The Walking Dead (Sucking Pit Series) Read online

  He wondered how deep this place was. Suddenly he did not want to find out for it was cold and frightening. He'd had some kind of strange erotic fantasy, thought too hard about Judy and got himself all worked up. It had been so real down in these awful depths, alone in his own world, real enough to make him think he had seen his girlfriend, real enough to trigger off a blinding orgasm. And it was still very real.

  Damn it, the cow had tantalised him all the same, whether she was here or not. He hated her for it; that was illogical but he despised her all the same. She was a cheap tart and all he saw in her was her voluptuous body. Once the physical attraction had gone for him there would be nothing else. No intellect. He'd go back, screw her for all he was worth, and then she could pack her bags. He'd kick her arse through the door if she protested. Go and get somebody else to shag you, you little whore. And only a short time ago he was convinced that he was in love with her. It just went to show you that a good screw could blind you to everything else. He trembled, sensed a fury that had to be vented on somebody.

  Suddenly he remembered the body he was supposed to be searching for. Well, it wasn't here. It had to be - the kid had ridden his motorcycle right into this pool. Where was the bike, then? Embedded in the mud at the bottom, probably pinning the corpse down beneath it. Go and look for it, that's what you're here for. No bloody fear, I'm not going any deeper in this place. If they want the body that bad then they can damned well get somebody else to dive for it.

  He struck upwards, sensed at the same time that his oxygen was running low. The equipment had to be faulty, then, because he could not have been below water for more than twenty minutes at the most. Relief as the blackness above turned to a greyish hue and then he broke the surface, swam to the side. Jesus Christ, he was almost too knackered to haul himself up on to dry land. His pulses were racing so that for one awful moment he feared he might be having a heart attack. Then the feeling passed and he was gulping in fresh air, staring up at the anxious faces which looked down at him.

  ‘Where the hell have you been, Bradburn?’ the detective-inspector's features were strained, his voice terse. ‘We were on the point of radioing for another diver to come and look for you. We thought you must have got caught up in some undergrowth or something.’

  ‘No.’ Reg Bradburn thought how strange his own voice sounded, almost as though he was miming the words and the sound was being dubbed. ‘There's no undergrowth down there. Nothing could live down there. It's a dead place.’

  ‘You've been gone almost an hour. A dive like that shouldn't take more than twenty minutes at the most.’

  ‘An hour!’ Incredulity flooded Bradburn's features. ‘I don't believe it!’

  ‘Fifty-four minutes to be precise.’ A uniformed sergeant checked his watch. ‘Your oxygen must be about spent.’

  ‘Well, did you find the body?’ The inspector dropped on to one knee, his expression almost accusing. They had wasted enough time already.

  ‘No.’ Bradburn dropped his gaze. ‘I didn't. It isn't there.’

  ‘Of course it's down there.’ The police officer could not conceal his annoyance. ‘The youth rode his bike straight into the pool. Even if the body isn't there then the bike has to be. Nothing could leave without leaving tracks.’

  ‘Well it isn't there, neither bike nor body, and if you're not satisfied then you'd better get somebody else to dive for it. I'm not a bloody copper, thank Christ.’

  ‘But if there's no vegetation in there then body and bike shouldn't be hard to find.’ The detective's eyes narrowed. ‘Are you sure you went right down to the bottom.’

  ‘No I fucking well didn't!’

  ‘You didn't!’

  ‘No, because you can take it from me, there ain't no bottom. The Sucking Pit's bottomless, just like they always said it was.’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ The policeman straightened up. ‘No pool can be bottomless, that's an impossibility. Still, if you're not prepared to dive the whole way down, Bradburn, there's no way we can force you to. You'd better get dressed.’ He turned to the uniformed man at his side. ‘We'll get this pool dredged tomorrow, Sergeant. Arrange for the council to supply us with a dredger and we'll explode all these local superstitions about the pool being bottomless. And afterwards we'll fill the damned thing in once and for all!’

