Choked Read online

  Also by Tania Carver

  The Surrogate

  The Creeper

  Cage of Bones

  Copyright

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978-0-7481-2284-4

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Tania Carver 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Also by Tania Carver

  Copyright

  Prologue the Passover Lamb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part One A Bloody Good Friday

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part Two Silent Saturday

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Part Three Crucifixion Sunday

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Part Four Resurrection Monday

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Epilogue Ascension

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  The Surrogate

  The Creeper

  Cage of Bones

  The Doll’s House

  PROLOGUE

  THE PASSOVER LAMB

  1

  He opened his eyes. Stood up slowly. He hurt. Everything hurt.

  He looked round. Took it all in. And knew what he needed.

  A gun.

  He knew where there was one. A double-barrelled shotgun, kept for bagging rabbits and clay pigeons.

  But not today.

  The locked cabinet where it was kept was simple to open. He held the gun in his hand, felt the weight, the heft of it, like he was balancing it against what it was capable of. Or had been capable of.

  He took his eyes off the barrels and surveyed the room. The house had been wrecked. The furniture had always been carefully positioned, regularly cleaned. He could remember being told off for playing on it when he was younger. The antiques had been out of bounds. He was never to touch them, or else. The drumming-in of the consequences of such an act was one of his earliest memories of life in the house. He had grown up too terrified to do so. If one of his hands had accidentally brushed against a vase or a porcelain figurine, he had gone to bed that night in abject fear of some terrible but unspecified punishment.

  But all that was now gone. Replaced by carnage.

  The furniture was overturned, glass-fronted cabinets smashed, upholstery ripped open. The antiques lay shattered all around, giving each room a new, shard-sharp carpet.

  Something caught his eye. A vase, upright, sitting on the plinth it had always occupied in the corner. The last remaining antique. He crossed to it, reached out and touched it softly. Caressed it, stroked it like it was the only remnant from the old days, his old life. But he’d forgotten the shotgun balanced in the crook of his other arm. He brought it round too quickly. It connected with the vase. Hard. And the vase fell, shattering on the parquet flooring, rippling out in thousands of tiny porcelain fractals, making his ears ring.

  He backed away quickly. Felt fragments crunch under his feet; felt that childhood terror once more. Someone or something would get him for this. He would be punished in some way.

  He turned, fled the room. Looking for peace, respite.

  But it was the same in all the others. Same carnage, same destruction.

  Same dead bodies.

  That was what he had been avoiding. Too scared to look. Blanking them out. All of them. Because he knew who each of them was. Or had been. The man he had called his father. The girl he had called his sister. The boy he had called his brother. And his mother.

  His mother …

  Now they were nothing. Just leavings in a stinking abattoir. Their blood and insides smearing and decorating the walls, ceilings and floors. He could plot their pathways, the journeys from room to room to avoid the gun. Running. Shrieking. Grabbing at antiques – carefully collected and collated antiques, expensive antiques – throwing them, hearing them shatter. Pulling over sofas, chaises, hiding futilely behind them. Knowing that nothing they did, said or could do would stop the gun from firing. From tearing them apart.

  From tearing apart the people he had come to call his family.

  He felt tired, as
if suddenly coming down from an adrenalin high. He yawned. The shotgun felt like an extra, heavy limb in his arms. Or a sleeping baby. He trudged round the house, eyes seeing yet not seeing.

  His mother.

  His mother …

  Up and down stairs. In and out of every room. Over and over. Nothing changed. Nothing moved. Outside, it grew dark. The sun sank over the hedges. He didn’t turn on any lights, didn’t notice. Shadows accumulated. His feet, and what was under his feet, made the only sound. Eventually he came again to the main room. The drawing room, as the girl he had been told to call sister insisted on it being referred to. In here was worst. Even more so than he remembered it the first time.

  This was where most of his family had ended up. Hunted down, the shotgun taking them out like rabbits in the field, clay discs in the sky.

