Stephen Irwin - The Darkening

Her scowl remained fixed on Nicholas, unshiftable as desert sandstone.

‘We’re done.’ The male detective stood. ‘Thank you, Mr Close. You’ve had a very disturbing morning and I strongly suggest you consider making an appointment with a qualified counsellor. We can recommend one if you like. Thank you for the tea, Mrs Close,’ he called into the kitchen. Nicholas watched him reach into his pocket and switch off the tiny digital recorder there.

He followed them to the front door, where the female detective hesitated. ‘Do you recognise the mark on the gun stock?’ she asked.

Nicholas met her eyes. ‘What mark?’ Lying, he realised, was easy when you just didn’t care.

The male detective nodded, and the pair left.

Nicholas helped mop the blood off the front steps before he finally took his shower, then he went to bed and fell into a sleep as deep and empty as the night sky.

Suzette popped another two ibuprofen from their foil card, put them in her mouth and concentrated on swallowing them. She had the unpleasant sensation of the hard pills ticking at her molars like loose teeth, and into her mind jumped the horrible flash of Gavin Boye folded on the front stoop, his eyes partly open and seeming to stare at the potted philadelphus, his own shattered teeth grinning from his red and ruined slash of a mouth. Her head throbbed. For the hundredth time she wished she were at home and could grab some mugwort from her herb garden. Finally, the pills went down.

When he woke, his room was dark. Thunder rolled grimly outside, stabbed by flashes of lightning. He was shaking and so cold that his muscles had spasmed tight, making it difficult to sit up. As soon as he did, a swell of nausea rode up to the back of his throat. He put his feet over the side of the bed and reached with jittering fingers for his watch. It was nearly two in the morning.

He touched the bird. But it should have been you.

Something had wanted him dead a long time ago. And now that something knew he was back. It had sent Gavin. And it wants me to know that it knows.

Why didn’t Gavin shoot him?

Because he wasn’t supposed to.

Nicholas kept his eyes open, because whenever he closed them he saw the top of Gavin’s scalp rising on its little font of red and grey. You’re one small step from the loony bin, my friend. Not content with seeing reruns of suicides — you need premieres now?

He felt hungover, foggy.

What possessed Gavin to do that?

The words hovered in his mind like smoke in a closed room. What possessed him?

Someone had left a glass of water on the bedside table. Nicholas reached for it. His hand quaked with every beat of his heart, making tiny, circular ripples.

What possessed Gavin? Was it the same thing that had possessed Elliot Guyatt to march into Torwood cop shop and admit he killed the Thomas boy? The same thing that had possessed Winston Teale to confess to Tristram’s murder?

Teale did murder Tristram!

Did he? Teale certainly chased us into the woods. .

Exactly!

Only. . Teale was built like a bull. He couldn’t have fitted through the tunnels under the water pipe.

Nicholas sat upright, suddenly wide awake.

That’s right. Not too sharp, are you? Twenty-five years you’ve had to figure that out. Maybe Teale was just the sheepdog. Maybe Teale didn’t kill Tristram.

‘Then who did?’ he whispered.

The same person that told Gavin to kill himself. The same person that made a talisman from a dead bird.

Nicholas put his feet over the bed edge. He had to talk about this, lance it before it swelled in his head like a sac of spoiled blood and poisoned him. He had to tell Suzette. He stood and struggled into his hoodie with shaking arms.

The hall was dark. Suzette’s door was open. Her bed was unmade.

Nicholas frowned and padded to his mother’s door. No snores came from inside.

‘Mum?’

Nothing. He put his hand on the doorknob, but let it rest there. He could feel her wakefulness on the other side of the door. A dull slosh of anger rolled inside him, which he swallowed down.

Can you blame her, weirdo? You’re an albatross.

Nicholas realised he was still shaking. His legs were weak and vibrated like cello strings. He shuffled to the kitchen and made tea, then stumped to the lounge room.

Suzette was curled asleep on the sofa, her face a deathly grey in the television’s glow. The set’s volume was so low it was no wonder he hadn’t heard it.

He sat beside her and watched as he sipped his tea. After two infomercials (one for a company that implied it would loan you cash even if you’d just broken out of prison and held schoolchildren hostage, and another showing pretty women with loose morals who could not possibly make it through the night without his phone call), a news update. Elliot Guyatt, remanded in custody and due to face court next week charged with the murder of local seven year old Dylan Thomas, had been found dead in his remand cell, having apparently suffered a brain aneurysm. A coroner’s report was pending. Today, the funeral service for Dylan Thomas had been held at St John’s Anglican Cathedral, with his schoolmates forming a guard of honour. .

Nicholas dropped the remote three times before he could switch off the set.

It took over an hour to fall asleep.

But once asleep, he dreamed.

He was Tristram. Sweat poured down his temples, his armpits, his crotch. He was on his good hand and knees, pushing through a dark, cobwebbed tunnel. With every inch forward, spider webs cloaked his face, clogged his nostrils, coated his lips. Tiny legs spindled on his arms, his neck, his lips and eyelids. He wanted to scream but couldn’t, because spiders would get in his mouth. The tunnel seemed never to end, and the webs got thicker, and the numbers of spiders on his legs, his arms, crawling down his shirt, burrowing into his ears, became so great they weighed him down. Soon, the webs over his eyes as were thick as a shroud; they shut out the light and cloyed his limbs so he could not move. He screamed now, but the spider silk was wrapped tight about his jaw and he couldn’t open his mouth. He struggled, but the sticky silk held him tight. And the spiders — thousands of spiders — stopped crawling and started to feed.

He woke to the distant clinking of metal spoons in ceramic bowls. He rose and wiped the corners of his eyes. It was just after seven.

Shuffling down the hall, he heard an elephantine rumble coming from behind Suzette’s bedroom door. As he approached the kitchen, the sound of thick bubbling made him wonder whether he’d round the corner and see his mother in a hooded cloak, sprinkling dried dead things into a soot-stained cauldron. The imagining didn’t amuse him; it made him slightly ill. He shook off the thought and entered the kitchen.

Katharine was in her pink nightgown, stirring a pot of porridge. ‘Good morning,’ she said. She didn’t turn around.

He’d intended to tell her what he’d seen on last night’s news: that Elliot Guyatt had died in his cell. But Katharine was stirring the bubbling oatmeal with such stiff briskness, her shoulders set so hard, that he remained silent. She was tense. Or angry. Or. . afraid .

No. There’d be no talk about killers of children this morning.

She finally turned, wearing a bright, forced smile. ‘Tea’s made, and the porridge is nearly done. You look pale.’

‘I call it PTSD-chic.’ He sat.

‘You could have a flu.’

Christ , he thought. If only all I had was a flu . ‘Paper?’

She shook her head and nodded to the front door.