The Darkest Corners

‘I thought you said it was full of screechers?’

‘It is,’ I said, and the sparks flickered behind my eyes. ‘But leave that to me.’

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We ran for the church, Ameena held between us. She stumbled along, keeping pace, but I knew if we let go of her she’d stop and fall.

The screechers were on the move again, thundering through the snow after us. Billy and I dragged Ameena up the stone steps and in through the heavy double doors. We fell inside and I closed the doors again with a slam.

We could hear the screams and the howls of the screechers inside the church. I nudged open the inner door that led through to the top of the aisle. The screams were coming from the little side room behind the pulpit, where I’d led the screechers when they were chasing me down.

‘Wait here,’ I said. Ignoring Billy’s protests, I stepped into the main church and made my way towards the pulpit. A towering statue of Jesus on the cross stood by the entrance to the side room. I spared it just a glance as I strode closer to the open door.

Halfway down the aisle I stopped. ‘Hey!’ I shouted, and my voice bounced back at me from the high ceiling. The screeches within the side room changed in tone. I heard a frantic clattering, and through they came.

They had entered the church mostly human, but now they were mostly beast. Two or three still stood upright, but their backs were bent and their shoulders were stooped, and jagged outcrops of bone tore up through their thickening skin.

Half a dozen more were on all fours, their bodies twisted and buckled, their limbs and necks broadening and stretching almost before my eyes.

There were no lingering hungry glares from any of them this time. They had no reason to hold back. They collided with each other in their hurry to get to me, and in a split second, the fastest and strongest was hurtling along the aisle towards me.

It had been a man, I guessed, although I couldn’t say why. There was something vaguely male about the scraps of humanity it had left, but then that may just have been my imagination.

It bounded like a big cat along the aisle, its glossy black eyes trained on my throat. It wanted to kill me, this thing. It wanted to open my neck, spill my blood across the floor. It wanted me dead.

But I could not die. If I died, he got away with it.

I raised a hand, felt the sparks flash. When I clenched my fist, something inside the screecher went krik. Blood burst on its lips as it let out a pained yelp. The next bound was its last. It slid to a stop at my feet, and it didn’t move again.

My eyes raised to the next screecher. It didn’t hesitate as it closed in for the kill – but neither did I. With a single gesture I hurled it backwards into the others. The sparks crackled like lightning inside my head. My hands moved like a conductor leading an orchestra and, one by one, the screechers fell.

In seconds there was only the echo of their screams around the church, and then there wasn’t even that.

The door behind me opened with a creak. I heard Billy draw in a sharp breath.

‘What… what have you done?’

‘Someone had to,’ I said, not looking round. ‘Someone had to stop them or we’d all have been dead.’

‘But they were people,’ Billy protested.

‘Were. Past tense.’ I turned to face him. He led Ameena in by the arm. ‘And how come you care anyway? You were all “destroy the brain” earlier. What made you start giving a damn?’

He looked me up and down. ‘What made you stop?’

‘Whoa.’ Ameena was staring down at the screecher by my feet. She shrugged free of Billy and took a few tentative steps towards it. ‘It looks dead. Is it dead?’

‘It’s dead.’

‘He killed it,’ Billy said.

Ameena’s eyes met mine. She cocked her head to the side a little. ‘You killed it?’

‘I killed it.’ She kept looking at me. ‘It would’ve killed us,’ I felt compelled to add.

‘Yeah,’ she said at last. ‘I suppose it would at that.’

‘How do you feel now?’ I asked her.

‘This is the church,’ she said, ignoring the question. ‘Where you blew up the donkey.’

Billy frowned. ‘You blew up a donkey? What, like…?’ He formed a pea-shooter shape with his hand, raised it to his mouth and puffed out his cheeks.

‘What? No, I didn’t blow up a donkey,’ I said. ‘I blew a donkey up. As in exploded it.’

Billy lowered his hand. ‘Oh. Right. Why did you do that then?’

‘It wasn’t a real donkey. It was concrete.’

‘Right,’ said Billy. He thought about this. ‘I still come back to “Why did you do that then?”.’

‘Forget it. Doesn’t matter.’ I turned back to Ameena. ‘You should sit down.’

‘I don’t need to sit down,’ she said, then she sat down anyway. ‘I’m… fine. I think.’ She looked at me with hopeful eyes. ‘Am I?’

I gave a nod. ‘He could’ve been lying,’ I said. ‘He was probably lying. He does that. He—

‘He wasn’t lying,’ she said. ‘It was true. Everything he said – it was true. I can see that now. Before I found you fighting Mr Mumbles… there’s nothing. I don’t remember anything. Not properly anyway, just… images, like photos someone’s shown me.’ She shrugged and shook her head. ‘Hell, I don’t even know my last name. But then that’s because I haven’t got one. Because you never gave me one.’

I suddenly felt guilty for that. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it. You were being murdered by a maniac,’ Ameena said. She jumped up and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘That sort of thing can be distracting.’

She gave her arms a shake and kicked out her legs, and with that, the tension seemed to leave her. ‘So,’ she said, cracking her knuckles. ‘I’ve changed my mind on the whole killing-myself thing. Sorry about that. Such a drama queen sometimes.’

‘No problem,’ I said.

‘Good. Now what’s the plan?’

‘I find my dad,’ I said. ‘And then I kill him.’

She nodded slowly. ‘OK, well that’s a plan. That’s definitely a plan.’

‘What about them?’ Billy asked. He pointed back towards the door. ‘What about them out there?’

‘They’re not my problem,’ I said.

‘And what about us?’ Billy asked. ‘Are we not your problem either? Look, I know you’re angry at your dad.’