Midnight is a Lonely Place

FIGHT

A voice reached her out of the stormy roar of hatred, a woman’s voice. FIGHT ALISON, USE YOUR BRAIN.

Too tired. She was too tired to fight. She was empty. They had sucked her dry.

In the dark the shadowy figures had begun to fade. Their concentration had left her. They were turning elsewhere; questing, hungry. Others must be found, and soon, to feed their lust for hate.

‘We’ll need to get back to the car.’ Jon went back to the window. Anything to get away even for a moment from the torment of the girl on the bed. He took a deep breath and stared out. He found he was shaking. ‘The snow is settling very thickly.’ He glanced back at Pete. ‘Take a look. Do you reckon the roads will still be passable?’

Pete joined him, staring down into the murky light. After a moment he rubbed his eyes. ‘Tell me my eyes are going, mate,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘But is that the sea down there?’

In a low-lying corner of the garden, below the dunes, a line of dark water had appeared. As Jon watched it broadened slightly, strewn with ripples, lapping at the snowy grass. He craned his neck sideways, narrowing his eyes as a fresh flurry of snow hit the window. Beyond the belt of trees he could see the broad, icy spread of the estuary, the mud and dunes smothered in a uniform blanket of snow. The water was lapping higher, free of the ice, creeping round the back of the cottage as the wind drove the sea inland.

He turned to the bed. ‘Patrick. Come and look at this.’

The boy came. He stared out into the garden. ‘Oh shit!’

‘Are we going to be cut off?’

Patrick nodded. ‘Once it’s here there’s nothing to stop it. It must have gone over the sea wall at Redall Point.’

‘Right.’ Pete looked at Jon. ‘That settles it. We all have to leave. Fast. We’ll make a stretcher to carry the kid.’

‘What about Bill?’ Kate looked from Jon to Pete and back.

‘We’ll have to leave him, Kate.’ Jon put his arms around her and held her close. ‘He won’t know, love. Or if he does, he’ll understand. We can’t take him with us.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Our lives are in danger. That water is coming in very fast. We have to get Alison away.’

They built a stretcher using a rake and a broom handle from the log shed, winding sheets around them to make a hammock and padding it with blankets. Pete carried Alison down the stairs and laid her down on it outside the front door. They wrapped two more blankets around her, then Jon and Pete picked her up. ‘It works,’ Jon grinned at Kate.

She was about to close the door when a thought struck her. She hesitated for a moment outside the door of the living room. Bill was there. But so were her notes for the book. She couldn’t leave them to the floods. Bill would understand. Screwing up her courage she pushed open the door and peered round it. Nothing had changed in the room. The smell of vomit was all pervasive. As quickly as she could, she ran to the desk. Picking up her notebook, backup disks and her volume of poetry she rammed them into the inner pockets of her waterproof. One last look round and she turned back towards the door. By the sofa she stopped. ‘’Bye Bill. God bless.’ Her voice sounded strange in the silent room.

Whirling round she ran out, closing the door behind her. Slamming the front door she ran after the others who were already disappearing into the wood. Inside the cottage the silence was suddenly intense.

Slowly the scent of jasmine drifted down the stairs and through the empty rooms.