Kristin (9 page)

Fourteen

The emergency parliamentary session had been
called for by the Prime Minister for nine-thirty on the morning of the
fifteenth of February, ignoring normal procedure in neglecting to consult his own
ministers, and protocol, in failing to inform either the leader of the
opposition or his shadow cabinet.

The Prime Minister’s
secretary, Nicola Dufferin, sat down at her desk and switched on her computer.
She took a sip of her tea, opened the manila folder, took out the Prime
Minister’s hand-written notes and began to type them up. But no sooner had she
started than she was compelled to stop.

She removed her glasses and
reread the leader’s words. Then she read them again and stared at the heavy,
closed door to the Prime Minister’s office. What he had penned —
scrawled, was not a motion to put before the house, but an edict of horrific
nature. Many in government had fallen under the degenerative spell of the
siren, she knew this — weak men and women.
But the Prime Minister
? He’d appeared
unaffected.

Dufferin had formulated her
own theory: the greater the intelligence of the individual, the less
susceptible they’d been to the effect of the siren. After the ear-splitting
tone she’d been momentarily debilitated. Staff in neighbouring offices had
seemed confused, agitated, but had recovered in an hour or so. Others, including
several senior ministers, had undergone permanent distortion of their
personality and were now unapproachable. They’d become remote, withdrawn,
vindictive.

A large screen had been
hastily erected in the House of Commons in time for the chilling interview with
the enigma, Kristin. After the violent, incomprehensible death of presenter
Greta Johansson, which Dufferin struggled to ascribe to the actions of the
girl, after the peculiar flash of white light, ministers and backbenchers had
laughed, cheered, punched the air. When she’d gone online later, Dufferin had
discovered evidence of similar patterns of behaviour emerging from political
administrations across the world.

The brilliant light from
the girl’s eyes had had a profound, far-reaching effect on the people Dufferin
dealt closely with, people she’d worked alongside for fifteen years or more,
people she knew and trusted unreservedly. She was beginning to feel isolated, unsafe.

She turned her attention
back to the notes and made a decision. Gathering the sheets together and
slipping them back into the folder she stood, walked slowly to the panelled
door and opened it without knocking.

Prime Minister David
Glenister sat hunched over the mahogany desk, burning a photograph of his
children he’d removed from its silver frame. He watched, casually, as the image
of the beaming faces scorched and faded, until the last of the celluloid melted
away, then dropped the remains of the picture onto the plush, red carpet carpet
and glanced up at her.‘Nicola?’

Nicola.
His tone was perfunctory, as if preceding a request for a photocopy,
and yet she’d just seen him commit an unintelligible act of destruction, had
stood over him as he’d wilfully cremated a picture of the children he adored
more than life itself.

She inhaled sharply and
tossed the folder onto the desk. ‘I can’t type these up, David, I’m sorry.’

He raised his eyebrows.
‘Can’t, or
won
’
t
, Nicola?’

She hesitated. ‘Won’t.’

‘I see. May I ask why not?’
he frowned, stamping the ashes out.

She gulped. He was a decent
man but he’d always been intimidating and the siren had transformed him into a
monster. ‘Because they haven’t been written by ... ’

‘
Yes
?’

‘By a person ... of sane
mind.’

‘Who’s running this
shit-hole of a country, Nicola, you or me?’

‘You never agreed with
capital punishment, you always described it as legal murder.’

‘I don’t have a choice any
more, it’s entirely out of my hands.’

‘
No
choice
? Of course you have a choice, if you
can’t choose, who can?’

‘She’s in my head now,
tells me what to do.’

‘And the bitch told you to
do
this
?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened to the man
I’ve known all these years, the good man? Where is David Glenister?’

‘Gone.’ He undid the cuff
of his left shirt sleeve, rolled it up to the elbow and began to carve a name
into the flesh of his forearm with a pewter letter opener. With horror, she
made out the inverted first letter — “K”, as the premier’s blood trickled
onto the leather surface of the desk.

He looked up at her and
smiled. ‘Why don’t you undress now, Nicola — show me your lovely breasts,
your gaping sex?’

She shuddered, stepping
backwards.

‘We should fuck, Nicola,
here on this desk, right now. You should take my bad seed deep inside you. It
might bring me a new child, to replace the ones I’ve lost forever.’

‘ ... Please, David ...
please
,
please
,
please
...
say you haven’t hurt them?’ she sniffed.

‘Hurt whom?’

‘Your children.’

‘Oh, they’re dead. So is my
wife, I killed them all last night, strangled them with a bath towel.’

