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  PRAISE FOR SARAH PINBOROUGH!

  THE RECKONING

  “[A] gripping tale of supernatural suspense . . . fans of Bentley Little, Richard Laymon and Dean Koontz will be pleased.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[A] great story complete with solid characters and an interesting premise.”

  —The Horror Channel

  THE HIDDEN

  “Quite unique . . . Ms. Pinborough does an amazing job. . . . A great read.”

  —The Horror Channel

  “Original and gripping.”

  —Horror Web

  ITS PREY

  The rasping moan pulled my attention back to the man, his bloodshot eyes meeting mine and reflecting my own terror. His jaw worked silently before he finally got the words out, his body pushed forward on the edge of the sofa in an almost impossible position.

  “Help me . . .”

  I was about to move forward, God help me I was, when from behind him, from where slick sucking sounds drifted toward me, one milky translucent leg, thin and sharply jointed, came over his side, wrapping around him like a lover, and I froze. I stared at the shiny footless limb in disgust as another crept over the man, and then another until four held his limp body in place, one at his shoulders, then his waist, his knees and his feet. What was it? And what was it doing to him?

  Looking over his shoulder, I could make out the smooth curved edges of the creature’s body pulsing behind him, like some awful pale insect.

  “Help me . . . pleeasse.”

  The desperate, dying man croaked out the words, a dribble of blood escaping from his thin, anguished lips, and I couldn’t imagine his agony. I couldn’t see past my own fear, as the legs contracted tighter around him, pulling the prey closer, and the awful round body rose up slightly as if to investigate the distraction, its milky white surface shining like mother of pearl, as for a moment the sucking stopped.

  “Pleaasee . . .”

  Other books by Sarah Pinborough:

  The Reckoning

  The Hidden

  SARAH PINBOROUGH

  BREEDING

  GROUND

  For Charlotte, Adrienne, Mike and Steve.

  With much love and thanks for evenings in, good food, good

  wine, good company, and for always being there.

  DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

  March 2011

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  200 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © 2006 by Sarah Pinborough

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4285-1625-0

  E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-0152-2

  The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  Stony Stratford is a beautiful historic village in the county of Buckinghamshire, and also my hometown. The two pubs that still stand and trade in the middle of the high street, The Cock and The Bull, started their lives as coaching inns in the 17th century. It is from here that the phrase “cock and bull story” originated, from the tall tales told by passing travellers.

  What better place to set a horror story?

  PART I

  PROLOGUE

  I wish I could tell you that I saw lights in the sky. Or shooting stars that turned out to be alien spaceships falling to earth. That’s how Armageddon stories normally start, isn’t it? Some great portent signalling the oncoming doom, some clue that They have done this to us, whether the guilty party are the Russian They, the American They, the British They, or the all-time favourite, the They from outer space.

  I don’t know why it started. I don’t know if it was the work of the government, a visit from space or an act of God. If I had to put money on it, I’d pick the first option; after all, they never stop adding chemicals to food and there was always going to be payback. But at the end of the day, I don’t know why it started, and even if I did it wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference now, would it?

  My name is Matthew Edge, and at some point last year, the end of the world as we know it started. And I figure my version of events is going to be as clear a record as anyone’s, so here goes. I hope that you’ll read this through to the end. I hope there’s a you out there to read it, and hell, I hope that I’m still alive when you finish, and I hope I get to shake your hand adult to adult, once you’re born and grown into a person of this new world. Hope is all we have, after all, isn’t it? Some things will never change.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I can’t believe it! I’ve put on three pounds!”

  When Chloe called out from the bathroom I was still in bed, lazily enjoying the extra half an hour I had left before work pulled me into the outside world. I grinned at her indignant exclamation. She was hardly what anyone would call fat. Huffing, she padded back into our bedroom, dressed in only her knickers. She looked perfect to me, all slim curves and soft skin. Pulling the pillow next to me under my chin, I raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh no, not a whole three pounds.”

  She flashed her dark eyes. “You’re not funny, you know, Matt.” A familiar twitch in her chin betrayed her humour. “That’s five pounds I’ve put on in two weeks. God, at this rate not even my underwear will fit me in a month.”

  “Now that’s a thought.” And it really was an image that sent tingles down my spine. We’d been together for five years, outlasting all our friends’ twenty-something relationships, and at the ripe old age of twenty-nine the sight of her naked body was still a glorious thing to me. To most men, I’d reckon. She was way too good for me, but until she noticed I had no intention of telling her. I ran my eyes over her. “Hmmm. I can just imagine you in a nice executive business suit with nothing on underneath. Except perhaps hold-ups.”

  A flying bra hit me in the face. “Don’t you ever think of anything else?”

