The Ravening, page 21
She climbed through the hatchway, into a room with riveted steel bulkheads. Large, but functional and unadorned, with none of the dining hall or saloon’s elegance or grandeur. A protractor and pair of compasses lay on the table, beside a huge paper chart that depicted no continent Jenna recognised. Across the room was an intricate radio apparatus with a microphone and headset.
It was more like a ship’s bridge than an aeroplane, but that seemed the point of the design. An airborne ocean liner.
The beam of light was almost directly above her. Beyond it, the forrard half of the room was in near-total darkness.
Steel racks bolted to the bulkheads held a couple of rifles, though too rusted to be of use, and a row of old-fashioned handheld lamps with heavy, round glass lenses. What they used to call bull’s-eye lanterns. After some fumbling, Jenna found and pushed a switch at the back of the nearest one’s casing: a dull, embery glow developed in the lens.
Though weak, the reddish beam illuminated the forrard section, shining through an open door ahead of Jenna to reveal instrument panels, two fixed seats, a pair of old-fashioned wooden steering wheels and a huge windscreen, choked with ash like the saloon windows. No way out there. But just ahead of her was a ladder, leading to yet another hatchway marked with a sign saying OBSERVATION DOME.
The ladder led up through a small chamber above the chartroom, to a final hatchway in the ceiling, crowned by a plexiglass dome wide enough to accommodate Jenna’s head and shoulders, through which the light shone down.
The groans and cracks grew louder, and dust sifted down from the edges of the observation dome. Coughing, Jenna raised the lantern and saw a handle, with a sign reading EMERGENCY RELEASE.
She wrenched it down, and there was a splintering crack: a gap opened between the observation dome and the hull and dust poured in. Jenna coughed and spluttered, but the cascade trailed off.
The plexiglass cover was on a hinge. She pushed it and it rose stiffly till she could squirm through, rolling down the ashy slope beyond.
45.
She could still hear sounds of destruction behind her and the Bonewalker bellowing its anger yet again as it failed to find her; the howling wind almost drowned it out, but Jenna could hear the thwarted rage in it.
It had either lost patience with the search or suspected she’d escaped the plane. In either case it would begin looking further afield for Jenna before long. Hopefully the ash-clouds would restrict its vision as much as hers, but if it even suspected her whereabouts, she’d no chance of outpacing it, and the desert, bare and empty as it was, offered no cover.
Jenna needed a fresh hiding-place, and quickly.
Good luck with that.
There has to be somewhere. Must be somewhere. There will be somewhere.
They don’t just grow on trees. Or out of the desert.
But as if to prove that inner voice wrong, the ground underfoot was changing. There was something solid beneath the dust. And then there was no dust at all, only a hard, flat surface. Stone?
The wind continued to howl, but visibility had begun to improve. Jenna wiped her eyes, partly to clear them of tears and grit but mostly out of disbelief.
She was standing on tarmac in the middle of a road, with a kerb, pavement and buildings on either side of her. Dust covered everything, but it was a very thin patina; when Jenna wiped her hand across a parked car’s bonnet it was swept away at once to reveal bright red paint underneath.
A little suburban village. A main road. Cars parked at the kerb; others seemingly abandoned in the middle of the street, doors open. Bus stops. Shops and eateries of all kinds: a butcher, a cheese shop, bistros. A well-to-do little place.
It was familiar, and as Jenna progressed along the deserted high street, she realised why. This was the centre of Didsbury Village, where Wilmslow Road crossed Barlow Moor Road on one side, School Lane on the other. Jenna had passed through it countless times on buses between Manchester and Altrincham, when she’d lived in Timperley; the same buses had operated between the city and Northern Moor when she’d lived there.
Before Mum was taken, before it all fell apart, Didsbury had been a refuge of a kind to Jenna. It had all Timperley’s comfort and security, but was busier and more exciting. There was more to do, and it was far easier here to avoid all the prying eyes who’d tell your parents the moment you did anything remotely fun. When she couldn’t get into Manchester for whatever reason, she’d come here. Later, when she and Dad were in Northern Moor, it had combined the qualities she’d always loved it for with just enough echoes of the life she’d lost to be bearable.
