Max Gilbert

  Chris had wondered how he would convince the villagers that they were in danger. What he saw when he entered the main village street told him he'd have no problem.

  Disembowelled, lying in the middle of the road in a lake of blood that was turning from red to black, was the mutilated body of a horse.

  He stopped and stared at it. The tightness in his stomach made breathing difficult; his mouth turned paper-dry.

  What else would he find in the village? At that moment he wanted ... longed to turn and run back to the sea-fort.

  Beyond the horse was a car. A door torn from the hinges hung from the branches of a nearby tree. He walked slowly now, axe-handle held across his chest at the ready.

  No sign of life.

  The houses looked deserted. The doors of some hung open. At his feet a pink bedroom slipper rested on the pavement. As if it had come off as its owner had run down the street.

  He looked inside the car. Dark patches moistened the upholstery.

  Blood.

  He licked his dry lips.

  Then from the other end of the village came a commotion. A mixture of noises-snarls, yelping howls, all breathless and high-pitched as if something was in pain.

  It was a pack of dogs. They came at him, snarling and howling.

  Something had driven them mad. They ran in a tight pack down the street, eyes rolling, whites flashing, pink tongues swinging from mouths that dripped saliva. They were biting one another, ripping off tufts of hair and shredding one another's ears.

  He raised the axe-handle. But they did not even notice him and ran on, insanely biting each other, even themselves, as if invisible rats were running across their backs.

  Right, he told himself. A quick look round, five minutes at the most; then back to the sea-fort. A glance in a couple of cottages told him the villagers had deserted the place.

  Quickly, he walked down the village street. A fistful of banknotes littered the pavement in front of the village store. Another dog lay dead in a front garden, its body on the lawn, its head ten feet away in a rosebed. The teeth shone through parted lips.

  What if he saw a man or woman like that? Sweat began to roll down his forehead.

  The end of the street was in sight through the thickening mist when Chris heard the voice calling him.

  "Chris ... Hey, Chris. Over here."

  He looked round. In the doorway of the corrugatediron hut that served as the village hall stood Mark Faust. Gesturing for Chris to approach, the big man looked anxiously up and down the street.

  Chris didn't wait for the invitation to be repeated; he sprinted across the road and through the doorway. The door banged shut behind him; the bolts snapped home.

  He had seen photographs of scenes like this before, usually accompanying reports about refugees.

  In the hall, sitting silently on the orange plastic chairs, were approximately twenty men and women. He knew most of them by sight. Now they wore tired, shellshocked faces. They stared forward into thin air, seemingly not interested in anything but their own private thoughts. The only movement came from the simple Tamworth girl. She sat heavily in an old armchair, thumbing through a tot's book on animals, mouthing the name of each one in her little-girl voice.

  "Ducks ... Moo-cow ... Two ducks ... Mr. Rabbit..."

  At the far end of the hall stood the Major, the Westie at his feet. The only expression of comprehension came when he noticed the dog nervously circling his feet. Gently he'd pat the dog and say in a low voice, "Good boy ... Good boy, Mac. Don't worry, we're going home soon, boy."

  As the old soldier straightened, Chris noticed that he wore a leather belt with a holster. The butt of the army revolver gleamed dully. Chris glanced quickly around. A middle-aged man with ginger hair-he recognized him as Hodgson the farmer-sat by a window with a shotgun across his legs. Sitting on the low stage was Tony Gateman, anxiously smoking a cigar.

  Chris wondered if the little Londoner thought he had come to finish the job when he saw the axe-handle.

  He felt a heavy hand grip his shoulder. Mark's gesture was friendly.

  "Come on," he rumbled, "let's talk. Tony's got one or two things he'd like to share with you."

  They walked down the aisle between the chairs to the stage. Hardly anyone looked up.

  Cautiously, Tony Gateman nodded a greeting; those shrewd eyes studied Chris's face through the thick lenses of his glasses.

  Chris nodded back. "What's happening, Tony?"

  "I can tell you that in one sentence." He drew on the cigar. "Basically we're in the shit."

  Chris sat beside him on the stage. "Tony, I know you know more about all this than I do. But I've seen enough and ... and it sounds bizarre, but I feel enough to know this thing is dangerous ... Look, there are people out at Manshead. They're standing in the water around the seafort."

  Mark pulled up a chair and sat astride it. "Have they done anything? Have they tried to attack you?"

  "No ... nothing like that. Although someone has built a barrier of stones across the coast road. We can't get out by car. As for whoever it is in the water, they just go in and out with the tide. They stand shoulder-deep in the water, their eyes shut. It sounds crazy, but they seem to be watching us."