  Reg Bradburn felt heady, a kind of faraway feeling as though he was a spectator to his own actions. Perhaps he was sickening for the flu. He could not get that underwater experience out of his mind either. As he turned the Mini into the council estate he knew that he was getting an erection again. Damn Judy, he'd meant everything he had threatened down there in the depths of the Sucking Pit, he'd fuck the arse off her and kick her out through the door. For good.

  He pulled the car into the kerb, scuffing the tyres, slammed the door as he got out. His erection was pushing hard as though trying to fight its way out of his cords. Almost running up the short concrete path, hurling the back door open. Where the hell was the bitch!

  Judy was in the front room, sitting on the sofa staring at a flickering badly adjusted television picture, the sound turned off. She glanced up as he entered, her eyes red-ringed as though she had been crying. A towel was draped around her naked body, her hair straggling and wet. Oh, Christ Almighty, he clutched at a chair for support, she had been down there after all!

  ‘Where've you been?’ he snarled and a crimson mist seemed to creep into the room, a fog that gave off foul vapours, a stench that was only too familiar. The Sucking Pit: she reeked of its vile putrefaction, the smell of ancient death.

  ‘I've just got out of the bath.’ She spoke angrily, the words interspersed with sobs. ‘If it's any of your bloody business, Reg. And before that I went down to the clinic. I've got some news for you.’

  ‘What?’ He had to force himself to concentrate. She was going to give him some spiel, try and make out that it had not been her flaunting herself below water earlier this afternoon. But it had been. Listen to her first though.

  ‘I'm … pregnant!’ She had to force the word out, a kind of confession. She was on the verge of crying again.

  It took some seconds for the meaning to register in his crazed brain and then the veins on his forehead were standing out starkly, his features suffused with blood. ‘You lousy little tart,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘It's right what folks say about you, you're on the game. Aren't you? Well, aren't you? Bloody well answer me, you poxy little bitch!’

  She rose to her feet shakily, her face pale, lips curling in anger. ‘How dare you, how bloody dare you! I've fucked around in the past but I've never once been unfaithful to you, Reg. Not once. I've got a baby because you gave it me.’

  ‘You're on the pill,’ he spat out; he could barely discern her through the crimson mist. ‘You can't be pregnant. You're lying, just as you've lied about coming out of the bath. You've been swimming in The Sucking Pit, haven't you?’

  ‘You're mad!’ She stepped back a pace, tripped and almost fell.

  ‘Take a look at this!’ He moved forward, unzipped himself in one deft movement and as his erection sprang free, pulsing and swelling still further, he gave a harsh laugh. ‘You fuck-crazy cow I'm going to shag you till you can't come any more, and then I'm kicking you through that door so you'll have to run naked up the road and all the neighbours will see you as you really are!’

  She would have screamed but he was upon her with one bound, his strong grimy hand clapped over her mouth, stifling the sound. She gurgled, tried to fight but he was too powerful for her, suddenly imbued with unbelievable strength. He kicked her legs from under her, bore her to the floor, going down on top of her.

  Judy stared up into those eyes and knew instantly that Reg Bradburn was mad, the way they bored into her with a terrifying hate and lust. He wanted her, but he also wanted to hurt her.

  She screamed another gurgle into the hand pressed suffocatingly over her mouth. It was as though some solid unfeeling inanimate object had been thrust into her, a thousan
d times more painful because she had not lubricated in readiness. His weight crushed her, the sharp open zip gouging her pubic flesh as he slammed back and forth. The hand was removed from her mouth but she dared not scream. Fingers gripped her nipples, stretched them, twisted them until surely they must be torn from her small breasts; afraid to scream because he would kill her if she did.

  Reg Bradburn's eyes were glazing, his breathing becoming constricted, every muscle trembling violently. Any second now … She felt the gush of warm semen inside her and in that moment of orgasmic fury he went berserk, his fingers leaving her mutilated nipples and gripping her throat. One futile attempt at a scream and then the breath was being choked from her. His contorted expression was blurred, he was shouting something, the words like muffled echoes coming up from a deep mine shaft. ‘It was you down there, you whore, I know it was. I couldn't catch you then but I've caught you now and now you know what I'm going to do to you. I'll kill that fucking baby inside you as well as you!’

