point, thou wilt soon be dead.’

  The terrible destruction continued apace, spreading to the visual cortex, blinding him instantly. He clawed pitifully at her, begging for knowledge, but the work of the maleficent presence was thorough, irreversible. The parietal lobe of Baabda’s brain was mashed to a pulp, his remaining senses annihilated, and he staggered to the glass screen like a headless chicken.

  ‘DIE, FUCKER!’ it screamed.

  A concave shape one inch in diameter appeared above his left ear. And then another, above his brow. More appeared, his body jolting with each addition. They joined, forming a large crater. There was a cracking sound as the integrity of Baabda’s cranium was compromised, and it imploded, exposing a gaping, bloody, brainless cavity.

  Baabda’s body slumped to the floor. It twitched for a few seconds and then it was still.

  Sixteen

  The Beast regained awareness to find itself confined in a small space with no means of entry or exit. The side-barriers were built of rough, whitish blocks and the area was lit by a single source of illumination that hung at the end of a frayed power supply in the middle of the battered
top-barrier.

  Its host was bound. It shifted the strange weight until its orientation seemed normal and leaned back against the ice cold barrier, trying to determine what it was. But the search for its own identity proved unsuccessful and it decided to simply accept the reality of whatever it was, or had become.

  In a violent flashback, it recalled what it had done in another other space nearby, but it felt no guilt. It had been threatened and had defended itself. It was no longer at war with itself and felt an inner peace now that it hadn’t known before. Above all though, it felt power, unlimited power — the ability to do anything that needed to be done. And there was much still to do.

  It concentrated on the bindings, and before long they’d loosened sufficiently to be shrugged off. The Beast touched its host’s newly exposed surface: What was this strange, warm membrane in which it had been encased? Curious, it made an incision with the sharp end of one of the digits it had been bestowed with, in the flat area near the left visual organ. It pulled up the end of the covering and tugged it downwards, tearing off a large strip. The action made it feel uncomfortable, angry: was the sensation it was feeling part of a primitive self-protection system integral to the membrane?

  It dangled the strip in front of its host’s visual organs, explored it with the twin-shafted olfactory organ. Then, inquisitive, it poked the piece into its oral cavity and mulched it with the bony projections inside. ‘Shit!’ it yelled, ejecting the membrane immediately. Clearly, it wasn’t meant to be devoured. It would find something else to consume, something to quieten the gurgling noise in what it imagined must be its digestive sack later, after it had taken some time to contemplate the success of its campaign so far.

  Things were going to plan. Its malevolence was infecting humanity readily, making them turn against one another in great numbers, with unbridled hatred. The teachings of the abomination, Jesus Christ, were being renounced everywhere. Many were dying, the rest were almost ripe. The disciples of the eastern deities had reached a deadlock with the adipose, Western World and humanity stood on the verge of armageddon. But if it deemed it necessary, if things were moving too slowly for its liking, it would trigger one of the weapons of mass destruction held in the Middle Eastern or Far Eastern lands, or in the Americas. Reprisal would doubtless be swift, devastating. Millions would perish, and hatred would leach into the hearts of men where it would remain, inexpungeable. The sickening goodness of the Christ would be nothing more than a bad memory, and it would reign supreme forever.