Blood Memory: The Complete Season One (Books 1-5) (45 page)

Frank sighed. “Never trust technology. I’ll just have to replace the doors when they’re finished. I’d best leave you. We have our own… business to take care of.”

There was a final whimper from Jessie before the door above slammed shut. A few pinpricks of light escaped the door’s contours.

Stan shook his head. “Never trust strangers. How many times are we told that over the years?”

The barn was sixty feet long. Thick beams ran across it, bracing a tall arched roof. A nest protruded from each juncture. A series of well-used farming tools hung from
purpose-built struts on the wall. There was a musty smell from the wet hay on the rough concrete floor.

Jordan smacked the wall with a fist. “This can’t be happening! We’re so close to the end!”

The barn doors bulged, wood splintering.

“
Why is it,” Stan began, “we always get the lunatics? Why can’t we stumble across a nice old lady who bakes cakes for once?”

“
Because that would be boring,” Jordan said.

Stan shrugged. “
I could get used to it.”

“We have to get out of here,” Anne said.

“You think?” Jordan snapped back.

“How?” Stan asked.

“There must be a way,” Anne said. “There’s always a way.”

“We could break the spotlight,” Stan suggested. “Some shards of glass might fall down, and we’d have something to fight with.”

“But then we couldn’t see anything,” Jordan said.

“Neither will the Lurchers.”

“How about a way to escape?” Anne said.

The door bent inwards again, an arm reached inside, flailing.

“Well, the front door’s out,” Stan said.

“There are some haystacks over there,” Jordan said. “We could try piling them up.”

“To the door up there?” Stan said. “That’s got to be fifteen feet. Even with the haystacks we’d struggle to reach it.”

“We could if we give each other a bunk up,” Anne said.

Stan nodded. “That might work. But we’ll have to be quick.”

They ran to the haystacks, dishevelled and bedraggled with disuse. A family of rats ran out. One ventured too close to the
barn door and was snatched up in rotting fingers. They hastily piled the stacks up beneath the ledge.

“Anne, you go first,” Jordan said.

She shook her head. “If only one of us manages to get up there, it needs to be someone who can fight Frank and win.”

Jordan looked to Stan, who shook his head. “I might be in good shape for my age, but I’m not that good.”

The barn door, rotten with damp, snapped with a wet crack.

“
We must hurry,” Stan said. He cupped his hands. Jordan put his foot in them like a stirrup. As Stan lifted, Jordan shifted his weight, rose, and stretched out an arm to grab onto the ledge. His fingers met air. Jordan fell back down, his drop cushioned by the hay.

“It’s no good,” Jordan said. “It’s too far. Anne should do it. She’s the lightest. I might be able to lift her up higher.”

“But you’re the only one who can fight-” Anne began, but was interrupted by the sharp crack of split wood as the Lurchers smashed through several slats. Half a dozen arms stretched in and tore at the inside.

“We don’t have time to argue. Anne, hurry up.”

Jordan cupped his hands. Anne put her dirty shoe into it and he lifted her up. He felt her weight partially leave his hands as her fingers found something hard jutting from the wall. It wasn’t the ledge, but it was close. Jordan shifted underneath her, her feet on his palms at chest height.

Stan took a pair of garden shears off the wall and beat at the Luchers each time they put their hands and arms throug
h the gaps like a game of Whack-A-Mole.

Sweat dripped down Jordan’s face as Anne scrambled for something to grab onto.

“I can almost reach it,” Anne said. “Can you lift me up a little higher?”

“I’ll try.” He braced her weight and lifted her up as he extended his arms straight.

Anne found the ledge and pulled herself up.

Stan snipped with the shears, pruning fingers and toes. A Lurcher jutted his head through a hole. Stan snapped the shears together in rapid succession. The Lurcher’s nose hit the floor.

“Got your nose,” Stan said.

“Now you guys come up,” Anne said, lying flat on her stomach on the ledge, extending her arm. Jordan jumped, but his fingers were
four feet short.

“I can’t
. It’s too high,” he said.

“I’ll get something to pull you up.”

“They’re about to breach, Jordan,” Stan said, stepping back from the barn door.

“Anne, listen to me,” Jordan said. “You have to find a way to open the door. Go inside, find a weapon – a knife, a lump of wood, anything – and then you have to go rescue Jessie.”

“I can’t leave you here.”

“And you can’t leave Jessie where she is. Save her, then
come back for us.” He offered a weak smile. “We’ll be all right.”

“All right,” Anne said. “But if when I come back you’re not here, I’ll kill you.”

“Fair enough.”

“Don’t go anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Anne disappeared from view. Stan tossed Jordan a hoe. The door finally gave way, bursting inward. The Lurchers had breached.

Anne scrambled at the edges of the door for a way to pry it open. Her nails scratched at the edges, but it was perfectly flush. Anne smacked the door with her palm.

Then she tried the doorknob. It opened.

“Ridiculous,” she said to herself.

The door creaked open. The house was silent save for the gentle humming of the computers. On a monitor she saw Stan and Jordan battling the Lurchers.

Anne crept forward, tripped on a cable and fell forward. She caught herself in a press-up position and eased herself silently onto the floor.

“Idiot!”

She picked up a stray screwdriver lying on an empty computer case and crossed the room. She poked her head into the corridor. Dust drifted in the light that spilled from the door at the end.

The barn door lay splintered and broken on the floor, torn open like a particularly promising Christmas present. Decapitated Lurcher bodies dotted the space. Jordan and Stan, dirty and half-blinded by dust, collapsed against the back wall, exhausted.

