Barry Hutchison - The Darkest Corners

For my son, Kyle, the inspiration for this series.

This is it. Kyle versus Dad. You against me.

May the best man win…

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Twelve Hours Earlier...

Chapter One - The Beginning of the End

Chapter Two - Power Struggle

Chapter Three - The Tower

Chapter Four - Familiar Faces

Chapter Five - Just Not Cricket

Chapter Six - Ready at Last

Chapter Seven - Mr Lazy Bones Wakes Up

Chapter Eight - The Truth is Out There

Chapter Nine - Taking Blame

Chapter Ten - Saying Goodbye

Chapter Eleven - Four by Four

Chapter Twelve - The Wrong Door

Chapter Thirteen - Danger Doc

Chapter Fourteen - A Cold and Lonely Death

Chapter Fifteen - Hello There, Mr Squirrel

Chapter Sixteen - The Long Walk

Chapter Seventeen - Ring of Death

Chapter Eighteen - Betrayed

Chapter Nineteen - The End of the Beginning

Thirty-Four Days Earlier...

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Also available in the Invisible Fiends series

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

What had I expected to see? I wasn’t sure. An empty street. One or two late-night wanderers, maybe.

But not this. Never this.

There were hundreds of them. Thousands. They scuttled and scurried through the darkness, swarming over the village like an infection; relentless and unstoppable.

I leaned closer to the window and looked down at the front of the hospital. One of the larger creatures was tearing through the fence, its claws slicing through the wrought-iron bars as if they were cardboard. My breath fogged the glass and the monster vanished behind a cloud of condensation. By the time the pane cleared the thing would be inside the hospital. It would be up the stairs in moments. Everyone in here was as good as dead.

The distant thunder of gunfire ricocheted from somewhere near the village centre. A scream followed – short and sharp, then suddenly silenced. There were no more gunshots after that, just the triumphant roar of something sickening and grotesque.

I heard Ameena take a step closer behind me. I didn’t need to look at her reflection in the window to know how terrified she was. The crack in her voice said it all.

‘It’s the same everywhere,’ she whispered.

I nodded, slowly. ‘The town as well?’

She hesitated long enough for me to realise what she meant. I turned away from the devastation outside. ‘Wait… You really mean everywhere, don’t you?’

Her only reply was a single nod of her head.

‘Liar!’ I snapped. It couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be happening.

She stooped and picked up the TV remote from the day-room coffee table. It shook in her hand as she held it out to me.

‘See for yourself.’

Hesitantly, I took the remote. ‘What channel?’

She glanced at the ceiling, steadying her voice. ‘Any of them.’

The old television set gave a faint clunk as I switched it on. In a few seconds, an all-too-familiar scene appeared.

Hundreds of the creatures. Cars and buildings ablaze. People screaming. People running. People dying.

Hell on Earth.

‘That’s New York,’ she said.

Click. Another channel, but the footage was almost identical.

‘London.’

Click.

‘I’m… I’m not sure. Somewhere in Japan. Tokyo, maybe?’

It could have been Tokyo, but then again it could have been anywhere. I clicked through half a dozen more channels, but the images were always the same.

‘It happened,’ I gasped. ‘It actually happened.’

I turned back to the window and gazed out. The clouds above the next town were tinged with orange and red. It was already burning. They were destroying everything, just like he’d told me they would.

This was it.

The world was ending.

Armageddon.

And it was all my fault.

The world changed.

It happened in an instant, but it felt like an age as my mind swirled with everything I had just gone through. Running from the screechers. My battle with the Beast. Discovering that Ameena wasn’t real – had never been real. But through it all one thought loomed larger than all the others.

My dad. A tape recorder. A bang from the tinny speaker as he shot and murdered my mum. His face, smiling at me. Leering, laughing.

And then an explosion inside of me. A rage, like nothing I had ever felt before. He had killed my mum. He had made me listen to her dying screams. And then he had run away.

But no matter how fast he ran, it would never be fast enough. I was coming for him. This, finally, would be the end.

Shadows engulfed me as I arrived in the Darkest Corners, the Hell-like alternate reality where all forgotten imaginary friends go. The world I’d left behind had been blanketed by snow, but here the ground was awash with filth and stagnant puddles.

The buildings around me were the same, but different. These were crumbling relics of those back in the real world, all boarded-up windows or burned-out shells. They were barely visible in the faint glow of the moon.

I spun on the spot, searching for any sign of my dad. He’d had only a few seconds’ head start, so he should have been somewhere close by. I peered into the gloom, trying to find him, but a sharp cry from behind made me turn.

Something skinny and rodent-like bounded towards me on spindly legs. Its tongue flicked hungrily over two sharp teeth and its beady eyes glistened in the darkness.

Back in my world I had unique abilities – abilities that would make dealing with a creature like this child’s play. I could conjure up a machine gun, or a chainsaw, or simply imagine the thing out of existence. I could do all that back there. Here I was powerless.

But I was too angry to care.

The rodent pounced and I was ready for it. I ducked to the side and made a grab for a rock on the ground. As the monster rounded on me I drove the grapefruit-sized stone against the side of its head. It went down with a squeal, and the rage that had brought me here tightened its grip round my chest.

I brought the rock down once more on the creature’s head. It squealed again. I kept going, kept hitting until the monster fell silent. My breath came in unsteady gulps as I stood there, staring down at the dead thing in the dirt. My eyes crept to my hand, and to the blood-soaked rock it held.

I looked down once more at the creature and told myself I’d had no option. It or me. That had been the only choice.

I dropped the rock. I turned away. And I saw my dad.

He was standing in a sliver of moonlight just twenty metres away. Close enough for me to see the grin on his face. Had he been smiling when he killed my mum? That was something for me to ask him when I was choking the life from his body.

‘Good work, kiddo,’ he called over. ‘I always said I’d make a killer out of you some day.’

I ran at him, no thought in my head but the need for revenge. No emotions left inside me but hatred and rage. His smile broadened, and I loathed him even more.

‘Not so fast,’ he said, and the darkness around me shifted as if alive. Something snaked across my path and snagged my feet. I fell hard, clattering against the cracked tarmac and rolling to a stop.