The Darkest Corners

When the tears finally stopped I just sat there, feeling nothing but empty. But then even that moment passed. I pulled away from Ameena, unable to look at her, and stood up.

Billy cleared his throat. ‘You OK?’

I nodded quickly to hide my embarrassment. ‘Fine.’

Ameena got to her feet and I realised she had a smear of my snot on her shoulder. I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her.

‘So, what are we going to do?’ Billy asked.

‘I told you. I’m going to find my dad and then I’m going to kill him,’ I said.

‘Right. So we’re sticking with that one then, are we?’ he asked. ‘You know you’re playing right into his hands, don’t you? He wants you to do your… magic, or whatever.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Looks like he’s going to get what he wants.’

‘Then he wins,’ Billy said. ‘And you’re right, he does get what he wants. Whatever he’s done to you – your mum, your nan – he did it all to make you do what he wants. He’s manipulating you, and you’re going to let him.’

‘Check out the voice of reason,’ said Ameena.

‘I’m right, though. If you keep doing your thing then the barrier breaks down and suddenly we’re up to our eyes in monsters.’

‘We’re already up to our eyes in monsters,’ I reminded him.

‘Yeah,’ Billy conceded. ‘But you and I both know there are worse things waiting over there. We’ve seen them. If they get through, they’ll kill everyone.’

‘Everyone important is already dead.’

A thud against the front doors cut the argument short. A muffled screech filled the church. A few seconds later there was a chorus of them howling out there as they hammered and pounded against the doors.

‘They’re going to get inside,’ Ameena said. She released Billy and he stumbled out of her reach, nursing his arm. ‘Decision time, kiddo. What’s it to be?’

The sounds of the screechers seemed to be inside the church now. I could almost picture them, their deformed heads forcing their way through the splintering wood, their teeth chewing hungrily at the air. It was Billy who made a decision.

‘Help me block these,’ he said, hurrying along the aisle to the inner swing doors. ‘It’ll buy us some time.’

Ameena looked to me. I nodded, and she headed off after Billy. There were two large tables by the doors, one stacked upside down atop the other. They grabbed each end of the top table and began moving into position in front of the doors.

They were right in front of the doors when they began to open. Teeth flashed in the gap. Billy and Ameena leapt back. A hundred thousand sparks filled my head and an invisible force pushed the door closed.

‘Stand back,’ I told them, and they darted over to join me. The table moved with just a thought from me. It tilted and fell so the top was up against the doors, which I was still holding closed.

Next I pictured the back pews sliding across the floor. The metal bolts holding them in place groaned, then snapped. I felt my brain tingle as the heavy wooden benches fell into place behind the table. Only then did I let the sparks fade away.

The doors swung inward a few centimetres then hit the barricade with a loud thud. Screeches of frustration came at us through the wood, but the barrier held steady for the moment.

‘Nice work,’ Ameena said. ‘That was close.’

‘Uh, guys.’ Billy’s voice was a low whisper. I turned to find him nodding at a spot several metres behind me.

Something stood there. Or rather, something flickered there. It was faint, like the outline of a ghost. A large ghost, with too many limbs. We watched it pacing towards us, then it faded away completely.

‘OK,’ Ameena muttered. ‘So what the Hell was that?’

I turned, casting my gaze around the dimly lit church. There were half a dozen or more figures dotted about, half appearing and fading before my eyes. I recognised some of them as the things that had surrounded me in the Darkest Corners.

‘It’s happening,’ I realised. ‘Like he said. The barrier’s weakening. They’re going to come through.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Billy said, although he didn’t sound convinced. ‘I mean, you can just stop, right? If you don’t do your mojo any more, they can’t come any further.’ He glanced from me to Ameena and back and swallowed nervously. ‘Right?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, but the doubt in my voice was obvious. ‘If I don’t do anything else, the barrier will stay standing.’

A soft hissing and crackling noise began to echo around the church. I looked up to the source of the sound and saw a speaker mounted high on the wall behind the pulpit.

The next sound I heard made my skin crawl.

Fiona, it’s time to get up now.

That was my dad’s voice. My dad’s voice from the recording he had played me earlier.

‘No,’ I said softly. ‘N-no, please.’

