On Deadly Ground

  Stenno shot a look at me and, God damn it, I couldn’t help myself, I flushed red.

  ‘Like I said…I saw him,’ he stammered. ‘The Grey Man. There in the wood, the night of your party…he was…’

  ‘Stenno…Stenno…’ Ben began gently. ‘Honestly. I don’t know what—’

  ‘I knew you’d think I was crazy if I told you what really happened to me. But do you know something? I’ve talked to people from Leeds. I’ve met five people…five! He held up his hand, fingers splayed straight out and trembling. ‘Five people who’ve seen the Grey Men. And two of those were attacked by—’

  ‘Look!’ Gina snapped impatiently. ‘We’re here to talk about the end of the fucking world, not listen to you rant on about the fucking fairies!’

  ‘Fairies? They’re not fucking fairies; they’re not fucking imagination—’

  ‘Well, fuck off with them, then.’

  Ben raised his hands in a calming gesture.

  ‘I’ve seen them,’ Stenno said hotly. ‘So have others.’

  ‘Where are these Grey Men from, then? From Grey spaceships from Grey-fucking-Uranus?’

  ‘Why won’t you believe me?’

  ‘Tell us where they are from!’

  Stenno looked at the girl. For a moment I wondered if he’d fly into that homicidal rage again, if he’d take his fist to her. But as we sat there, dazed by what we’d seen and heard on the TV and now stunned by Stenno’s manic outburst, wondering what the hell he was going to do next, he spun round and pointed savagely at me. ‘Ask him. Ask Rick Kennedy. He knows!’

  All eyes snapped to me.

  ‘Kennedy knows where they come from. Go on, why don’t you ask him?’

  I held out my hands, bewildered. But the gesture was a fake. Deep down I knew something. But what the hell did I know? Again I felt that upsurge of guilt, that irrational guilt as if I’d done something dirty in the past only somehow, just what that act was had slipped my mind.

  ‘Tell them, Rick!’ he shouted. ‘The Grey Men. They come from down there!’ He pointed at the ground. Then, as if the idea of stopping in the room a moment longer would kill him, he marched across the floor, punched open the door, and left the house.

  Chapter 20

  We couldn’t have caught up with Stenno if we’d tried. Dean, Stephen and I followed him out into the garden.

  ‘There he goes,’ Dean called, and pointed. ‘He’s running through the field.’

  Shielding our eyes against the glare of the sun, we watched him run away from the house. Stephen sighed. ‘I know it’s not a pleasant thing to say, but I think that guy needs professional medical help, he really does.’

  Dean shrugged, then returned to the house followed by Stephen. I watched the running Stenno for a moment longer. He was sprinting away downhill through long grass, scaring up birds before him. He raised his arms at either side of him as he ran. I wondered if in his mind he imagined that a pair of angels flew alongside him and he was lifting his arms for them to catch him by the hands and carry him up to Heaven, their long wings beating the clear July air as they flew.

  I shook my head and returned to the library.

  Ben was talking. ‘…in the camp yesterday. That brings the number of murders to twenty-seven. We’ve lost count of serious physical assaults. The Swan Inn was firebombed last night. Oh, grab a seat, Rick. Any sign of Stenno coming back?’

  I shook my head.

  Ben rubbed his forehead. ‘Poor chap. We should get a doctor to check him over. That knock on the head might have done more damage than we thought.’ He took a deep breath and rested his fingertips together. ‘Right, on to the next item of the meeting. What I want to do is make a suggestion.’ He looked up, making eye contact with as many of us as he could. ‘What I’d like to suggest is…no, to be blunt, what I’d beg of you, is that you all leave Fairburn.’

  There was a murmur of puzzled voices as people asked their neighbours to confirm what he’d just said.

  ‘Leave?’ Stephen asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘Yesterday we had five hundred soldiers helping keep order in the camp. Last night they were stoned by a mob intent on ransacking one of the food stores. This morning the soldiers were gone.’

  ‘They deserted?’

  ‘I’m not saying that. But they simply upped and went; they gave no reason.’

