The Evil Seed (36 page)

GINNY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP, HER HEAD TUCKED INTO
THE crook of his arm. The lamplight flickered on to her face and lit her hair
like fireworks. The curve of her jaw was white, flawless, the baby hair at the
back of her neck giving her pallor a golden bloom. She was wearing one of Joe’s
pullovers, a dark maroon, and the colour should not have suited her, but
somehow it did, emphasizing her air of frailty, the clarity of her child’s
complexion. He shifted, carefully, not wanting to disturb her, but she opened
her eyes and smiled up at him.

‘Is it nearly time?’ she
asked.

Joe nodded. ‘Nearly
time. Do you want something to drink? Some chocolate? Something to eat?’

‘I’m not hungry,’ she
said.

‘Do you want to listen
to the radio? I feel like some … rhythm.’ His hands were nervous, moving to a
quick complicated beat of their own against the arm of the chair. Ginny nodded
and Joe flipped the switch to FM.

‘I like this song,’ said
Ginny, and began to sing softly along to it in a clear voice: …
Na na na … Love Street, da-da-da-da. Love Street …’
Her eyes
were closed and she was bobbing her head to and fro to the rhythm, completely
absorbed.

Joe smiled.

‘I’m surprised you even
know it,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose you were even born when this song came out.
It takes an old fart like me to remember that far back.’

‘I’m not that young.’

Joe tried to smile, but
his head was aching.

‘What’s wrong, Joe?’

‘Headache. Don’t worry,
it’ll go away. I’ve taken some aspirin.’ For a moment he thought he remembered
something … something about Alice. Had he blown his top again? Had she …
? He shook his head. He couldn’t remember. Suddenly the headache intensified.
He felt dizzy, his vision jumbled to a thousand points of light, jiving and
spinning before his eyes.

‘Joe? Are you OK?’ Ginny’s
voice was all distorted syllables. His own voice, endlessly remote, on a wind
of white noise.

‘Here. Take this,’ she
said, pressing a tablet into his hand.

‘What is it?’

‘Trust me. You’ll feel
better.’

Joe dry-swallowed the
pill. It tasted faintly bitter, but almost instantly the sickness receded and
the world came into focus again.

Joe took a deep breath.

‘Are you all right?’

Joe nodded. ‘I think so.’

He took another deep
breath, and suddenly he
was
all right, with an abrupt surge of
well-being and confidence. Energy exploded through him, and he stood up and
picked Ginny right up from the floor and hugged her.

‘Hey, that was pretty
quick work, doc. Good thing you were here.’ He grinned again. ‘This ought to
happen more often; I feel great!’ Then his face dropped, became older somehow,
his eyes narrowing. ‘It must have been that scene with Alice that set me off,’
he decided. ‘I was all right till that happened. She …’ He broke off, his
fingers beginning to tap the arm of the chair again.

‘She got me so pissed
off, saying all that stuff about you that I lost my rag completely. I should
have …’
(finished her off)’…
tried to reason with her but by the
time I realized that she’d already made a run for it.’ He blinked and rubbed
his eyes, thinking for a moment that maybe he didn’t feel quite so good after
all. ‘She needs help, Gin,’ he went on, ‘because from what she said to me, your
ex-friends have got a hold on her already. She’s swallowed their story, hook,
line and sinker. God knows what else they’ve told her.’

Ginny nodded.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘There’s
no saying what hold they’ve got on her if she’s at that house; you must get her
out, by force if you have to. Reason with her later, when she’s out of there.
Get her out of there, the sooner the better.’

Joe frowned, a memory
chasing its tail in his mind, just out of reach of conscious recall.

— don’t remember. Did i
want to hurt you Alice? —

— shh don’t worry —

— but was i did i? —’I
don’t want to do anything to hurt Alice,’ he said pensively. ‘Perhaps we should
just call the police. She—’

Ginny’s voice was
suddenly sharp. ‘She’ll thank you for getting her involved in that, will she? I
told you before, those people are selling drugs, they’re making money from all
kinds of petty crime. Do you think that the police will believe that Alice isn’t
involved? You have to get her away first, or you might as well report her for
trafficking yourself.’