After Dad died, she’d attended the FE college at Fielden Park, less than a mile from where she stood now. And in later years she came here to soften bad times or prolong good ones. She’d even meant to come here the day she was kidnapped, after waiting out the lunchtime rush in Castlefield.
She’d no idea what it was doing here in the Greylands, but it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially as it somehow seemed to be holding back the storm. About a mile from her a grey wall of churning ash hung in the air. It was the same to her right and left, and behind her too. She was in the still centre of a dust cloud swirling around her.
There were no people in sight, no life of any kind other than a few dead-looking trees dotted along the roadside. The state of the buildings varied widely: many were in perfect condition other than their coating of ash; others were missing windows or even roofs. In some cases, examples of each stood side by side.
Bizarre, but here it was. A place to hide, as she’d wanted. As she’d wished for.
As you willed it.
No, that was ridiculous. It couldn’t be true.
As if in answer, ash blew thickly down the street, as if whatever held back the storm had begun to fail. The wind rose.
Now look what you’ve done.
But this couldn’t be connected with her. It made no sense.
And exactly what makes sense about any other part of this? This place even existing? The plane? The Greylands? The grove? The Bonewalker? Never mind all the mad shit that’s going on back in the real world?
Jenna had no idea and no answer, and before she could even try, a vast shadow loomed through the windblown ash above the crossroads. Giant monster coming down Wilmslow Road. She laughed hysterically.
Can’t run forever, babe; can’t hide forever, either. Sooner or later, you’ve got to fight.
“How, exactly?” she muttered aloud.
To her left was a narrow terraced house with a mock-Tudor front and mullioned windows. A private residence, not a shop: an oddity here, but the door was ajar, so Jenna pushed it wide and scrambled through.
The ground shuddered from a massive approaching footstep. She slammed the door behind her, and a Yale lock clicked automatically. A door chain hung down above it; she almost reached for it, then snorted and turned away. At its current size, the Bonewalker would flick the door off its hinges with its middle finger, though it was more likely to peel the roof away like the lid of a biscuit tin.
Can’t run, can’t hide. Have to fight.
From outside came sounds of cracking stone, rending steel, shattering glass. Jenna ran through the house, kicking doors wide. In the front room: a sofa, armchairs, a TV and stereo system, shelves of LPs and CDs. The next one along was the same, except with bookshelves instead of music. Under the stairs, a small pantry stocked with tinned and dried foods. Behind the final door, at the end of the hallway, a breakfast room with dining table and fridge; beyond that, the kitchen.
Weapon. You need a weapon.
Cutlery clattered to the tiled floor as Jenna yanked drawers open, but even the deadliest-looking item on offer, a heavy meat cleaver, would be useless against the Bonewalker in its current form.
She grabbed it anyway in lieu of anything better, then sprinted back up the hall to the foot of the stairs. The building shuddered again. A picture fell off the wall and smashed; glasses and dishes rattled in the kitchen cupboards.
It’ll keep looking, and it’ll find you. And be honest with yourself, aren’t you bored with hiding? Tired of running? Fight, while you still can.
Again, instinct guided her, this time upstairs. A weapon, a weapon, she needed a fucking weapon. She needed a gun. An earlier generation might have had an old service revolver lying around, but not anymore. A country farmhouse might have offered a twelve-bore, whatever good that’d have been.
Rose had a gun, and it didn’t help her.
No, because she’d have needed something bigger, like an elephant gun. Or, if Jenna was wishing, why not a Kalashnikov? Might as well go all-out when hoping for the impossible.
She ran across the landing and kicked open the first door she found. It opened into a bedroom overlooking the street. The single bed was neatly made up, as if they’d been expecting guests.
Lying on the counterpane was an assault rifle.
“The fuck?” Jenna walked towards the bed, staring down at the weapon, not daring to blink in case it disappeared. But it didn’t. Dull grey steel and varnished brown wood, a gun she’d seen in a hundred movies.
