Berserk by Tim Lebbon Page A

son, was suddenly someone from his past. It was a lifetime ago that he had left his wife, come out here and found the impossibilities that had driven him mad.
    There’s no corpse wrapped in chains, he thought, gathering the metal loops onto Natasha’s chest and stomach and lifting her, and if even if there were, she wouldn’t be talking to me in my head, a ten-year-dead girl talking in my fucking head! As he started back in the direction of the grave and perimeter fence, he waited for that tingling feeling in his mind, the one that would warn him that the dead girl was about to speak again. But for now there was only silence. Carrying his madness in his arms, Tom walked across the dark moor.
     
    * * *
     
    He knew when he was nearing the pit. He could smell it: the stench of the grave.
    The weight in Tom’s arms was becoming unbearable, but he knew that if he set the girl and chains down now, he may never make it to the car. He would lie here all night, cold, damp from dew, and he may well die of exposure, adding his own fresh corpse to the body count this Plain had already notched over the years. Either that or Mister Wolf would regain consciousness, find him lying here and throttle him. So he walked on, willing his legs to move another step, drawing cool breath into his burning lungs, doing his best to ignore the pains in his arms. His muscles and shoulders ached. If only he could get rid of the chains! Then I could carry her forever. He thought of Jo, his wife from so long ago, sitting in the living room of the cottage they had hired and crying into a clump of tissues, not knowing whom to call or what to say when she did. And that forced him on. So much had changed since he had seen her last. So much, except for his love.
    Should I tell her about Steven? He thought not. He was not sure, not certain . . . but then he felt that touch at his mind again, the caress of Natasha about to speak. And although the girl said nothing, her presence was enough.
    He passed the open grave and the bodies spread out across the heather and grass. Whatever Natasha was thinking this close to her dead family, she kept to herself. Tom was relieved. Her voice was that of a young child, and yet it was so totally wrong that he relished this silent time. Perhaps later she would speak again and he could begin asking questions. But for now he had only one aim in mind: make it back to the cottage. There he would hide the body in the room below the kitchen and try to comfort Jo, come up with a story, a lie. He had lied to his wife before and he had not liked it then. But sometimes lies are uttered in the most benevolent of voices. To protect. To insulate loved ones from an insane truth. Some lies are created for love.
    He walked in a straight line when he could, hoping to reach the fence and then eventually the crawlspace beneath. He stumbled, either on rocks or the twisted stems of ferns or old heathers, and a couple of times he fell, dropping Natasha and landing on his face on the damp ground. Each impact hurt the back of his head more than anything else, and he gingerly explored the wound there, wondering whether he’d done worse damage than he had at first thought. It felt tender and soft, but if he winced against the pain he could press hard enough to feel his skull. There was no give to it, and that at least was a good sign. But he also knew that he had lost of a lot of blood; he could feel it cold across his back and shoulders.
    At least the blood could aid his lie to Jo. A story was already forming in his mind.
    He walked more slowly after the second tumble, partly due to fear of falling again, but mostly from sheer exhaustion. He had excavated a mass grave, fled across a moor with a corpse wrapped in chains, attacked a man trying to kill him, and now he was making his way back through the dark to potential safety. Maybe this would be a standard night’s training for a young soldier, but not for someone in their fifties, someone who had