  “I try not to. I am a man, after all.”

  She tucked her blouse into her skirt and smiled. “You certainly are. You’re my man.”

  “Come here and give me a kiss, then.”

  She perched on the bed and I pulled her forward, ignoring her shriek and then giggle of protest as I rolled her underneath me. Her skin was glowing and as yet free of makeup. She looked gorgeous, smiling up at me with all that love, her hair spread out beneath us on the rumpled bedding, and my heart tightened.

  “I love you, Chloe Taylor.”

  She touched my face. “I love you too, Matt.”

  I kissed her and she kissed me back, our tongues meeting, mine no doubt tasting of sleep and hers of toothpaste, but still within a second or two I could feel myself hardening. Still exploring each other’s mouths as if they were new territory, I tugged at her blouse, needing to feel her naked skin.

  “What are you doing? I’ve got to get to work. I’ll be late.” Panting the words, she made an attempt to wriggle free, but it was only halfhearted.

  Her shirt undone, I kissed h
er slim stomach, mumbling my reply. “Yeah, but I won’t. And anyway, I’m thinking of you. What better way to work off those extra pounds?”

  “Bastard.”

  We smiled through our kisses and then made love. To my hands and touch there was no sign of any extra weight, not that I’d have cared. Not then. It was beautiful. I got to work five minutes late and she must have been half an hour behind time, but I’ll tell you one thing: we were both smiling on arrival.

  Often at night, that flash of memory still runs through my head, painful and sharp. I don’t mind, though. I think it’s important to try and remember Chloe like that. Like she really was. Before everything that came after. Yeah, for others it may have started earlier, but for me that day signalled the beginning of the end. I digress.

  Back then, all fourteen months ago, when work and money were what counted in the world, I was a mortgage advisor for a small estate agency on Stony Stratford High Street. It was family-owned, which was its saving grace, and although I’d started out selling houses, Mr. Brown had soon seen that I’d want to move on and he pushed me to learn about mortgages and take over that side of the business. Seems funny to think about now, all that time sitting behind a desk calculating figures to see what people could afford, not ever suspecting that none of those loans would be getting paid back in full, and in the future that was fast approaching, there wouldn’t be any banks left that would care.

  The job paid quite well, I didn’t have to travel far and I was content. I’d worked there since I was twenty-two, and although I occasionally felt bored and restless, I wasn’t ambitious enough to move on. It was Chloe who had the big plans and dreams and the drive to fulfill them. She was already making a bit of a name for herself on the local legal circuit as a barrister to look out for, and her salary was more than double mine.

  All that and six months younger than me, but I can honestly say I didn’t care. I was proud of her. I wanted her to be happy, and as far as I could tell her work and me did that for her, and that alone made me the luckiest man alive.

  We lived in a renovated cottage at the top end of High Street, close enough to walk to all the restaurants and pubs the old coaching town had to offer without either of us having to drive. We would sip wine and beer and laugh together about the days behind and ahead. As lives go, it wasn’t a bad one. We had village life on the edge of a thriving new city, and London was only forty minutes away on a train, just in case we felt like trying to regain our early twenties. We were settled, and that may sound dull to some people, but then I suppose they never had the good luck to settle down with Chloe.

  When I got in that evening at six, she was already home, sitting on our oversized, overindulgent sofa, her legs tucked under her, thick Mediterranean hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked about sixteen, and that made the thoughts running through my head barely legal.

  Undoing my tie and top button, I sat down at the other end. “Hey, gorgeous. You’re home early.”

  Her eyes flicked momentarily at me and then back to the exposed brick wall above the fireplace. “I didn’t feel well. I came home early. I wasn’t in court this afternoon, so it didn’t really matter.”

  She did look tired and pale, and I stroked her hair. “You work too hard, babe. Why don’t I get you a glass of wine and run you a hot bath?”

  “That won’t change it.” She let out a weary sigh. “I went to the doctor on my way home.”

  Shuffling in closer, I felt the tension coming from her slim frame, and my heart tightened. Sometimes late at night, when she was sleeping curled up in the crook of my shoulder, I would quietly wonder when it was going to go wrong. It was too good, you see. She was too good for me, and what we had was too special. Maybe everyone in love feels like that, but when it’s a first love that lasts, you can’t help but wonder what may come along to destroy it. She’d been to the doctor. Doctors meant sickness. How ill was she? My mouth dried as a wave of suggested diseases flooded my brain.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She looked at me and sniffed, her brown eyes impenetrable. Her bottom lip quivered as she spoke.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  I’m pregnant. The world spun on its head for a moment, then froze as I tried to take it in. The words punching the air from my lungs, the best I could manage was a half-breathless laugh, my flesh tingling at every pore as I stared, no doubt with my mouth half-open and looking like a dribbling idiot, at her beautiful face.