Joe sighed. ‘I suppose
you’re right, Gin,’ he said wearily. ‘By now they’ll be asleep, and it might be
easier to take her unawares; but what if she won’t come? I can’t just …’ His
voice trailed off uncertainly and he looked at Ginny for reassurance. For a
moment her image swam before his eyes, her bright hair a spray of sparks. His
vision blurred, the after-image of her hair printed on his retinas like neon.
He shook his head to clear it, hearing his voice from a distance, muted,
toneless.

‘I really don’t feel too
good,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should see a doctor. I don’t think I’m in good enough
shape—’

‘Trust me.’

She smiled up at him. ‘We
have to find Alice, remember? And it will be easy, I promise.’ From her
shoulder-bag she pulled out a little pouch, unzipped it and showed what was
inside to Joe. A syringe, and four little ampoules of something straw-coloured.

Ginny saw Joe’s
expression and squeezed his hand reassuringly.

‘It’s all right,’ she
said. ‘The hospital gave them to me when I got out. They’re tranquillizers,
that’s all. Not big doses, either. One should make her sleepy and suggestible.
Two should knock her out completely.’

‘I don’t think—’ began
Joe, but she interrupted him again.

‘It would only be a last
resort. They won’t hurt her, I promise you that. Otherwise, you might find that
she’s hostile and she won’t come with you. All she has to do is to yell once
and all the rest of the crowd will come running. Unless you want to face them
all …’

Joe paused. ‘All right,’
he said. ‘Just as a last resort, though. If nothing else works.’

Ginny smiled up at him.
Her eyes were clear and innocent. She handed him the little pouch, carefully
zipping it shut again.

‘Here, Joe,’ she told
him. ‘You take these.’

One

THEY WERE ALL THERE, IN THE FLAT: RAFE,
JAVA, ANTON, Zach, Elaine, all except Rosemary. I had told the others I wanted
to hunt on my own, that they should not wait for me. They did not question my
decision; they were used to my solitary habits by now, and Elaine, the only
person who might have shown interest or suspicion, had ceased to talk since
Rosemary had recalled her, and would only sit, dry-eyed in her corner, rocking
herself like a frightened child. It was just after midnight. Since ten Turner
and I had been hiding in the alley watching, making certain that everything was
going according to plan. At eleven Rosemary had come, and had gone again,
passing so close to me that I had caught a breath of her scent in the still
air, and I had reeled with the closeness of her. But I had held fast, Turner’s
arm trembling beneath my touch as he had seen her, and I had known he felt
something, too.

He was eager that night,
infused with an excitement I knew was born not only of the wine we had both
drunk to give us courage. For the first and last time, we were not alone. That
night, I was happy.

At midnight, we crept up
the stairs to the flat. I was calm, Turner was twitching with anticipation. I
went to the door, opened it with my key and went in. I found them, as I had
thought, in the bedroom, drinking wine. They had hunted, and they were drowsy,
glutted and unsuspecting. Elaine was lying on the bed, her hair spread out on
to the pillow like a mermaid’s.

Tick
…
tick …
tick
…

I forced myself to sound
normal, though my mouth was dry as salt, and my nerves like wires.

‘Sorry I was so long,’ I
said. ‘Is there any of that wine left for me?’

Zach held out the bottle
by the neck, grinning sleepily. He looked very young to me then, very alien.
His beauty was almost more than I could bear, sublimated, too, by the fact that
I knew I was going to kill him.

‘I’ll get a glass,’ I
said then, and went into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, I found
the glass, and put it by the side of the sink. Then I disconnected the stove
from the pipe in the wall and turned the mains on full, jamming the gas-tap on.
From my pocket I took a little wrench and removed the tap, so that it could not
be turned off again. Then, I left the tap in the sink on full so that it would
sound as if there were still someone in the kitchen. I can’t even say it was
very hard to carry out; we had rehearsed it all every day that week. There was
a jangling coldness in my mind as I forced myself to check that the window was
shut. Very quietly, I left the flat, and with my key I locked it from the
outside, plugging the keyhole so that the door could not be opened. With bated
breath we listened at the door, but heard only the muted sound of voices from
the bedroom, where I knew the others were waiting, drinking wine and wondering
vaguely why I did not come. Then, I took from my pocket a large roll of masking
tape, of the kind you use for lagging pipes, and I taped all round the door. I
cut the lengths of tape carefully, with a craft knife, trimming it neatly at
the edges. I went round the door-frame twice, making sure no air could get in.
Then we waited.

