Blood of the Innocents by Collett Chris

Author:Collett, Chris [Collett, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: UK
Publisher: Liitle, Brown Book Group (Digital)
Published: 2005-07-31T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

It was only a few hundred yards away as the crow flies, but the drive around to the reservoir was nearly a mile in the car and seemed to take them an adrenaline-fuelled eternity. By the time they got there, the reservoir itself had been cleared of all but the essential personnel, the search parties had retreated to avoid contaminating the area and were congregating in the parking area to await further instructions. As Mariner and Knox bumped towards them over the uneven ground the mood was sombre, voices low. Russell greeted them at the edge of the wood. Beneath his tan he was white faced, his eyes dull with shock.

‘We didn’t find it until we were almost on it, despite the smell,’ he said. ‘The stink of the reservoir masked it.’

‘Is it her?’ Mariner asked, but Russell had already set off, eager to get this over with and pass on the find to a more senior officer.

This time they followed the initial path over the bridge, continuing around on the other side of the water. On their last visit this had been uncharted territory, where the searchers before them had been forced to slash away the grass and brambles to create a narrow passage. Even now, the thorns clawed at their trousers, their feet tripped on loops of tangled grass. It was heavy going, speed impossible and the hike around the edge of the water seemed interminable. The heat beat sickeningly down on Mariner’s skull, while his imagination conjured up every possible variation on the horror he was about to see, the psyche’s desperate effort to prepare and defend. Even then, it came nowhere close.

As Russell had warned, rounding a clump of burgeoning shrubs, it was the smell that hit first, the cloying stench that smelled like nothing else on earth, the unmistakable odour of human decay. After the smell came the noise: the high-pitched, triumphant buzzing of busy insects. Finally, the grotesque discovery came into view.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Bile rose in Mariner’s throat and behind him he heard the glug of Tony Knox’s involuntary retch.

Bizarrely, what first held Mariner’s attention were the many different shades and shapes of grass that had moulded themselves around the body, as if his brain was forcing him to focus on the peripheral detail to avoid the unspeakable. To begin with, it was hard to make sense of, obscured as it was by the dense foilage, where an attempt seemed to have had been made to bury it under the thick strands of grass.

The soles of the shoes were visible first of all. They were the easy part: normal, like any pair of shoes on any pair of feet. Pulling away the grassy coverage, Mariner forced himself to work his way visually up the battered, bloody and decaying form, and by the time his eyes reached the insect-infested skull he already knew. ‘Turn it over,’ he instructed Russell. Russell did so. ‘Christ.’ Although the face and side of the head had been half eaten away, it didn’t matter.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.