Run to Ground

2:He had to get to Sloman’s office. Sloman could call the police, or the fire brigade, or whomever it took to fix this. The cemetery was large, covering many acres, but Jim had worked there nearly six months now, so he knew the quickest route.As he ran down the asphalt path Jim felt the ground beside it rumble. Whatever had been underneath the shed was now chasing him. It was in the earth right beneath him. Something was terribly wrong, things like this shouldn’t happen. What had Cundle been doing in the shed to cause this to happen?Jim’s heart pumped and the blood sang in his ears, colours seemed brighter and his vision was sharper. Jim could pick out individual blades of grass and petals on a daisy.His cousin, a head-case who’d done two tours in Iraq, once told him this happened under fire. In fight or flight situations, all your senses went into overdrive and you knew things without realising how.Jim was experiencing that now. He couldn’t tell how, but he knew whatever was

4:The grave had fallen in that morning, before Cundle arrived with his fancy equipment. He looked crestfallen when Jim showed him. He had no explanation for the dramatic collapse of the hillock, and didn’t understand why it had sunk in on itself in a matter of hours.Cundle acted as though his precious theory had collapsed along with the grave. He seemed to take comfort in the fact that there had been localised tremors in the area just before the collapse.As Jim tore past the grave now, he noticed something new. At its foot was a long vertical slit in the earth, almost a gash, where the turf had been pulled apart. In the waning light of the early evening, he could just make out that the gash opened onto a small tunnel.It took ten minutes to get to Sloman’s office from the grave. Jim’s legs shook, he knew he couldn’t keep up the pace. He wondered for a minute if he shouldn’t just lie down on the grave and get it over with. Then he thought of Cundle and what had been done to him a

6:Halfway to the bungalow Jim’s lungs were burning and his legs shook. He stopped and bent forward with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. He was more out of shape than he realised. Coming up behind him he heard the familiar rumble on either side of the path. There seemed to be two of them now. There was twice as much noise and the ground on either side of the path shook.They rumbled ominously at his heels and he stumbled into a brisk trot. “Alright, alright,” Jim said. “I’m going.” Despite his fatigue and his mock bravado Jim was very, very afraid. He’d seen what those things could do and he knew they were playing with him.He came to a crossroads in the path and his pursuers cut in front of him blocking two of the paths, including the most direct route to his bungalow. He knew where they were taking him. He gasped for breath and his head throbbed as he jogged past the second of the three affected graves. Like the first, the huge hillock had caved in and was now

8:God save us, Jim, you look a state,” said Father Powers as Jim burst into the vestry.Jim was just glad to see him alive. Father Powers took a step back and wrinkled his nose. Jim glanced down at his T-shirt and jeans. They were stained with blood, soil, and urine. For the first time he noticed that his boxers were sticking to his butt cheeks and there was a hardening lump back there. No wonder he reeked.“Father . . . Father Pow . . . I mean Kit,” he said panting, as much from panic as from the run. “There are things out there . . . in the cemetery. They’re under the ground, they come from the graves, the ones Sloman was worried about. They’re killing people, Sloman and Cundle and . . . and . . . It’s horrible, they’ve been chasing me.”“I know all about them, lad.”Jim was incredulous. “You do?”“I heard them coming.”“You did?”“I can feel them in the ground. They’re outside now. They won’t come in the church though.”Jim began to cry with relief, like a little child. He

10:For a longtime, Jim tried to deny the enormity of what the Byrgen had done to him. He felt certain they were going to kill him when they fell on him in the tunnel. After they were done, Jim almost wished they had.As they’d advanced on him, Jim saw they were carrying trophies from their other kills. They had the skins of all three victims, at least one of which they must have collected after Jim found the remains. He also saw Fiona’s umbilical cord and some of Cundle’s organs.Jim looked to Father Powers in silent appeal but the old man’s face was grim and implacable. “It’s no use trying to get out of it now, lad,” he’d said. “The Bible tells us, ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap.’ Your children have brought you what they reaped from their labours of love. I know you may not think it, but they killed those poor souls out of love for you. You don’t have to worry about looking after these children, they’re going to look after you. It was a shame those innocent people had to die, but th