The hospital machines beeped on the soundtrack. I heard my mum rouse and my dad smile. Even on the tape, I heard him smile.

That’s my girl. Open your eyes now. Open your…

My mum gave a groan. Ameena reached for me, but I pulled away. I stared at the speaker, and I stared, and I stared.

Wh-where am I? My mum’s voice, shaky and weak.

Look at me, Fiona. Look at me.

On the tape, my mum gave a gasp. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t.’

As if echoing me, she cried out, and I could hear all the fear and the panic in her voice. I raised my hands, stabbing them towards the speaker. N-no. Please, no, don—

‘Kyle, no!’ Billy cried.

‘Do it,’ Ameena urged. ‘Shut it up.’

BANG!

The speaker exploded before the gunshot had a chance to ring. Before he had a chance to kill her again. The sparks buzzed across my head, then receded again, leaving only the charred remains of the speaker behind.

‘What did you do?’ Billy groaned. ‘What have you done?’

‘Leave it, Billy,’ Ameena said, and this time I let her press her hand against my shoulder.

A sudden fluttering up by the rafters made us all jump. A small black shape flapped around at the ceiling. We followed its flight until it landed on one of Christ’s outstretched arms. A beady black eye gazed blankly down at us.

Billy let out a nervous laugh. ‘God, that nearly gave me a heart attack,’ he breathed. ‘Just a bird.’

‘Not just a bird,’ I said, trying to keep my voice low and controlled. Ameena and I both stepped back, our eyes never leaving those of the bird. ‘It’s a crow.’

Billy shrugged. ‘So? What’s so bad about crows?’

‘Obviously you’ve never met the ones we’ve met,’ Ameena told him.

And he hadn’t. He hadn’t been there at Marion’s house when the Crowmaster attacked. He hadn’t seen Marion’s skeletal remains, the skin, muscle and sinew torn off by a murder of flesh-eating crows.

But I had seen it. And it was something I’d never be able to forget.

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Ameena whispered.

‘No,’ I said. ‘He died here in the real world. That means he was reborn over there.’

‘Oh, now that’s just cheating,’ she protested.

‘No argument there,’ I said. The bird wasn’t moving, just watching us in silence. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Billy asked. ‘However mean and scary you say it is, it’s just one bird.’

The cries of the screechers were louder than ever. The table and pews groaned against the floor as they were pushed back.

‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s never just one bird.’

And then, in a heaving torrent of squawking black, the space inside the church was torn in two.

We ran for cover as the crows came. They surged in their hundreds through a hole in reality itself, filling the church with the thunder of their wings.

Ameena pulled me down behind a pew as Billy took cover behind the one across the aisle. The crows were a dark tornado around us, squawking and cawing as they circled the inside of the church.

A figure stepped through the cloud of birds, short and stocky, his face hidden beneath a rough brown sack. Back at Marion’s house the Crowmaster had been revealed as nothing more than a little man called Joe Crow, who liked to dress in a scarecrow costume. The costume was gone now, but Joe was doing everything he could to maintain the Crowmaster act.

‘I see you, boy,’ he said. His voice was still like fingernails down a blackboard. The tattered eyeholes in the sack turned in my direction. I raised my head to reply, but a crow swooped down at me, forcing me to duck again. ‘You thought you’d seen the last of the Crowmaster,’ he said, and then there was that laugh of his again, audible even over the screechers and the birds: SS-SS-SS-SS. ‘You thought that your nightmares was over, but, boy, they’s just beginning.’

‘Shut him up,’ Ameena said.

‘How?’

She glanced along at the barricaded doors. It took me a moment to realise what she meant. Her eyes drilled into me, urging me on. Along the aisle, Joe Crow paced towards us on his tiny legs.

I nodded. The sparks lit up the inside of my head and the doors flew open. Joe Crow stopped advancing as the screechers burst through. Their eyes locked on him. Their jaws gnashed.

‘Aw,’ Joe groaned, ‘crap.’

They were on him before his birds could react, ripping and tearing at him, their teeth already slick with blood.

His command over them broken, the birds began to thud against the walls and fall to the floor. I moved to run for the door, but there were more screechers rushing through.

Ameena and I began clambering quickly over the pews in front, and Billy raced to do the same. The screechers were still busy with Joe Crow, and we hurdled our way to the front without them noticing us. Together, all three of us ran for the back room and hurriedly closed the door.

