I raced around her as she reached the lounge door and held up my hands as if to block her way.
“No!” I screamed into her face. “Don’t open the door, please don’t open the door.”
Once again, her distress engulfed me, but this time I was ready for it and let it slip through without burdening myself. I went with her, screeching in her ear all the way to the thick oak front door to our house.
“Don’t let him in! For God’s sake, don’t open the door!”
Then it all became like a slow-motion dream: She’s hesitating, as though she’s heard me, but she couldn’t have, because she’s taking another slow, oh so slow, step closer to the door, and she’s lifting an arm, her hand reaching for the latch, and I’m screaming at her—don’t do it, Andrea, please don’t let him in!—and her wrist is twisting as she says Oliver’s name, and now my wife, my widow, is pulling the door open, stepping back to allow it to swing wide…
And Moker was standing outside on the doorstep.
His scarf no longer hid his face; it was draped around his shoulders, the ends dangling past his waist. He still wore the hat and he held a sharp-pointed knitting needle in one hand.
This must be his method, I realized, for I’ve witnessed it before, in the underground car park. He stuns his intended victim by showing them his ghastly face, paralysing them with fear for a moment or two, giving him just enough time to plunge the knitting needle up into their heart, his other hand covering their mouth to stifle whatever screams might come.
There was darkness behind him, but light from the hall revealed the shocking visage, the deep crater that should have been a face. Swiftly, he moved his hands, one to strike, the other to smother, but Andrea took a step backwards in horror, and before Moker could move forward, she turned and ran through the doorway to the lounge.
I tried to stand in his way, willed myself to be solid, but it was hopeless. He walked right through me and for an instant my soul was filled with a complete blackness. I shuddered.
Then Moker paused, looked back for a second as though he had been made aware of my presence. The moment was all too quickly gone and he turned his grotesque head to seek out his quarry. Andrea tried to shut the lounge door behind her, but Moker held up a hand and pushed back, so viciously that Andrea was sent reeling backwards. When he lumbered after her into the lounge, she was on one knee, struggling to rise, her breath taken in short panic-stricken gasps.
I rushed past Moker, with only a shoulder passing through him, and tried to lift Andrea, always forgetting I could not influence anything in my old world.
“Get out, Andrea!” I yelled at her. “Get out of the house! Don’t let him get near you!”
It was worse than useless—it was a waste of time. I wheeled around and threw myself at Moker again. Once more the total blackness. And once more he stopped, the sharp point of the steel knitting needle pointing upwards. He looked this way and that, his large dark eyes confused. He had felt me, just for a moment. He’d experienced something that was close to my own experience, a sensation of fusion with something else; something alien.
It was quickly gone, because I staggered out on the other side of him, but the delay was enough for Andrea to get to her feet again. She ran round to the back of the sofa, keeping it between herself and the monster who stalked her, forcing herself to look away from him to search for anything that would help her, anything she could use as a weapon.
I did the same, scanning the long room for any object she could use to defend herself. I saw the heavy poker leaning against the side of the stark white fireplace towards the other end of the room. Nothing more warming to the soul than a real fire with real flames, I’d always insisted, and was now glad that I had.
“The poker, Andrea! Get the poker!” Maybe I expected that by shouting at her, the thought itself might be put inside her head. And perhaps it had worked, because she made a sudden dash towards the poker.
She screamed as she ran, and maybe it was partly to rouse our neighbours and not only because of fear. I had never regretted living in a detached house before, but I did on this night. Nobody was near enough to hear.
Moker lumbered after her like a zombie on speed, aware she had no place to go and making peculiar snorting noises. Although there were patio doors at the far end of the room, which led out to our largish but unspectacular garden, they were always kept locked, the key hidden in the drawer of the long sideboard that stood opposite the fireplace. Keys were only in the lock when the doors were in use on summer days or evenings, and the chances now of Andrea getting to the drawer, retrieving the key, and unlocking the doors before Moker got to her were zero.
Thank God she was going for the poker. Only she wasn’t. Instead she ran past the fireplace and made for a Grecian bust mounted on a plinth.
I realized what she was going for and cried out, “No, you’ll never make it, he’s too close!” (Stupidly, I just couldn’t get out of the habit of acting like a normal human being.) Naturally she didn’t hear.
Earlier in the day, Andrea had obviously been on the phone, taking it from its charger, usually kept on an elegant stand in the hall, and had wandered over to the lounge’s big door-windows to look out at the garden while she talked, something she invariably did when she knew the conversation was going to be lengthy, and I saw the receiver precariously balanced on the top edge of the plinth. It was that she was headed for, not the statue, but there was no way she would have time to call the police. Maybe she intended to dodge around Moker, keeping her distance while she dialled.
Moker’s clumsy stride quickened and yet again I plunged into him, anything to slow him down. The blackness swallowed me up, but this time there were vague images filtering through, images of dead people as far as I could tell, dead people whose corpses were badly damaged, great gashes in their flesh, limbs almost severed. This time, despite those awful visions that were trying to resolve themselves, I tried to stay inside the killer rather than pay a fleeting visit; my purpose was to slow his advance with the distraction, give Andrea the chance to escape the corner she’d backed into.
The ruse worked only for a couple of seconds. Moker seemed to shrug me off and went for Andrea again. She threw the phone at him and it struck his head. It must have hurt a little, because he stalled, one beefy hand going to his forehead.
Quickly taking advantage, Andrea ducked under his free outstretched arm and headed back down the room. Unfortunately, Moker made a surprisingly fluid move and tried to grab her shoulder. He overbalanced though, and fell to the floor. But as he did so, that outstretched hand snagged Andrea’s ankle.
She screamed as Moker hauled her back to him, his own body shifting forward as though he intended to smother her with his weight. Andrea squirmed and wriggled, kicked out with her other bare foot, but all was futile against his superior strength and tonnage. He crawled over her legs, pinning both of them to the floor, his left hand gripping the loose folds of the coffee-coloured cardigan that used to belong to me. Now she was whimpering as he snatched at her hair and pulled her head back, bending her spine the wrong way.
He was making those awful gurgling-snuffling sounds as he stretched her, either through excitement or rage, God knows which. Probably both. I thought her back would break as he continued to pull at her, and I frantically but futilely beat his head, my fists merely sinking through long but sparse hair and skull.
“Oh, please, God, help me, help me. Let me make him stop!”
I was pleading to no effect and I knew it. There was nothing else I could do. Occupying his body wouldn’t stop him, even if it confused him for a second or two. His body pinned her lower body to the floor as, one hand cupping her chin, he drew her back further, and further.