The Bitter End Read online

  With one hand on the wheel and the other stroking the warm ball of fur, he relaxed, knowing the route, enjoying the scenery and the way branches arched overhead forming a sparkling green canopy. He went to draw his left hand back to the steering wheel as he approached the bend.

  He hadn’t expected pain. He hadn’t expected to feel the sudden vicious fangs and claws clamping around his hand. It made him shriek. It made his entire body jerk in shock.

  Taking his eyes off the road for a split second he saw the cat was embedded into him, all four feet and mouth clamped around his hand, his blood trickling into her fur. He saw its eyes, intense, determined, hate-filled eyes.

  The sway of his tanker made his stomach lurch. With the cat still agonisingly attached to his hand, he tried to grip the wheel, tried to stop the insane swaying of his cargo. Foot on the brake, he heard the screech of his tyres on the road. Saw the little yellow Fiat coming towards him. He was in her path, on her side of the road.

  Automatically, he swung the wheel to the left. He saw the Fiat driver’s face – she had been smiling to herself. The smile turned into terror as she veered to one side, towards the trees. His cab avoided her but in his wing mirror he saw the angle of the tank, straight across her path.

  She hit his trailer at a sideways angle so that her car buckled and crumpled. But for one brief, irrational moment his thoughts weren’t on the pretty young driver, dead now probably, mangled in the wreckage of her little yellow car, but on his cat. What the devil had got into her?

  * * *

  The lyrics of the song he’d been enjoyed seemed to scream out their warning about being prepared to die as Paul saw the tanker career around the bend on Helena’s side of the road.

  The lorry driver was jumping about in his cab like he was having a fit. Paul saw Helena swing her car to the left to avoid the head-on collision. The Fiat reacted well, turning forty-five degrees but the sliding tanker slammed mercilessly into her.

  He could hear his own screams as he stamped on his brakes. Helena’s car continued its momentum, crumpling, compacting under the massive solid base of the tanker.

  Dear God, she couldn’t survive this, his wife was petite and gentle and loving. And only an hour ago they had been in bed, had made love, ate breakfast, kissed before getting into their separate cars.

  He cried out her name as he stumbled from his car and ran towards the wreckage. In his head he begged God to help, to save her. Let her be okay. The driver was leaping from his cab. Something else shot out, too. Something small and ginger – a cat, maybe. It vanished into the forest.

  The smell of burnt rubber and fuel filled the air. Black smoke was billowing from beneath the tanker’s base where the crumpled piece of yellow metal had become embedded. And then he saw Helena compacted inside the mess, pressed up against the side window, conscious and screaming.

  Reaching her, Paul desperately searched for the door handle, but nothing even resembled a door. Nothing had any shape. Metal was ripped and folded like macabre origami, lodged, immovably under the tanker, crushed against its double back wheels. With all his strength, he pulled at the metal, slicing ribbons of skin and flesh from his hands, while Helena continued to scream, and the black smoke thickened and choked.

  First came the sparks, then yellow flames, small at first, flickering out from gaps in the metal, then they burst out, spitting tongues of fire. He heard the whoosh of fuel igniting. He grabbed a rock, smashing it against the side window. It cracked – then someone was pulling him. Big burly arms hauling him backwards, lifting his sixteen-stone clear off the ground and dragging him away from Helena.

  He saw her face, heard her shrieks. Felt himself being hurled into the thicket, someone on top of him, the tanker driver he guessed, shielding him from the blast as his world exploded.

  3

  July, six years later. Oakwood Residential Home, Ashby on the Wold.

  ‘Cup of tea, dear?’

  The care nurse in her green overall held the beaker in front of the old woman's face. Lifting a thin strand of lank, grey hair, she put the beaker of lukewarm tea to her lips. ‘Petronella, dear. Nice cup of

  tea.'

  There was no movement. But then, there never was. In all the years that she'd worked here, she'd rarely seen the old dear do anything but slump in her chair. Yet she managed to keep breathing, somehow. She shifted slightly.

  ‘Ah! That's good, take a sip, my love. How are you this morning?’

