Stephen held his stomach with both hands; his eyes shone so strangely I didn’t know whether to try and pull the gun off his back in case he decided to end it all. ‘And this is the weird thing. There he was, this little kid, holding his stomach like he was trying to hold his guts in. And guess what came slipping out through his fingers…you’ll never guess?’
He looked at me with those strange bright eyes. I shook my head.
‘Peaches. The fucking peaches. Those peaches he’d eaten a few minutes before. He’d not even chewed them, poor bastard was so hungry. So out they slipped through the holes in his stomach. The kid even looked surprised when he saw the bloody peaches. Hey, shit, you could imagine him thinking; here I am lying on the ground with a hole in my belly big enough to stick your fist inside so you can pull out my back bone. And out comes a dirty great shoal of peaches swimming out in the blood like a bunch of goldfish. Aw, shiiii—iiittttt. Shit. SHIT!’
That’s when the enormity of it hit him. His knees folded and he sat on his butt so hard you heard the breath knock out of him with a UPH!
He forced his face into his hands, all the time turning his head from side to side.
I didn’t know what the hell I could do. There was nothing I could say. He knew he’d killed people. I didn’t know the circumstances, but it had been forced on him. He hadn’t killed them in cold blood, surely it hadn’t been cold blood. No sooner had I thought it than I felt the pang in my stomach. As if I’d at last hit the right answer. But surely my own brother wouldn’t have…I crushed the thought. Maybe it was Dean Skilton. I could believe it of him now, swaggering around the camp with the pistol in his belt like a two-bit John Wayne. Dean, yeah, it must have been Dean. He’d been so pissed off with those strangers getting away with some of our precious food he’d gunned them down where they stood, still licking the peach juice from their fingers. The bastard…
Then I noticed Stephen again. He was sobbing into his hands. Tears trickled through his fingers to run down his wrists and forearms leaving glistening trails.
I remembered the time he’d accidentally shot me with the BB gun. How scared he’d been he might have killed me. That evening he’d sat with his arm round me as we watched TV; my head mummy-like in white bandages. He’d even bought me a box of chocolates from money he’d been saving for a computer game.
There was only one thing I could do.
I sat beside him, put my arm round his shoulders and held him as he sobbed.
Chapter 36
Ten minutes later we continued up the hill. Stephen looked drained but completely calm now. In fact, he looked more human than I’d seen him for days.
As we approached the brow of the hill I could almost see his mind working behind his blue eyes. There were changes going on in there. He looked older, somehow wiser.
In a calm voice he said, ‘We’re here.’ He handed me the binoculars. Tell me if you see what I see.’
Rolling away far below me in the clear evening light stretched the agricultural land that lay towards Leeds. Somewhere in between were a couple of small towns and a dozen villages, including Fairburn, and a lot of open countryside that must be swarming with several hundred thousand people. Probably a goodly chunk of those were now starving.
I could see church spires, the glint of sunlight from greenhouses in faraway gardens, a railway track stretching out like a silver thread through the landscape, clumps of trees that bubbled up like green froth, the broad black strip of a canal cutting a line from the horizon towards the hill on which we stood. Then there were distant pale blocks that could only have been warehouses in an industrial estate, with—
Christ.
I looked back at the canal.
Like Hell it was a canal. It was too big. Too wide, anyhow. It must have been a kilometre across. And I knew for a fact there was no canal as wide as that. Not in Yorkshire, not in England, not on the whole freaking planet.
But there it was. Long, straight-edged, black as soot, a kilometre wide and cutting a swathe through the green countryside.
‘You’ve seen it.’ Stephen wasn’t asking a question. He was making a statement.
‘Yes. I’ve seen it.’ I lifted the binoculars. ‘What do you think it is?’
‘I know what it is. I walked here with Victoria earlier this morning.’
‘Victoria?’ I shot him a startled look.