  "They're watching all right."

  Chris looked at him. "You know who they are?"

  "Let's say," said Tony, "that friend Mark here had a run-in with them about thirty years ago. And believe me, Chris, those bastards are evil. Evil."

  Tony drew on his cigar. "Ruth and little David all right?"

  "Fine. The sea-fort's gates are locked. Nothing'll get in there." Chris noticed Tony and Mark exchange looks in a way he didn't like at all.

  "You know Fox?" Tony spoke in a low, measured voice. "He never did make it back to the village, you know."

  Chris's mouth stayed dry.

  "You know, Chris, I think he's with his brother now."

  "You mean he's dead?"

  "I mean, Chris, I believe he is with his brother. Dead is debatable."

  "Look ... Tony, I don't know what you mean. You're going to have to explain."

  As Tony began to speak there was a bang from the back of the hall. Chris started and jumped to his feet.

  "It's only the Hodgson boys," said Mark. "They've been out with their uncle. They're collecting sacks."

  Chris watched two boys in their mid-teens pile sacks on the plank floor with more strength than finesse. Both had orange-gingery hair with faces mottled with freckles. And both were obese enough to make Chris wonder if they'd ever make forty-five before a thrombosis cracked their aortas.

  "We're sandbagging the place," Tony explained. "We'll do the doors and windows."

  Their uncle returned with more sacks under one arm. In his other hand he carried a double-barrelled shotgun.

  Chris looked around the fragile tin shack of a place. These people had prepared for invasions before. That time it had been World War II. They were making the same preparations now: stockpiling food, brewing up gallons of tea, sandbagging buildings, and forming a home guard armed with shotguns, old service revolvers, and pitchforks. Again they faced something that threatened to invade their lives-but this time not with amphibious landing craft and carrying rifles with fixed bayonets.

  No one knew exactly what the threat was. The only thing every man and woman knew was that this danger- this life-threatening danger-would come.

  And it would come soon.

  Chris watched the preparations as Tony told him what had happened the night before.

  "Woke up at about three. I heard a car engine revving, gears grating, then a crash. That was John Wainwright trying to drive out in a bloody hurry."

  "That was the car in the street? The Ford Fiesta? I saw it."

  Tony nodded to a man sat at the back of the hall. Greyhaired, thin, dried-up-looking; he wore a bandage around the top of his head and had a smear of dried blood down one cheek. Chris recognized him as a partner in a firm of accountants in Munby. The man's face was
expressionless.

  "For the last few days I've been in the habit of sleeping in my clothes. I managed to reach the front door when the lights went out. The whole of the village blacked out. I tell you, it was pandemonium, fucking pandemonium. I can't really explain it rationally ... just a lot of people running around not able to see a thing. No screaming or shouting, just running feet, then bang! A window would smash, then dogs'd bark their bloody heads off. Pandemonium, chaos, bedlam-you pick the description. But I tell you this, Chris, I've never been so fucking terrified in all my life. Well, we had some lamps ready and managed to get everyone into the village hall here. Twenty-three of them. Everyone accounted for. Which in itself is a bloody miracle."

  "Who attacked you?"

  Chris saw Tony Gateman swallow. "Too dark to see, really."

  "Those people I've seen in the water at Manshead?"

  "No ... Just people. This time they didn't hurt any of us."

  "Or maybe we were just lucky, Tony. I don't think those things could see too well."

  Things? Chris was going to question Mark further when one of the Hodgson boys came up, breathing hard. "We're gonna barrow sand up from the beach. Where shall we put it, Mr. Gateman?"

  "By the door, Ian. You don't want to be far away the next time the tide comes in."

  The boy jogged away down the aisle, his baggy jeans halfway down his massive backside, revealing what seemed like an acre of pink buttock.

  Tony's mouth stretched into an artificial smile. "They're good workers. They'll have the sandbags up against the doors in a couple of hours."

  Chris watched Tony's shrewd eyes as the man looked around the hall, checking the preparations. He realized that the man knew perfectly well that in a few hours they would all be dead. He was merely keeping the active villagers busy to keep their minds off the hopelessness of the situation.

  The Major's dog yapped nervously again.

  "Tony," said Chris, "this is a waste of time. These walls are so brittle I could kick holes through them myself."

  "So?"

  "So ... I'm saying if anyone wants to come back to the sea-fort with me, they're welcome."

  Tony let his shoulders fall. It looked to Chris as if someone had removed a concrete slab from his back. He breathed deeply, then leaned forward and gripped Chris by the forearm and shook it.

  "Thanks, Chris. We appreciate it."