  There was little response, just a bleak emptiness in her old watery eyes. The nurse held the beaker to Petronella’s thin lips and dabbed the dribbles with a tissue.

  * * *

  The eyes of Petronella Kytella looked up into the bloated face hovering over her, while deep inside, the entity that was Lamia – a name bestowed upon her by her God, Lucifer – was praying. And her hatred for all that was human, festered.

  * * *

  Darkness. Life, death. The joy and misery of mankind. The pain they have caused my Master and so the pain he has caused me – the beautiful pain. The torture and the agony. That is the true touch of love. He is the true giver of life, not the creator of souls with a lie of light at their end, and a misplaced love for a creature that only needs to be dominated, ruled and made to do his bidding.

  How long have I waited, how long have I planned? Yes, since the beginning of life that is as old as my kind has existed. The beginning of man was my beginning. Born to do dark instruction.

  All the years of human time have I, with my sisters and brothers, walked side by side, silently in the darkness with the cherished on this Earth. They with a blissful ignorance of our existence and true intent as we infiltrate their lives.

  Our hatred for their souls burns with the fire of hell, and a desire to give them eternal damnation in a putrid pit of never ending pain.

  Eve gave Adam a new way of life by eating of the forbidden fruit. From bliss to a life of hard labour. The serpent served his Master well that day.

  Oh, Master of true life, I ask you to open the doors to the demons and dark spells I will need to accomplish a final death blow to the human race.

  Grant me your anger, so I can reflect it upon this revenge against a God of weakness and naivety that will finally take from Him the cherished souls of His creations and lead them to You, my Master, as bleating sheep.

  You made me as the start of my kind. And so, I will be the best of my kind, and be the worst that mankind will ever see.

  And these are the final days … I have found my means to an end. The time will soon be right, but for now, I play with these souls like a cat plays with a mouse.

  I ask these things of you, Satan, my Lord.

  4

  July 13 2018, approaching Ashby on the Wold.

  Paul Christian changed the channel on Sally’s car radio. Bad Moon Rising was on. He despised the song. He tuned into the classical channel. Chopin was playing. That was more like it.

  ‘Not far now,’ Sally Knightly said, casting him an impish smile as she changed down a gear in her vintage E-Type to coast around a bend. ‘I'm so nervous, Paul. What if you don't like my home – our home? I’m scared it won’t be sophisticated enough for my very own James Bond.’

  He smiled. ‘James Bond! If only! No, I'm the one who points the James Bonds of this world in the right direction.’ He squeezed her thigh. Her skirt was a fine cotton and beneath it, her legs were bare. He had the urge to push the skirt upwards, only that would take her mind off her driving, so he linked his hands in his lap and watched the countryside flying by.

  Sally was ten years younger than him and adorable. Straw coloured hair, deep blue eyes that glinted with mischief, and an infectious smile. He was a lucky guy, finding love again after losing Helena. He never thought it possible.

  ‘It's funny, isn't it?’ Sally mused, ‘you being born so close to where I live now. Quite a coincidence.’

  ‘Coincidence is just a term we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys, or so someone once said,’ Pau
l answered, wanting to tell her to keep her eyes on the road. But it was hardly fair, considering she’d just driven him from London without a hitch. Her driving was fast but faultless. Besides, it wasn’t her driving that bugged him, it was other people's. That, and the feeling of not being in control.

  Sally cast him a sideways glance. ‘So, I wonder who was pulling the strings when we first met all those months ago?’

  He smiled at her. ‘Who knows? But I have to admit, coming back to live in the place I was born feels a little strange.’

  ‘Fate.’ Sally remarked, smiling.

  They drove in silence for a while, until village names started to sound vaguely familiar to him. And then landmarks like a church and school and village houses brought back flickerings of recognition.

  ‘This brings back memories. That could have been my old primary school,’ he said, trying to picture the house he was born in, but it was nothing but a brick coloured blur.

  ‘You’ll have to show me where you were born.’

  ‘I doubt I’d be able to find it now.’ He smiled at her. ‘Not without a sat nav.’