He shrugged. ‘You might have noticed she sometimes goes walkabout alone for hours on end. She noticed this first and told me. Take another look.’ He pointed. ‘Towards the horizon.’
I looked through the binoculars. ‘Jesus wept.’
‘See them?’
There’s two…three, four…five.’
They look evil, don’t they?’
He was right. They did look evil. Through the binoculars I could see five black strips, the biggest of which I’d mistaken for a dirty great black-as-Hades canal. Imagine how a child draws the sun. A big blob with lines radiating outwards. Now imagine the child of a giant who stands ten kilometres high and he’s taken a big wax crayon in his hand and he’s drawn something like a kiddie version of the sun with radiating sunbeams. Only this sun is black. There on the horizon was an expanse of black the size of a city. Those great lines of black radiated outwards, reaching out towards us like the skeleton fingers of Mr Death himself.
‘So?’ I asked, nodding in the direction of the great swathe of black that seemed to point directly at us. ‘It’s spreading.’
Stephen nodded grimly. ‘I imagine the heat is finding its way to the surface fastest through fault lines or cracks in the Earth’s crust. Now the surface of the ground is hot enough to burn the plants.’
I lifted the binoculars again. Here and there smoke trickled up into the blue sky where the heat leaking up from the Earth’s core triggered forest fires, or maybe simply caused a house to combust.
Stephen turned and looked at me. ‘Ben Cavellero was right to get us out of Fairburn. But it isn’t enough.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘First, we’ve got to stop playing at kids on a summer camping trip.’
‘I think all that stopped this morning.’
He nodded again. ‘And now we’ve got to realize the world has changed. Now we’re going to have to change with it—or we’re dead.’
I looked out at that finger of black ash creeping slowly but inexorably forward. And I knew he was right.
Chapter 37
Darkness. Absolute, total darkness.
I could see nothing. But I knew I was lying out on the moor. I felt the heather prickle my bare back and legs. I was wearing a pair of shorts—nothing else.
I could not hear a sound. Silence. Absolute silence.
But I sensed something approach. I scrambled to my feet.
Someone or something was running towards me across the moor.
From out of the darkness came a figure. All I could make out was the massive grey shape, a large head, a sense of power and a clear sense of purpose that drove the figure to run across the darkened moor.
It ran straight at me. As best as I could I dodged backwards, ready to fight it with my nails and teeth if I had to.
The heel of my foot hit a tussock and I went down flat on my back.
The grey figure ran silently past, muscular legs carrying the man away into the night.
Thank Christ for that, he’d never even noticed me.
But what the hell had happened? Why was I out there on the moor dressed in nothing but shorts? Why couldn’t I remember leaving the tent and coming up here?
This was insane.
Had we been attacked in the night? Maybe instinct had driven me to run blindly from the camp as a gang of starving refugees tore the place apart, driven by their burning need for food.
I pulled myself into a sitting position.
Again my scalp crawled; as if someone had dumped a handful of woodlice in my hair. I shivered at that feeling of cold insect legs across skin.
I gave an invol
untary gasp as, running towards me out of the darkness, came more of them.
I saw nothing clearly. It was more a suggestion of figures running by at either side of me as I sat there. They ran purposefully as if it was a race. They’d got somewhere to go and they were in a Hell of a hurry to get there.
It could only be a matter of time before one of these running men actually fell over me, so I began to climb to my feet.
I’d not even managed to get my hands from the ground before I felt the slap of hands on my shoulders as I was spun round by something with the strength of a gorilla. There was more than one pair of hands holding me. I felt the palms of hands pressing me face down to the ground with such a pressure I thought I’d be crushed.
I could see nothing now, but I sensed that ceaseless flow of figures running by.
Why I was being held I don’t know. At first I thought I was being restrained so I’d not interfere with this weird migration of grey figures. But then I had the impression I was being closely examined as I lay pinned there. I tried to move but half a dozen hands clamped me down; the pressure was enormous. I couldn’t breathe. They must release the pressure soon. I’d suffocate. The pressure was incredible. I felt as if my ribs would crack under the weight.