She let out a squeal of
anguish and backed towards the door.

‘I bathed the boys, then
finished them off. They seemed surprised, I can’t understand why. That’s why I
burned their photograph — not much point in having a picture of my dead
children on the desk, is there? My wife was in the kitchen preparing a meal for
us when I struck. Her death was intriguing, prolonged. She put up quite a
fight. Afterwards, I piled their bodies and urinated on them.’

Dufferin stumbled slowly
backwards through the open door, her cheeks wet. ‘ ... If you’re lost ... then
our fate is sealed!’ She turned and ran, took the elevator to the basement car
park, clambered behind the wheel of her black BMW and raced from the building,
from the madness of London.

Two hours later she pulled
into the gravel driveway of her pretty cottage two miles north of Royal
Tunbridge Wells, her right foot cramped, humming. She was still shaking as she
ascended the narrow, stone stairs.

In the bedroom, she phoned
her husband in Reading, lay down on the king-sized bed and cried herself to
sleep.

At nine twenty-five the following morning,
the Prime Minister loosened his tie and entered the House of Commons, flanked
on the left by Chancellor Lord Burbridge and on the right by his deputy,
Barbara de Jenkin. He’d given neither a reason for the session, nor revealed
the contents of his speech and they accompanied him uneasily as he strode to
the right hand side of the house and took his position in the centre of the
front-most, turquoise leather bench. Seated adjacently, Nigel McKenna, leader
of the opposition, acknowledged him in cursory fashion.

At the end of the room
Speaker Douglas Ormerod lowered his bulky frame into the broad chair upholstered
in the same distinctive hide and called for order. His eyes roamed the assembly
suspiciously for a while before settling on the premier. ‘Prime Minister ... ?’

‘Mr Speaker,’ he responded,
standing. Memories of the previous night rushed into his twisted mind —
startled faces ... choking ... vomiting ... flailing hands ... the sound of his
own laughter ... bodies in the water ... bodies on the floor ... death ... loss
... terrible loss. He winced slightly and pulled himself together.

‘Much has changed since we
last convened. Since the siren, the country, the world as we know it has
altered and is, I believe, a more enlightened place in which to live. It is
quite clear now that mankind has been misled for many centuries in following
the teachings of Jesus Christ.’ He stopped, biting his lip.

‘I’m sure the house will
agree that the television coverage of the death of the presenter Greta
Johansson was intriguing viewing, and that the transferred philosophy, the will
of Kristin’s mind has clearly shown the path humanity must take in order to
survive. I murdered my family, my lovely wife and two young sons last night,
not because I’m mad, or have lost my integrity, but because I can now see that
love is wrong. I’m absolutely certain that it was the right thing to do.’

Wails rang out, but around
him, and on the other side of the house and in the speaker’s chair, heads
nodded in solemn approval.

‘I won’t go back to my
home. Their bodies will decompose in time, rot away to nothing, and I will move
on with my life in a new world, a better world.’

‘Hear, hear!’ The heads
nodded.

Jennifer Styles, MP for
Edmonton, stood. ‘This morning, on my way here, I stopped by the Lockwood
Reservoir. I undid the belt on her seat and threw my baby daughter in. It’s
funny, but her expression, her helpless splashing just ... made me feel good,
empowered. Afterwards, in the car, I just felt so happy,
so liberated
.’

On the other side a
middle-aged, lady backbencher stood abruptly. ‘You murderous bitch!’

‘May God have mercy on your
soul,’ Lord Burbridge muttered.

‘ORDER! ORDER!’ commanded
Ormerod.

Two male colleagues
restrained the woman, pulling her back down to the bench but the anger, the
recrimination grew. Ormerod started to lose control. ‘ORDER! ORDER IN THE
HOUSE! IF YOU DO NOT EXERCISE DECORUM I WILL END THIS SESSION, AND IT WILL NOT
BE RECONVENED!’

The tumult waned.

‘ … Prime Minister ?’

‘Mr Speaker. I propose to
introduce a law that all churches, of all denominations, be closed forthwith
and that Christian worship, all worship other than the worship of Kristin, in
public or otherwise, be prohibited. This law is to take immediate effect. The
penalty for transgression of the law shall be summary execution.’

Glenister’s proclamation
generated uproar. A glass struck his left shoulder, hurled from across the
house. Two of his backbenchers clambered over the seats to get at him, but they
were beaten back by members of his cabinet. A woman grabbed his hair and pulled
hard, screaming at him. He spun and caught her in the face with an open hand,
sending her flying into the benches. But many celebrated the leader’s words,
and sheets of paper rained down like confetti.