  She laughed. ‘Technology! You're out in the wilds, now.’

  ‘I know, and I love it.’

  She slowed to take a sharp bend. The road narrowed, trees and hedgerows closing in. ‘So, how old were you when your family moved to London?’

  ‘No idea. Pretty young, eight or nine maybe.’ But in his head Paul suddenly saw ten. Ten in glittery numbers on birthday cards. Ten on silvery deflated balloons.

  His thoughts flew back to when he'd woken up in a hospital bed almost forty years ago. There had been a large teddy bear dressed in a number ten football shirt, a pile of unopened presents next to it. Happy tenth birthday, Paul, everything cried out as he'd breathed in clinical hospital smells.

  His head had felt like a lead weight and there were tubes and wires attached to his body. His parents were sitting beside his bed like waxwork dummies until he spoke. Until he tried to say, ‘Is it my birthday already … how come?' Then their faces had lit up. More than lit up, it was like a box of fireworks had gone off in their motionless grey bodies, exploding them back into life.

  ‘Paul!’ They’d cried, repeating his name over and over, tears flooding down their faces. He 'd never seen his dad cry before.

  Doctors and nurses had rushed in, flapping around him like he was back from the dead or something.

  ‘Whose birthday is it?’ he’d asked, surprised at how hoarse his throat was, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long, long time.

  ‘It was yours, my darling,’ his mother said, laughing and crying at the same time.

  ‘I’m not ten, mum. I’m not ten till December.’ His voice had come out as a croak. He'd felt desperate for a glass of water.

  ‘You were ten, Paul,’ she said softly. ‘You are ten.’

  ‘Mum, I’m nine and a half.’

  ‘You’re ten, son,’ his dad sniffed, taking his hand. ‘Ten and a quarter to be precise. You had an accident. You fell and bumped your head. You’ve been asleep a long time. It’s called a coma.’

  ‘How long?’ he’d asked, not remembering bumping his head. What did he remember? Not a lot really.

  ‘Almost nine months, son, almost nine months.’

  The memory of his father’s words echoed through Paul’s head as Sally’s car turned another sharp bend. It had been years since he’d thought about that day when he had woken up from a coma. He was forty-seven now and the memory came back clear as yesterday.

  He put his hand on Sally’s thigh again. ‘I was ten when we moved away from this area – ten and a quarter to be precise.’

  A mile or so further on they veered off the country road onto a narrow lane. A sign indicated ‘no through road’ and Sally slowed to a crawl. The road was no more than a dirt track and had more twists that the sticks of barley sugar he would buy as a kid – which, weirdly, he could suddenly taste again.

  The lane finally opened up alongside a low dry-stone wall smothered in moss and ivy. Sally looked at him, her eyes full of hope. ‘Here we are. Home sweet home.’

  Paul leaned across and kissed her. ‘Well done.’

  Her cottage was a mixture of grey stone and red brick, all nooks and crannies with hanging baskets, flowers and lawns, like something from a fairy tale.

  The only plant he’d owned was a Peace Lily in a pot and that was plastic. He breathed deeply. ‘It’s been a long while since I’ve smelt the countryside, Sal. I’d almost forgotten what it smelled like.’

  ‘You don’t suffer from hay fever, do you?’

  ‘We’ll soon find out,’ he said, spotting a couple of barn-like outbuildings towards the bottom of her garden, beyond which stood a forest. ‘You know, I vaguely remember a wood near my old home when I was a kid. I think I may have lived quite close to here.’

  ‘That's Oakwoods.’

  The name rang a bell.

  ‘You can cut through the woods to Ashby-on-the-Wold,’ she explained. ‘I'll show you sometime. But first, I want you to see your new home. Oh, I'm so scared you won't like it.’

  He kissed her. ‘It’s beautiful – as pretty as a chocolate box.’

  She took his hand, as happy and eager as a child. He allowed himself to be led up to the front door. As she went to step inside, Paul pulled her back, sweeping her up into his arms. She gasped, then giggled.