A dozen Lurchers sporting welts
fanned out in a semicircle. A Lurcher wearing an Ipswich City football shirt nursed a wound on his wrist. A warm grandmother-like figure with swollen joints had a cut above her left ear, a greenish pus seeping from it. A torso crawled toward them, his legs dragging behind him, eyes never leaving his prize.

“No sign of Queenie?” Jordan asked.

“Not so far as I can tell.” Stan rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Any chance your Lurcher friends might make another surprise appearance and save the day?”

“Nah. They only come when we’re in serious trouble.”

“Good, good.”

Jordan pulled the faceguard down, leaned over and pulled the string. The strimmer engine buzzed. He turned off the choke. “Time to trim the verge.”

The Lurchers limped forward. Jordan raised the strimmer to head height. Blood splattered the visor.

There was the sound of a struggle behind the bedroom door, shapes momentarily blocking the light from the other side.

Anne’s knuckles turned white around the screwdriver. She reached for the doorknob, turned it, and opened the door.

Her eyes went wide at what she saw.

Stan hit the ground hard, a Lurcher on top of him. Stan kicked and screamed and attempted to roll out of the way, but the Lurcher had hold of his leg. Jordan kicked the Lurcher hard across the head. There was a snap, and the head lolled at an unnatural angle. Jordan fell on it with his elbow.

“You all right?” Jordan asked
, giving him a hand up.

“Wonderful.”

“Were you bitten?”

“No.”

Stan held a gardening fork in one hand. Jordan had found a dull grass sickle amongst the haystacks. They stepped carefully over the unmoving bodies under their feet. Jordan slipped on intestines, his feet getting caught in them. He slashed them open with the scythe, freeing his foot. A half-digested eye, finger, and Christ knows what else spilled over the floor.

The remaining Lurchers circled, eyes shining.
Thick black blood splattered the wooden walls like a haunted house ride.

Stan
’s body was heavy and slow, his muscles burning. “Well,” he said, out of breath, “it was nice knowing you.”

“Wish I could say the same,” Jordan said as he lashed out at a Lurcher that wandered within striking range, severing an arm. The Lurcher
never even registered it.

“I never got to tell you what Mare told me at the end.”

“Will it help us out of this situation?”

Stan smiled. “It’d help you out of any situation.”

“Then I’d best hear it.”

Stan opened his mouth to speak when something heavy landed on his head.
It was a rope.

“Climb!” a voice said.

Bang!

A Lurcher hit the ground. Another was sprayed with buckshot. The gun reloaded and fired again. Jordan and Stan tossed their weapons aside and climbed the rope. They found hidden reserves of energy and climbed one handhold at a time. They collapsed on the upstairs den floor, arms shaking with the effort. Jordan kicked the door shut.

“I never… ever want to see… another barn again,” Stan said between breaths.

A short, but confident figure stood over them. “We have to get going,” she said.

Stan and Jordan shook their heads, gasping for air. Then they paused, sharing a disbelieving look. They looked up at the figure. From their position on the floor she stood like a giant, the gun held with confidence in her hands, a warrior goddess straight out of a Greek epic. Her blonde hair fell in waves past her shoulders, her small face cold and hard as if she’d seen hell and wasn’t all that impressed.

Stan gasped.
“Jessie?”

Jessie sat on the sofa, hands in her lap, staring into space the way she had for the past week. She blinked and looked about the room.

“When he took me upstairs,” Jessie began, “he kept touching me… down there. And whispering in my ear. Saying how much I was going to like it, how he was going to make me feel
like a real woman. My hands started shaking.”

“It’s okay,” Anne said, laying her hand on Jessie’s. “You don’t have to tell us now.”

“I want to. He pushed me on the bed. He spread my legs open and started kissing my thighs. His hair tickled, and I couldn’t scratch. Inside, I cried. And I reached up and brushed away my tears. And then I realised I’d actually done it – not just thought about it, but actually reached up and brushed away my tears – and I was crying!

“I looked around and saw a knife with a serrated blade on the bedside table. He told me he was going to use it on me after… after he was finished. Without thinking, I grabbed it and smashed it on his head. He was shocked – and he screamed at me, saying I was a liar and pretender –
me!
I stood on my feet – amazed I was doing it – but the knife shook in my hand. He saw it and stepped toward me, telling me to hand it over, that he wouldn’t hurt me. He suddenly moved toward me. We struggled, and his hands went around my throat.”

Jessie
’s hands found her own neck. She flinched when she touched it.

“He pressed harder and harder, and I couldn’t breathe. I hit him, but it didn’t make any difference. I still had the knife in my hand and I raised it up to his stomach. His eyes bulged, and he looked down. I pulled the knife out, and put it back in again. I hardly had to push. I kept doing it until his eyes rolled back and he stopped looking at me. His grip grew weak and he just fell on top of me. I crawled out from under him and
stood staring at him. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. But I still held the knife in my hand, in case he woke up. That’s when Anne came in. I dropped the knife and ran to her. I cried and cried and cried.” Jessie’s eyes shimmered, and she turned into Anne’s embracing arms.

“Why did she wake up then?” Jordan asked Anne.

“A traumatic event caused her to become shut in,” Anne said. “It’s only logical that another traumatic event should cause her to wake up.”

“But we’ve had plenty of traumatic events up to now,”
Stan said. “Why this one? Why now?”

“She gradually woke up during those events. After the car crash, Stan noticed she could smile. The barrier must have started breaking from then. Frank was the final straw.”

Jessie straightened up from Anne’s shirt, where she’d left two large wet patches. “Sorry.”