Barry Hutchison - The Crowmaster

BARRY HUTCHISON

INVISIBLE

FIENDS

THE CROWMASTER

For my big sis, Carol Anne.

Sorry for turning your Bucks Fizz record into a clock.

But it was 18 years ago.

Let it go.

Contents

Cover

Title Page BARRY HUTCHISON INVISIBLE FIENDS THE CROWMASTER

Prologue

NINETEEN DAYS EARLIER...

Chapter One - BROUGHT TO LIFE

Chapter Two - OF MONSTERS PAST

Chapter Three - A GOODBYE

Chapter Four - JOSEPH

Chapter Five - MEETING MARION

Chapter Six - LOST

Chapter Seven - UNDER ATTACK

Chapter Eight - DRESSING UP

Chapter Nine - RUDE AWAKENING

Chapter Ten - SHEDDING SKIN

Chapter Eleven - THROUGH THE SQUARE WINDOW

Chapter Twelve - GUARDIAN ANGELS

Chapter Thirteen - CAUGHT BY THE CROWS

Chapter Fourteen - A FALL TO RUINS

Chapter Fifteen - INTO THE BIRDHOUSE

Chapter Sixteen - FLAMING CLOSE

Chapter Seventeen - DEMON IN DISGUISE

Chapter Eighteen - SNEAK ATTACK

Chapter Nineteen - THE MAST

Chapter Twenty - THE MONSTER WITHIN

Also available in the INVISIBLE FIENDS series

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

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.

NINETEEN DAYS

EARLIER...

Chapter OneBROUGHT TO LIFE

The house was quieter than I ever remembered it being. The stairs didn’t creak as I tiptoed barefoot down them. The kitchen door didn’t make a sound when I edged it open. Even the fridge, which usually gives a strange gurgle when anyone so much as touches it, stayed silent as I pulled back the door and blinked in the faint orange glow of the light.

The floor was cold beneath my feet. I curled my toes in and tried to balance on my heels, minimising contact between my skin and the chill of the lino. I’d been given slippers at Christmas, but in all the… excitement of the day, they’d got lost.

The shelves of the fridge were almost bare. Tomorrow was shopping day – well, technically, since it was after midnight, today was shopping day, but since I hadn’t been to sleep yet I was still classing it as ‘tomorrow’. Pity. There was never anything decent in the fridge on the day before shopping day.

The milk carton felt light when I picked it up and carried it across to the table. If I drank some there probably wouldn’t be enough left for cereal in the morning. I grabbed a glass from the draining board and half filled it anyway. Nan always said milky drinks were good for helping you get to sleep, and drinks don’t come much milkier than milk.

On the wall above the microwave the plastic hands of the clock crept past 3 a.m. There were no ticks, no tocks, just the same flat silence that seemed to have fallen like a blanket across the world.

I put the carton with its dribble of milk back in the fridge and closed the door. It gave a gurgle, but it was short and faint, and nowhere near its usual high standard.

With glass in hand I wandered through to the living room, where the carpet slowly warmed the soles of my feet. The lamp post outside spilled light through a gap in the curtains – not much, but enough to help me avoid most of the room’s major obstacles.

Lifting the remote control from the top of the TV I made for the couch. I wasn’t sure what television stations filled their night-time slots with, but it had to be more interesting than lying on my back staring at the ceiling until morning.

Sipping my milk, I sat on the couch and curled my legs up beneath me. The TV came on at the first press of the remote, and the silence was suddenly shattered by a loud, nasal laugh. The sound made me jump, and a splosh of milk slid up the side of the glass and spilled down the sleeve of my pyjamas. The thumb of my other hand frantically searched for the mute switch.

At last I found the button. The laughter was immediately cut short. I sat there with the remote still pointed at the television, breath held, listening for any sign that I’d woken anyone up.

Not a bedspring groaned. Not a floorboard creaked. Gradually, my muscles began to relax and I leaned back against the cushions. The milk had trickled down past my elbow, but was now being absorbed into my PJs, so at least I didn’t have to worry about cleaning it up.

On the TV, the laughing man was still guffawing away, only now I couldn’t hear him. I recognised him as a chef from one of the cookery programmes that Mum watches. He and another man were in a room filled with big wooden barrels and racks of wine bottles. Every so often they’d fill a glass, take a sip, spit it back out into a bucket, then start laughing again like a couple of maniacs. I’d tasted wine on Mum’s birthday a few months ago. It tasted like vinegar and left a horrible film on my tongue. No wonder the men on the telly were gobbing the stuff out rather than drinking it. I’d been tempted to do the same thing myself.