the front of a hairless head.
His legs cramped, but Kyle couldn’t move as the footage played out. The figure had gone from the screen, but the sounds of its descent, a scrape and grate at the wooden steps, suggested that four sets of long nails scrabbled for purchase.
87
ADAM NEVILL
The microphones picked them up for a few unbearable seconds. Until the noises of the figure’s descent were obscured by a rush of wind through the building, the periphery of which even made the camera shudder. In the tail of the gust, that must have been generated from the summit of the property, came a final sound: the excited shriek of swine.
88
FIVE
west hampstead, London.
12 june 2011. 4 p.m.
Kyle called Dan. Got his voicemail. Tried to tell him about the Clarendon Road footage, but was cut off. He needed hours to recount what he had just seen, not seconds!
Dan called back an hour later; he’d finished the christening but had some last-minute work for Channel Four News that evening about terrorism, and was at Heathrow.
Couldn’t talk. Would call him when he woke the following afternoon.
Kyle called Finger Mouse to tell him the first flash drives were coming across by courier, and that he wanted a sep -
arate DAT recording of the audio tracks in Clarendon Road.
You’ll hear why, mate!
He paced the cluttered floor space of his flat; it didn’t take him long to do a dozen circuits. Smoked Lucky Strikes until his mouth burned and what felt like his last remaining taste buds died. Was queasy with nerves and tiredness, hadn’t eaten properly. He checked the fridge again, but nothing besides an open packet of pasta parcels, three limp spring onions and a pot of yoghurt did anything but turn his stomach over.
Books were picked up and put down. A Woody Allen film 89
ADAM NEVILL
was started and stopped. Dishes were washed, and even dried and put away. The cat was fed again, but didn’t mind. The main window of his flat, overlooking Goldhurst Terrace, was peered through, repeatedly. A bottle of Wild Turkey was uncapped; it made his stomach burn, but he felt better after two glasses. Outside, people came home from evenings out.
The sexy girl with the haircut like Trinity from The Matrix announced herself on the pavement outside with the usual que que que sound of her high-heeled boots. He went to the window and briefly and hotly lusted for her. But even she couldn’t take his mind off the footage.
Had that been a drug addict on the film? Wasted and lanky, hunting through the dark, all dignity gone, the voice shrill and cracked from emaciation and the privations of chronic addiction? Maybe it , he , they had gained access to the building, had concealed themselves among the city’s wealthiest residents. In an empty building. Must have done.
The sound of his and Dan’s voices had roused it from where it had been hiding in some near-fatal narcotic slumber.
He’d once seen two skeletal female drug addicts in Camden, before they cleaned the place up; two girls rummaging through bin bags outside one of the markets at four in the morning; they were upright bones inside clothes they had once worn to nightclubs; their faces had been lumpy with purple boils.
Or perhaps a former member of the cult had been drawn back to the house, harrowed and unable to break their attachment to The Last Gathering after forty years?
Kyle put a Volbeat album on the stereo to stop his head-chatter. Fell onto the sofa. Stared at the ceiling. Rewound his memory again through the dim horrors of the Clarendon 90
LAST DAYS
Road footage. Thought of the terrible stain in the cellar. Fear coiled inside confusion. The flat was warm, but he shivered as if stationed before a persistent draught. Felt like he was about to accelerate vertically into a bad trip, one chilled by paranoia and tense with perceived danger.
The cat joined him on the sofa, kneaded his chest and stomach with its front paws for a few minutes, but couldn’t make Kyle’s chest
His legs cramped, but Kyle couldn’t move as the footage played out. The figure had gone from the screen, but the sounds of its descent, a scrape and grate at the wooden steps, suggested that four sets of long nails scrabbled for purchase.
87
ADAM NEVILL
The microphones picked them up for a few unbearable seconds. Until the noises of the figure’s descent were obscured by a rush of wind through the building, the periphery of which even made the camera shudder. In the tail of the gust, that must have been generated from the summit of the property, came a final sound: the excited shriek of swine.
88
FIVE
west hampstead, London.
12 june 2011. 4 p.m.
Kyle called Dan. Got his voicemail. Tried to tell him about the Clarendon Road footage, but was cut off. He needed hours to recount what he had just seen, not seconds!
Dan called back an hour later; he’d finished the christening but had some last-minute work for Channel Four News that evening about terrorism, and was at Heathrow.
Couldn’t talk. Would call him when he woke the following afternoon.
Kyle called Finger Mouse to tell him the first flash drives were coming across by courier, and that he wanted a sep -
arate DAT recording of the audio tracks in Clarendon Road.
You’ll hear why, mate!
He paced the cluttered floor space of his flat; it didn’t take him long to do a dozen circuits. Smoked Lucky Strikes until his mouth burned and what felt like his last remaining taste buds died. Was queasy with nerves and tiredness, hadn’t eaten properly. He checked the fridge again, but nothing besides an open packet of pasta parcels, three limp spring onions and a pot of yoghurt did anything but turn his stomach over.
Books were picked up and put down. A Woody Allen film 89
ADAM NEVILL
was started and stopped. Dishes were washed, and even dried and put away. The cat was fed again, but didn’t mind. The main window of his flat, overlooking Goldhurst Terrace, was peered through, repeatedly. A bottle of Wild Turkey was uncapped; it made his stomach burn, but he felt better after two glasses. Outside, people came home from evenings out.
The sexy girl with the haircut like Trinity from The Matrix announced herself on the pavement outside with the usual que que que sound of her high-heeled boots. He went to the window and briefly and hotly lusted for her. But even she couldn’t take his mind off the footage.
Had that been a drug addict on the film? Wasted and lanky, hunting through the dark, all dignity gone, the voice shrill and cracked from emaciation and the privations of chronic addiction? Maybe it , he , they had gained access to the building, had concealed themselves among the city’s wealthiest residents. In an empty building. Must have done.
The sound of his and Dan’s voices had roused it from where it had been hiding in some near-fatal narcotic slumber.
He’d once seen two skeletal female drug addicts in Camden, before they cleaned the place up; two girls rummaging through bin bags outside one of the markets at four in the morning; they were upright bones inside clothes they had once worn to nightclubs; their faces had been lumpy with purple boils.
Or perhaps a former member of the cult had been drawn back to the house, harrowed and unable to break their attachment to The Last Gathering after forty years?
Kyle put a Volbeat album on the stereo to stop his head-chatter. Fell onto the sofa. Stared at the ceiling. Rewound his memory again through the dim horrors of the Clarendon 90
LAST DAYS
Road footage. Thought of the terrible stain in the cellar. Fear coiled inside confusion. The flat was warm, but he shivered as if stationed before a persistent draught. Felt like he was about to accelerate vertically into a bad trip, one chilled by paranoia and tense with perceived danger.
The cat joined him on the sofa, kneaded his chest and stomach with its front paws for a few minutes, but couldn’t make Kyle’s chest
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