This was the critical
point: the five minutes or so before the gas began to permeate every part of
the flat. If someone had followed me into the kitchen and heard the gas hissing
… We listened, Turner shaking silently, his eyes round as an owl’s. No one
came. The voices in the background sounded lethargic, casual; a meeting of
nineteenth-century British poets discussing art.

I held my breath and
waited.

I could hear the ticking
of my watch in my pocket, amplified as if under water, every second a step
nearer to my salvation.

Tick …
tick
…
tick
…

One/Two

ALICE STIRRED, THEN OPENED HER EYES AS THE
TORCHLIGHT touched her face. Cold and the cramped posture in which she had
eventually dropped off to sleep had almost paralysed her, and she twisted
round, trying to shake the cold from her limbs.

Joe caught himself
thinking, irrelevantly, cloudily —
cat’s eyes you’ve got cat’s eyes
— of
the fairground, of walking hand-in-hand with a younger Alice, neon stars in her
eyes.

She stiffened as she saw
Joe, sitting up abruptly.

‘What’re you doing here?’
Her voice, still blurred by sleep, was wary; Joe thought he knew why. His gaze
travelled to the corners of the room, taking in the bloodstained blankets, the
filth, the silver paper and used syringes on the mouldy floorboards. Yes, he
thought he understood.

‘Don’t worry, Alice,’ he
said, forcing his voice to retain its gentleness.

Alice gave a sharp, dry
bark of laughter. Her own quick glance around the room had taken in the
silhouette of Ginny, standing still and passive at the door; she spoke to Joe,
but without taking her eyes off the girl.

‘It’s happened before,
Joe,’ she told him. ‘The hard-luck stories, the little girl lost. She uses it
as a cover, so that even if she’s found out, some other poor sap will pay in
her place. She’s been doing it just about for ever. Feeding on people, taking
their love and their life, making victims of some, monsters of the rest. Can’t
you see, Joe? Just look at her. It’s in her face. There’s destruction in her
face. If you don’t believe me, there are two dead bodies in the alley out
there, and an old man next door who might be dead.’ Cautiously she was
beginning to shift her weight on to her feet, ready to spring. Her hand was
trembling on the butt of the pistol.

There was a silence,
cold and blank as outer space.

Then Joe took a step
forwards.

His face was unreadable,
his hands, somehow threateningly, in his pockets. ‘Alice,’ he said. ‘You’re
ill. I don’t know what bullshit these people have been giving you, or what you’ve
been taking, but you’re ill and
it
shows. I want you to come back home
with me. I want you to see a doctor. Get some therapy.’

He took another step,
and suddenly he was holding something in his hand — a needle? thought Alice,
pulling away.

‘What’s in there?’ she
said sharply. ‘Who gave you that syringe?’

‘It’s just something to
make you feel better,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you, would I?’

His voice was
infuriatingly calm, like someone talking to a wild animal.

Alice kept her eye on
him. She jerked her chin towards Ginny.

‘Did
she
give you
that?’

‘I’m not having you
accuse her—’

‘And you believe her,’
said Alice, backing towards the door, and at the same time gently lifting out
the old service pistol. ‘Yes, it’s real,’ she said, and stifled a ridiculous
urge to laugh. Alice, still not taking her eyes from Joe and the girl, began to
turn the door-handle. The laughter was barely restrained now, shaking her at
the seams. It was so comic, her with her antique gun, and Joe with that
expression on his face, staring …
despite herself, she grinned, but
even the hysteria felt good.

Suddenly she froze. The
laughter died. There were footsteps in the alley.

Alice backed away from
the door, fumbling now with the pistol, trying to work out how to fire it.
Surely, there must be a safety-catch somewhere
…
hell, she didn’t even
know if there were any bullets in it.