  Chris zipped up his jacket. "Right, Mr. Gateman. Lead your people to safety."

  David watched his mother. She still gazed anxiously out across the sands. The mist had come in thickly now. It drifted in thick white rags across the beach. David could hardly see the dunes; or the sea. He could hear it, though. A whoosh-whooshing sound-getting louder and louder as the tide turned.

  He wished his dad would come back home.

  He ran down the steps to the caravan. Five minutes later he climbed back up with a mugful of diluted orange. He had tried to warm it in the microwave but wasn't sure of the setting, so it was only tepid.

  "Here you are," he said, handing his mother the cup. "This might make you feel better."

  His mum looked at him in a funny way for a moment, then suddenly hugged him tightly to her. She was on her knees and her face felt wet against the bare skin of his neck.

  "Don't cry, Mum," he said softly. "I'll look after you."

  It wasn't going to be easy.

  Chris watched the straggling group of villagers make their way onto the beach. Some had sticks; one lady was in a wheelchair. A married couple in their fifties both held a handle each and were pushing it determinedly. The Major had to be constantly reminded where they were going. Every few paces he would stop, puzzled, as if unsure why he was there. Mac whined and yelped and sometimes refused to walk at all, splaying his front legs out in the sand.

  The Hodgsons were the most able-bodied-the farmer and his wife, their two sons and the uncle. For some reason, Chris didn't know why, the two sons pushed motorbikes laden with sacks of food. The farmer and the uncle carried bulging rucksacks and shotguns. Mark Faust carried a shotgun in his left hand, a PVC holdall in the other, and a rucksack on his back. A few others carried shopping bags, carrier bags and holdalls. Rosie Tamworth skipped along as if on a day trip.

  It made a bizarre and pathetic sight. A line of frightened men and women walking along the beach, casting glances in the direction of a sea hidden by mist.

  Chris caught up with Tony, who headed the column. "You were ready for this, weren't you, Tony? You've prepared for it."

  "Mr. Stainforth, now isn't the time or place. ... Look ... I promise. I'll explain fully later. ... I just... I just want to get off this fucking beach. ..."

  They walked on in silence, apart from the odd yap from the dog. Wainwright's expression was sour beneath his bandage. Wearing a suit and tie, he had declined to carry anything. Unlike the equally miserable-looking Reverend Reed, who carried a leather briefcase in one hand and an overcoat in the other. The briefcase looked heavy. But Chris doubted if it contained holy water and Bibles.

  As they neared the mouth of one of the streams that ran along the beach, a dark object rose out of the water.

  It was man-shaped.

  He gripped the axe-handle tightly.

  The Easter Island profile was the same; the same slightly open mouth and the same eyes-closed like those of a deeply relaxed sleeper. But this time the dark granite skin had taken on a different tinge. The balance of red in the red-black color had shifted to the red.

  He slowed down.

  Suddenly Mark was at his side. "Keep walking, Chris. That's one of them. For God's sake, keep walking. Please."

  Chris didn't need anymore urging. They forded the stream higher up the beach, the water icy against their legs.

  The mist thickened. Chris stared hard into it, half expecting to see shadowy figures blocking their way. Once he imagined he saw a figure standing on the dunes, looking down at them. The figure had a round white face. Shockingly white.

  He forced himself to concentrate on the next few yards of visible beach.

  As he walked, he found himself thinking about Fox. What in Christ's name had happened to him? And what had Tony Gateman meant when he said that, even though he was somewhere in the sea, whether he was actually dead or not was debatable? He remembered lots of things now. They were all little pieces of a jigsaw falling into place to form a single picture. It produced a shiver that ran from his scalp to the balls of his feet. The monster celery plant in the old sink-its growth had been nothing short of mutant; the wooden chair in the wet dirt-the bottom of the legs had sprouted roots, the carved arms had begun to bud. The goldfish. That had been dead all right. But a few hours later it had been hurtling around the glass bowl like a torpedo. And now it looked as if it was changing. Then a couple of nights ago he had come face to face with something on top of those dunes. It had not touched him physically but it had messed his mind around as easily as a kid twists a plasticine model out of shape. The people in the sea with their sinister Easter Island statue faces?

  The questions he had to ask Gateman and Faust were stacking up inside his head.

  He glanced at Tony. The little Londoner led the straggling band of villagers. Head bobbing up and down, he plodded determinedly along the beach, thin piano hands gripping the straps of the canvas rucksack on his back. Mark Faust brought up the rear. Walking in a long, easy stride, he wouldn't have looked out of place on a Wild West prairie wearing a stetson, with a pair of six-guns strapped to his sides.