Seconds became minutes; I groaned with the pain of the weight and the pain of not being able to breathe. Lights began to flash in front of my eyes. My arms and legs turned numb. Then I didn’t know whether I lay on that blasted moor, in the tent, or even at home. I opened my eyes. Saw the familiar blue curtains of my bedroom; the REM and U2 posters on the wall; my guitar leaning against the wall.
‘The good news is breakfast is whatever you want.’ My mother’s voice as she pulled on her black Jaeger jacket. ‘The bad news is you have to get it yourself.’
‘Where are you going?’ My mind was spinning like crazy. Christ, what a hangover. ‘What are you wearing the black jacket for?’
‘Must look smart,’ she smiled and used her fingers to push back her short black hair.
‘Must be important?’
‘It is. While you were smooching with Caroline tonight I burnt to death when my car was caught in a firestorm in Turin. You should have seen the volcano come up through the city centre. It was enormous.’
‘Mother—’
‘Must dash. The dead have long journeys.’
‘Mother. Don’t leave me.’ I tried to climb out of bed but the blankets had tangled around my arms and legs. I couldn’t move. ‘Don’t leave me!’
I knew this was a dream. But the sense of dread cut me in two.
But was it that? Maybe those monster men on the moor had decided literally to rip me in two. I felt a great ache running from my neck to my backside as if I was being broken like a dry stick.
‘Mother…mother…’
‘Shush. You’re shouting loud enough to wake the dead.’ My eyes were blurring. A figure approached. I didn’t know what it was but I willed myself to imagine it was my mother walking back into my bedroom, by my guitar, past the amplifiers, stepping over the clothes I’d dumped untidily on the floor—just like she always had done.
‘Rick. It really is time for me to go now. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like I’m being called from another place. They want me to go there. Grandad and grandma are there, too. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Now, Rick, lift up your head and I’ll kiss you goodbye.’
I felt her place both hands on each side of my face and lift it to hers. My vision was blurred, the ceiling didn’t look right, there was no lampshade where it should have been. But I willed myself to see my mother’s smiling face, the black hair salted with grey hairs, her kind blue eyes; those pink lips that had kissed me a million times before, from when I was a bouncing baby with a snotty nose to when I was a cocky nineteen-year-old; then she’d mischievously kiss me on the cheek in front of the band when they picked me up for a gig, knowing full well they’d take the piss mercilessly all the way to Leeds or Wakefield or wherever we were playing that night.
I had no strength left in my arms and legs as I felt my face being raised to her own smiling face.
‘Good-night, Rick. Sweet dreams.’
That’s when my vision cleared. I saw the face above me wasn’t my mother’s.
I screamed. The sound ripped through my throat, mating shock with pure, pure terror.
Chapter 38
Stenno took one look at me. ‘You’ve seen them, too, haven’t you?’
I was going to walk on by but he caught me by the arm. ‘Don’t kid me, Rick. You’ve seen the Grey Men. Am I right?’
I looked at him, ready to deny everything.
‘You have,’ he hissed in something like triumph. ‘You’ve seen the Grey Men. And you’ve been with them.’
‘I’ve seen nothing. Now, please. I’m tired. I’m going to drink this coffee, then I’m going to sleep.’
‘Go on, then.’ He held back the flap of the tent for me. ‘Crawl into the damned tent and pretend it never happened. Pretend you’ve never woken up to find yourself a mile from the tent and you don’t know how the Hell you got there. Pretend you’ve not gone outside at midnight for a leak, then looked at your watch only to find that an hour’s gone by, not two minutes.’
