Page 7 (1/2)

Red Alert!

Harry flipped quickly through theprostitute’s name, home town and place of interraveside in a small cemetery on the northern outskirts of Newcastle And the Necroscope had moved so quickly that as he seated himself in the shade of a tree close by Pamela Trotter’s si his breath where he’d dragged himself up on to the river bank a hundred miles away

’Pah I believe ht have mentioned my name to you’

Your mother and others, she ca you, Harry - and I’ve been warned off you, too!

Harry nodded, perhaps ruefully ’My reputation has suffered a bit lately, it’s true’

Mine suffered a lot, she chuckled For nearly six years, in fact, ever since I was fourteen and a nice ’uncle’ showed me his little pink sprinkler and told me where it went Actually, I seduced him, for I’d noticed that whenever he was near me he had a hard on But if it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else, because I was just naturally like that We played around a lot until his old lady caught us at it one day, the jealous old bat! I was going bouncy-bouncy on hione and spurted on the carpet I don’t think she’d seen hi time, and she’d certainly never had it like that! Come to think of it, I don’t think he had either Not before me But I liked it all ways It helps when you enjoy your work

Harry was silent for a moment, surprised, even a little taken aback He really didn’t kno to answer her

Didn’t your Ma tell you I was a tart, a trollop, a whore? There was no bitterness in her, not evenlike that,’ he answered, eventually ’Not that I think it reat deal There have to be a hell of a lot of you down there by now!’

She laughed and Harry liked her even ht, nearly eight weeks ago, it caught up with you, right?’ He felt that with her he could get right to it

Her assumed indifference fell away from her at once That wasn’t why it happened, she said I didn’t fetch him on And anyway he didn’t want melike that

’It was just an assumption,’ Harry told her, quickly ’Iback hurtful memories But it’s hard to see how I can track this bloke down if no one is able to tell et his, Harry, she answered And I’ll help you any way I can I just hope I can reh, that’s all

’You won’t know until you try’

Where do you want me to start?

’First show ht you were,’ he said For he kneell enough that the dead retain pictures of themselves as they were in life, and he wanted to try and draw some sort of comparison with Penny Sanderson In short, he wondered if his necromancer quarry followed a pattern

Froot back a picture of a tall, dark-eyed, leggy brunette in a htly loose breasts unsupported under a blue silk blouse, and a shapely backside But there was nothing of character in the picture, her picture, nothing to suggest quality of ht sexual Which didn’t fit with his first impressions

So? Hoas I?

’Very attractive,’ he told her ’But I think you’re selling yourself short’

Often, she agreed, but without her custo Harry was used to in the dead It was the realization of a ti done and finished with, which could never return But she brightened up at once And here a what he’s got in his pants In the front, and in the back-pocket

’Was it always like that, for money?’

And sometiet on now?

Harry was eiven him a stock answer, had obviously heard that question before, often ’Was I prying?’

It’s OK, she answered All oes on in a pro’s mind But suddenly her deadspeak was very cold All men except that one, anyway He doesn’t have to wonder, for he can always find out for himself, afterwards, when they’re dead

And with that the Necroscope was sure she’d give him all she could ’Tell me about it,’ he said

And she did

It was a Friday night and I went to the dance Being freelance,forhis friends round for freebies But the dance was in town and I lived quite a few ht hour taxis are expensive; Cinders needed her coach home

That was OK; there are always a handful of likely lads who’ll buzz a girl houy and if he wasn’t too pushy, rope A ride for a ride, as the saying goes

On this occasion I picked the wrong one: no, not our man, but an armful all the same Once I was in the car his polite, concerned attitude went right out theHe didn’t knohat I was, thought I was just a straight kid but easyand wanted to stop in every layby and back alley I earing expensive clothes and didn’t want them ripped up And anyway I didn’t like him

He said he knew a place just off the motorway, and before I could tell hih In a layby under soot my knee in his soft bits for his trouble! When he could drive again he did, but left me stranded there

There was a service station a quarter-mile up the motorway I went there and had a coffee I wasn’t shaken up or anything, just dehydrated Toothere in this little booth I was joined by a driver That was how I saw hi off his weariness with aof coffee

Don’t ask me what he looked like; the place was three-quarters ehts low to keep the bills down, and there was still a lot of gin in me I spoke to him but I didn’t really look at him, you know? Anyway, he didn’t seem a bad sort and he wasn’t pushy When he finished his coffee and

’Where do you want to go?’ he said His voice was soft, not unfriendly

I told him where I lived and he said he knew it ’Your luck’s in,’ he told o past it on the motorway About five miles from here? There’s a flyoff where I can drop you A couple of hundred yards and you’ll be at your door Can’t take you any closer than that, I’m afraid, because my miles and fuel are monitored Anyway, it’s up to you Maybe you’d feel safer calling a taxi?’