Behind him, John Birch, a
lifelong friend, got to his feet and shouted above the din. ‘DAVID, HAVE YOU
LOST YOUR MIND TOO?’

Glenister barely moved,
‘Sit down, John!’

‘NO, I WILL NOT SIT DOWN!’

‘ORDER!’ Ormerod decreed.

‘This is an open forum in
which I can express my views, that is its purpose!’

‘And you’ve expressed them!
Now sit down and shut up!’

‘Mr Birch, you must request
permission to speak!’ he was reminded.

‘Permission, are you
joking? It’s appalling ... draconian! What sort of society do you want us to
live in, David? Think what you’re doing man ... think!’

‘MR
BIRCH!’

‘How on God’s Earth could
you do it, David ... murder them, your own family ... Stephanie, Oliver, Luke?
How could you kill them in cold blood?
Why
,
David
,
tell me why
...
because they hadn
’
t lost their minds to this resident evil
,
like you have
?
Security ... arrest the premier, he is a murderer!’

Glenister twisted and
looked at him with cynicism. ‘It’s not God’s Earth any more, is it, John? Keep
him quiet!’

On his word, two security
officers bared down upon John Birch. They held his hair and rammed his head
into the varnished wood of the bench in front again and again, until his skull
cracked from the right eye socket upwards, and left him to die.

Ormerod swallowed hard and
turned his attention back to proceedings. ‘Mr McKenna ... ?’

The leader of the
opposition rose. ‘Mr Speaker! I concur with the honourable gentleman!’

‘Very well! All those in
favour of the new law?’

The crop of raised hands
was dense, the support almost total.

‘All those against the new
law?’

The middle-aged lady
backbencher lifted her arm. So did George Wyndham, the Shadow Minister for Home
Affairs. Others to disapprove included Carol Norman, Glenister’s Minister for
Defence, and Lord Burbridge, who’d sat at his Prime Minister’s side throughout,
a static figure. ‘I will not recognize this law!’ he exclaimed, standing.

‘The ayes have it!’ Ormerod
confirmed. ‘This session is over!’

Glenister stared at his
chancellor with disgust and wagged over the security officers. ‘All those who
voted against the prohibition of Christianity,’ he told them. ‘Take them
outside and slit their throats ... bleed them like pigs.’

Fifteen

Kristin lifted heavy lids to eyes that had
become the windows to a tormented soul. She tried to raise her hands to wipe
them clean of congestion but was unable to move —
she’d been trussed-up in some type of
restraining vest
. The white garment was made of an uncomfortable, abrasive
fabric whose over long sleeves bound her arms tightly to her torso. A wide band
of a different kind of material, like the seat belt in Thom’s car, lashed her
upper body to the back of a hard, steel chair, cutting painfully into her skin
beneath her thin clothing. An identical belt strapped her legs securely. The
seat was bolted to a non-slip floor in the centre of an icy cold, white-tiled
room measuring around thirty feet square. Most of the wall facing her was taken
up by a large, sparklingly clean, mirrored window. Above the glass screen a
spotlight was mounted, and its dazzling beam was trained upon her, making her
squint. The air stank of disinfectant.
Why was she here
?
Why was she being treated like a dangerous
criminal
?
Where was Thom
?

The handleless door beeped,
rattled and opened. Two armed police officers walked into the room. They were
followed by a short, bald-headed man wearing round, blue-tinted glasses. The
officers passed behind her and took up position in opposite corners, whilst the
bald-headed man pushed the door shut. She heard the sound of it locking. He
took two paces forward, stared intently and began to circle her. When he’d
moved behind her, reached her blind spot, she became terrified. Perhaps he had
a hypodermic hidden in the pocket of his crisply laundered, white jacket, which
he would plunge into her neck? Or a knife? Or a gun?
Maybe he would blow her brains out
?

The soles of the man’s
shoes adhered to the black, newly cleaned, rubberized surface with each step,
making a tacky sound. Her tension grew.
Had they just washed the blood of his last victim
from the floor
?

He came back into view,
stopped directly in front of her and smiled disingenuously, his lenses glinting
ominously in the powerful light. ‘Your name is Kristin, so they tell me?’ he
said.

She was too confused, too
afraid, to speak at first.

‘My name is Hassin Baabda.
I’m a clinical psychiatrist, I work for the police force.’

‘ ... Where am I?’ she
asked eventually, her throat dry with fear.

‘Scotland Yard.’