‘This way,’ I said, making for the rear exit that led out into the graveyard. As I pulled it open a hand clawed through the gap. Billy and Ameena rushed over and threw their weight against the wood. Between us, we forced the door closed, but the screecher on the other side was already trying to break it down.

‘What now?’ Billy yelped.

‘Magic them away,’ Ameena told me. ‘If you’re ever going to do your thing, now’s the time.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Billy told her. ‘You saw what happened. Those things are starting to come through.’

‘So what do we do, Billy? Just wait here to die?’

‘What’s it matter to you?’ Billy asked her, and I could see his old wicked streak shining through. ‘It’s not like you were ever alive to begin with.’

‘Ladder,’ I said, pushing between them. A metal ladder was attached to one of the walls. It led straight up to a hatch in the high ceiling. ‘It must lead to the tower. We can hide there.’

‘For how long?’ Ameena asked. ‘Up there we’ll have nowhere to run to.’

A clawed hand punched a hole through the back door. There was no more time to make plans.

‘Go,’ I said, gesturing for Ameena to lead the way up the ladder. She hesitated, but then set off at a breakneck rate. By the time Billy was halfway up, she was already at the top, pushing open the hatch and clambering through.

I went last. When I got to the top, Billy reached down and helped pull me up into the tower. The hatch closed over just as the back door came down, and we heard the screecher howl in confusion.

‘We’re safe,’ I whispered.

‘Maybe for now,’ Ameena added quietly.

The inside of the tower was dark and gloomy. There had once been a bell up there, but it had long since been removed. The rectangular openings in each wall that would once have allowed the chimes to ring out across the village were boarded over, letting only scraps of light seep through. The floor was thick with dust. Mousetraps were dotted here and there around the little square room. Billy kicked one to the side and it snapped shut with a clack.

‘Sssh!’ I hissed. I pointed down at the floor, and to the screecher that lurked below.

‘That’s our plan then, is it?’ Ameena asked. ‘We stay up here and keep quiet?’

‘You got any better ideas?’ I asked.

‘What happened to finding your dad? When did that plan stop?’

Billy answered for me. ‘When he realised he was playing right into his dad’s hands.’

‘We don’t know that’s true,’ Ameena protested. ‘Kyle, if you want to get him for what he did, you’re going to have to use your abilities. That’s just how it is.’

Billy looked Ameena up and down. ‘Why are you so determined he should go all Harry Potter all of a sudden? How come you’re acting so weird?’

Ameena bit her lip. ‘What can I say?’ she muttered. ‘It’s been a weird day.’

Weird day? That was an understatement if ever I’d heard one. It had been a weird month. The weirdest, worst month of my life. Possibly of anyone’s life ever. And even that wasn’t doing it justice.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ I admitted. ‘Everything’s broken. I’ve… I’ve ruined everything. ’

Ameena rolled her eyes. ‘And I thought I was being a drama queen! You haven’t ruined anything, kiddo. Your dad has. All you’ve done is try to stay alive and try to protect people.’

I looked her in the eye. ‘That’s not working out too well, is it?’

My lip wobbled and I looked away again. My mum: dead. My nan: dead. My mum’s cousin Marion: dead. So much for protecting people.

And then there was Joseph, the mystery man. He’d popped up all over the place with his cryptic clues, helping me when I didn’t even know it. I’d watched him die too, right before my eyes, and I still didn’t know who he was.

‘We sit tight,’ Billy said. ‘That’s the plan. We sit here and wait for help to arrive.’

‘Help isn’t going to arrive, Billy. Grow up,’ Ameena said.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because this isn’t a bedtime story. There’s no knight in shining armour climbing up this tower. There’s no fairy godmother about to come swooping in. There’s just us.’ She pointed to the boarded-up window. ‘And there’s just them. If we want to live we have to fight. That’s how it is.’

Ameena turned to me. ‘And you’re the best fighter we’ve got. Much as I hate to admit it.’

Billy shook his head. ‘You’re not buying this, are you? You saw what was happening down there. I don’t want more monsters coming through.’

‘What’s the matter, Billy? Scared?’

