Читать книгу Specials: Based on the BBC TV Drama Series: The complete novels in one volume - Brian Degas - Страница 11

Investigating the eerie surrounds of the Ellman Superstore at night gave Special Constable Viv Smith a weird case of the ‘creeps’, and having Special Constable Freddy Calder at her side was worse than Rosemary’s Baby: what loony Americans would call ‘a horror show’. Angular slabs of concrete cast deep shadows and what few sources of light were within reach merely served to spread the shadows out longer.

Slower and slower they walked, until Viv stopped. Freddy looked at her with questioning eyes, although not a sound emerged from his throat. She prayed there wouldn’t be another peep out of him, as she took a cigarette out of her shoulder bag.

‘Don’t say another word,’ Viv warned him in a low, cemetery whisper. ‘I said I’d give them up.’

The cigarette was in her mouth, and she was just about to light up, when a squeaky noise pierced the night air. She froze like a deer, although she might just as well have shrieked and jumped over the moon. Freddy also appeared to have been instantaneously transformed into a pillar of salt.

Slowly she turned, her antennae searching the horizon for the direction of the squeaking noise, which seemed to become louder every second, as if coming toward them from the shadows.

Suddenly one of the shadows was moving! And while it was moving closer, it was growing larger and the squeaking noise louder and louder.

The moving shadow expanded to fill an entire wall, appearing to be a giant creature of some sort inexorably screeching toward them. The cigarette fell out of Viv’s mouth, yet she wasn’t at all sure she could manage a scream.

Something appeared at the bottom of the wall, beneath and much smaller than the shadow: something that was causing the shadow.

It was a supermarket trolley with a young child inside, being pushed by another child.

Quickly the Specials headed for the trolley, trying not to frighten the children the same way that they had been spooked.

The children immediately saw them and waited where they were. Freddy got to them first.

‘Whoa there, stranger,’ he soothed with a friendly smile, almost in one of his character voice impersonations.

Pushing the trolley was a young boy, not more than six years old. In the trolley was a little girl even younger. The two looked up with fear, uncertainty and suspicion mixed into their expressions of bewilderment. Viv’s heart went out to them.

‘Hullo,’ she said gently. ‘What are you two doing here?’

The children said nothing.

‘Been shopping then?’ Freddy inquired.

The boy laughed, unable to repress his reaction. ‘Silly. It’s closed,’ he scoffed.

Another laugh from the boy even made the little girl smile. God bless Freddy, he really did have a talent after all.

‘How did you get here?’ said Viv, trying to pry some basic information out of them.

The children still said nothing. Perhaps she was intimidating them with her direct inquiries.

‘You haven’t done much shopping,’ Freddy remarked.

‘No. Auntie’s shopping,’ the boy responded.

‘Your auntie?’ Viv asked him.

Again he didn’t answer her. ‘Charming,’ she muttered to Freddy. ‘They must think I’m the Witch of the West.’

The little boy looked at Freddy with imploring eyes. ‘We’re waiting for her. We’re waiting for Auntie.’

The looks on their faces made Viv thank heaven she had taken the trouble to come to the Ellman Superstore on this dark and lonely night.

There was important, urgent work to be done, as fast and efficiently – and delicately – as they could.