Shivering, he listened hard. There was no reply.
With the file clutched in one hand, he used the other to unbolt and unlock the door.
"This is madness, Tony," he hissed. "You're out of your friggin" mind."
But he knew he had to look. Something he could not control compelled him to open that door and come perhaps face to face with-
BANG.
He wrenched open the door, crashing it against the refrigerator.
Then, with his breath croaking noisily through his throat, he looked out.
There was no one there.
Perhaps they're hiding around the corner-or behind a bush, just waiting to ... Get a grip, old son, get a grip. There's no one there.
From the doorway he strained his eyes into the dark.
He'd nearly given up and was ready to close the door when he happened to glance down.
Tony Gateman stared at what was on the pale flagstones, his eyes bulging.
He swallowed, and electric shocks of fear prickled up his spine, neck and across his scalp.
There, darker than the surrounding flagstones, were a set of footprints.
Tony stepped out, clutching the file to his chest, and looked down. The prints were those of an adult who had walked-barefoot-up to the back door of his house. He could even see the individual toes clearly against the stone.
The prints, Tony saw, were there because the trespasser's feet had been wet. Even as he stared at them they faded as the moisture evaporated.
Without hesitating, Tony followed them along the path to his front gate; once through the gate they crossed Out-Butterwick's main street.
Tony looked to his left and right. The street was deserted. Even at this time most of the houses were in darkness.
"You're an idiot, Gateman, you're an idiot ..." He whispered it over and over as he followed the drying footprints. What if he turned a corner and they were waiting for him? But he knew he must see where they led.
He followed the footprints as far as Mark Faust's shop. There they turned left to follow a path down toward the beach.
Panting noisily, the file clutched to his chest, he followed the path, then crossed the seafront road to the beach. The prints had vanished now but he knew where they led.
He loped down the soft sand in the dark; ahead the surf showed in a milky line a hundred yards away.
The retreating tide had left a featureless expanse of sand.
Featureless, apart from a set of bare footprints leading in the direction of the night-time ocean. Panting, Tony loped after them.
The prints led to the water's edge and disappeared beneath the surf. Whoever had walked barefoot into the sea had not walked back out again.
Choking in lungfuls of air, Tony dropped to his knees on the wet sand. It was starting. These were the first signs-or should that be: These were the first symptoms?
What next?
Tony shook his head, afraid even to try to guess.
But he knew what the immediate future held for him. He would return to his bungalow, lock the door, take the whiskey decanter to his bedroom, and spend the night emptying it down his throat.
Chapter Nineteen
"Dad! You've missed it!"
Ruth laughed. "You'll have to start throwing it more gently, David. Your dad's not getting any younger."
The evening sun shone brilliantly as they played frisbee on the beach. Two hundred yards away, the sea-fort reared out of the beach.
They stood in a triangle, throwing the yellow frisbee from one to the other.
"You're getting too good for me," laughed Chris, his spirits high. "Right, I'm ready for some more refreshment."
"Wimp!" shouted David, and ran giggling back to the picnic they had spread on the blanket.
"I'll second that," called Ruth mischievously, her dark hair blowing in the breeze. "Wimp! Wimp!"
"I'm chucking both of you in the sea ... See who the wimps are then ..."
"Can't get me!" shouted David.
"Nor me," Ruth panted.
David picked up the French stick, holding it like a sword. "We're in our den."
"Den? It's only a blanket. I can get the pair of you- easy!"
"But it's the den, Dad. You can't be got once you're in a den."
"Okay." Chris grinned. "I'll obey the rules." He sat down cross-legged on the sand beside the blanket. "But that doesn't mean you can't pass essential supplies out to me so I don't starve."
Ruth passed him a glass of Liebfraumilch. "I'm glad you had the gates repaired."
"You've not seen that man hanging around the dunes again?"
"No. Perhaps I was letting my imagination run away with me."
"Anyway, it doesn't really matter now. Believe me, love. Once those gates are locked, they will keep an army out."
Chapter Twenty
Mark looked out to sea. The tide advanced, lifting the few small boats and dinghies off the sand.
All the villagers were there.