‘Shut up, Stenno,’ I said. I felt tired. I felt dangerous. Stenno was on my case and I wanted nothing to do with—
‘Sure,’ Stenno continued, ‘you’ve not seen them looking in at you in the middle of the night. You’ve not seen their thick grey skin; it looks like rhino hide, doesn’t it? Oh, no, you’ve not seen that, eh, Ricky boy?’ Stenno’s eyes glittered now. And I remembered the day he’d attacked me in Fullwood’s Garage. ‘What are you afraid to admit? You’re afraid to admit to looking them right in the eye as they hold you down? Am I right, or am I right, Ricky boy?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Afraid to describe the colour of their eyes? Not blue like yours and big brother Stephen’s, are they?’
‘Just piss off, will you?’
‘Afraid people will think you’re mad?’
‘No.’
‘Admit what you’ve seen…what you’ve been seeing since Ben Cavellero’s party?’
‘I’ve seen nothing.’
‘Afraid of alienating Kate Robinson?’
I stabbed him a hard look that said, clear enough, FUCK OFF.
‘Kate Robinson? You know Kate…she’s told my wife that she really likes you.’
I glanced round. People were stopping eating breakfast and looking up at us, no doubt expecting a full-blooded punch-up to erupt any moment. I saw Caroline get to her feet, her eyes concerned.
‘So,’ Stenno shook his head. ‘You weren’t afraid of those three poor bastards we murdered up on the moor. But you’re afraid of the truth. You’re even afraid to admit to knowing the colour of their eyes. Come on, Rick. Those grey faces. What colour were the eyes that looked at you?’
I had two choices. First: punch him on the jaw. I chose option two: ‘Their eyes are red,’ I said under my breath. This time I grabbed him by the arm. ‘Now, come with me and tell me everything you know about them.’
We moved down the gully to sit in the shade of the few stunted oaks. I carried two mugs of coffee, one of which I handed to Stenno. We sat side by side on a fallen tree trunk and looked back up the gully, now zebra-striped with shadows from the branches of the trees. ‘First of all, Rick,’ Stenno began, ‘I’m going to have to apologize.’
‘Forget it.’
‘No, I’m sorry, Rick; because I know I’ve been acting so fucking…weird these last few weeks. Ever since Ben Cavellero’s party; you remember? I crashed in, covered in blood. Although I don’t really remember that. In fact, the last few weeks have been one big blank. I walked through all what’s happened like a zombie. I just don’t remember anything except…’
‘Anything except the Grey Men?’
He nodded, his eyes looked dreamy, faraway. ‘They were the only real thing in the world. Yeah, I sort of remember that meeting at Ben?
??s where I acted…peculiar. Then just ran for it. But I’ve been so terrified. I don’t know why. All this, with the refugees and the toxic gas in Leeds. It seemed dreamlike…unreal. It’s only at night that it all becomes real again. When I see them walking all around the place.’
‘These are the Grey Men?’
‘Yes. I see them. But no one else does. I’ve told Sue, but she just doesn’t believe me.’ He looked at me. ‘Out of all of us, Rick, I think you’re the only other person to see them.’
‘But surely they’re not invisible to the others?’
‘Maybe they are.’ He took a swallow of coffee. Then he began to talk again. Now his eyes took on a strange evangelical gleam; like he was telling me something that was as wonderful as it was awful. ‘I saw them first on the night of Ben Cavellero’s party. They wanted me to go with them. When I wouldn’t they forced me. They carried me through the wood. That’s when I must have knocked my head.’ His eyes were bright. ‘Don’t you see, Rick? They chose me. Then they chose you. We are special to them. We’re—’
‘Now, hold on,’ I said, ‘what do you mean: they chose us? Where do you think these guys are from?’ I nearly added ‘From a flying saucer I suppose.’
‘From out of the ground.’ Stenno spoke matter-of-factly. ‘It’s the Grey Men who’re heating up the Earth. They’re causing the volcanoes, tidal waves. They’re the ones pumping poison gas into the cities.’
‘Look, Stenno. You don’t know this. We’ve all been through a traumatic experience. Maybe we’re imagining—’