Something was knocking furiously on the sea-fort gates.
Chapter Forty-seven
Chris shouted up to John Hodgson: "John! What is it?"
No reply. John Hodgson, feet barely touching the walkway, leaned forward over the top of the wall as far as he could, his big stomach squashed over the coping stones, so he could see what was battering the gates with enough force to shiver the timbers like a power hammer.
"John?"
The farmer beckoned to his son to carry on watching as he heaved himself off his belly and ran down the steps to the courtyard, the shotgun gripped in one beefsteak hand.
"It's Mark!" His gruff voice was boosted to a higher note by adrenaline. "He's back..."
"Jesus ..." Chris felt his mind draw back sharply, deeper into his skull, like a snail retreating into its shell. He'd failed.
The pounding on the gates stopped abruptly. The only sound was the hiss of the advancing tide outside.
"Open the gates. ... Get them open," Tony was shouting, frantic. "He's not armed." He began pulling at the timbers propped against the gate.
"No!" bellowed John Hodgson. "They're out there. The bastards have got him trapped."
"Open the gates!" Tony's eyes flashed wildly behind the glasses. "You've got the gun. Blast them."
Tony pulled the remaining timber away and reached for the bolts.
"Mr. Gateman ..." The big farmer pulled Tony's hand from the bolts. "It's not that simple. He's trapped out there."
Chris said, "Listen to what he's got to say. We can't rush this, Tony."
"Chris, Mark will-"
"Shut up, Tony. John, where is he?"
"He's stuck on the ledge to the left of the gates. The sea's around the base of the rock. There's a couple of those Saf Dar bastards in the sea. They're no real problem. The real problem is there's two outside the gates. And there's one at the far end of the ledge. Left-hand side."
Chris nodded. "So Mark's stuck between two of them on the ledge. Can you get a shot at them from the top of the wall."
"Angle's too tight."
Tony's nerve was snapping. "Fuck ... I don't believe I'm fucking hearing this. Stood chatting while Mark's out there. They'll tear his fucking head off."
"Tony. ... You heard John. We can't open the gates. The Saf Dar are right outside. They'll. ..."
"Mark's risked his life to get help. You're going to fucking well leave him out there?"
"Do you think I want to? Jesus Christ, Tony. What happens when we open the gates? Those two will be in here in one second flat."
John spoke. "Look, for the moment they're not trying to harm him. They're just standing there."
Tony rubbed his forehead. Chris realized that the idea of leaving his friend of fifteen years out there to be battered to raw meat was breaking the man in two.
"Dad. ... They've moved." The Hodgson boy ran heavily down the steps to join them. "Them things have moved."
"Where?" Tony's eyes sharpened.
For a moment the boy looked as if he couldn't speak, then with a flash of inspiration he bent down and picked up a white pebble. "Like this." He drew on the wall:
O X O
o
./-/.
"The dotted line's the wall, them slash marks are the gates, right?"
"Keep going, son."
"The O's are Saf Dar. The X is Mark. They're on the rocky ledge that runs around the bottom of the walls. And-and there's a couple of the things in the sea. But not close."
"We'll do it," Chris said quickly.
"Best get everyone into the building," rumbled John.
"There's not time." He waved to Ruth to get back. "We open the gates. John ... shoot the monster between Mark and the gates. He can run for it." He turned to Hodgson's son and nodded at the shotgun leaning against the wall. "Know how to use that?"
"Yessir."
"Cover your father's back. There's still the one to the right of the gates. Don't fire unless you have to."
"Yessir."
Tony slipped one of the three bolts back. His fingers shook.
"Might I be of any assistance?"
Chris looked round.
Shit. No.
The Major stood there, the dog sitting beside him; he had pulled the revolver from its holster.
"Move back from the gates." This wasn't the time to be polite to senile old soldiers. And Chris hoped that the museum exhibit of a revolver wasn't loaded. "Right, Tony. Open the gate."
Tony dragged back the other two bolts then heaved the gate back.
The causeway beyond the gates was empty.
Cautiously, John, his son at his side, stepped through the gates. Chris and Tony followed to stand between father to the left and son to the right.
John raised his shotgun but did not fire.
Chris glanced first to his right. One of the Saf Dar stood like a red statue at the far end of the rocky narrow ledge. The sea was washing in a milk-white froth all around the little island now.
