The Book: Chapter 10

The forest closed in, shadows thickening as the rain blurred shapes ahead that seemed to move—and hide—and elude her. The shadows deepened as the trees held her back. Their branches touched overhead, whispering to each other and conspiring to keep her from getting help. Her boots slipped and she jarred her ankle, but she pushed on, fuelled by adrenaline and fear. If she fell too, they could be there all night. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see something watching her from the shadows.

 Thoughts about the book’s power returned—sharp and unwelcome. They pierced her terror. But this time it had developed into something else. The book wasn’t after her—it wanted to destroy the people she loved. It would isolate her until she had nothing—but it—left. The thought snaked through her mind. It was venomous.

This was absurd. But the idea rooted in her brain like a spreading vine. It suffocated her and she was sure the accident had something to do with the book. It wasn’t a coincidence that Mick fell. For some reason, it chose to harm him and leave her intact and if she was going to understand its motivation, she had to work out why. The thought terrified her, and the puzzle rattled around in her brain as she slipped and slid down the trail.

She ignored Mick’s car in the carpark and looked around for help. She tried her phone, but still had no signal. She dialled 999. Nothing. The carpark was deserted, so she ran into the nearby road, her lungs burned, and her legs felt as if they were going to buckle. She flagged down the first car that came past and barely got her words out before she collapsed onto the grass verge, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

‘I’ll drive down the road to get a signal,’ the middle-aged man said. ‘It’s blocked by the cover of the trees and the fell behind us.’ He drove away leaving Alice with his wife. She took her back to the beginning of the trail to wait for help. The ambulance arrived before long, but it felt like hours to Alice. Inaccessible to transport, she led the medics up the trail and they carried a stretcher with them. Undiluted adrenaline carried Alice ahead of them, as they had to bring lifesaving equipment. Climbing mountains wasn’t part of their usual service and they struggled.  

‘Come on, keep up. He’s badly hurt.’ She urged them on and they found Mick where she’d left him, pale and barely conscious. Relief made her cry when he managed a weak smile as they ran up to him. She felt even better when they radioed for the air ambulance to lift him off the fell after assessing the scene and deciding it was too dangerous to take him down on the stretcher.

‘It took you long enough. What kept you?’ he teased. His voice was faint.

‘You’re an ass,’ she said, but the tears rolling down her cheeks betrayed her feelings. She squeezed his hand as they prepared to fly them away.

Mick needed surgery, and after hours in the operating room, she was allowed to see him. They said he’d be in at least overnight and probably for two or three days. He looked terrible, but Alice couldn’t stop herself, and as he drifted in and out of consciousness with the after effects of the sedation, she told him her theories about the book. She sat by his bed, her hands twisting into butterflies in her lap and frustration making her weepy. His eyes kept closing but she had to make him see. His life could be threatened again. She didn’t dare leave him even to get a coffee.

‘Are you mad?’ he said.

Her anger flared, but the fact that he was lying hurt in a hospital bed made her hold her temper. She knew her voice had risen as she tried to make him understand, while he spoke through gritted teeth.

‘Where has this ridiculous paranoia come from? It was just a fall, Alice. Stop making it something it’s not.’  

A tension had risen between them that felt palpable, even in the quiet of the ward. She tried to get things straight in her head and realised how stupid she sounded. She was a doctor, and her position carried certain expectations of her behaviour. Her vocation demanded she maintain an ironclad front, leaving no room for the comfort of a mental breakdown. That was somebody else’s luxury.

Mick was in a room with four other patients. He had clean sheets pulled up to his chin and efficient nurses swanning around –colleagues from the hospital. This was no environment for curses and black magic. She knew the staff. Her talk about a possessed, malignant book sounded bonkers.

It was several minutes before Mick broke the silence again. ‘You’re obsessed, Alice.’

She blinked at him, startled by the suddenness of his voice. He had his eyes closed and she’d thought he was sleeping. ‘What?’

‘The book you keep going on about. It’s all you think about.’

‘That’s not true,’ she said, though the words sounded hollow.

‘Isn’t it? Do you know how many times you mentioned it today?’

She didn’t know.

He was concerned. ‘Get a grip, love. I’m worried about you. I’ve seen you disappear into this craziness over the last week and it’s scaring me.’

She looked away and couldn’t stop her hands from moving. He sighed, exhausted.

‘I love you, Alice,’ he said without opening his eyes. She didn’t know if it was the sedation or repulsion. ‘I’m worried about what all this work’s doing to you. I think you need to take some time off. Maybe see somebody.’

She bit back a fresh flood of tears. ‘See who?’ She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that she could handle it, but the words wouldn’t come. She didn’t believe them herself. A terrible, horrible, horrific, all-encompassing feeling of dread was with her all the time. Something bad was going to happen, and she was the only one who felt it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. It was all she could give him, and it was inadequate.

Mick didn’t pull away, but his worry was a third person sitting between them. Why couldn’t he believe her?

But the book didn’t need his belief.

It already had hers.

Katherine Black Amazon Page. 17 books to choose from: all on KU.

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