Jerry answered in the same out-of-breath way. “You mean what is that, don’t you? It ain’t no man.”
The conversation went no further as the three of them carried on their rapid retreat from the hooded creature. The snow slowed their running down to less than half its normal speed and Jess couldn’t help but worry that if they were being pursued each of them had slim hopes of getting away. “Is that thing following us?” she asked, trying to increase the speed of her clumsy, snow-bound strides.
“I don’t know,” said Ben, looking back over his shoulder. “Let me see.”
While Jess tried to catch up with Jerry a few yards in front, she waited anxiously for Ben to reply from behind her about whether or not they were being pursued. After several more, exhausting strides, Jess’s racing heart surged with panic and she could wait no longer for Ben’s answer. She stumbled to a stop and looked back.
For some reason, Ben had stopped several yards behind. He was still following after Jess, but was making slow, almost laborious progress. Beyond him, she saw nothing but snow and darkness. The crisp, bright flames that had held her mesmerised were now gone. So too was the hooded figure.
“Ben,” she called out. “What are you doing? Get a move on!”
It was a few moments before he replied to her. “I…I don’t feel right. I…” He fell down in the snow.
Jess panicked. She had to go back to help Ben – she knew that without even thinking about it – but going back to help him meant going back towards the creature with the sword. She had to go, she decided, but sure as hell wasn’t going alone. Jess turned around and yelled.
Up ahead, Jerry stopped in his tracks, swaying and tottering like he couldn’t gain control of his knees. When he came to a stop finally, he immediately understood something was wrong and started running back towards her. Not waiting for him to catch up, Jess trudged her way over to Ben, who was still down on his hands and knees, face buried against the snow. Her feet found the tracks they had flattened when they’d run in the opposite direction and moving became a little easier.
Within a few moments she had reached Ben. “Hey, what’s wrong,” she asked him, getting frantic. He looked up at her and the sight immediately made her stomach churn. His face had turned white as the snow he lay in, except for his lips, which were bright red with blood. “Jesus, Ben! Are you ok? What’s happened?”
Jerry came rushing up beside his friend and instantly dove into the snow. “Ben! Ben, what’s wrong? Shit, man, you’re bleeding.”
Somehow, Ben managed to laugh meekly at his friend’s arrival. Scattered specks of blood flew from his mouth, covering the nearby snow in pinpricks of red.
Then Jess saw something that made her stomach churn even harder. “One of your fingers is missing!”
Ben stared down at his hand as though he didn’t quite recognise it. Jess thought that he looked mildly stoned, and, instead of looking at his dismembered digit, he was looking at a vase of multi-coloured flowers. The strangest thing of all, Jess noticed, was that the finger stump was not bleeding. It was capped by a glistening patch of red, but it wasn’t moist. The wound seemed more like the surface of sandpaper.
Jerry put out a hand towards his friend. “Come on, B-Dog. Let’s get you out of here.”
Ben reached up to take his friend’s hand, but when he made contact something terrible happened. His arm crumbled away at the shoulder as though it were made from ragged clumps of brittle clay. The stump bled for a few seconds before seeming to glaze over. Ben looked up at them with the same look Jess imagined soldiers had when they realised they were holding their own intestines: Mortal panic. Now she saw that Ben’s face had taken on the same sandpapery quality that his finger wound possessed. In fact, she noticed with increasing dread, he was dead.
It took several more moments for Jerry to understand, unwilling to believe that his best friend was gone, but when Ben’s entire body crumbled away to blood-coloured dust in his very arms, Jerry finally seemed to get it. When the scene was finally over, with only a fading pile of red sand against the white snow to suggest anything had ever existed of Ben, Jess allowed herself the luxury of screaming. She didn’t stop until she was completely out of breath.
It went on for some time.
Chapter Thirteen
Harry’s world felt better from beneath the snug security of a plush blanket. It was still freezing inside the pub but at least the thick quilt prevented the loss of what little body heat he had. Despite the fact he was now able to keep his temperature at a more tolerable level, Harry still eagerly awaited the power to click on. It’d been almost two hours now.
“Come on, old man,” Damien shouted. The lad had declined one of Old Graham’s blankets – it would no doubt ruin his hardman image – but he was closest to the fire and probably just as warm as the rest of them in his padded coat.
“Yeah,” Nigel joined in. “Haven’t you picked anything up on that piece of junk yet?”
Old Graham sat on a footstool by the fire, fiddling with the radio. It hissed and crackled, almost harmonising with the crackling spit of the fireplace. “I’m trying,” he shouted. “Nought’s happening.”
“When was the last time you even used that antique?” Damien asked.
“It’s been a while, but I knows how to work a bloody radio, lad. My generation grew up with the things.”
Lucas reached out a hand from his perch on the armrest of the two-seat sofa (Harry and Steph still occupied the cushions and her thigh was still touching his). “Give it here, old timer. I know my way around a gadget or two.”
Old Graham obliged and handed over the crackling device. Lucas immediately set about twiddling the knobs and pressing buttons. A frown filled his face gradually like liquid filling a beaker. “The thing’s a dud, old man.”
“Nonsense! I’ve used the thing a hundred times.”