  Everything was slipping from her in a darkening room. She did not know whether they were still coupled, nor whether his hands still throttled her because her whole body was numb, devoid of feeling, like you got in your leg when you had been sitting on it, before those agonising pins and needles began. She was beyond the terror barrier, incapable of thinking coherently, just hurt because the man she loved had done this to her.

  ‘Don't lie to me, Judy. You were down in the Sucking Pit, weren't you?’

  She thought she nodded. A confession. Anything. Then for her the whole scene was swamped by blackness and the body which Reg Bradburn shook was limp like a child's rag doll.

  It was some time before he disengaged himself from her, staggered to his feet and vomited. Realisation, a sudden receding of the madness that had gripped him.

  For some minutes he stood there, just looking down at her, wanted to kiss her, pour out his remorse on her, but it would all be futile. She would never know because she was dead and he had murdered her. It was too late.

  Stumbling, falling once and barely having the strength to drag himself up again, he made it into the kitchen. He tugged at a drawer, pulled it right out so that cutlery showered all over the floor. Knives, dozens of them, but all too blunt. Then he saw the one he wanted, a bread knife with a serrated blade, grabbed at it in case it should suddenly elude him like that terrible vision in the Pit which hadn't been Judy after all.

  There was no hesitation as he slashed fiercely at his left wrist, then transferred his grip and gouged at the right. Twin jets of blood hit the ceiling above, began to drip stickily to the floor, and that scarlet mist came back again.

  He staggered, fell, saw that face again, the one which had been shielded by shadow down in those murky depths. Now he could see clearly and he uttered a cry of mingled joy and sorrow because it wasn't Judy after all. So haggard, the flesh rotted in places so that whitened cheekbones were exposed, the eyes dark sockets that saw and still taunted.

  Naked, of course, the lower half of her unblemished as though it had been preserved for some awful purpose. Reg Bradburn knew only too well that those thighs would open invitingly, luring him now just as they had before. He tried to resist but it was impossible. Can't you see I'm dying?

  Once, just once, before you die, Reg Bradburn.

  He reached out with fingers that were sticky with blood and this time she did not move away. He felt her coldness, the touch of frozen wastelands, her mirthless laughter rendering him heady and mindful of but one desire.

  She moved in on him, a leg stretched out fully on either side in anticipation of an unholy mating, a whispering in his ears like the distant roaring of a train. Come to Jenny Lawson for I need you. You have obeyed and shall be rewarded.

  Reg Bradburn glanced down, saw that he was ready, pulsing with a desire that should have been revulsion, a calling that was as old as the beginning of his species. He leaned forward, prepared to enter, to surrender to this water nymph who had pursued him on to dry land.

  Then from somewhere came one spark of defiance, a moment of hatred for this awful wench who called herself Jenny Lawson, and shame for himself. He still had the knife; one swift stroke downwards, all his remaining strength behind the slicing blow.

  Momentary pain beyond human endurance, final euphoria that he had defied her at the final hour, and then Reg Bradburn died.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Well, we can't dispute the evidence any longer, no matter what theories the police come up with.’ Chris Latimer's face was pale, etched with lines that had not been evident to his friends a few days before. ‘The evil in the Sucking Pit has been released. Violent death, and there will be more unless we can stop it.’

  ‘They're going to dredge the Pit and fill it in today.’ Carl Wickers' reply lacked conviction. He felt he was obliged to say something, principally for the benefit of Pamela and Samantha.

  ‘They're too late.’ Chris wished that the two girls had not been here, that some urgent message had summoned Pamela back to London and Samantha had decided to accompany her. ‘Another load of rubble won't solve the problem.’

  ‘And what can you do about it?’ Carl fingered the cut on his cheek gingerly. The plaster had been removed and the narrow scar was visible. It would heal in time. But suddenly time was a commodity that seemed to be in short supply.

