The Cross

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chloe had reached the first-floor landing on her way downstairs by the time she heard the horrible scream from below and her heart stopped and her legs turned to jelly.

DAD??!!

The cry died soundlessly on her lips as she heard it again. A terrible, tortured wail of agony cut short by a sickening butcher-shop crunch of tempered steel slicing through flesh and bone. Every muscle in Chloe’s body tightened like a bowstring. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. She swayed on her feet. It wasn’t happening. Wasn’t—

She barely even felt herself stagger down the rest of the stairs. She looked in through the open study door … and saw her father lying there on the rug.

Or what remained of him. Bloodied, torn, twitching, dying. The horrible gashed slice that had almost severed his upper torso diagonally from the rest of him. The study wall, the fireplace, the floor, all were sprayed in livid spatters of blood.

And the man standing over her father’s body. The huge sword in his fist streaked with red, the long broad blade dripping with it. For an instant, all she could do was stare. Her gaze dropped to the cross protruding from his coat pocket, then back up to meet his eyes as he slowly turned to look at her and bared his teeth. Chloe stood paralysed with terror.

The man bent and reached out a bloody fist. He grasped her father by the tatters of his shirt collar and hauled him up like a bundle of dead meat. Drew him close, and then, with a suddenness and ferocity that seemed unreal, he opened wide his jagged mouth and sank his teeth into his neck. Ripping. Sucking. Gnawing and slobbering and gargling in his blood.

That was when the shriek finally burst from Chloe’s lips. The man instantly released his grip on her father, and the body slumped down to hit the floor with a wet crunch. Blood bubbled crimson between the man’s bared teeth as he snarled at her.

Then he snatched up the huge, gory sword and charged.

For a millisecond, Chloe stood rooted and staring at the maniac coming at her with the swinging blade. All at once, her senses suddenly came rushing back and she bolted for the stairs. Still clutching the empty air pistol she leaped up towards the first landing. The sword blade whooshed in the narrow stairwell and crashed into the wall just inches behind her, bringing down a white shower of plaster dust. Chloe raced desperately on. She reached the first landing and made it to the bathroom door just ahead of him. She rushed inside and slammed the door behind her. The door was solid oak, like all the doors in the old house, with a proper iron lock and a large key. She fumbled for it with shaking fingers, twisted it, felt the mechanism slide home with a clunk.

Safe, for a short moment. Something crashed into the door with enormous force from the other side. Chloe saw the oak bend and the dust explode from the joints around the frame. She swallowed and stared around her, fighting back the panic and the horror and the grief that made her want to scream. It was only a small, simple bathroom. The only window was a narrow rectangle above the sink. Outside the window, gently waving, silhouetted in a dark blur in the amber glow of the street light outside, was the gnarled old tree that her father refused to have taken down even though its roots were working their way into the drains.

Another massive crash at the door, the thud of tempered steel chopping through wood. Plaster dust and white flakes of paint rained down onto the bathroom tiles. A ripping sound as the killer twisted and wrenched the broad tip of the blade out of the door for another swing. He was going to hack his way through to her, and it wasn’t going to take him long.

Chloe stared at the little window and tried to marshal her thoughts. Was she slim enough to wriggle through, or would she be trapped halfway through with her legs kicking helplessly inside the room, waiting to be sliced off by the maniac’s sword?

She gaped at the empty air pistol in her hand. As a weapon, it was hopelessly ineffective. It threw its tiny lead pellet, smaller than a grape seed, with barely enough energy to penetrate anything more resistant than a floppy card target ten yards away. But it was all she had. She dug feverishly in her jeans pocket, and among the small change and crumpled till receipts her fingers closed on the small, hard shape of a pellet. One or two always got lost in the folds of the cloth, to remain there for weeks or end up rattling around inside the drum of the washing machine. She took it out and held it between trembling fingertips.

Bang. The sword buried itself in the door. Splinters flew. The tip of the bright blade poked through the wood for an instant, then withdrew for another attack. It wouldn’t hold him back much longer.

Chloe checked the pistol’s CO² tank. Still a good charge of gas. Her fingers were shaking so badly she could barely open the tiny breech and slide the pellet into place.

I’m going to die.

She fluttered the pistol’s bolt shut.

The sword chopped through the wood again with a rending crack as the planks split apart.

Chloe raised the pistol and stood braced with her back to the sink. She slid off the safety catch. Hovered her fingertip over the sensitive electronic trigger, frightened of releasing the shot too soon. It was the only one she’d have a chance to fire before he got to her.

With a roar, the madman was through the door, kicking the remains of the planking to pieces with a heavy boot and charging into the bathroom. He seemed to tower up to the ceiling. His eyes were rolling white in a spattered mask of her father’s blood. Both fists clenched the handle of the sword. He was on her before she could react. The sword flashed up and then came hissing down.

Chloe sidestepped the strike by an inch and the blade crashed into the rim of the sink, shattering the ceramic bowl in half. For an instant, carried forward by the momentum of the brutal blow, the man was off balance. Chloe staggered away from him, raised the pistol again and touched off the trigger without time to aim.

The recoilless spit of the air gun was lost in the sound of the man’s scream, and she knew she’d hit him where she wanted. He reeled backwards. The sword spun out of his fingers and fell among the debris of the sink as he clapped both hands to his left eye.

Chloe hurled the pistol in his face and frantically clambered up onto the edge of the bathtub. She punched open the window and launched herself towards the gap with a fervent prayer that she’d make it all the way through. She kicked and scrabbled and gasped with pain as part of the window catch dug into her flesh. Her fingers reached out into the cold darkness and touched damp wood. A branch: her fist closed on it. She used it to haul herself bodily through the narrow window, and then her knees were hitting the hard edge of the outside sill and her legs were dropping as all her weight hung from her hands. The branch was slippery. It tore out of her grip and she cried out as she fell.

A raking, whipping, tearing slide down through the cold bare branches, an instant of falling free, and she was on the ground with a hard thump, rolling dazedly on her back for an instant and whimpering in pain before she gathered her wits.

If anything was broken, it didn’t matter as long as she could run. She sprang to her feet and took off without looking back up at the window. In the moonless night she could barely see where she was going as she raced across her father’s back garden and half-vaulted, half-tumbled over the fence and into the little lane that led towards the main street.

She kept on running, blinded by pain and terror, screaming her lungs raw. Objects lost their meaning. She no longer knew where she was. Bright lights dazzled her. A loud blaring wail filled her ears.

Then the screech of tyres on the road, and Chloe knew nothing more.