  ‘So you think order will break down?’

  ‘It’s as good as collapsed. And I’m sure within forty-eight hours there will be total anarchy. That’s why I’m asking you to move out of the area for a while. It might just be for a week or two, or—’

  ‘Or it might be for keeps?’

  ‘Possibly. We don’t know just how badly our society has been disrupted.’

  ‘But where would we go?’

  ‘Up onto the moors north of Skipton.’

  ‘But that’s the middle of nowhere!’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘But when do you think we should go?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘But we can’t just leave.’

  ‘Yes, you can. And you must.’

  ‘We’ve no tents or camping gear, and we’d—’

  Ben’s eyes glittered with an intensity I’d not seen before. ‘I’ve made all the preparations. In my garage you’ll find backpacks, lightweight tents, food, first aid kits, boots—everything you’ll need. And you can take some of my rifles and shotguns. There’s plenty of ammunition.’

  ‘Hey, whoa, whoa,’ Stephen stood up. ‘This is going way too quick for me.’

  ‘Surely, we’d be best sticking it out in Fairburn,’ I said. ‘We have homes here.’

  ‘Right,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll give it to you straight. When the mob tried to storm the food depot last night there was one thing they didn’t know.’ He paused, his eyes flicking from face to face. ‘It is empty. There is no food left.’

  ‘The other food stores would—’

  ‘The other food stores are empty, too.’ Ben rubbed his forehead as if developing a headache. ‘Basically there is no food left in the village. And when forty thousand people begin to starve I wouldn’t like to predict what they will do.’

  Gina said simply. ‘What they will do is they’ll leave.’

  ‘Granted, most will try and head for another camp. But the army have been given orders to block all roads and stop all refugee movement between camps. Before the mobile phone system went down, people were speaking to refugees in other camps, finding out which were the most comfortable and well fed, then heading there. Needless to say, those camps that were initially the best supplied were overrun with waves of new refugees.’

  Stephen shook his head. ‘So now the army are to keep starving people bottled up in their camps?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘But why are you telling us all this?’ I asked. What Ben had just told us made me change my mind completely about the wisdom of staying put. ‘Surely we all need to be getting the hell out of Fairburn?’

  ‘I’m telling you people this because I’ve known nearly all of you for the last ten years. I’ve never had children of my own, and, go ahead, call me sentimental, but I guess I’m projecting my paternal instincts onto you. So last night I made a list of your names. It makes a group of sixty-two men and women between the ages of sixteen and thirty-one with no immediate family ties in the area to keep you here. You’re all young, healthy and, by Heaven, I’d hate to see any of you suffer.’

  ‘So you want to play God with a chosen few,’ Stephen said in a low voice. ‘Like Noah and his Ark. You’re issuing advance warning of what amounts to another Flood of sorts, and giving us the means to save ourselves?’

  Ben nodded, sombre. ‘You’re right. I am playing God. All I’m asking is that you humour my arrogance and my conceit. And you, Stephen Kennedy, can humour me in the role that I assign to you.’

  Stephen looked at him suspiciously. ‘And that is?’

  ‘And that is if I’m playing God, you must play Noah.’

&
nbsp; ‘You are kidding.’

  ‘The time for kidding is well past, Stephen. In years gone by it would be the doctor or army general or senior policeman that the public would look up to and accept their leadership. That time’s past, too. But I’m gambling everyone here would agree to you to becoming their leader.’

  ‘No way.’ Stephen gave an emphatic shake of the head.

  Ben looked at the sixty or so people gathered there in that hot airless library. ‘My proposal is as follows: that you all move to a camp a safe distance from Fairburn, and that Stephen here be elected leader of you all. If you agree to this please raise your hand.’

  Heads turned left to right as people looked at each other for a lead. But I hardly saw them. In my mind’s eye I saw my home being ransacked, Caroline being carried away screaming into the woods, Leeds on fire and forty thousand people beginning to starve.

  I didn’t even consciously think about it. I raised my hand. Instantly, Dean and Howard raised theirs. Then Gina and Ruth followed suit and a second later a forest of arms suddenly appeared.

