Darkness Demands by Simon Clark

Author:Simon Clark [Clark, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9780843948981
Publisher: Leisure
Published: 2001-07-03T12:05:13+00:00

3

The clock struck two in the hallway downstairs. Stan Price opened his eyes. The ceiling flickered blue-white. Lightning's noisy twin sounded off just seconds later. If it rained his mother wouldn't let him go fishing tomorrow. Harry had a new rod, and it would be great to try to get the carp down by the…

No. Stan shook his ancient, wrinkled head. He raised his hand in front of his eyes. In the flicker of lighting he saw brown liver-spots, the fingers that were so thin as to be nearer to bird's talons, not the muscular fingers with good square nails he'd known in the past. No. His mother had been dead seventy years. It was after the third letter had arrived. She'd been travelling back from Leeds by train. For some reason she'd leaned against the carriage door. No one saw it happen, but she fell out onto the embankment. The train was going very slow. She should have survived the fall. But she'd rolled back down the slope and under the wheels of the train… the poor woman. Not yet forty.

Yes, he remembered it all clearly now as he lay there watching reflected lightning flashes play like ghosts across the ceiling. They darted toward the bathroom door then back again, to swirl around the light fitting in a whirling vortex of electric-blue.

Harry was dead, too. There'd be no more fishing trips. Then, as happened so infrequently these days, his mind swung into focus. He remembered the letter arriving during the night last week. He'd read it where Cynthia had left it on the kitchen table. She knew nothing about what it meant… ignorance is blissful indeed, he told himself, as he pulled himself out of bed onto shaky legs. His stomach burned with hunger. He was getting weaker by the day.

For a moment he saw himself going to the refrigerator to help himself to sausage, bacon, mushrooms, eggs. Beautiful big white eggs. He'd eat them raw if he had to. But no. Prioritize. Prioritize1. He'd used this word often enough in business long ago. Decide what's really important, then do that first.

He shuffled to the door, then clinging to the banister rail, took one step at a time… if he fell now everything would be ruined. There was only one person who knew what to do. Stan would have been the one to act once, but his days of being fit and able were long gone. Why, at any moment his mind could go again, clouds of unreason would roll in and he'd be a babbling shell of a man once more, crying out for his best friend that had lain dead in the ground these last five years…

No, he was an old man that was regularly slapped by his son-in-law. One Robert Gregory, who waited impatiently for his inheritance.

Stan Price wiped his face with a trembling hand. The exertion soaked his skin with perspiration. Now across the hall… Ahead, stood the table with the telephone. He made a point of switching on no lights.

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