‘Why am I here, what do you
want?’

He started another circuit
of the gleaming chair in silence.

‘Where’s Thom?’ she asked.

‘Tell me, Kristin, do you recall
anything of the happenings earlier today?’

‘ ...
Happenings
?’

‘At the flat you share,
with Thom?’

‘Where’s Thom? Why have you
put me in this fucking thing?’

‘Do you remember, someone
came to the flat to speak to you? They asked you questions.’

She struggled frantically,
trying to loosen the restraints.

‘They are quite secure, and
exceptionally strong — could hold down a bull elephant.’

‘They’re hurting me, undo
them!’

‘I’m afraid I can’t do
that, not at the moment.’

She wrenched her slight
frame against the straps in three, progressively more forceful thrusts. ‘What
do you think I am, an animal? Let me go!’

Baabda dragged up an orange
plastic chair and sat down opposite her. He looked beyond her aberrant, jet
eyes into her mind and didn’t like what he saw. Never before had he detected
such a void.
The
vacuum was total.
And for the first time in a long
,
eminent career
,
the psychiatrist felt afraid of his subject.

Perspiring, Baabda reached slowly
into the breast pocket of his white jacket. Paralysis gripped her. But he
merely pulled out a photograph and held it in front of her face. ‘Have you seen
this woman before, Kristin?’

She stopped jerking about
and concentrated on the smiling face. At first the woman looked familiar,
stirred a distant memory. But she would surely have memorized such a pretty,
pretty slut, with her golden hair and piercing, sapphire eyes? And she would, almost
certainly, have done something about her — dug those perfect jewels from
their sockets, trampled them into cold earth.

‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ he
commented.

‘
Beautiful
?’ she repeated, aspirating
hoarsely. ‘Cruelty. The totality of death. The biting cold of an endless night,
these things are beautiful.’

She was responding ... the
void was beginning to fill. He moved his chair closer. ‘
Do you know her
?’

She glared at him over the
top of the photo and shook her head.

‘You’re certain?’

She nodded.

‘This is the person who
came to your flat, the woman who asked you the questions. She was a television
presenter, her name was Greta Johansson.’

‘
Was
?’

‘She died, just a few hours
ago, in your flat, under the most peculiar of circumstances. Indeed, there is
no precedent. She seems to have been murdered through sheer power of thought.’

She cracked a sickly smile
that almost pared his soul from his body.

‘ ... Can ... can you tell
me what happened, Kristin?’ he asked falteringly, leaning forwards, his face
close to hers.

Her possessor replied for
her, gnawing at the remnants of her human soul like a rat. ‘She interfered,
asked too many questions. I made the bitch die.’

The ugly, dry voice hit him
like a fist and he whipped off his glasses ...
multiple personality
! ‘ ...
You willed her to
die
?
Do
you think tha
t’
s
possible
?’

‘It went out on television,
don’t you believe your own eyes?’ she scowled, reverting to her own voice.

‘The mind is a powerful
tool, I know, but ... ’

‘Didn’t you see her
inflate, hear her harrowing cries for mercy? Didn’t you watch her burn alive?’

Baabda leaned back in his
chair and narrowed his gaze. She was sobbing desperately. ‘Do you need help,
Kristin?’

She ignored the demands of
the babbling entity inside her head and drew hard on upon her surviving human
resources.
Of
course she needed help. And if she didn
’
t ask for it now
,
it would be too late.
‘
Help
?’she
whispered. ‘Yes, I need help — help to end my life.’

‘ ... Why should you wish
to end your life?’

‘It’s the only way.’

‘The only way?’

‘The only way to kill it.’

He put his hands together, intertwining
his long fingers. ‘When you say
it
... ?’

‘The badness ...
Set her free
arsehole
,
that she might do my work
!’ it bristled.

‘ ... And this ... badness,
the part of you that you don’t like, did it just speak for you?’

‘No, they aren’t my thoughts,
my wishes. I hate it, I want to see it dead ...
Tough
,
whore
,
I
will never go
,
never leave thee in peace
!’

Baabda’s mind swirled with
excitement. ‘Your host has identified you as
the badness
. Are you known by any other
name that I might know?’

‘Many. Call me what thee
will. All that matters is that thou recognize me as thy completeness and thine
overlord.’

Baabda had treated the
psychotic — murderers, rapists, paedophiles, and many, many
schizophrenics, but never before had he encountered such convincing delusion,
and he found that he was able to converse freely with both the girl, and her
inner demon, in turn.