To his left he saw why the farmer had not fired.
Mark Faust, smeared with black mud, stood with his back to the sea-fort wall. Like an animal's prey he had frozen up with fear.
There the ledge was at its narrowest. Beyond Mark stood a Saf Dar.
But between Mark and the safety of the gateway in a half-crouching position was another of the red man-shaped things. It didn't even glance back at Chris and the others standing outside the gates. Every shred of its concentration was focused on Mark. It was hunched, great slabs of muscle on its back tensing in corrugated ridges. Chris knew it was ready to leap forward, then probably batter Mark against the wall like a cheap doll.
"Shift, you bastard, shift..." John stood, the shotgun to his shoulder. Sweating, he stared down the barrel, his eyes bulging.
"I can't get a clean shot. Fucker's too close to Mark."
"Do it," hissed Tony. "Fucking do it."
"I can't. ... this fires shot. I'll hit Mark as well."
"Well, do something ... quick. They're coming thick and fast."
Twenty yards along the causeway one of the red beasts had half pulled itself out of the surf onto the roadway. Like some hungry alligator, it paused half in and half out of the water, outstretched arms taking the weight of its top half. Smoothly, its head turned to look at the men in the gateway. The cruel eyes glittered hungrily.
In the surf, almost at Chris's feet, two more Saf Dar stood waist-deep, the water washing around them in wave after hissing wave. Even the water was repelled by the skin of the things. It rolled off in glistening white beads like rain-water off a freshly waxed car.
"I can't. ..." The farmer's plump face shook. "If I fucking well fire I kill Mark as well."
Chris's head spun. Answer this one, Stainforth.
No answer.
Mark was trapped. He couldn't go backwards along the yard-wide strip of bedrock; he couldn't go forward; he couldn't jump in the sea. Whichever way he moved put him into the hands of the red monsters.
A voice ran through his head. Get back inside and shut the gates. You can't save Mark. You've got to leave him there. Soon Mark would become like Wainwright. Like the Fox twins. Like the others. Standing on the beach, crying out, gripped by alternating waves of mind-warped terror-pain and fury.
As the realisation sped through his mind he noticed a figure behind him. Before he could turn around a crack split the surf's hiss. Instantly the red man between Chris and Mark rolled sidewards into the sea.
Chris twisted round.
The Major stood, one arm stretched out, the revolver bleeding blue gunsmoke.
"Didn't know I still had it. Was a gold-medal-winner, you know. New Delhi handgun league. Top of fifty-six contestants, when the-"
Chris recovered. "Move!" he yelled at Mark. "Come on!"
Mark snapped out of the spell. He ran toward them.
Behind him the thing on the rock ledge suddenly began to run after him. Mark was fifteen yards from the gates.
"Mark! Down!" bellowed John.
/> Mark threw himself down onto his stomach as John let rip with both barrels. The force of the blast sliced away the creature's face, punching it backwards. The monster bounced off the rock ledge and into the sea.
Mark, powered by pure fear, punched himself to his feet to run at the gates. Chris urged the Major, still talking, through into the courtyard, followed by Tony, Mark, the Hodgson boy, then John.
Within three seconds they had crashed the gates shut and snapped the bolts home.
Chris left John to lean the timbers against the gate, jamming them tight shut. He knew that Mark brought bad news but he wanted to hear it from the man's own mouth.
Three o'clock. Middle of the afternoon.
Mark, still coated in cracking scales of marsh mud, swallowed what was left of the coffee. He sat exhausted in the caravan's doorway, the cup held tightly in both hands. Ruth, Tony and Chris watched him. In a voice barely above a whisper he told them what had happened.
"Sorry ... Jesus Christ, I'm sorry ... I just couldn't get through the marsh. Whichever way I went I always returned to the same place. ... Going in circles ... Just going around and round. I couldn't get through."
"The mist disorientated you," said Chris, feeling as if nothing now stood between them and the fires of hell.
"No ... It was more than that. Something weird ..."
Tony nodded. "I suspected as much. We've been quarantined here. No one gets out. No one gets in. Not until this is over."
"The Saf Dar?"