  His mother had made it to the fireplace. Twilight shadows falling from the huge side window turned her body into a misshapen sack, of offal and bone, cloth and hair. He felt even more tired, more numb inside. He knelt over her body, meaning to stroke her hair, move it away from her face, her sightless eyes. His fingers touched wet sponge. He pulled them back, looked at them. The darkness of the room rendered her blood black.

  He wanted to cry, but he was beyond tears.

  He moved away from her, pulled a small footstool to the wall, sat down on it. Took in the room once more. Everything wrecked. Lives. Futures. Including his.

  He sighed. I should be pleased, he thought. Because this is all mine now. No more arguments, no more whispering behind hands, saying things about me behind my back. No more telling me what to do. Making me feel small. Hurting me. Making me do things I don’t want to do. Telling me I can’t touch things when the rest of them can. When the girl who’s supposed to be my sister can. No more. No more.

  He looked at the shotgun. Felt emotions build within him that he couldn’t even name. He sat there, breathing hard, his skin prickling and hot as though he had developed some virus, the room dancing before his eyes like the prelude to a migraine.

  The emotions swam within him, whirling round and round, faster and faster, engulfing him.

  No more.

  No more.

  He moved the shotgun out of the crook of his arm. Felt the slow, painful release of his elbow muscles where he had held it for so long, a rusty gate being unlocked.

  He stretched his arms out fully, the shotgun in his right hand. Head still swirling, he placed the barrel against the underside of his chin, felt the cold metal against his hot skin. Put the stock between his thighs. Brought them together. Wrapped both his thumbs round the triggers. Closed his eyes.

  No more …

  ‘Can I just suggest something?’

  He stopped. Opened his eyes.

  ‘If you’re going to do it, at least do it properly.’

  2

  He jumped, startled at the sudden sound. He had believed himself alone in the house. The only one there. The only living one there, anyway.

  ‘It’s the wrong way round.’ A finger pointed at the shotgun. ‘You’re holding it the wrong way round.’

  He looked down at his own fingers. The trigger guard was pointing outwards, away from him. That was the easiest way, he had thought, to bring his two index fingers down on the triggers. A sure way of making certain he didn’t miss.

  ‘Like Village of the Damned.’

  Puzzled, he didn’t reply.

  ‘Village of the Damned,’ the intruder said again, voice edged with exasperation. ‘The film. With the spooky blond kids. Old one. Black and white.’

  He still said nothing.

  ‘Oh, you must have seen it. Remember?’

  He couldn’t process fast enough, couldn’t keep up. The house. The people he called his family. The intruder. And now the things the intruder was saying to him. Prattle. White noise in his head. His brain felt like it moved seconds after his head did.

  ‘Anyway, there’s this scene in the film. This farmer’s done something to upset the kids. And they make him kill himself. Point his own shotgun at himself. He does it that way.’ The intruder pointed at his hands. ‘The way you’re holding it.’

  He looked down again. Took his fingers away, suddenly self-conscious.

  ‘I mean, it’s all right, as ways go. But there’s too much margin for error. Too many things that can go wrong. Your finger could slip. You could miss. The shot could just take your jaw off, miss your brain completely. You’d still be alive, but you’d be a hell of a mess. Is that what you want?’

  The intruder stared at him. Scrutinised him. He felt embarrassed, looked away.

  Still saying nothing.

  He looked down at the gun once more. He could pick it up, point it, pull the triggers … the intruder would be gone. Simple. Easy. One little finger twitch. One loud noise. One dead intruder.

  And one hero.

  The intruder turned back to him and smiled. He looked away, couldn’t hold the gaze. It was like the other man could tell what he had been thinking.

  ‘If you’re going to do it, turn it round, stick it in your mouth. Right the way back and up. So you’re choking on it, gagging. Then pull. That’s the way.’ Doing the actions all the while. ‘Or didn’t you really want to do it?’

  He realised he was being asked a direct question. Felt it demanded an answer. An honest one.

  ‘I … I don’t … don’t know … ’

  The intruder smiled, like that was the expected answer. ‘Thought so. Never mind.’ A sigh. ‘Village of the Damned. Interesting. Based on the John Wyndham novel, The Midwich Cuckoos. Ever read it?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘No. Didn’t take you for much of a reader. Should give it a go. Very interesting.’ The intruder laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. ‘Especially for you. Cuckoos are a bit of a thing with you, aren’t they?’

