Raven Revivals Page 18

  “Please, don't do that -”

  “Tough. You know what you have to do.”

  “Wait,” Anna continues, sliding the bolt across and opening the door, “can't we -”

  Her voice trails off as she realizes that there's no-one in the corridor. Leaning out, she looks both ways, but all she sees is darkness. It's as if Ruth Havershot's ghost simply vanished into thin air, which – to be fair – is something that ghosts are known to do. Wide awake and trying not to panic, Anna hurries back to Scott's room, while constantly checking over her shoulder just in case Ruth shows up again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Come on, Faraday, you have to have left something useful!”

  Going through the books left behind by Faraday, Sam tries not to panic, even though she's becoming increasingly desperate. Outside the cottage, the first rays of morning sun are starting to show on the horizon, which means that another day is about to begin. For the past few hours, Sam has been going through every book and every piece of paper that she found in Faraday's trunk, but so far she's found everything but the information she's looking for. Faraday left meticulous notes on every aspect of the cemetery's organization, but there's one thing he didn't mention at all:

  How to recapture the Devil if he happened to escape.

  “Fat lot of good you are,” Sam finally blurts out, pushing the book away with such force that it slides across the kitchen table and falls to the floor. Leaning back, Sam looks up at the ceiling for a moment as she tries to clear her mind and come up with another idea. Thousands of ideas are swarming through her head, jostling for position, but none of them seem to offer any genuine hope. Finally, they all seem to merge together and form a huge white wall of nothingness, and for the second time in her life she feels completely helpless.

  The first time was when she realized she was pregnant with Henry.

  Suddenly she heads someone knocking at the door.

  Looking across the room, she spots a familiar figure smiling tentatively through the glass.

  “Anna?” she mutters, getting to her feet and hurrying over to unlock the door and pull it open. “What are you doing here? Why did you knock?”

  “I don't live here anymore, remember?” Anna replies, stepping inside. “And anyway, I'm only here to pick up some stuff I left behind.”

  “At five in the morning?”

  “I couldn't sleep.”

  “Well...” Sam pauses, feeling strangely awkward. “Go ahead. I didn't realize you'd left anything here.”

  “I'm living with my new boyfriend for a while,” Anna explains. “His name's Scott, he's really cool and -”

  “Great.”

  “I think you'd like him.”

  “I'm sure I would.”

  “I don't quite know how serious things are, though. I mean, I don't mind if they get serious pretty fast, but everything's moving like crazy and -”

  “I really don't have time to listen to this,” Sam replies.

  “But -”

  “I'm sure it's all very important to you,” Sam adds, “but I've got more important things to worry about. I've got something of a situation here.”

  “So how are things going?” Anna asks, heading through to the bedroom they used to share. She reaches under her bed and pulls out a small suitcase. “Anything to report?”

  “The Devil broke out of the crypt,” Sam replies, “and now he's loose somewhere in Rippon but I don't know where.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I'm working on a plan.”

  “So you're going to recapture him, right?” Anna asks. “I mean, that's your job, isn't it?”

  “My job was to not let him get out in the first place. Now... I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do. Guarding the Devil is one thing, but hunting him down is another.”

  “You've got no choice,” Anna replies. “I mean, if you're the one who let him out -”

  “Fine,” Sam mutters, “I get it, it's my fault.”

  “I didn't mean it like that, just...” Anna pauses. “I can come back and help you. I'll stay and -”

  “Don't worry,” Sam replies, “there's nothing you can do.”

  “But -”

  “Honestly, there's nothing,” she continues. “No offense, but I need specialist help right now. I need someone who actually knows what the hell is happening around here.”

  “So I'm no use anymore?”

  “I don't have time for this,” Sam replies. “I need to keep going through these books. Drawing the Devil out into the open should be the easy part. The hard part is working out what to do with him once I can see the whites of his eyes. I mean, somehow I don't think I can just tie a rope around his neck and haul him back here.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  Sam shrugs.

  “And if you don't come up with anything?”

  “Then the Devil will be free to run around,” Sam continues, “and although I don't know exactly what he'd get up to, something tells me it wouldn't be too good. I mean, the Devil is the Devil, right?”

  “If there's anything I can do -”

  “There isn't.”

  “But if -”

  “I need to get back to work,” Sam tells her, looking toward the books. “I've been through them over and over, but I'm going to start from scratch. Somewhere in one of those books, there has to be something I can use. There's no way Faraday would have just left a load of completely useless books behind for me to go through.”

  “I could help look at them,” Anna replies.

  “I work better alone.”

  “Okay. Fine.” Grabbing her suitcase, Anna heads to the door before stopping and looking back at Sam. “Is this because of what I said to you before?”

  “No, it -”

  “I was angry,” she continues. “That stuff about Henry... I really don't think you're a bad person just because you had a kid and gave him away.”

  “That's all done with now,” Sam replies. “Please, Anna, I just need to get on with what I'm doing here. What you think of me or don't think of me... It's not really too important in the grand scheme of things, is it?”

  Anna opens her mouth to reply, but finally she realizes that she has nothing left to say.