‘Of course I’m scared!’ Billy yelped. ‘I’m terrified. I’ve never been more scared in my whole life, and if he starts doing his, his thing, then it’s all just going to get worse.’

Ameena spun to face him. ‘You don’t get it, do you? This is it. This is the end. It can’t get any worse.’

‘Don’t say that,’ I groaned. ‘As soon as anyone says “It can’t get any worse,” it always gets worse.’

‘Not this time,’ Ameena said, turning back to face me. ‘Everyone in this village has been turned into a monster, and they’re going to spread like a virus all over the planet. Your mum is dead. Your dad is out there somewhere, waiting to unleash God knows what on the world, and we’re stuck in an attic with a screecher downstairs and Billy No-Dates for company.’

‘Maybe… maybe someone will come,’ I said weakly.

‘No one’s coming!’ Ameena said. ‘There’s no one to fix this but us. But you.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ Billy snapped. ‘Why do you keep egging him on? It’s like you want him to break down this big barrier thing.’ He looked to me. ‘She’s pushing you into it.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Billy,’ I said. ‘Of course she isn’t.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ Billy asked. ‘You said yourself you don’t know anything about her. How do you know she’s not working with your dad?’

Ameena drove her elbow into Billy’s face. He staggered back, his hands over his nose, a sharp yelp of pain bursting on his lips.

‘Whoa! What did you do that for?’ I asked. I was used to sudden bouts of violence from Ameena, but never like that.

‘You heard him.’ Ameena sounded defensive. ‘He was starting to rant. Ranting’s noisy, and the last thing we want right now is someone getting noisy.’ She smiled in that way that made her nose wrinkle up. ‘Am I right, kiddo? Course I am; I’m always right.’

I began to smile, then stopped. That word replayed in my head.

‘Kiddo,’ I said, my face fixed in a half-smile. ‘You called me “kiddo”.’

‘Yeah? So? I always call you “kiddo”, kiddo. It’s one of the things that makes me so adorable.’

A sickening stirring began in my gut. I glanced at Billy, who was still clutching his nose. He watched us in silence through eyes filled with tears.

‘He calls me “kiddo”,’ I mumbled, and I saw the smile fade from her face. ‘My dad calls me “kiddo”.’

She shrugged, but it looked forced and not at all natural. ‘Does he?’ she said. ‘What are the chances?’

I stared into her eyes, and in that moment I realised that I didn’t really know her at all.

Shadows moved behind her and the sound of in-rushing air filled the tower. The shadows became a man and the man became my dad. He wrapped his arms round Ameena and flashed me a wide grin.

‘Whoops,’ he sniggered, and then they were gone. I looked blankly at the spot where Ameena had stood. I was still looking at it when Billy spoke.

‘She’s gone.’

‘He took her,’ I said.

The floorboard creaked behind me.

‘No,’ Billy said. ‘They went together.’

‘No,’ I snapped, turning on him. ‘She wouldn’t. She’s… I…’ I curled my fingers into fists. ‘Wait here. I’ll be back.’

‘Back? What do you mean you’ll be back? Where are you going?’

But Billy’s voice was already becoming distant as I focused on one of the sparks and flitted myself through to the Darkest Corners.

The inside of the tower looked exactly the same, only now the hatch was open. The howls of the screechers had faded along with Billy’s voice, but now I could hear a steady creaking coming up through the hole in the floor.

I looked down in time to see Ameena jump the last few rungs and land lightly beside my dad. She raised her head and her eyes briefly met mine, then she was off and running with him through the door that led into the main part of the church.

My stomach flipped. I thought back to the figure in the brown hood I’d seen so many times with my dad. Ameena’s height. Ameena’s build. But it couldn’t have been her. I refused to accept it.

She had saved me. So many times, she had saved me. She couldn’t have been working with him this whole time. She couldn’t.

I called her name, hoping she would come running back to tell me it was all some stupid mistake. To tell me I was wrong, and that she’d never betray me. But she didn’t come back. No one came back.

The ladder was more rusted on the way down than it had been on the way up, but that was the Darkest Corners for you. It twisted things, corrupted them. Had it done the same to Ameena somehow? Made her as much a monster as the rest of them? No. No way.

Please no.