But I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth

We left the cafeteria and went out into the lorry park He was cool and calm, in no hurry I felt perfectly safe with hiht His vehicle was one of these big articulated jobs, which we approached fro car as it flashed by on the ht The lorry had ice-blue panels hite lettering saying: frigis express I re of the ’X’it look like eypress

But at the back of the lorry my driver paused and looked at me, and said: ’I just have to make sure this door is secure’

I stood beside him as he unlocked and slid up this roller door across the full width of the truck A blast of ice-cold air came out, which made me shiver as it turned to a cloud ofin there, but it was dark and I couldn’t see what they were He reached inside with both hands and did so, then looked over his shoulder and said, ’It’s OK’ And I think it was then I realized that I hadn’t seen hio to the cab, and as he started to pull the door down again I turned away frorabbed me from behind One ar over ot chloroforasp all the- or slithering about - on a patch of ice: that’s what it felt like, anyway There was a smell but I couldn’t quite make out what it was I was much too cold; all my senses were numb from the cold And I felt dizzy and nauseous fro and kneas in the back of the truck, slipping and slithering when he applied his brakes or accelerated And of course I also kneas in trouble, in fact dead trouble Whatever et it And then there was a fair chance that he’d kill me I’d seen his truck; I could more or less describe hioner

I propped erator (I suppose that’s what it was: a large et soed myself, blew on my hands, beat my arms about But I eak from the cold and the after-effect of the chloroforth of a kitten

Then, after - oh, I don’t kno long, maybe fifteen o on To this day I don’t knohere ere, for I never did see the outside again The truck stopped; in a little while the door rolled up and it was dark outside; a dark figure cla into the rear of the trailer He pulled the door shut again and put on a dirille in the ceiling And then he ca coat which was all dark-stained leather on the outside and brown fur inside; he took it off as he approached me and threw it down onwith some weird emotion But his voice was just as cold as the place where he planned to have rey, brown and red, hung from rows of hooks And the layer of ice on the floor was frozen beast blood

There there doesn’t have to be any rough stuff,’ I told hi cold though I was I opened my blouse and hitched up my mini to show hi way of his, and I saw that his face was all puffy and bloated, and his eyes winking like little lumps of shiny coal in the swollen red mask of his face ’Just as I say?’ He repeated ood Only just don’t hurt me And you can trust me AfterwardsI won’t say a word’ I lied like hell I wanted to live

Take ’e’

God, there was no soul behind his voice, nothing behind his eyes There was just the stea of his feverish blood I could feel how strong he was, and hoeird and different ’Quickly!’ he said, and his voice was a croak and his gorged face obbling with strain and horrible excitement

I had to do what he told ers wouldn’t obey ot down on one knee and I could see tools glinting in the loops of his wide leather belt One of theasped and turned ht off my back; my blouse, too Then he put the hook in the top of h the plastic belt andit open He ripped open my panties in the same way And all I could do was huddle there as cold as one of the dead aniht: What if he uses that hook onhis clothes off: not his upper clothes, just his pants And I knew this was it But a erous as this could hurt me badly I had to make it as easy for his and stroked my bush of cold hair And God help me, I tried to smile at hi to snow as they carunted, looking atabout on its oith a life of its own ’All for me? All for Johnny? That?’ And then he smiled And he took up another of his tools

This one was like a knife, but it was hollow and had been cut fro about an inch and a half in diaes had been sharpened to razor brightness

’Oh, God!’ I gasped then, for I couldn’t hold er And I clutched at myself and tried to cover my nakedness But , he only laughed There was no ehed anyway

’Yes, cover yourself,’ he gurgled at riirlie For Johnny doesn’t want your ugly little fuckie hole Johnny makes his own holes!’

Hefor me And then and then

’It’s OK’ It was as , broken ’I knohat then You’ve said enough II’ll go on what I have’

Pa out her poor mutilated soul, all of her defiance and resilience crushed and drained from her by the horror of what she’d forced herself to rely! she sobbed He made holes in me! Before I was dead he was intoon ht that when you’re dead someone should still be able to hurt you, Harry

’It’s OK, it’s OK,’ was all Harry could say to co it he kneasn’t, kneouldn’t be until he hiht

She took this froer with her own Get hi’s bastard for me!

’And for myself,’ he told her ’For if I don’t I know he’ll always be there, clinging like slime to the walls ofthis one won’t be enough I , there’s a way you can help , Pamela, in death just as you were in life And what I have inyou would enjoy even , and for a little while she was silent

Then: I think I knohy the dead are afraid of you, Harry, she said, wonderingly And: Is it true that you’re a vampire?

’Yes no!’ he said ’Not like that Not yet, anyway And not here But somewhere else I will be - or may be -one day’

Yes He sensed her nod I think youhuht just then Nothing entirely human, anyway

’But you’ll do it?’

Oh, yes, she answered hirim, emphatic deadspeak nod Who or whatever you are, I’ll do anything you telland whatever it takes to get even Whatever you ask and whenever you ask it Anything

Harry nodded ’So be it,’ he said

For the next thirty-odd hours the Necroscope was busy; not only hi in ency call-in syste infor other things the files Darcy Clarke had h), the Minister had relieved Clarke of all duties and placed him under what amounted to house arrest at Clarke’s own north London flat in Crouch End Second, hehe’d called at E-Branch HQ The espers would know, of course, that soents were to be present