One Kalashnikov AK-47, babe. Ask, and ye shall receive.
Had she known that was its name? Probably. She’d read enough thrillers, seen enough action movies; occasionally she liked a romcom, but large quantities of cathartic violence were more to her taste.
It didn’t matter: here a gun was, laid out before her. All that was missing was a little pink bow and some Hello Kitty wrapping paper.
As her hand closed around it, bright cold light flared through the windows.
Jenna threw herself backwards reflexively, landing on the floor and taking cover behind the bed. There was a splintering crash, the building convulsed and shuddered, and then the room was full of dust as the front of the house was torn away.
46.
Jenna looked up in time to see the Bonewalker’s huge skeletal hand descending towards her, and scuttled frantically away from it. The Bonewalker dragged the bed out through the shattered wall, flung it aside, then reached into the bedroom again.
“Fight that, she says,” Jenna muttered aloud. She wasn’t frightened, though, not anymore: she was past that now. Admittedly, the assault rifle might have helped.
She braced the Kalashnikov against her hip, pulled back the bolt – she seemed to know exactly how to operate it, somehow – and pulled the trigger. The wooden stock slammed back against her hip, and the clamouring thunder of gunfire filled the bedroom.
The muzzle-flash was blinding; gunsmoke filled the room with its acrid, struck-match smell, forming a blue-grey haze that mingled with the dust from outside.
The Bonewalker roared again, but in annoyance rather than pain. No surprise, really: Rose had emptied a pistol into it at close range, and it had hardly broken step before tearing her in half.
It’d fuck its own plans into a cocked hat if it did that to you, babe. Can’t breed if you’re dead.
True, though as victories went, it wouldn’t be much of one.
The Kalashnikov fell silent. Empty. With a woody creak and gristly crackle of joints, the Bonewalker crouched, till its burning eyes were level with the opened room.
TELL ME WHERE TELL ME WHERE TELL ME WHERE.
That thundering, incessant voice, even in her head, rattled her teeth; the numbing cold was like plunging into ice-water. Jenna stumbled, dropping the rifle; her heartbeat faltered, almost stopped. She dived sideways, into a corner, where a chest of drawers had fallen. It wasn’t much of a shelter – virtually none at all – but it was the only kind available.
Weapon. Weapon. Weapon.
She’d had one. It hadn’t worked.
The right kind. The right kind.
“Could’ve mentioned that before,” Jenna muttered. Wood splintered and brickwork shattered as the ceiling was torn away. Chunks of rubble rained into the bedroom, one missing her head by inches. Limned against the grey sky, the Bonewalker bent towards her, its white-eyed glare flooding the room.
TELL ME WHERE TELL ME WHERE TELL ME WHERE.
Weapon. Weapon. Weapon.
Out of instinct, defiance, or both, Jenna scrabbled on the floor for something, anything to use against the Bonewalker, but only instinct could have guided her hand to the silver powder compact, shaped like a scallop shell, that sprang open as she caught hold of it.
An old powder puff fell out; in one half gleamed a small round mirror.
Useless, no kind of weapon at all. But instinct still made Jenna thrust it up towards the killing glare.
The white light streaming towards her seemed to spray out in all directions from the compact, less like light than a stream of water that’d hit the bowl of a spoon. A swirling rainbow pattern shimmered above her, a yard or two across: it seemed to act almost as an umbrella, because the corner she crouched in grew dimmer than the rest of the room. The rainbow effect brightened, then became searing, impossible to look at.
There was a brilliant flash and something slammed into Jenna’s cupped hands; it reminded her of the AK slamming back against her hip, and drove her backwards so violently she felt the bedroom wall crack behind her.
The Bonewalker screamed – screamed, in agony and rage. The world turned white. A brief sensation of being flung, spinning, into space. Then nothing.
47.
Jenna reared back, flailing, and cried out; someone else yelped beside her. She thrashed away from them, then fell into space.
