The pressure on his throat increased and he felt spittle froth on his lips as he fought for breath. Mackenzie had him against the white wall, slamming his head repeatedly against it until the white paper began to sport crimson smudges. Bob knew that he was blacking out. In his last moments of consciousness he saw another man dart towards the living room. He too had those same burning red eyes.
Kelly heard the struggles from the hall and got to her feet, suddenly frightened. She screamed as the thing which had once been Peter Brooks entered the room. The living dead creature fixed her in that red stare and advanced towards her. Kelly screamed Bob's name. He could not help her. Already lying dead in the hallway, his lifeless form was jerked savagely about as Mackenzie tore his eyes from their sockets, ignoring the blood and vitreous liquid which splashed onto him.
Kelly was weeping with terror, big salt tears pouring down her cheeks. But, with a final surge of strength, she leapt for the kitchen door, vaulting the coffee table in the process. The Brooks thing lunged after her and caught her arm, raking it with broken nails. The girl screamed again but shook free and flung herself through the open door, forcing it shut behind her. Even with her back pressed against it, she knew she would never keep Brooks out. He punched at the door, denting it.
Tears clouding her eyes, she scanned the kitchen for a means to defend herself. She had a choice to make and she had to make it fast.
To try and make it to the back door or to grab the carving knife from the drawer beside her. Her mind spun. It would not give her an answer and the indecision brought fresh tears.
She heard the angry roar from the other side of the door and, a second later, Brooks charged, crashing into it shoulder first. The impact knocked Kelly across the room where she smashed into a chest of drawers. Dazed, she clambered to her feet, sidestepping the living dead thing's lunge and grabbing for the carving knife.
Screaming, she brought it down in a swatting action. The heavy blade caught Brooks on the point of the shoulder and sliced away a large chunk of his coat. He grinned and Kelly swung the knife again, this time scoring a line across his cheek. The Brooks thing roared and put a hand to the wound, blood pouring through his fingers and he backed off. Sobbing uncontrollably, Kelly edged her way towards the beckoning back door. Brooks stood still, watching her.
Praying, she dived for the door, finding to her horror that it was locked. In the split second it took her to turn the key, Brooks leapt at her. The two of them crashed to the ground, his weight pinning her. The knife skidded away.
Kelly screamed, again and again until the sound seemed to merge into one unending caterwaul of terror.
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.'