Acolyte (The Wildermoor Apocalypse Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

cannot be working , she thought.  The man is constantly on edge and is at risk of a heart attack or stroke if he does not calm down.  He looked frail as he stared at her, as if he might crumble to ashes at any moment.
    Colin was looking past Lorraine, over her right shoulder, staring into the far corner of the room.  Lorraine felt eyes boring into the back of her head; she was being watched.  She turned her head over her left shoulder but saw nothing but the empty space between the two tall grey filing cabinets in the corner of her office. 
    Apprehensive but now convinced that nothing was lurking behind her, she turned back to Colin, but jumped with a start to find that he was now sat mere inches from her, on the pine coffee table. His eyes were drawn wide into an unnerving stare as if they were drilling a hole through into her head.
    She felt a warmth surge through her, up from her legs to her fingertips, travelling up her arms until she could feel burning in her head behind her eyes.  Colin stared still, without as much as a sound that would suggest he was breathing.  Not moving his eyes, he spoke once more.
    ‘I shouldn’t be here.  He says I shouldn’t be here,’ he uttered slowly, calmly.
    Feeling her breath catch in her throat she asked again.
    ‘Who?’
    The question seemed to bounce off of him like a rubber bullet. Colin did not appear to acknowledge that Lorraine had spoken.  She was scared now too; his eyes were wild and his body rigid, a coiled cobra ready to strike.  Lorraine instinctively reached out her hand to try and calm him.  She had worried about him these last few weeks and went into every meeting not knowing if he would make it through the following days alive.  Now he was scaring her to the point where she could not breathe.  The warmth in her head was becoming unbearable and beads of sweat now formed on her brow.  Was she now the one at risk of her body shutting down from fear?
    Lorraine’s hand carried on reaching for Colin resting on his left shoulder.  As soon as she touched him his eyes came back to life as if she had flicked an invisible switch.  Colin shook his head twice as if awakening from a dream and looked around the room frantically trying to regain his bearings.  He started to pant and whimper, his eyes glistening as the tears formed. 
    Lorraine had suffered another start herself when the mannequin figure before her came back to life. She placed her hand once more on Colin’s shoulder, with more force this time, in an attempt to comfort him.
    ‘Shhh-shhh, it’s okay, Colin,’ she said calmly, ‘It’s only me.’ But it was no use. His breathing was out of control and his head was thrashing from side to side with such force she worried his neck would snap.  His eyes were clenched shut as he started to sob.
    ‘Colin, it’s Dr. Thacker, you’re in my surgery and you are safe…’ she pleaded with the authority of a pre-school teacher trying to calm a distressed boy.
    ‘Just go away,’ he pleaded, ‘Leave me alone.  What do you want from me?’  His voice started to break into a scream as he struggled for breath through the tears. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!’
    Dr. Thacker started to shake him gently to snap him from his trance and within seconds the light faded as Colin opened his eyes.  He looked around the room once more but it had changed.  He was no longer sitting or standing.  His duvet cover lay crumpled on the floor and his bed sheets were torn from the mattress at one end.  The light was straining in through a crack between his bedroom curtains.  He did not want to face the light of another day but was terrified of spending another second in the darkness.
    Dr. Thacker had brought The Reaper back to him.  And now, in order to save himself, she had to go.
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
    As Thomas Laing unlocked his car, he knew he would regret opting to spend yet another lunchtime in what had become a portable