  ‘I don't rightly know except that I've got to try and do something. I'm going down to take a look at the Pit, maybe I can come up with something, although God knows I'm stuck for ideas. The locals are nearly out of their minds with fear. They haven't forgotten what happened ten years ago.’

  ‘Don't go, Chris.’ Pamela's hand shot out, gripped his arm. ‘Please don't. It can't do any good.’

  ‘I must. Just to take a look anyway.’

  ‘They'll have started the dredging by now.’

  ‘Then I'm going right away. Don't forget, I can recognise things which might be overlooked by them. I know the place better than most, even the locals.’

  ‘Then I'm going with you.’ Pamela's expression was one of determination.

  ‘No, and that's final.’

  ‘You can't stop me, Chris.’

  He sighed, knew damned well he hadn't a hope of preventing her from accompanying him if she was determined to come along. He admired her for that. Two choices were open to him; take her with him or stay away.

  ‘In all probability there won't be anything to see,’ he said lamely.

  ‘We'll come too.’ Carl Wickers nodded to Samantha. ‘A fine sunny afternoon and what better way to spend it than a walk in the woods?’

  The four of them could hear heavy machinery working beyond the mounds, a monotonous hum and grinding noise, interspersed with the sound of showering rubble. Beneath their feet the sand on the Lady Walk had been compressed into a flat surface, the imprints of heavy caterpillar wheels stretching on ahead of them.

  ‘They've really got the tack for the job this time,’ Carl Wickers muttered.

  They'll need it too, Chris thought, deciding not to voice his thoughts. Nothing short of a nuclear bomb could destroy the Sucking Pit totally. You buried it but the evil lived on, a powerful force imprisoned beneath the surface waiting for release. Only this time that evil had already escaped; it was truly shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.

  ‘Look.’ Pamela stopped, looked skywards. ‘It's clouded over. We haven't seen anything more than a fluffy white cloud for weeks now.’

  Latimer caught his breath, found himself instinctively clutching at her hand as though to protect her from some unknown danger. A little shiver ran up his spine. She was right: without warning, a dark cloud formation had spread in from the west, a mass of grey shapes that you could let your imagination run riot with, a lowering sky frowning down on those below.

  ‘I hope it's not going to rain.’ Samantha spoke in a hushed whisper. ‘We'll all get soaked. There was no mention of it on the weather forecast, this high was supposed to continue for a few more days at le
ast. Maybe we're going to get a freak thunderstorm.’

  ‘Could well be,’ Chris Latimer replied. ‘It's very humid and …’

  A distant rumble far away that might have gone unnoticed if they had not been listening. All of them were thinking the same thought: maybe we ought to turn back. An excuse, a way out without losing face.

  ‘Come on.’ Chris moved forward, still holding Pamela's hand. ‘Or else by the time we get there the Pit will be filled in.’

  They topped a sand mound, found themselves instinctively bunching together as though seeking one another's protection, looking down on the scene below. A crowd had gathered, probably locals come to witness the end of the dreaded death bog. They were standing well back; possibly those uniformed policemen had ordered them to keep clear. Police and orange-clad workmen lined the edge of the pool, the centrepiece of the action being a huge crane with a ‘grab’ on the end of a length of chain, a kind of bizarre fishing expedition. The chain creaked and clanked as it was unwound, going on down and down to its full length, checking; being winched back up. A shower of filthy black water as it came clear. Nothing. Empty.

  Back down again.

  ‘They haven't touched the bottom, that's for sure,’ Latimer breathed. ‘and that chain's got to be all of fifty metres.’

  A repeat performance, those supervising the operation seeming to realise the futility of it all. A conference, another roll of chain replacing the first one. Everybody was edgy now, the two waiting bulldozers moving forward a few yards, their operators wanting to begin pushing rubble into the pool, get the job over and done with.

  A rainspot hit Latimer on the face, a cold droplet that trickled down his cheek. He shivered, tensed because he had anticipated the clap of thunder. Pamela moved up against him; maybe they really should leave. But nobody made a move; it was as though they were hypnotised by this bizarre setting.

  The sky had darkened but still the rain held off. Everybody and everything was waiting, even the elements holding back.