  ‘May as well do this right. Okay so we’re not exactly married but I want to carry my lover over the threshold. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘Perfect!’ She laughed, her arms snaking around his neck.

  Paul had to duck to avoid a low beam and as he did, a blinding pain shot through his head from one temple to the other – a burning, searing pain that took his breath away. He staggered, his legs buckling, dropping Sally to her feet as he sank onto his knees.

  ‘Paul!’ Sally screamed, as he cradled his head in his hands, the pain shooting through him like stabbing needles.

  Eyes squeezed shut, he saw nothing except a blinding red haze. As if coming from far away he heard Sally’s frantic cries, sobbing now.

  Gradually, the excruciating pain eased. As if the needles were being withdrawn. As suddenly as the pain had hit him, it had gone. Sally clung to him, trembling. ‘It's okay, I’m okay.’

  ‘Did I do that?’

  ‘No, of course you didn’t. I must have trapped a nerve as I ducked my head. It was just a sharp pain, it took me by surprise. I’m sorry I scared you.'

  She looked with big soulful puppy-dog eyes. ‘Are you sure? Should I get a doctor?’

  ‘No honestly, no need. I’m absolutely fine.’

  She looked doubtful and held onto him as if he might shatter like some delicate bone china figurine.

  ‘Really Sal, I'm good to go. Ready for the conducted tour.’ It was probably ungrateful to shrug her hands off him, but he felt stupid collapsing like that, and puzzled. Annual medical checks had shown no lasting effects from the coma all those years ago. Maybe it had been just a trapped nerve.

  She led the way through to the kitchen. The floor was old-fashioned red tiles, the sort of floor you’d pay a fortune for these days; sturdy oak furniture, garden flowers in vases.

  Her face screwed up in anticipation. ‘You hate it, don’t you?’

  He pulled her close, breathing in her scent. ‘I love it. It’s perfect.’

  ‘You’re not just saying that?’

  His answer was to kiss her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, returning his kiss with the promise of much more. ‘Where’s the bedroom?’ he murmured against her lips.

  ‘We haven’t got your cases in yet.’

  ‘They can wait. I can’t.’

  Her eyes, slightly mascara-smudged from tears, glinted with seduction. She took his hand and led the way up the ridiculously narrow staircase, her perfectly rounded buttocks swaying before his eyes, mesmerizing. Bare calves, ever so slightly tanned, neat little slip-on flat shoes in sky blue.

  The bedroom w
as as pretty as the rest of the house. It smelled of her and the double bed was so soft, it swallowed them up.

  There was little foreplay, his need wouldn’t wait. Nothing, in fact, would wait.

  They lay in each other’s arms, with him guessing that was probably the world record in the art of speed love-making. ‘Sorry. Bit too excited.’

  Her fingers stroked his chest. ‘I'm not complaining.’

  He stared up at the ceiling – noticing a spider. ‘We’ve got company.’

  She followed his gaze, but rather than screaming like Helena would have, she shrugged. ‘I’ll put it outside in a minute.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘They don’t bother me.’

  ‘Good! You’ve got the job.’

  She turned wide-eyed. ‘Don’t tell me you’re scared of spiders.’

  ‘Not scared. Just not too keen.’

  ‘Ha! Is Paul Christian, M15's second in command at the DIA, scared of spiders? I don't believe it!’

  His eyebrows arched. ‘Have you seen the size of it?’

  ‘Wuss,’ she laughed, wriggling onto her knees to plant a kiss on his nose before rolling off the bed. ‘Come on, I need a cup of tea. Where did you throw my knickers?’

  * * *

  He wasn’t surprised to find that Sally made tea using a teapot when he finally got downstairs. The way her cheeks blushed when he teased her about it, delighted him.

  ‘So, what's in the barns? I’m half imagining you keep chickens and ducks and things.’

  ‘I wish. I do have Bluebell though – wherever she is.’

  ‘And Bluebell is …?’

  ‘My cat. She turned up about four years ago. Lord knows where she came from. I had a cat flap made, she just comes and goes as she pleases. She's so intelligent, almost like she knows what you're thinking.’