Death in the Black Wood, Oliver Davies [short story to read TXT] 📗

“I am. Money trails aren’t hard to follow, just time consuming. What happens when we have an address, Con?”

“Most likely? A discreet watch on the place. We wait for him to leave and swoop in.”

“How long will you wait? Knowing what he might be doing in there?”

He just shrugged.

“That won’t be my call, or McKinnon’s. Anderson will probably give it two or three days, but I can’t see us waiting any longer than that. ‘Night, Shay.”

After he’d gone upstairs, I thought about that for a while. Two or three days? A lot could happen in that much time, especially if Jimmy held Brady’s undivided attention. The chances that he’d leave the house again any time soon were negligible too.

I spent the next three hours making my preparations. If I didn’t log on again by noon tomorrow, Conall would get my first message. The rest would go to him on Friday, and he’d have a team prepped and ready to go in by then. All he’d need was for that address to pop up on his screen before he could act.

I had my route worked out long before then. Cutting across country, I could reach Balloch in two-and-a-half hours at a steady, unhurried pace. I couldn’t take Uncle Danny’s car, or Conall would just track it down. He wasn’t going to like this, but he’d understand why I had to try it.

I napped in the shed where I’d left the drones for a few hours after I reached it. It was warm enough in the sleeping bag I’d brought. I made sure the drones were powered down and left my phone there too, turned off with the card removed. Nothing I’d left in there was giving off any signals.

Yesterday afternoon’s snow had turned to a cold rain during the earlier hours of the night, but the ground was white with early frost as I crunched my way across the fields towards the house. The sky was a clear wash of low pinks and high, pale blue but it was supposed to cloud over again later. Was Brady up in there yet? Well, it was a nice morning, even if it was a bit nippy. I’d wander around at a little distance for a while and see if I got a reaction. It wouldn’t take him long to realise that I was alone.

After that, everything depended on how he reacted to my little performance. Whichever way this went, at least I’d know I’d done what I could.

Twenty-Six

The Ally

What was it doing out there? It just seemed to be pacing around the house in circles, spiralling slightly closer on each pass. I’d never seen anything like that creature before. When that startling face had come into view, staring curiously into the camera with that weird, searching gaze on Saturday morning, it had been one hell of a shock. It was almost as if it could see me, which was a ridiculous notion. Were those eyes really that colour, or was it wearing contact lenses?

I still didn’t know exactly what my Companion had done on Friday night but it had certainly kicked up a hornet’s nest of police activity around the house where it had left that camera. I’d seen them wheel a body out, so I knew it had killed someone but not who or how. Had that old man been in there and not at home after all? I certainly didn’t recognise the place.

“It doesn’t have one of those auras but it doesn’t look human either,” I’d said.

“Disconnect! Now! They’ll try to track the signal.” The Companion had sounded unusually heated just then. And it hadn’t told me what it thought the creature was either. I was getting really fed up of not having my questions answered.

Now it was here, outside my house. It had bits of straw in its hair and stuck to its clothes too, as if it had slept in a barn or something. What did it want? Had it escaped from that detective who’d been guarding it? More importantly, how had it found me? I lowered my binoculars again to rest my arms.

“What are we going to do?”

“Do? We’re going to watch and wait for a little longer. We need to be sure it really is on its own. Let it come closer and then check it for signals. If it is what it appears to be, there shouldn’t be any. What would a creature like that want with human technology?”

“You know what it is then? Is it an alien? An enemy?”

“I’m not sure what it is yet, but I have my suspicions. Whether it’s an enemy remains to be seen. And I’d like to know how it got here too. Very much so.”

After another half hour had passed, it was close enough to the house for me to open the door and check it with my RF detector. No flashing lights or beeping noises. The thing wasn’t carrying anything that was transmitting.

It stopped to turn and stare, wide eyed, as the door opened and even moved a few feet closer, head cocked to one side, trying to peer inside. I could have sworn it was sniffing the air as it lifted its head, moving it in a circle as its nostrils flared slightly. I closed the door again and put the detector back on its shelf.

“Keep the taser ready when you go back out. Don’t get too close. It might move more quickly than you expect. Be careful.”

I looked out of the window to see what it was doing. It had wandered off again, on another circuit. This time, a row of flashing lights on my security system lit up, one after another as it set the motion detectors off. I was really glad I’d turned the volume off on those alarms before it got close enough to trigger them. I opened up the door again, waiting for it to come back into view but I kept an eye on the