  “Call me,” she tells Sam. “If you need anything, just -”

  “I think I'll be too busy.”

  “At least let me know how it goes.”

  “If the world is consumed by fire, you'll know it's gone badly,” Sam replies. “And if everything continues more or less as normal, you'll know I managed to pull a miracle out of my ass.”

  “I'll come by again soon,” Anna tells her, as she steps back outside. “Just to see how you're doing, okay?”

  “Thanks,” Sam replies, heading across the room, “but there's no need. Like you said the other day, you've got your own life now, and I work better alone. I've always been that kind of person. It's best if you just leave me alone to get on with things.”

  With that, she pushes the door shut and makes her way back to the desk. After reorganizing the books for a moment, she glances back at the door and sees that Anna has left.

  “Okay,” she mutters as she takes a seat and places the first of Faraday's books in front of her. “Somewhere, there has to be something I can use. There's no way he'd have left me completely defenseless.”

  She opens the book and starts reading it from the very beginning. Every word, every page... Convinced that there has to be something in the text that will help her come up with a solution, she keeps working for a couple of hours, ignoring the breaking dawn outside and losing herself completely in the notes that Faraday left behind. She only takes a break every half hour or so to make another cup of tea and stare out at the cemetery, her mind still spinning with possibilities as she realizes that the new day has finally arrived, which means time is running out.

  And then, from somewhere in the distance, she hears a scream.

  ***

  “The delivery woman fou
nd him,” mutters a voice in the crowd as Sam pushes her way through to the front. “She was bringing milk, and... It's so horrible!”

  “Nothing like this has ever happened in Rippon,” says another voice. “What's the world coming to?”

  “Let me through,” Sam hisses, pushing with more force until finally she's spat out the front of the crowd and finds herself staring at the cafe, where a couple of police officers are already putting tape over the doorway.

  “Everyone stand back, please,” one of the officers calls out. “There's really nothing to see or do here.”

  “What's wrong?” Sam asks, hurrying toward the door. “What happened?”

  “Hold on there,” the officer replies, putting his hands out to stop her. “This is a crime scene.”

  “Let me through,” she hisses, trying to dodge her way past him. “I need to see.”

  “I'm afraid -”

  Before he can finish, Sam ducks under his outstretched arm and slips into the cafe. She makes her way past several officers who have gathered by the counter, but before she can get too far she feels a couple of hands on her shoulders and she's pulled back.

  “I'm going to have to ask you to leave immediately,” the officer says firmly.

  “But -”

  She stops suddenly as she spots a stretcher being carried out from the back of the cafe. There's a sheet over whatever remains have been found, but blood is already soaking through the fabric.

  “Who's that?” Sam asks, her face turning white with shock.

  “That's Mr. Jonathan Hale,” the officer replies, “the owner of this establishment. And now, if you'd -”

  Suddenly one of the stretcher-bearers stumbles; although he manages to stay upright, he accidentally tilts the stretcher enough that the lower half of a dismembered human arm falls out from under the fabric and lands on the cafe floor, splatting blood across the tiles in the process. Sam immediately recognizes the arm: it's the same one that served her drinks and food so many times.

  “Clear that up,” the officer hisses to one of his colleagues as he leads Sam back out of the cafe to join the gathered crowd. “Christ, this is a crime scene, you can't go around dropping bits of the body everywhere!”

  “What happened?” Sam asks, turning to the officer. “Who killed him?”

  “The Mayor's office will issue a statement in due course,” he replies, as behind him the stretcher is carried toward a waiting ambulance. “There's no point hanging around here, no-one's going to be making any announcements this morning.” He turns to the rest of the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to have to ask you again to please move back. This is a major crime scene and we need to have full access. You'll be impeding the investigation if you don't clear the area immediately!”

  Staring at the stretcher as it's loaded into the back of the ambulance, Sam feels a slow, tightening sensation in her chest as she realizes that the Devil has claimed his first victim in Rippon, which in turn means that he must be getting stronger. And the stronger he gets, the faster he'll be able to break free of the town and head out into the rest of the world.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “You've got your own life now,” Anna mutters bitterly as she pushes the gate open and heads toward the Havershots' house, “and I work better alone. I've always been that kind of person. It's best if you just leave me alone to get on with things.”

  Stopping by the door, she thinks back to the tone of voice Sam used when she said those words.

  “Fine,” she whispers to herself, “if you want to be like that, be -”

  Before she can push the door open, she hears a brief bumping sound nearby. Turning to look over at the shed, she sees that the door is hanging open, with the lock having seemingly been ripped off. As she stares, she hears another banging sound from inside, as if something is making its way through the boxes that Mr. Havershot stores on the benches.

  “He's not going to be happy,” Anna tells herself, “not if more badgers -”

  She's interrupted by the sound of something metal being knocked to the ground inside the shed. Sighing, she heads over to the door and peers inside, but it's too dark to really see anything. Finally, as her eyes adjust to the gloom, she spots a shape at the far end, partially hidden by one of the benches. It's not possible to make out any details, and it certainly seems to be larger than a badger, but then again Anna has never seen a badger up close before.