The Major with his dog; Mrs. Jarvis in her wheelchair, resting one foot on the low wall that separated sand from road.
A car crept down the road behind them. The Reverend Reed would drive up and down the seafront road at least three more times before the sun set.
Apart from Brinley Fox, the beach was deserted. He paced up and down, ravenously smoking a cigarette.
Tony Gateman stood by Mark's side.
As the sun dipped behind the white-painted cottages, Mark found himself thinking of a time long ago. He and his brother were on vacation. Their parents had taken them to a fairground that had a huge rollercoaster ride. His brother was about eleven; Mark would have been a couple of years younger.
They had walked around the fair, going on the usual rides, firing rifles, eating stick-jaw candy. A ride on the rollercoaster would be the climax of the trip. They debated its potential all day-how fast it would go, how high it soared, had anyone ever fallen off, would they scream like the rest? They had enjoyed anticipating the thrill of the ride, with the iron wheels clattering and roaring down the iron track. All day Mark had looked forward to riding the rollercoaster until he had ached inside.
Then he and his brother joined the queue. At last they climbed into the bright red carriages.
It wasn't until the carriage had begun its long clanking climb up the incline that seemed to go forever up into the sky that he realized the last thing he wanted to do in his life-ever-was go on this thing. Frightened? He was terrified. He gripped the safety bar. This thing wasn't safe. He wanted to get off. He didn't want to ride the damn thing anymore.
He remembered those few moments riding upward in that carriage more keenly than he'd remembered anything before.
Because that's how he felt now. Here in Out-Butterwick they were waiting for a terrifying monster rollercoaster of a ride that no one alive had ever experienced. Once again the sense of anticipation and excitement he had felt had been transformed into fear. This was a ride he wanted to get off now. He wanted it to stop. He wanted out.
But he knew, Tony Gateman knew, every damn person here knew, it was far, far too late.
The knots in his stomach grew tighter as the sun hung on, a blob of red fire on the horizon. Then it slipped from sight. The sighs of relief were audible. It would not happen tonight.
The Vicar's car fired into life and he slowly drove back to the Harbour Inn. He had an appointment with a green bottle that promised to wash away his fears for a few sweet hours.
Mark turned to Tony. The little Londoner still stared out to sea, his eyes gleaming behind the thick lenses.
Mark licked his dry lips. "I've seen them moving about. Under the sea at Manshead. They've found a way out of the ship ... Tony, they're coming back."
Tony looked up. "It's all going wrong, isn't it?"
Chapter Twenty-one
After he had left Tony and Mark at the Harbour Tavern, Chris strolled away from the village in the direction of home.
Home? A caravan, parked in the courtyard o
f a derelict sea-fort? But now it really did begin to feel like home.
He was glad he had made the effort to come to the Tavern tonight. After a day ripping out more pre-war panelling from what had been the sea-fort's lavatories, he'd been tempted to slump in front of the TV, feasting on pepperoni pizza washed down by a couple of cold beers. "Get yourself out," Ruth had told him. "If you're going to be Out-Butterwick's leading businessman you should be mixing with the locals."
The street lights ended with the last cottage in the village. He struck off on the path that led along the top of the dunes back to Manshead. Even though the moon had started to wane, the thin silver light it cast was bright enough to see by. To his right, the expanse of sand looking misty and pale; beyond that were the brighter bands of surf rolling in toward the shore. To his left the marshes were merely an expanse of dark shapes.
He strolled on, breathing in the warm night air scented by some wild flower, listening to the hushed whisper of the sea. The evening had left him feeling relaxed and amiable; a warm bubble of satisfaction filled him.
The knowledge that in twenty minutes or so he would be sliding into a warm bed beside his wife only seemed to increase his sense of well-being.
After all the beer and brandies he seemed to be almost sleep-walking, lulled by the slow rhythm of his stride, the sandy path crisp beneath his feet. But then this place had a habit of relaxing you at night. After these days of hard work, sleep came over you like the waves of some vast dark ocean, rolling in and out, lulling you, filling you with the most blissful relaxation.
He yawned.
