Read Kristin for Free Online Page B

Convent!
The roof has fallen in ... suspected fatalities!’ He pushed Thom aside and
jumped up into the cab. The wail of sirens restarted and most of the engines
sped away.
    He ’ d never heard a
sound like it before ... so highly pitched ... almost above his range of
hearing ... quickly, it developed into a piercing whistle that filled the
air, penetrated the ground, the trees, the buildings, permeating and poisoning
everything around him. Screams ripped through the inert air. The monotone
overcame him, deafening, unbearable. He covered his ears, fighting to prevent
the evil, latent commands concealed within it from entering his mind. The sound
forced him to the ground and he buried his face in the cold earth.
    When he regained
consciousness, several minutes later, the world around him was not the same.

 
    His hearing was reduced to the sound of his
own breathing, the muted thump of his footsteps. Thom tried to orientate
himself; he was no longer by the church. Ahead, a middle-aged woman sat on the
kerb, her bruised legs in the road. When he got closer, he saw that her head
was bald, burned black, as if it had been overloaded with something it couldn’t
absorb. He touched her on the shoulder and her head crumbled to dust. He
retched violently.
    Thom passed into the shadow
of a railway bridge and when he came out into the light he saw two children in
school uniform copulating hard against a wall. She, red-faced, frightened, in
pain. He, embarrassed, confused, unable to stop — controlled by an unseen
force.
    At last he recognized one
of the roads — The Rise, a short, excessively steep hill lined with
enormous evergreens whose leafy branches scattered the sunlight in dappled
patterns across the frosty ground. A heavily pregnant woman headed towards him
and as they passed she stopped, smiling warmly, as if he were an old friend.
    ‘Thank you ... for all that
you’ll do,’ she whispered, in a soft, Irish brogue. ‘We’re going home now, my
baby and me.’
    He watched her leave.
    Another figure, a sharply
dressed young man, appeared at the foot of the hill. Gasping for air he doubled
over, hands on knees. Then he straightened, saw the woman and ran at her. ‘YOU
FUCKING BITCH!’
    Soon he was upon her,
battering her around the head with his case. The sharp, steel corners caught
her again and again, gashing open her scalp, showering the pavement with her
blood. ‘FUCK YOU! FUCK THAT THING INSIDE YOU!’ He drew back his leg, aiming a
kick at her unborn child, but Thom rushed forward, lifted him and threw him
onto an iron railing.
    The blunt, black spike
erupted from the man’s throat, punching his larynx into the open air, and his blood
spurted into Thom’s face, doused the prostrate woman. The young man jiggled helplessly,
his distended eyes staring down at Thom as his body weight caused the wound to
stretch and open into a gushing cavity that deluged his grey suit with blood.
He grabbed at his throat, gargling, choking, lashing out with his feet. And
then he was still. A house door opened. They saw the body, the blood. Thom ran.

 
    A quarter of a mile away he found a small
patch of wasteland between two Victorian houses, thrust his head over some
rusting, chain-link fencing and emptied the remaining contents of his stomach
into the thicket. Then he fell onto his haunches and wept.
    He had killed a man with his bare
hands.
    He hadn ’ t
meant to kill him , just stop him ... the siren had made him do it , forced him to go too far. But he was a murderer;
he would always be a murderer , for as long as he lived. And yet he felt no
remorse , no pity .
    The man’s frenzied assault seemed
symptomatic of what appeared to be happening everywhere since the siren. Would
he otherwise have had the volition, the capability to carry out such a
senseless, brutal act? Thom visualised the woman, lying in a pool of her own
blood — badly wounded, childless, but still alive, still saveable. What
if nobody had helped her? He