  Stephen shook his head in disbelief. ‘I can’t…I just can’t do it.’

  Ben smiled. ‘You’ll manage. Believe me, you’ll manage.’

  Ben played more of the video tape: volcanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, exploding gas pockets tearing holes in cities, killing hundreds of thousands - Mother Earth committing global infanticide. Then Ben handed out maps showing us the general area where we should make the camp. It was a good twenty kilometres from Fairburn. We would have to avoid all roads because of army patrols and checkpoints, and possibly also because of marauding refugees who’d soon turn to banditry. Then someone asked Ben the question that had been troubling me.

  ‘Ben. Why aren’t you coming with us?’

  ‘I promised the parish council I’d stay here and help.’

  ‘But surely there’s nothing more you can do if the food’s gone?’

  ‘We’ll form scavenging teams, try and find more food. Besides, call me old fashioned, but I did make a promise and I’ll stick to it as long as humanly possible.’

  ‘But the mob will come and turn your house over, looking for food.’

  ‘You’re right, they’ll find the house soon enough. But we’re going to turn the place into a fortress with armed guards. This will become one of the main food depots.’ He smiled that crinkly smile of old. ‘So, people, don’t worry about me. Now, please come with me to the garage and you can get kitted out. You’ll have no vehicles; everything you need you will have to carry yourselves. Oh, and one other thing.’ He turned to look back at us as we stood, ready to follow him. ‘I believe we will shortly be entering a new Dark Age. There’ll be no newspapers or TV to record what happens to the human race during what must be one of the greatest challenges yet to our existence. I believe it’s important we write down or record in some way these events and how we cope—or don’t cope—with them. So please, if you can, keep diaries. Make notes of what happens to you. If you find letters, journals, tape recordings written or made by others please keep them safely. We must be able to tell our grandchildren and great-grandchildren how we faced this threat to the human race, and how we survived it. Now come on, let’s get you kitted up and out of Fairburn—pronto.’

  As we left the house and headed toward the garage a car pulled up driven by old man Fullwood from the garage. A truck followed packed with villagers carrying shotguns and rifles.

  ‘Ben…Ben.’ The old man hauled himself stiffly from the car. ‘Just as we predicted, I’m afraid.’

  Ben stopped dead. ‘The camp?’

  ‘It’s uproar down there. They’ve broken into the food stores. Of course, they’re empty and—’

  ‘What about the other villagers?’

  ‘They’re barricaded into the old army camp. They’ve got chaps with guns like us, so I don’t think the mob will try too hard to get inside.’

  ‘Hell,’ Ben said softly. ‘The best laid plans of mice and men, eh? Right, you’d best deploy the people with guns around the edge of the garden in case we get visitors.’

  When the old man hobbled away to the truck to relay the orders Ben turned to Stephen. ‘We’ve got a problem. I didn’t tell the parish council about my plan to get you out of here. You see, they might not let you leave with what food supplies I’ve been able to share among you.’

  ‘Then we’re stuck,’ Dean said.

  ‘No. There’ll be a guard tonight, but it’ll change at two in the morning. I’ll keep the new set of guards talking for a few minutes at the blind side of the house while you, Stephen, get your people away the other side into the wood and over the hill.’

  ‘My people?’

  Ben pulled a small smile. ‘Yes, your people, Stephen. Or should I call you Noah?’

  Chapter 21

  All that day Ben did his best to keep us away from the rest of the villagers; he didn’t want any of them getting wind that we were leaving what amounted a sinking ship.

  Even so, Dean, myself and a few of the others who would be leaving that night helped put in a line of three-metre-high fence posts ready to be strung with barbed wire. God willing, we wouldn’t be around to see it, but within a day or so Ben’s house would resemble a Word War II prisoner-of-war camp, surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence.

  With the sun hammering down onto my bare back, Dean and I dug holes for the posts.

