She knew she was going to faint.
Mackenzie appeared in the doorway, that familiar feral grin smeared across his face, his hands dripping blood. And beside him stood another man…
Not man so much as youth.
Both of them were grinning.
Kelly stopped screaming for a second, the sobs choking away as she turned her head to look at the two onlookers. The first of them tall, his blazing red eyes like those of the thing which held her down. But beside him, and this was what started her screaming again, stood Bob Shaw.
Where there should have been eyes there were just bloody holes, still weeping crimson. Open sores with pits of congealing gore and yet, somehow, he could see her. Somehow he knew. And he was grinning.
Kelly managed one last scream before all three of them fell on her.
Eight more people were killed that night.
There was an expectant hush inside the duty room of the Medworth police station.
Outside a light drizzle was falling, casting a haze over everything and spotting the windows of the room. The windows on the inside were steamy and the place smelled of stale cigarettes and coffee.
A blackboard had been set up at the far end of the room and there was a chair in front of it. The leather chairs which normally were dotted around the edges of the room had been drawn up into two rows, and on these chairs sat the ten men who made up the Medworth force. Facing them was Lambert. To his left, on the other side of the blackboard, sat Kirby, his neck still heavily bandaged from his encounter with Emma Reece a week earlier. He pulled irritably at the bandages every so often and sipped at the lukewarm coffee which Sergeant Hayes had given him earher.
Lambert lit a cigarette and took a drag, finally expelling the smoke in a long stream. He sighed and turned to the blackboard. There were several names written on it in yellow chalk. He turned his back on the waiting men for a second, reading the names and breathing quietly. The knot of muscles at the side of his jaw pulsed. He felt like a schoolmaster. Finally, he turned.
'Twelve people,' he said quietly, 'have disappeared in the last three days. We can't find a trace of one of them.' He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the blackboard. 'The pattern is the same in every case. All we ever find at the scene is a lot of blood, scraps of clothing if we're lucky, and other little clues. Never any sign of a body, even though all the indications are that there has been a violent struggle.'
The Inspector took another drag on his cigarette, held the smoke in his mouth for a second then blew it out in a long stream. He pointed to the names at the top of the list.
'Bob Shaw and Kelly Vincent. Reported missing by the girl's parents. We found blood in the hall, in the kitchen, on a knife. The blood matched the known groups of the two missing people. Except the blood on the knife. That belonged to a third party, I'll explain more about that at the end.' He pointed to the second name. 'Ralph Stennet. Attacked on his way across a field after leaving a pub. Reported missing by his wife.' Lambert scanned the faces of the watching men. 'Who found the evidence on this one?'
Constable Ferman raised a tentative hand. Lambert nodded.
Ferman coughed, coloured slightly and began. 'I visited the pub where Stennet was last seen and then followed a set of footprints which I thought to be his, across a field. I found blood.' He swallowed hard. 'Lots of it.'
Lambert nodded, and pointed out the next on the list.
'Janice Fielding. Attacked in her own back garden.' He exhaled deeply, finally turning his back on the blackboard. There's no point in going on. As I said before, it's the same in every case. The victims are attacked, from the evidence we found, badly assaulted, and then they disappear.' He looked from face to face. 'Any theories?'
A muted silence greeted his enquiry.
'Guv.' It was Hayes. 'You said something about the blood on the knife in the first case belonging to a third party. What do you mean?'
Lambert almost smiled. 'What I'm going to tell you now will probably confirm some suspicions which a few of you have had ever since you've known me. Namely, that I'm a lunatic.' A ripple of laughter ran around the room. The Inspector paused, searching for the words. 'Well, maybe that's right. In this case I wish it was.' All the humour had left his voice, his tone now flat, clinical and the men in the room sensed it too.
'The blood on that knife belonged to Peter Brooks.'
There was a moment's stunned silence. Someone laughed, the sound choked off abruptly. No one knew what to say. Hayes found the words.
'But, guv, Brooks is dead.'
Lambert nodded almost imperceptibly and motioned towards Kirby.
'Doctor Kirby,' he continued, 'who, you can see, suffered some injuries the other night, will verify the fact that it was Brooks' blood on the knife.'
Kirby nodded and, as the men watched, he slowly began to unravel the bandage around his neck, finally revealing the scars and bruises beneath. The area around his adam's apple and below the ears was a patchwork of black and purple welts and angry scabs.
'Jesus Christ,' murmured P.C. Briggs.
'The doctor's attacker was Emma Reece, Mackenzie's third victim. Father Ridley, who was found hanging from the bell rope of his own church with both eyes torn out, was murdered by Ray Mackenzie.'
The watching men were silent. They heard but could not, dare not, believe.
'All the attacks which have taken place over the last three days,' said Lambert flatly, 'have been carried out by people who were thought to be dead.'
'I don't believe it,' said Constable Davies, flatly. 'It's impossible.'
'It happened, man,' shouted Lambert. 'Look at the marks on his neck.' He pointed to Kirby, his temper now gone. 'They were put there by a woman who'd been buried three weeks before.' He gritted his teeth, his breath coming in short, rasping hisses.
Davies lowered his voice a little, some of the cynicism draining from it. 'Where is she now?'
'She's dead. I cut her head off with a spade.'
Lambert raised a hand to his head and ran it through his hair. He exhaled deeply. 'These… things, whatever they are, they're strong.' He could say no more. Kirby stood up, seeing that the stress of the situation was beginning to affect Lambert.
'The Inspector and I exhumed the body of Emma Reece; that was when the attack took place,' he said. The doctor smiled weakly at Lambert who nodded and began again.
'At the moment we don't know how many of them there are. The fact that the corpses of each victim disappear would seem to indicate…' Hayes cut him short. 'But how can you be sure that these people have been killed if we've found no bodies?'
'I'm assuming, Vic,' said Lambert, calmly. 'Assumptions are the only thing I've got at the moment. Assumptions and twelve missing people.' There was a long silence, then the Inspector continued, 'As I said, there's every reason to believe that the missing victims are now in the same condition as Mackenzie and Brooks.'
'Does that mean they're alive, sir?' said P.C. Briggs.
'I don't know what it means,' said Lambert. 'Alive, undead, living corpses.' He slammed his fist against the blackboard and growled, 'This case gets more insane the closer you look at it.'
'Are you discounting the theory of body-snatching?' wondered Hayes.
Lambert's reply was emphatic. 'Yes. After what happened with Emma Reece, there's no question of it having been that.'
The men shuffled uncomfortably in their seats and an almost palpable silence began to fall over the room.
'Any questions?' said Lambert.
'Do we get any help on this, guv?' asked Hayes.