I jumped the last few rungs just as she had done and charged through into the main church. It now stood in ruins, most of the sky visible through the crumbled roof. The doors at the far end of the room were still standing. They swung closed as I raced towards them.

A ragged shape lay there in the middle of the aisle. As I drew closer I recognised the tattered remains of Joe Crow. They squirmed as if alive, and I saw his body begin to reform, like footage of rotting fruit played in high-speed reverse.

‘S-see you, boy,’ he slurred. A half-formed hand reached out for me. ‘Don’t you g-go nowhere.’

I clambered over the pews beside him, not daring to get too close. The rest of the aisle passed in a blur as I raced through the inner doors and out through the exit into the world beyond.

A foot stuck out from round the doorframe and I tripped. My momentum carried me down the stone steps and I landed on my back on the damp, dirty ground.

My dad stood at the top of the steps, laughing as he looked down. And there, beside him, was Ameena. My dad and Ameena. Together.

There had been a little hope inside me, buried deep down. A hope that somehow everything was going to be OK. A hope that, no matter how bad things seemed at the moment, they weren’t broken beyond repair.

That hope died when I saw them standing there together. My dad was grinning, but I didn’t look at him. Instead I just stared at Ameena and asked her, ‘Why?’

She shrugged and pushed her hair out of her face. ‘Nothing personal.’

‘Nothing personal?’ I said. I was on my feet in an instant. ‘Nothing personal; are you nuts?’

I began to climb the stairs towards them. Ameena raised her fists and bounced on to the balls of her feet. ‘Don’t,’ she warned.

I stopped. Not because I was scared of her, but because I suddenly had no energy left to climb with.

‘So, what?’ I asked croakily. ‘The whole time? It’s all been a lie?’

‘Bingo,’ laughed my dad. ‘All that stuff about you making her, about her being –’ he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers – ‘“a tool”? All rubbish. None of that was true.’

‘Then why say it?’ I asked. ‘What was the point?’

‘The point was what it’s always been,’ he continued. ‘To make you care about her. To make you want to protect her.’ His grin widened. ‘And you do, don’t you, kiddo? You care about her a lot.’

I didn’t answer. Ameena tried to hold my gaze, but glanced away.

‘Man, that must be a kick in the teeth,’ my dad chuckled. ‘There you are falling for her charms, and all the while she’s just trying to get you to use your abilities so you break down the barrier and she can get the Hell away from you.’

‘It was you in that brown robe all along,’ I said. ‘It was you.’

‘Bzzzzt! Correct answer,’ cried my dad. ‘And I think if you’re honest with yourself you always really knew that. You just didn’t want to believe it. Am I right? Kiddo?’

I didn’t answer, just kept staring and waiting for it to sink in. She’d been working against me. Right from day one, she’d been working against me.

My dad put a finger behind his ear and pushed it slightly forward. ‘You know, the walls between this world and yours must be paper-thin now. If you listen, you can hear your little friend Billy screaming.’

He was right. Billy’s screams were muffled, but there was no mistaking them. They came from high up in the church, a whole other world away. They were screams not of panic, but of pain.

My dad and Ameena stepped apart, leaving the path to the door clear. ‘You’ve got maybe a minute to get back there and save him,’ said my dad. ‘Or you can stay here and chitchat with us. The choice is yours.’

Far away, Billy let out a squeal of agony. My dad’s face lit up with a manic grin.

‘But whatever you decide, you’d better do it quickly.’

I threw the church doors open and sprinted along the aisle. I was still in the Darkest Corners – it was too dangerous to jump back into my own world until I was up the ladder and inside the tower itself – and Joe Crow had almost finished pulling himself back together on the ruined church floor.

He was drawing himself up on his stubby legs as I ran towards him. The sackcloth mask he had been wearing hadn’t made the trip back with him, and his wrinkled, old-man face twisted into a scowl at my approach. He snarled, revealing dozens of tiny, shark-like teeth poking out from his pale gums.

‘I see you came back, boy,’ he spat; then he stopped talking as the sole of my shoe slammed hard into the centre of his weather-beaten face. He stumbled backwards on to the floor, and then I was past him, through the door behind the pulpit and scrabbling up the rusted ladder.

I was halfway up before I realised I couldn’t hear Billy screaming, and all the way at the top before I realised I couldn’t hear anything from within the tower at all.