She cried out again, thinking she’d plummet forever, but no more than a fraction of a second later slammed into rough, worn carpet. She rolled, heaving for breath, and cannoned into something solid.
“Whoa! Look out, babe.”
Hot liquid splashed her face. Jenna screamed.
“Babe. Jenna! Jenna. Jenn, it’s okay, babe. It’s okay. It’s all right.”
Hands on her, holding her. She tensed, blinking as her eyesight cleared. There were still gold and green afterimages on her vision from the Kalashnikov’s muzzle-flash, but she was no longer in the Greylands. Holly was in front of her, hands on Jenna’s shoulders. She flicked her head, tossing back the wing of dark hair so Jenna could see both gold-flecked eyes. “It’s okay,” said Holly. “It’s okay.”
Jenna wheezed for breath. To her right was a sofa. I fell off that. To her left, a coffee table, steam rising from beside a china mug on its surface, fluid dripping from the edge. I rolled into that. Her surroundings took shape around her, and she remembered where she was. The caravan, with Holly. Safe.
Sort of, anyway.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Babe, it’s fine.” Holly helped Jenna back to the sofa. “Bastards. Can’t imagine the shit you’ve been through. But it’s okay now.”
“It’s not. It’s fucking not, Holly.”
“It’s gonna be. They’re not getting hold of you again. I’ll keep you safe.”
That should have sounded ludicrous, coming from the chunky little figure beside her, but Holly had more than shown what she was capable of.
Even so, she didn’t know about the Bonewalker, and Jenna couldn’t even tell her about it without sounding utterly unhinged. Yet Holly had to be made aware. Jenna couldn’t pretend that side of the battle wasn’t real. Far less deal with it alone.
Except you just did.
“The fuck’s that?” Holly said, then bent and picked something up off the floor. “Where’d that come from?”
“What is it?”
Holly held it out to her. Jenna stared at it for a frozen moment, then reached out and took it.
The silver powder compact was still open. At first Jenna thought the mirror had misted over, but it didn’t wipe clean and had a strange, iridescent sheen. The reflecting glass had taken on the appearance of mother-of-pearl.
“That yours?” said Holly. “You bring it with you?”
“Yeah.” Jenna clicked the compact shut on the second attempt. “I brought it with me.”
48.
Sleep eluded Jenna for the rest of the night, but she was happy to avoid it. In the Greylands, the Bonewalker would find her. Holly had no such fears and lay snoring on the couch. Hard not to envy her that. She could afford to sleep. Jenna couldn’t.
She made coffee, laced it with sugar and gulped it to stay awake, then began pacing up and down the caravan, stopping only to drink from the mug or put the kettle on again. She mustn’t sit or lie down or even close her eyes.
But the constant pacing was tiring her, and the coffee would only keep her going so long. She should ask Holly if she had any speed. Although Holly probably wouldn’t give her any, even if she had, as Jenna was still “recovering” from “all she’d been through”.
Jenna hated that sort of phrasing. It made her sound like a victim, which she refused to be. Had always refused. Had always fought. Would barely have survived losing Mum, never mind everything that had followed, otherwise. Mum, Nan, their home, Dad. Fuck you all for abandoning me.
She shook her head. A silly thought. Childish. Another sign of fatigue: increased irritability, sluggish thinking.
Fuck.
She had to stay awake and find answers: had to know what to tell Holly, for a start. No, not what to tell her: how. She had, somehow to not only tell Holly about the Bonewalker and the Greylands, but convince her they were real.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Whitecliffe believed, and James had, but that wouldn’t help; Holly just thought the pair of them were insane, and if Jenna tried to convince her of the truth, she’d most likely conclude Jenna had been so damaged by all she’d been subjected to that she’d come to share their lunacy.
And who could blame her? Jenna would have thought the same, if their roles had been reversed. It had taken Tallstone Hill, the visitation in the cellar at Cutty Wren Lodge and the overheard conversation between the Bonewalker and James – not to mention the spectacle of the creature itself tearing Rose in two before her very eyes – to convince her. After that, it hadn’t been hard to believe in the Greylands.