The temptation rolled through him to lie down in some hollow with sand for a comfortable mattress and let himself drift peacefully away to sleep.
He yawned again.
Ahead, a figure stood alone on the dune.
He remembered his policy of positive fraternization with the natives. He took the right-hand fork in the path which would take him to the figure. The man stood with his back to Chris gazing steadily out to sea.
He'd just say a few words in a neighborly way then move on. It was coming up to 10.30 and he didn't want to leave Ruth and David alone at the caravan too long.
"Hello ... Nice evening."
Chris walked up level with the man and looked into his face.
OH, GOD ALMIGHTY.
Chris's eyes opened wide with shock-so wide the muscles around his eyes hurt:
He stared unblinking at the face. Face? No ... No face ever looked like that.
The face was round, perfectly white. Shockingly white. As white as a sheet of clean paper, as white as a freshly whitewashed wall; as white as milk; as white as a plate; as white as Christ knows what.
He wanted to lumber blindly away from the thing just an arm's length away. He could not. He was held there. As if a dozen hands had gripped his head, his face, his body; they even seemed to grip his heart, constricting it painfully until he thought it would give one savage leap then stop-forever.
Something seemed to move beneath the face. As if fingers, or something sluggishly alive, were wriggling beneath a tightly stretched sheet of rubber, prodding shallow lumps to appear and disappear... Slowly.
Nothing else existed in the whole world, only the white disc in front of him. And the eyes.
They were dead-fish eyes. Cold, unmoving.
In the bottom third of the white face a split appeared. The mouth widened like a razor slash. There were things inside it.
Inside, tightly packed, one after another, in two uneven rows, were shellfish. The blue-black mollusc shells glistened in the moonlight. Behind them something moved with a thick coiling and uncoiling motion.
An image of a roll-mop herring squeezed into his head. This had the same dark gray coloring; the same silver underside. It continued curling and uncurling wetly in the cavity of the mouth.
Chris tried to screw his eyes shut. But his body didn't work anymore.
The thunder started.
Only it was not thunder. It was a huge thundering voice. Someone bellowed at him in a language he did not understand.
He didn't know if it was in rage. But it seemed to want something from him. Urgent. Demanding.
And it nearly split his bloody head in two.
What do you want from me? he thought desperately. Jesus ... What do you want? What do you want!
The voice thundered.
Demanding ... Demanding ... Demanding ...
Demanding what, for Christsake?
Christ... Go away ... Please ...
If only he could understand ... No!
A raw feeling ripped away all rational thought.
He was conscious only of an intense feeling of revulsion as he looked at the face-his eyes nailed to it.
Then, although the feeling-the sensation he experienced as he stared at the white face-did not change, his own reaction to it did. From revulsion, a disgust so deep it sickened him, the feeling slipped seamlessly into one of attraction. An attraction so powerful he found himself leaning toward the white face. Closer ... Closer ... Touch that smoothly swelling white face with your lips and-
CRACK!
His reaction to the face snapped again: disgust, loathing, revulsion, fear. He wanted to run. Jesus, just run. Please ...
CRACK!
Back again. The feeling of revulsion switched to a desperate need to understand what the voice was thundering. It was important. He wanted-no, he needed-to talk to the figure. To communicate.
CRACK!
Once more revulsion swept through him like shit-filled water blasting through a sewer pipe.
Suddenly:
Silence.
The thunderous barrage that had battered his head stopped.
That white face still hung in front of him. The deadfish eyes looked into his. The slit of the mouth widened. And between the two rows of mussel-shell teeth, the dead-fish tongue rolled to one side, exposing its silver underside, slick with a spunk-like cream.
As he watched, the white face became covered by small lumps that began to swell. There were dozens. He thought of the sea anemones that covered the rocks at low tide in a soft pulpy rash.
Then, like sea anemones immersed in sea water, one by one they opened.
The face was flowering.
Shooting out thousands of waving tendrils of delicate flesh, each one no longer than a matchstick.
As he watched, his body rigid, the thunder voice returned to smash against his skull; a tidal wave of sound that threatened to split his eardrums.
This time something snapped.
He recoiled back from the white face.