  “Hey!” she calls out. “This is a badger-free zone! Get out of here!”

  The shape scurries behind the bench, but Anna grabs a spade from nearby and heads across the shed, determined to force the animal out.

  “Come on,” she hisses, pushing the spade behind the bench in an attempt to make the badger leave, “I've had a pretty rubbish morning and you're not helping. If you think you can just run amok in here and cause all this damage, you've got another thing coming, okay? You've picked the wrong former zombie to mess with.”

  As she continues her efforts to dislodge the creature, she realizes that it has started to hiss.

  “You're really pissing me off now,” she continues, “you -”

  Suddenly the shed door swings shut with surprising force, plunging the cramped space into darkness.

  “Great,” Sam sighs, “you -”

  With no warning, the spade is suddenly pulled from her grip, and she hears it being tossed down onto the floor.

  “Seriously?” she asks, shocked by the creature's force. “Okay, this has gone on long enough. I'm going to go and get some back-up.”

  She tries to feel her way over to the door, but as she puts her arms out in front of her, she suddenly feels something straight ahead. Her hands run across the surface of the object as she tries to work out what it is, but slowly she starts to realize that it's tall, and more or less the same shape as a person.

  “Are...” She runs her hands across the shoulders, feeling what seems to be a patch of burned and peeling skin. As realization hits her, she takes a step back. She tells herself that she's wrong, that she's imagining the whole thing, but deep down in the back of her mind she knows that it's real. “Are you... Are...”

  From the darkness straight in front of her, she hears a faint hissing sound, and after a moment the hiss resolves itself into a low, guttural growl. Seconds later, two dark red lights appear, blinking as they stare straight at her. Each eye contains at its center a narrow black slit, and that slit seems to be constantly in flux, as if it's struggling to find enough light in the darkness. One thing is certain, however: the eyes are fixed resolutely and absolutely on Anna, as if the creature has spotted its prey and is now waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

  “What...”

  Anna takes another step back.

  “Okay,” she continues, her mind spinning as she tries to work out if there's another exit from the shed. “Whatever you are, let's just call it quits, okay? It's a draw! Maybe even a slight victory to you. Just let me go, please. I swear, I won't even tell anyone you're in here...”

  The eyes moves closer, and at the same time she hears footsteps moving toward her across the shed's wooden floor.

  “Whatever you want,” Anna continues, trying to stay calm, “just tell me. I wasn't trying to hurt you, I swear! I was just... I thought you were a badger... That's all I was doing, I...”

  The creature lets out another, louder hiss as Anna backs against the wall.

  “Please,” she whimpers, as the eyes come closer, “don't -”

  Outside the shed, a raven lands on the nearby fence and stares across the garden for a moment. Seconds later, from inside the shed, there's a brief, muffled scream followed by a loud thud that shakes the entire structure. The raven turns to look over at the door, but all that comes from within now is the faint sound of a body being torn apart.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “This is the darkest day in Rippon's history,” Mayor Simpkin mutters as he sorts through the papers on his desk. “I've lived here my whole life and nothing li
ke this has ever happened before.”

  “The police are here,” Sam points out.

  “A man is ripped apart and partially eaten in his own place of business? Why, yes, I suppose that's something the police might notice.”

  “But I mean...” She pauses. “The police. From out of town. Not Rippon police, so... How much do they know about this place?”

  “Know?” He pauses, as if the idea has barely crossed his mind until now. “They know that a man has been brutally murdered. Don't you think that's enough? We've always dealt with things internally here in Rippon. We had our own police officer, our own doctor, our own everything, but we're not completely insulated from the outside world. When something like this happens, it's bigger than anything we've ever faced before. I couldn't stop them coming, and I can't stop them raking over the cafe and running their investigation. I'm the Mayor, not some kind of king.”

  “So they're going to start poking around,” Sam points out. “Outsiders are going to be asking questions. They're going to notice that things around here are a little weird.”

  “I can deal with them,” he replies, taking a seat at his desk. “I'll... I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but I'll find a way to take the heat off the situation. They already seem to think that Hale was killed by some kind of wild animal, so hopefully they'll stick to that idea. If we're lucky, they'll pin the blame on a wolf or a bear, something like that.” He pauses for a moment. “They can't know the truth.”

  “Do you know the truth?” Sam asks.

  He glances at her with fear in his eyes.

  “What do you know?” she asks. “Mayor Winters seemed to know all about the cemetery, but everyone else in Rippon seems pretty clueless. Then again, sometimes I get these little hints from people that maybe they know something's up. There's a kind of hush in this town. When ordinary people come to the cemetery to visit a grave, I can see the look in their eyes. It's as if they know something's going on, but they're too scared to ask.”

  “When I took over from Mayor Winters,” he replies, evidently struggling to stay calm, “I was presented with a file. It's the same file that every Mayor has been given on his first day in office. It details... certain elements of the situation that we're facing. The document serves as a kind of warning for whoever holds this office. It doesn't explain everything, but it joins a few dots together. The cemetery, for example, and what's being held there.”