Lambert looked across at the clock on the dressing table. It said 4:30 P.M.
They had ninety minutes of daylight left. Lambert's mind was spinning. He had to drive back to the house, pick up Debbie's notes, praying that there might be some clue as to where the grave of Mathias was, but, above all, he had to find the remaining living dead before nightfall. He shuddered. Debbie pulled him close one last time and this time the tears flowed in an unceasing river. They held each other for a long time, Debbie sobbing softly, her head buried within his arms. Finally he pulled away, supporting her head in his hands. He kissed her. 'I love you,' he said, softly.
'Tom, for God's sake be careful,' she sobbed. He kissed her on the forehead and then he was gone, his heart seized with the icy conviction that he might never see her again. But overriding that feeling was one of grim determination. As he left Kirby's house, the doctor heard him muttering one phrase over and over to himself, like some kind of litany…
He bypassed Hayes and Jenkins and climbed into the Capri, shouting at the two other policemen to keep up their search. Then he drove off, not even thinking to look up at the bedroom window where Debbie stood, watching as the car disappeared out of sight.
Already, the first warning clouds of dusk were beginning to gather on the horizon.
Lambert sat in the Capri for precious minutes before he could actually pluck up the courage to walk up to his house. The memory of the previous night was burned indelibly into his mind and he wondered if the image would ever fade. But, at the moment, time was the important factor so he swung himself out of the car and headed up the path towards the front door. There were tyre tracks on the front lawn, patches of dark blood spattered over the front of the house. He walked in, through the still open front door, hanging by its single remaining hinge. He cast a furtive glance up the stairs as if expecting to see the things waiting for him once more. There was more blood on the stair carpet and up the white walls. He entered the living room, a cold breeze blowing through the smashed bay window. It stirred the papers scattered across the floor.
More blood and the pervading stench of death. Lambert hunted quickly through the papers strewn across the carpet and desk. Even some of these bore tiny specks of dried crimson. It took him about ten minutes to find what he sought. He gathered up the necessary information and hurried from the house back to the warmth and safety of the car. There, he read through Debbie's notes, found it all just as she had told him earlier. He reread, his eyes straying back to that one phrase:
Unconsecrated ground. Christ, that could mean anywhere. He laid the notes on the passenger seat and started the engine, swinging the Capri round and driving back into Medworth.
As he drove, reports came in periodically from the other cars. All of them the same. Nothing to report. Not one of the things had been sighted since the morning. Lambert glanced at his watch. Nearly five o'clock. Less than an hour until nightfall.
He took the route through the already quiet town centre. There were only a few people about, all of them anxious to be home before darkness. The Inspector drove past the huge silent edifice of the deserted cinema, glancing at it as he did so. The letters above the entrance had fallen in places, blown down by the wind. He smiled as he read the sign:
TH EM IR C NEM.
It towered over him as he drove past, a monument to obsolescence.
Lambert slammed on the brakes, the Capri skidding to a halt.
One of the cinema's side doors was slightly ajar.
He sat still, his breath coming in gasps. The place had been closed for over two years now. And yet, the wooden door was propped open, wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Lambert snatched up the shotgun from beside him, made sure the Browning was loaded and got out of the car. There were two sets of doors facing him. He had been in the cinema a number of times before it closed down and he knew that both sets of doors were exits. One from the stallsy one from the balcony. But right now he couldn't remember which was which. He pushed the open door and it moved slightly, the hinges shrieking in protest. Lambert squeezed through, surprised at how light it was inside. He knew immediately, from the wide flight of stone steps which faced him, that this exit led down from the balcony.
Moving slowly, his ears alert for the slightest sound, he began to climb.
Half way up, the staircase turned in a right angle, flattening out into a small landing before rising, in another flight of steps, towards the doors which led into the balcony itself. There was a large frosted glass window set in the wall and that was where the light was coming from. The window itself had been broken in two places and a cold draught blew through, creating an unnerving high pitched moan.
A few feet away from him, its door cracked and peeling, was the toilet. A rusty sign on it proudly proclaimed-Gentlemen. The door was closed. Lambert crossed to the door and, swallowing hard, pulled it open. He stepped in. The place stank of damp and blocked drains. The single window had been bricked up and the Inspector found it hard to see in the gloom. There was a tiled urinal area and a single cubicle. He pushed the door open and found, to his relief, that it was empty. The persistent drip, drip of water from the old cistern added background to the Inspector's laboured breathing. He left the toilet and began climbing the second flight of stone steps which would take him into the balcony itself. The twin doors which led into it were firmly closed. Heart thudding against his ribs, he pulled open one of the doors and stepped inside.
The darkness was total. Almost palpable, like some thick black fog, totally impenetrable and clinging around him like a living thing. Lambert, literally, couldn't see his hand in front of him. He fumbled in his jacket for his flashlight and realized, angrily, that he'd lost it earlier that afternoon in the supermarket. He fumbled for his lighter and found it, the yellow light giving him a few precious feet of visibility.
Using its light as a guide, he climbed the steps which eventually levelled out onto a kind of walk way, separating front from rear balcony. He knew, from memory, that the main entrance was about twenty yards to his right, but in the all enveloping darkness he could see no farther than the glow his lighter allowed him. He walked on, heading for the entrance, becoming more aware of the stench which filled the place with each passing second. Not just the odour of dampness which he expected, but something more powerful. The carrion odour of rotting flesh. Excrement. Death.
There was a movement behind him and Lambert spun round, the dim light from the lighter totally inadequate for the task. He saw nothing but remained in that position, gun at the ready. Waiting and listening. Then finally, slowly, he turned again.
The dull glow of the lighter shone straight into the grinning face of Ray Mackenzie.
Lambert shouted in sudden terror, dropped the lighter and was plunged into total darkness once more. He rolled away, knowing that Mackenzie was coming for him. The Inspector fired one blast into the air.
In the thunderflash explosion of the discharge, the entire vast amphitheatre was momentarily illuminated and Lambert saw an image which he had always suspected. Always feared.
In the swift blinding light he saw them. Fifty. Sixty. Probably more. Living corpses all around him. He cursed himself for not having had the place searched before. It was so simple.
But now, in that brief moment of light, he knew he had found them.
For untold seconds nothing happened, then Lambert fired again, using the gun as a source of light. He fired off the five cartridges in rapid succession, moving towards the area where he knew the stairs to be. He didn't even know whether he hit any of the creatures with his blasts, but as his finger jerked a last time on the trigger, something warm and wet splashed across his face. His hand found the banister which led down the short flight of steps to the balcony entrance. He tried to jump the distance, tripped and tumbled to the bottom of the stairs, losing the shotgun in the process. He pushed open the door and a kind of dull half light flooded the bottom of the staircase. Lying at the bottom, Lambert looked up and saw th6 things crowding above him, Mackenzie at their head. The light stunned them for a second, long enough to enable Lambert to clamber to his feet and burst out of the balcony doors. He heard them thundering after him.
A few feet of carpeted landing and he was at the stairs which led down into the foyer.
Mackenzie burst from the doors in pursuit, others behind him and Lambert could smell their stench as he ran, taking the stairs two and three at a time. He reached the bottom and flung himself the last few feet, skidding across the tiled foyer floor.