‘Everything that’s happened
— the hatred, the distortion of human nature, the mass murder, the
supernatural occurrences, they’re all my fault. I should have stopped it, found
a way to ...
Thou
wert weak
,
and
now thou art helpless
!’ it belched. ‘
I have thee and soon I will have the rest
!’

‘ ... Kristin ... does the
badness speak to you, command you to do things you don’t want to — did it
tell you to kill Greta Johansson?’

‘This isn’t psychology.’

‘Did
you
kill Greta Johansson?’ he repeated,
redirecting the question.

‘Clever, clever,’ it
ululated.

‘How?’

‘Thou wouldst never
understand, even a being of thy moderate intelligence lacks the capacity to appreciate
my capabilities.’

‘But you made Kristin use
the television camera ... as a transmitter for your thoughts?’

‘Maybe I can yet find a use
for thee, hairless wanker!’

He replaced his glasses.
‘What was hidden in the flash of light, what did you communicate?’

‘
Communicate
? Instruct.’

‘What did you
tell
those
who received it to do?’

‘To lie, cheat, steal,
defile, desecrate, hate, torture, rape, kill — to worship me, the
outcast, the true child of God!’

‘ ... And you are
responsible for the siren, this was your initial attempt to gain mastery over
the human race?’

‘Hah! Most mortals have
shit for brains!’

‘ ... I can’t kill myself!’
she blurted. ‘I tried to die, drew a nine-inch kitchen knife across my wrist ...
the wound healed in front of my eyes. I can’t die because it won’t let me. I’m
immortal, destined to face eternity as a slave to evil. Can you imagine that
fate, doctor?’

‘I want to help you,
Kristin, but before I can we need to understand why, how, this facet of your
psyche devel ... ’

‘Cunt! I am not a part of
her mind!’

‘ ... Then what are you
?
’

‘I own her soul. She is
nothing more than a vessel filled with my poison, to be drunk of by all
humanity, and with each drop consumed my beautiful world blossoms.’

Baabda stared into her
haunted eyes. ‘If you are so powerful, why must you hide behind the flesh and
bones of this woman?’

It fell silent.

‘ ... Christ lived in human
form so that he could do God’s work,’ she said. ‘This bastard is the same,
except that it’s parasitic and wishes only harm ... UNGRATEFUL BITCH!’

‘You say you will never
die, but I wager you can be drawn out of her mind and that if you are, you will
cease to be.’

Baabda had struck a nerve.

‘Too much talk, arsehole!’
     

‘Too much, or am I too
close to the bone?’

‘I am of the soul, not the
mind. Anyway, I would soon find a new host, there are no shortage of candidates
on this forsaken hunk of rock — the weak-spirited, the immoral, the
corrupt ... LIAR!’ she screamed. ‘I was chosen two millennia ago, nobody else
is prepared.’

‘You see?’ Baabda
continued. ‘There will be nowhere for you to go.’

She balled her fists.
‘Simple motherfucker! Dost thou believe I can be so easily expunged, driven out
to evanesce into the ether, one so ancient, so noble,
so
perfect
?’

‘Easily, no. But you
will
eventually leave.’

‘NEVER,
FUCKER ... NEVER!’

A purple patch appeared
below her right eye. It transformed into a pattern of fine veins that mutated
— thickening, darkening, spreading over her face like black worms. ‘Find
an artist ... run a rusting blade slowly across his eyes ... watch the jelly
seep out ... take a pianist ... crush his fingers with a hammer ... rip out thy
mother’s womb, make her consume it!’

Behind her, the guards
received her instructions. They cocked their automatic rifles and obliterated
each other in a deafening hail of bullets. Then she turned her attention to the
door lock, rendering it useless. She rocked back and forth, her head lolling.
It flicked right back, her eyes gawking senselessly at the ceiling, and then
whipped forwards, and a shower of stinking black slime caught him in the face.
‘KILL HIM, KILL HIM! ... But he can help me! ...
We do not need his help
,
we are as one
,
we are
content ... kill
him ... kill the cunt now
,
before I am hurt, before I am lost
!’

Against every last shred of
her human instincts, she obeyed her master.

A dull, throbbing pain
began deep inside his head, reminiscent of the onset of crippling migraines
he’d suffered in adolescence, intensifying until he felt as though his skull
were in a closing vice. He held his head and bawled.

The liquefaction of his
brain started in the cerebellum and radiated outwards, decimating the
hippocampus, destroying a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and memories.
Baabda toppled from the chair and fell before her, arms flailing like a
spastic. ‘
Tell
me how? I ... must ... learn
!’