The palace was filled with tunnels that went down into the dam. Narrow spaces that it seemed impossible Nicholas would be able to fit through in his new form. But he was the man who had appeared before them in a cloud of smoke so it seemed reasonable to believe he could fit through any gap. It certainly didn’t rule it out.
There were more zombies but they were easy to kill now that he no longer thought of them as people. They weren’t his friends or neighbours, they were creatures like the vamps who wanted to kill him. Better he kill them first then.
Three, four, five more zombies and an equal number of staircases. He was moving more quickly now, he couldn’t afford to waste time because he needed to get out of the dam as quickly as possible so that he could get back to Mary and the boys. So that they could get on their boat and start their new life on the river.
Eventually the stairs opened on a long narrow room. The ceiling was twice his height. He guessed it was about half-way down the dam and he seemed to be able to feel the pressure of the water on the other side of the heavy walls. For a moment there was silence.
He led the boys further into the room, slowly now, the only thing moving quickly was the beat of his heart. Something was different about this room. It felt as if he was being watched and he wondered if the boys felt it as well. Something was off, something wasn’t right.
Ben was still surprised enough to jump a step back when the thing fell from the ceiling. It roared loudly enough to shake the walls and he had a momentary vision of the water breaking through and washing them all away. He was surprised to realise that, if it killed the vamps and spared the rest, even if it meant his own death, he might be okay with it.
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE COME” said Nicholas. “WHY DID YOU COME BACK?”
Ben looked up at him, despite the height of the ceiling Nicholas couldn’t stand fully upright. He said nothing.
“THIS ISN’T YOUR FIGHT” he said.
The two boys stood behind him, waiting for a signal from him for what they should do. He was sorely tempted to lay into Nicholas, he was supposed to look after these people and look what had happened. But what was the point; he wouldn’t get the answers he wanted and every second he delayed was more time for the zombies outside to advance on the camp.
Ben raised his crossbow and felt, rather than saw, the boys raise their own weapons.
“ANSWER ME” roared Nicholas.
He answered him with cold wood. Three shots were fired and two of them went directly into the heart. Nicholas, the General, the King, roared anger across the room but didn’t go down. He swiped across them and Ben managed to step back, as did Martin, but Alex was caught by the giant hand that seemed to grow in size as it struck him.
The boy was flung across the room and hit the wall with a sickening moist crack. He hung their for a moment and then slid off. Even in the darkness Ben could see that his nose was broken and several of his teeth hung crookedly from his mouth. But somehow he got up.
They fired again and they reloaded and fired again. Their bullets and arrows pierced the leathery hide of the creature that had once been Nicholas, his brother in-law but never his friend. He roared and cried and the building around them trembled. He tried to fight back but Ben saw that he was dying now, he was weak and desperate.
A final volley of shots brought Nicholas to the ground and in death his body shrank back to its normal size. Ben stepped forwards while Martin tended to his brothers wounds.
“I never like you Nicholas,” he said, standing over the body with his bow aimed at the head. “But I’m sorry it had to end like this.” He pulled the trigger and a final arrow put him out of any misery he was still in.
“How’s he doing?” said Ben turning back to Martin and Alex.
“I’m fine,” said Alex, at least that’s what Ben thought he said. It came out as a series of gasps.
“Take him back,” he said.
“What?” said Martin.
“You heard me,” said Ben. “Take him back to camp, get him fixed up. You can help the others.”
“I’m staying here,” said Alex.
Ben shook his head. Somehow he knew that he had to fight Kirsty alone. It seemed like the only way it was going to work. Two teenage boys weren’t going to be able to help him. “Do it now,” he said.
Martin didn’t argue. He pulled Alex back across the room towards the door. Ben watched them go and then turned to pull the arrow out of Nicholas’s head.
18
The tunnels seemed endless. An age seemed to have passed since he had last seen daylight. It became difficult to keep his nerve, alone in the tunnels, if there had not been so much danger he might have whistled just to hear something other than the water crashing against the other side of the wall. Then that stopped as well and the only thing he could hear was his own feet coming down of the rocky floor.
He might have been miles underground. He had passed the cells they had been kept in the previous day. And he went on.
He couldn’t explain how but he knew he was going the right way. He even had a vague sense of what he would find when he got there, though every time he tried to picture it the image fell to pieces.
There were bats down there. He could hear their occasional squeak in the darkness. There were flies that he had to brush away from his face. The ceiling got lower with each floor he passed and by the time he got to the bottom he was crawling on his hands and knees and wondering if he would have to crawl on his belly next.
But it opened up and he found he could stand without his head brushing uneven rock.
It was huge. A cavern. It was lit by invisible fluorescents in pink and green and white. The walls were more than a hundred metres apart and he couldn’t see where the room ended on the other side. Perhaps it didn’t.
He checked his weapons, counted the arrows in his quiver and went on.
It seemed as if he could see the curve of the earth in the floor. As he walked further into the room new things appeared, statues and structures, furniture and paintings on easels.
“Hello Ben,” said a terribly familiar voice behind him.
He spun around and there she stood. Little Kirsty Lorimer but not so little anymore. Her skin was white and flawless. Her dark hair fell on her exposed shoulders. She wore a red ball gown that she filled in a way no thirteen year old girl should. Ben stepped back and raised his crossbow.
“You’ve come to kill me?” she said. Her voice was like velvet, a seductive voice that should have sounded funny coming from a little girl but didn’t, it sounded scary.
Ben knew that he should have put an arrow through her head then but he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. His head was swimming.
“I’m glad,” she sighed.
“You’re glad?” he said, suddenly aware that he was being hypnotised but unable to resist it. “Why are you glad?”
“I’m lonely Ben,” she said. She shook her head and her silky hair brushed across her shoulders. “I thought Nicholas might be the one for me but he’s dead now, isn’t he?”
Ben nodded and tried not to apologise. He reminded himself that Nicholas had been dead for a long time, the thing he killed was something else. Just like the thing in front of him wasn’t really Kirsty Lorimer. That seemed like a dangerous thought but it was there now and he couldn’t unthink it.
“I suppose it’s only right,” she said. Her lips were full and painted, she ran her tongue across them and Ben saw them glisten.
“He was a monster,” he said. It felt like choking on a piece of dry meat to say the words.
“I suppose I am a monster too?”