  ‘Make sure they’re deep enough, lads,’ the grey-haired man told us. Before civilization turned its belly to the sky he’d been our postman. Now he carried one of Ben’s Remmington shotguns over one shoulder like a Texas cowboy. ‘We don’t want those bastards having the run of this place, too.’ He went on to give a bitter catalogue of the refugees’ crimes against the village. In little more than a week the villagers’ attitude towards the refugees had morphed from sympathy to hatred, as if they were an invading army of demons rather than thousands of normally law-abiding citizens driven from their homes by poison gas.

  ‘And that’s not all they did,’ he grunted. ‘I came home to find them going through my house like a plague of rats: blankets, shoes, food, drink—they took the lot. The devils even took the light bulbs. God knows what use they were to anyone with no electricity, and no fucking light fittings come to that, squatting out there in the fields. And another thing, do you know they beat up old Mrs Edgar? Beat her black and blue they did. All for a loaf of bread.’

  I grunted in the pause between the guy’s horror stories. Christ, there were some awful things. Like what had happened to Caroline. Like my home being ransacked. But I could see what was happening. The villagers weren’t saying some of the refugees were causing trouble. They were saying all were evil good-for-nothing scroungers. This was a psychological preparation for all-out war with them. What’s that saying? Tarring everyone with the same brush? That’s it. The people of Fairburn were beginning to see the people of Leeds—men, women, children, doddering grandparents—they were beginning to see them as some kind of subspecies that wasn’t even really human. ‘So it doesn’t matter if we have to start shooting the bastards,’ I could imagine him saying, that grey-haired man who’d delivered parcels and letters six days a week for the last thirty years. ‘Why wait there? The best form of defence is attack.’ I didn’t doubt for a moment that within a few days the inhabitants of once sleepy Fairburn would be petrol bombing and machine-gunning the refugees as they slept under the pastel-coloured duvets they’d carried on their backs all the way from Leeds.

  Ben had been right. It was time to get out.

  More villagers arrived, pushing wheelbarrows full of mounds of wet cement. We held the wooden post in place as they shovelled it in. Then old man Fullwood limped up with a radio.

  ‘News in one minute if anyone wants to listen.’

  Everyone did and huddled round the radio as if what would be said in the next few seconds were going to be the most important words ever spoken on Earth. I’d heard some of the news bulletins already that morning. They seemed li
ttle more than a rehash of what we’d seen on CNN.

  ‘Shh…it’s starting,’ Fullwood said, holding up one hand as if to silence a multitude.

  We listened. First came a public information announcement. ‘Since the declaration of a State of Emergency all unauthorized movement of people is banned. You must stay in your homes. If you are in one of the temporary camps you must remain there until further notice. All airports, sea ports and railway stations are closed until further notice. These are temporary measures. We are confident that in a day or two…’

  ‘Blah, blah, who do they think they are kidding?’

  ‘Shh.’ The postman glared fiercely at Dean.

  Dean looked at me and I shrugged. I wandered off to sit in the shade of one of Ben’s apple trees. I was hot, thirsty and pissed off. I was sick of the paranoia infecting the place. If someone who you always thought of as reasonable and pleasant starts acting in a manner that is decidedly unpleasant and mean, then you might say, ‘Just look at him; it’s like he’s grown another head.’ Now I saw the villagers were all growing another head. And it was an ugly head. In its eyes you read intolerance, hatred.

  Overhead flocks of birds flew in dark clouds. You couldn’t see where one flock ended and another began. They were all flying from west to east. Whatever it was that drove their migration was probably the same thing that drove people out of whole cities. In my mind’s eye I saw more of that poison gas spurting from the ground the length and breadth of the country. Then there were the pockets of methane gas that were being detonated by the subterranean heat, creeping up through the Earth’s crust from its molten iron core. Was it even now reaching up to where I sat on that sweet grass beneath the apple tree?

  How long before I put my hands down onto the soil and felt it hot against my skin? I remembered the worms. How they had danced weirdly on their tails as if they were trying to avoid contact with the ground. Had it started then? Was the heat becoming so unbearable to the worm population of Fairburn that evening that it forced them to attempt to reach the cool evening air?