"No. Not them. I'm talking big power now. Big, big power. The thing that's visited here every few centuries. It wants this trade-through sacrifice-to be very private. For a little while it divides this place off from the rest of the world. No interruptions, no outsiders. Just the local people and. ..." He shrugged. "It. One of the old gods-not one that people can discuss or say little rhyming prayers to. This is one of the ancient gods. You don't have to make an effort to believe in this one; when it gets close to you the animal part of you feels it. It would be like standing next to a huge bonfire; even before you can begin to put a name to it, its presence burns into you; you can't ignore it. Any more than you can ignore the bonfire; you feel it burning into your mind. It paces back and forth behind your modern religions, without a name, without a face, without any gospels or churches. Without Bibles. It doesn't need them. But it's there still. Still powerful, and still hungry for trade."
"Shit. ... Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice ..." Chris spat out the words. "It always comes back to that. If it's so fucking powerful, why does it need a sacrifice?"
"Sacrifice is a commercial transaction, remember? Between gods and men. When you buy, it's to acquire something you haven't got but you need, whether it's food, a box of cigars, a magazine. This old, old god craves that thing we possess."
"Our emotions," said Ruth. "It milks them from us when we grieve at losing something that's precious to us."
"That's right. It can't get that thing-the human rush of emotion-from anywhere else. It needs it badly. Maybe like a dope addict needs a fix of heroin. So here it comes. To Manshead. It's friendly downtown emotion store. It takes what's offered-say the agony of a father sacrificing his own beloved daughter-and it pays something back in return. A chunk of its own supernatural powers."
"David ... Have you seen him recently, Ruth?" Chris, suddenly uncomfortable, looked around the courtyard.
"I'll check," she said. "He might be with the Hodgson boys."
Chris shivered. For some reason the sound of the surf washing around the sea-fort sounded far louder than usual. He glanced around the courtyard as Ruth went to hunt for David. It was deserted. The villagers, depressed by Mark's failure to get help, had drifted back indoors.
Mark rubbed his eyes. "What now?"
Chris shrugged. "What can we do? We've tried everything short of sprouting wings and flying out. Any suggestions, Tony?"
"I don't know. My problem is, Chris, I think too much. It's all up here. I'm a hard-headed cynic. Too cerebral. My grandmother would have said you should think more with your heart, not with your head. A psychologist would say you should let the unconscious part of your mind supply the answer, rather than the conscious mind. Don't think your way forward to a solution, feel your way forward; in an animal way. As they did ten thousand years ago when the first men knocked a few branches together here and called it home. You know, inspiration. Don't let the civilized man get in the way of the primitive chunk of brain you've got in there."
"I reckon what he's saying, Chris, is think like a child.
Do what feels right-not what you think is right."
"Right now I don't think or feel anything." Chris leaned back against the caravan. "I feel shell-shocked."
Tony's face was stony. "Believe me, the best-or the worst-is yet to come. I think that thing, the old god, is on its way. By tonight, probably, it will all be over."
"Chris!" Ruth ran across the courtyard so fast her arms windmilled to keep her balance.
"Chris! He's gone ..." Terror deformed her voice. "David's gone. Someone's opened the gates. ... He's outside."
Chris ran around the caravan and past the car. The timbers once propped behind the gates lay on the ground, the bolts were back.
The gates lay half open. Beyond, the causeway, now feeling the first lick of a new tide, was deserted.
Chapter Forty-eight
He didn't stop to think about it.
The Saf Dar could have been waiting outside to welcome him with open arms, then crack the life from his body as easily as snapping a biscuit.
With no weapon, Chris ran out through the gates onto the head of the causeway before stopping to look round.
By chance there were no Saf Dar in sight. Nor was there any sign of his son.
"David!"
Nothing.
With a triumphant hiss, the sea creamed around the rocks, sending the first sheets of foam sliding across the causeway.
Where on earth was he? Chris stared hard at the beach, blurred with mist. A couple of Saf Dar stood at the far end of the causeway. But no sign of David.
No, not this. They couldn't lose David. Chris felt something bleeding inside him. This was pain he'd never felt before.
"David!"
Then Mark Faust was by his side, gripping the shotgun in his two huge hands. "Any sign of him?"
"No. Christ, why on earth would he come out here?"
Ruth ran up and gripped Chris by the arm. "Find him, Chris."
"Look, he can't have gone far." He was lying through his teeth. He could have gone far. His son might be at the bottom of the sea.
He looked back at the rocky ledge that ran around the bottom of the sea-fort walls. Just half an hour before, Mark Faust had been trapped there.