  Again he said nothing.

  The intruder looked away from him, surveying the damage. ‘What a mess. What a real … blooming … mess.’ He turned back. ‘And no questions. You haven’t even asked who I am or what I’m doing here. Not curious?’

  He opened his mouth, but no words came out. His head, his heart had stopped functioning. He no longer knew what to think or feel.

  The intruder laughed. ‘I’m your Jiminy Cricket, of course.’ Another laugh. ‘The voice of your conscience. Your imaginary little friend. Like Pinocchio had. Remember him? Surely you can remember him. The little wooden boy who wanted to be real. Wanted to fit in. Sound familiar?’

  He looked round the room. Saw bodies that were now just lumps in the darkness. Indistinguishable from the overturned, destroyed furniture.

  ‘Thought so.’

  The intruder sat down on the floor next to him.

  ‘You can put the gun down now. You’re not going to use it. Either on me or yourself.’

  He did as he was told. Placed it carefully on the wooden floor.

  ‘Good.’ The intruder looked at it. Made no attempt to pick it up. Nodded. ‘Good. So, what we going to do with you, eh?’

  ‘What … what d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, we can’t just leave you sitting here like this, can we? Or can we?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. I … hadn’t thought about it … ’

  ‘Of course you hadn’t thought about it. That would call for forward planning. Thinking ahead. But that’s not Pinocchio’s job, that’s Jiminy Cricket’s, isn’t it?’

  He said nothing. Instead he saw a brief mental image of the two characters in the Disney film, walking down a road, singing and dancing. It was false, untrue, but they both looked happy. In fact it looked so false it seemed attainable. He smiled.

  ‘That’s it … you know what I’m talking about. Smart boy. Now this … ’ another expansive gesture, ‘is a mess. A mess that needs sorting. And with me beside you, it will be sorted. If you want me to, that is.’

  His head was still all over the place. He couldn’t process, couldn’t compute what had happened, what was there in front
of him. He couldn’t work out how from him walking in the door of the house – of his home – feeling angry and bullied, self-pitying and wronged, feeling like he wanted to say his piece, get things straightened out, get everything sorted … how everything had gone from that to … He looked round the room again. To … this.

  ‘All right,’ he said, turning once more to the intruder. ‘Help me.’

  ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Know where that’s from?’ The intruder laughed.

  It left a cold, ringing echo round the blood-black walls.

  PART ONE

  A BLOODY GOOD FRIDAY

  3

  It should have been the happiest time of her life. But it had turned into the worst.

  Marina Esposito opened her eyes slowly. Shock flooded her system. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She gradually pushed herself up on to her elbows, trying to blink away the images before her. Failing.

  It was as if she had gone to sleep and woken up in some hellish post-apocalyptic landscape. The cottage, the garden behind it, the stretch of Suffolk coastline before it, had all gone. The comforting, safe rural environment replaced by ruins, flames.

  She tried to pull herself into a sitting position, willed her mind to catch up with her body’s movements, but felt nothing but blankness in her head. It was too much to process, like she had just woken up and dragged a nightmare with her into the day. But she felt the heat on her face, her skin, the dust in her eyes. The gravel of the pathway she was lying on painfully imprinted on her hands and arms, her face. And she knew, subconsciously, that it must be real.

  She blinked again, trying to corral her mind into some kind of rational order, to remember what had happened, why she was there.

  The cottage where they had all been staying. The …

  She looked at the blazing ruin before her and realised that that was the cottage.

  ‘Oh God … ’

  She dragged herself slowly to her feet, ignoring the painful gravel rash, the grazed skin, her head spinning. Adrenalin began to pump round her system. She felt her heart speeding up, tripping along faster than her chest could contain it. She stood on unsteady legs, swaying, looking at the burning cottage before her. Slowly, as though her legs were made from concrete, she made her way towards it, crunching on gravel and shingle, breathing heavily through her mouth, her mind racing to catch up with her body.