  “What?” At last I squeezed out a word. Not a particularly clever or appropriate one, but it was the best I could do, sitting there on the leather sofa, a month or so away from thirty and feeling like a big kid with my heart pounding too hard against my chest.

  “I’m pregnant.” Tears welled up, threatening to spill onto her cheeks. “And scared.”

  I could feel tears pricking at the back of my eyes, too, and as soon as I could get my body to do as I wanted I pulled her closer to me. “What are you scared for? You’re pregnant.” I paused for a moment, needing to say the words to make it real. “You’re pregnant.” Real was good.

  The grin on my face stretched until it almost hurt. “You’re going to have a baby.” I paused again. “We’re going to have a baby.” I laughed out loud. “We’re going to have a baby, Chloe.” The giggles wouldn’t stop and I sat there chortling to myself. “That’s fantastic!”

  Staring at me, she pulled back slightly. “Are you sure about this? Are you sure you’re happy about it? I thought you might . . . well, I thought you might want me not to have it.”

  For a moment, the fear crept back into my heart. I’d never really thought about children, not in any imminent way, but now that circumstances had overtaken planning I knew that I wanted this baby to come. It would cement everything that we had. But maybe she didn’t feel that way. After all, it was a bigger step for her. It was she who had the big career ahead of her. Maybe she felt that her job was more important than a baby right now. The laughing stopped.

  “Why? Don’t you want to keep it?”

  She smiled hesitantly, flashing her perfect white teeth. “Yes, yes, of course I do, I was just worried you might think it was too soon, that we should be married or—”

  My mouth silenced hers and we kissed until the gentleness turned to passion right there on the leather, our child only a few weeks old inside her, our perfect day ending as it had begun.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The first month after that pretty much flew by in a whirl of baby name books and paint charts for the soon not-to-be-spare room. We laughed a lot that month, mainly over her strange food choices and what she considered my strange baby name choices. And there were a few strange choices according to her, although I still wonder how anyone could consider George an odd name. Even the fact that it had been my grandfather’s name wouldn’t sway her, but just made her laugh even harder, curled up on the sofa, her hand darting from the jar of pickled onions to the box of chocolates beside her, some old movie playing in the background.

  She was nearly three months and the pregnancy was fine and so was Chloe. Apart from the weight gain. Which was odd, because she was still working hard, often not home in time for dinner, claiming to have eaten at work, and once the cravings had worn off, it seemed that we never ate anything together. And I know that pregnant women put on weight. I may be a man, but I understand the basics; however, this weight wasn’t going in the right places.

  One morning I found her standing in the bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her greasy hair hung lankly over her shoulders, exaggerating the puffy face with dark bags around the eyes. In that grey light of dawn I could see the fat she’d accumulated on her thickened hips and thighs, looking lumpy and swollen under her pale skin. Her arms were dimpled and flabby, too, and I fought a wave of revulsion. There was something disgusting about the almost translucent texture of her skin. What the hell was going on with her? Surely this couldn’t be right? Yes, she had a small firm bump at the front, but it was almost unnoticeable w
ithin the rest of the flesh she’d gained. And some of the lumpy fat seemed to be covering that, too. Her dressing gown was on the floor beside her and I picked it up, gently putting it over her shoulders. I looked into her sad eyes in the mirror in front of us. God, I loved her.

  “Are you okay?”

  Keeping hold of the dressing gown, she turned away from me. “I’m tired. I think I’ll stay at home today.”

  “Good idea.” And I did think it was. She needed to rest, to eat some healthy food and get her energy back. This pregnancy was obviously more difficult than she was letting on, and at last there was something I thought I could do. I followed her into the bedroom.

  “Why don’t I stay with you? I could be your servant for the day. I’ll spoil you.”

  She kept her dressing gown on and pulled the covers almost over her head. Her voice was muffled. “You’ll be needed at work.”

  “I’m sure they won’t mind. Things are a bit quiet at the moment, anyway.” That was an understatement. It seemed that there had been a citywide slump in the housing market. For whatever reason people had just stopped selling and buying over the past couple of months. Although I was planning to work from home once the baby was born, it was beginning to worry me that there wouldn’t be enough business out there to make it worthwhile. We’d agreed I’d be the house husband, but I had wanted something to do that would at least bring in some money. Male pride and all. Still, I consoled myself with the thought that these things never lasted. As soon as the good weather came it would be business as usual.

  “I’ll go and call them, shall I?”

  She yanked the covers down, her eyes raging at me. “Go to work, Matt, and stop fussing. I just want to be left alone!”

  Jolting backward a bit, not used to her being like that, I tried to touch her. “Look, babe . . .”