Dark Winter Tales: a collection of horror short stories. Paul Finch

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СКАЧАТЬ revealed a figure seated on the floor against the wall opposite – though the destruction wrought on this poor soul made even the combined agonies of her lacerated scalp and sprained ankle dwindle. Whoever he had been, someone had hacked and slashed his face and throat to a ghastly ruin. Sharon scampered away crablike, hands sliding in pools of clotted gore, clattering through empty bottles and cans, only to slam into a second figure slumped against the other wall. This one had been propped up in a musty sleeping bag; as it now fell over her, its head detached and bounced into the shadows.

      Whining and weeping, scrabbling through newspapers and rags all slimy and foul, she wriggled free and had to use a wall of rubble-cluttered shelves to drag herself to her feet. Dust and cobwebs plumed into her face, clogging her nose and mouth. There was a thunderous impact on the roof, and splinters erupted downward. A black shadow blotted out the moonlight.

      Gasping, she flung herself around the walls, trying to find the door, hammering into more obstructions, jolting her injured ankle, barking her shins. She twisted as she tripped, grabbing at another shelf. It tore away from the wall, showering her with bric-a-brac, which she wildly rummaged through, seeking any kind of weapon she could find. But all that came to hand was something like a stiff tube of plastic with a grip on one end. The idea struck her that, if all else failed, she could jab this at her tormentor, maybe take out his eyes the way he had taken out Slater’s.

       Dear God, Dear Christ … Geoff!

      There was another heavy impact, this time on the floor behind her. She spun, hefting the ridiculous tube as though it were a knife – and only then, in the better light, realising what it actually was. Even as she did this, the interloper rose to his feet and turned his crazy, crumpled face towards her – and lunged.

      More by luck than design, Sharon fell to one side, the blade bypassing her and striking a large plastic object in the recess behind. Whatever this was, it burst apart, gouts of fluid exploding over Sharon, but also drenching McKellan, sloshing not just down his costume but around his feet. The chemical stench of it brought immediate tears to her eyes – diesel. The maniac had ripped into some kind of fuel container.

      She scrambled back across the room on all fours, now through a slurry of mingled blood and oil. The blade slashed over her head as McKellan twirled, gashing a huge chunk from the wall.

       The door, where was the fucking door?

      Clambering over a corpse, she saw it: an upright crack of light. She jumped up and threw her shoulder against it. It shuddered in its frame, but resisted. With hoarse screams, she scrabbled for a lock, sensing the presence turning around behind her. She found the latch, lifted it and yanked the door open. As she did, she spun back, pumping her thumb on the plunger built into the handgrip of the butane candle lighter.

       It had to work, it had to work …

      But it wasn’t doing.

      Until a tiny flame suddenly spurted to life at the end of the tube.

      Sharon flung it at the monstrous vision – which in less than one second was engulfed in a curtain of roaring flames.

      She tottered outside, still whimpering, still weeping, beating down on herself, imagining that she too had caught alight. Only by a miracle, it seemed, had she avoided this, but still she wasn’t safe – she expected a fiery figure to come surging out. But if McKellan tried to do that, he failed, perhaps stumbling against the inside of the door, which now banged closed, entrapping what looked like a raging inferno inside the small outbuilding. Its grimy windows quickly blackened and shattered. Its wood and tarpaper exterior was already smouldering, flames licking out through every crevice.

      Sharon continued to back away, not quite believing that her ordeal was over. As the fire spread over the hut’s exterior, it burned so fiercely that the heat of it dried her tears, seared her sweat-sodden cheeks. And then a hand landed on her shoulder.

      She squealed as she spun around – only to see the brutish, baffled features of Mike Lewton, with Rob Ellis standing a few feet to one side. Their patrol vehicle was parked behind them. Lewton still held the bolt croppers with which he’d managed to secure access through the front gates, but he almost dropped them with shock when he saw the state Sharon was in: her hair a tangled mop of gluey blood, her face equally stained but also dirty, wild-eyed.

      “He’s … he’s in there,” she stammered shrilly, gesturing at the hut.

      “What? Who is, Shaz?”

      She shook her head dumbly, unable to say more.

      The men pushed past her towards the blazing structure. Much of the hut’s combustible material had been consumed, and the small building was now in the process of collapsing on itself. Flames still blazed at ground-level, but otherwise only a bare, blistered framework remained. Sharon stood numbed while her two colleagues tried to get closer, wafting at the pungent smoke. Ellis gave a sharp cry. “Christ! There is someone here!”

      “I … I lit him up,” Sharon said, suddenly giggling.

      Lewton stole an astounded glance at her.

      “There’s two of them!” Ellis blurted. “Bloody hell!”

      The fumes had turned foul with the stench of charred meat, but the flames continued to recede and Sharon could distinguish two blackened shapes lying in the glowing wreckage. Lewton swung back to her, face pale. “Shaz … what have you done?”

      She shook her head, still giggling. “Not the winos … they were already dead.”

      “You say you lit this fire? Why?”

      “He was in there. He murdered them.”

      “Who?”

      “He killed Sergeant Pugh as well.”

      “Who killed Sergeant Pugh?”

      Lewton’s expression was so earnest, so honestly mortified by what he was seeing here, that Sharon now thought it better to stop sounding so amused and actually try to assist. “Blair McKellan, obviously.”

      “Shaz …” Lewton shook his head. “Blair McKellan was arrested forty minutes ago. His boat ran aground near the pier.”

      “Mike!” Ellis shouted.

      Lewton darted back to his side. Sharon ventured over there as well, vaguely amazed by that last piece of news, though not necessarily mystified. The object of their interest seemed to be a square aperture in the middle of the hut’s scorched floor. A steel grille lay to one side of it. That made sense too, now that she thought about it.

      “If there was someone else in here, that’s how he got out,” Ellis said.

      Lewton kicked a heap of embers aside and crouched to get a better look. “Shit,” he breathed. “There’re hundreds of channels and culverts down there.”

      “And they all lead to the sea,” Sharon said. “But that’s just about right.” The two men gazed at her blankly, at which point she began giggling again, her giggles soon transmuting to full-blown laughter. “He’s so, so angry.”

      “Who’s angry?” Lewton asked. “Who the hell are you talking about?”

      She made СКАЧАТЬ