Jenkins advanced on him with the chainsaw, holding the lethal blade at arm’s length, its wicked barbs rotating at a speed of over 2,000 rpm.
‘What are you doing?’ shrieked Murray, gazing first at his friend’s blank eyes and then at the murderous implement
levelled at him.
Jenkins drove it forward.
Murray tried to knock the blade to one side with the wrench but fear affected
his aim. The chainsaw sliced effortlessly through his arm just below the elbow. He shrieked as blood spouted from the stump and he held it up, showering both himself and Jenkins with the sticky red fluid.
Jenkins brought the spinning saw blade down in a carving action which caught Murray at the point of the shoulder. There was a high pitched scream as the chainsaw cut through his ribs, hacking its way deeper to rupture his lungs which burst like fleshy balloons, expelling a choking flux of blood and bile.
The churning blade chewed easily through muscle and sinew, finally severing Murray’s bulging intestines. Like the glutinous tentacles of some bloodied octopus, his entrails burst from the gaping rent in his stomach, spilling forth in a reeking mass.
As he fell forward into a pool of blood and viscera,, his body jerked uncontrollably as the final muscular spasms racked it.
Jenkins switched off the chainsaw and, in the silence, looked down at the corpse of Murray.
He looked on disinterestedly as blood washed over his shoes.
London
9.58.
The diesel was picking up speed.
As the train hurtled through Finsbury Park station, people on the platforms appeared only as rapid blurs to Derek West. He had only been driving for about five or ten minutes, since picking up the diesel at the Bounds Green Depot earlier on. Up until then he and five or six of the other drivers and guards had been sitting idly around reading the papers or watching TV. Derek had consumed yet another mug of strong tea then clambered into the cab and started the powerful engine. The diesel was pulling eight tankers behind it. Each one containing almost 71,000 litres of liquid oxygen.
Now, Derek felt the massive engine throbbing around him as he glanced down at the speedometer.
As the train roared through the last tunnel it was travelling at well over ninety miles an hour.
Up ahead of him, Derek could see the massive edifice which was King’s Cross, lights gleaming in the darkness.
He smiled thinly.
Out of his eye corner he caught sight of a red warning light but he paid it no heed.
The needle on the speedo touched ninety-five.
The diesel thundered on, travelling as if it had been fired from some gigantic cannon. It swept into the station, the air horn sounding one last defiant death-knell which echoed around the cavernous interior of the station.
It struck the buffers doing ninety-eight.
Concrete and metal seemed to dissolve under the crushing impact of the hundred ton train. The huge machine ploughed through the platform, sending lumps of stone and steel scything in all directions like shrapnel. Such was the power with which it hit, the engine buckled and split open, the top half of it somersaulting, blasting massive holes in the gigantic timetable a full fifty feet from the buffers. Screams of terror were drowned as the engine exploded, followed, a second later, by a series of devastating detonations as the liquid oxygen tanks first skewed off the track and then blew up.
An eruption of seismic proportions ripped through the station as a screaming ball of fire filled the giant building, melting the glass in the roof and roaring upward into the night sky like a searing, monstrous flare which scorched everything around it. Concrete archways were simply brushed aside by the incredible blast and part of the great canopy above fell inward with a deafening crash. It was impossible to hear anything over the high-pitched shriek of the flames which shot up in a white wall. People not instantly incinerated by the fireball were crushed by falling rubble or flattened by the shock wave which ripped the station apart as if it had been made of paper. The searing temperatures ignited fuel in the engines of other trains and more explosions began to punctuate the persistent roar of the main fire. Wheels,
buffers, sleepers and even lengths of rail flew through the air, those that hadn’t already been transformed
to molten metal by the fury of the temperatures.
The glass front of the station exploded outward, blown by the incredible shock wave, and the street beyond was showered with debris. Taxis waiting in the forecourt were overturned by the blast.
It was as if the station had been trodden on by some huge invisible foot. Huge tongues of flame still rose, snatching at the darkness, melting everything near them with the blistering heat. Platforms had been levelled, people inside the once proud building had been blasted to atoms, pulverised by the ferocity of the explosion. The entire building had become one massive ball of fire.
It looked as if a portion of Hell had forced its way up through the earth.
Mere seconds after she heard the loud bang, Kelly felt the floor move. She gripped the table and looked anxiously around her as if fearing that the roof were going to fall in on her. She heard the unmistakable sound of shattering glass and was thankful that the room had no windows. There were shouts and curses from the rooms beyond hers.
She guessed that the violent vibrations continued for a full fifteen seconds then the room seemed to settle once again. A couple of pieces of plaster fell onto the table and she cast an anxious glance at the ceiling once more.
Kelly was aware that there had been a massive explosion somewhere close but she could not have imagined it was as close as King’s Cross.
Phones began to ring. It sounded like pandemonium beyond the locked door.
She closed her eyes, wondering what could have caused the blast, her mind tortured by the fact that the perpetrator was more than likely acting out some maniac scheme previously hidden deep within his subconscious.
Until tonight.
Until Blake had …
She got to her feet and paced up and down for a moment, still partially stunned by the bang and its subsequent tremor.
Even she had not fully believed that anyone could possess such an awesome power as Blake had claimed. Now, she had been given ample proof. Kelly wondered what would have happened if she had arrived at the studios earlier.
If she had not walked out on him. If she had joined him.
If she had killed him earlier.
The questions were immaterial now. The final act had been completed. The horror unleashed.
She glanced up at the clock, then at her own watch.
Where was Joubert?
Had he been butchered by some demented victim of Blake’s master plan? she wondered, but then hurriedly pushed the thought to the back of her mind. He would come. She knew he would come. How foolish she had been to doubt him.
Those suspicions stung even more now as she remembered how she had confided in Blake, never suspecting the man she had trusted, lived with. Loved.
She sat down once more, her head cradled in her hands, eyes fixed on the statement before her — her admission of guilt, although she still did not remember pulling the trigger and blasting the writer into oblivion. All she remembered was the feeling of cold, a sensation she had experienced many years earlier whilst in a haunted house. The coldness which comes with absolute evil.
Kelly slumped forward on the desk, tears trickling down her face.
She didn’t raise her head when she heard the footsteps from the direction of the door.
