#Zero by Neil McCormick

Author:Neil McCormick [McCormick, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783526642
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2019-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

15

Afraid the coven would come roaring after me in Velma’s truck, corral me, lasso me, and drag me kicking and screaming back to Beasley, I dived off the road, crashing through dark Virginia woods in a state of night blindness.

Big mistake.

Long, thin arms whipped my face and snatched my hair, roots grabbed my ankles, the darkness grew dense and heavy, its pitch impenetrability panicking me so that I stumbled, crashing through spikes and colliding full force with something solid and unyielding. On balance of probabilities, let’s assume it was a tree.

I don’t know how long I lay there, struck out on my back, dazed and winded, tasting the metal of blood in my mouth. Slowly, very slowly, as the adrenalin shot faded and my racing heartbeat subsided, something else began to demand my attention, something worse than concussion, something more worrying than the possibility of recapture, something low and grim crawling through the marrow of my bones and fibre of my muscles, inching up my intestines, dragging around my groin. Dread seized me. Why had I tossed those fucking pills? One little dose of hillbilly smack would keep the pain dogs at bay. I lurched to my feet, trying to find my balance in the darkness. Surely Penelope could wait? What was a day or two more between star-crossed lovers? I could go back to the cabin, make up with Devlin (so I fucked her mother and aunt, but look on the bright side, at least her family liked me) and kick my little pill habit tomorrow. But which way was the road? I spun helplessly in a void, stepped forward and crashed into an invisible force field that left me sprawling.

You know that expression you can’t see the wood for the trees? What about when you can’t even see the trees? People go on about the beauty of fucking nature but it doesn’t look like shit in the dark without night-vision goggles. While I lay groaning, trying to catch my breath, the immediacy of fresh pain blotted out the aches of withdrawal, and I began to think I could do this, Keith Richards style: one night, knuckle down, cold turkey, be a man, shake this monkey off my back, stand tall, beat my demons, hit the road and reclaim the woman I love.

That lasted until an icy hand closed spectral fingers around my interior organs and tried to drag them out through my sphincter. Everything I touched was supersized: a leaf brushing my face like the raspy tongue of a hound, tree bark like mountain crags beneath my fingertips. And what the fuck was that rustling behind me? Did they have mountain lions in Virginia? I suddenly saw how this was going to end. The disappearance of Zero would be a mystery forever unsolved. I’d be a twilight zone legend, dinner for wolves and vultures.

But what right did I have to feel pity for myself? The question sounded out loud and clear, ringing in the echo chamber of my skull.

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