I was appalled. ‘Ben. It was right there in the window. I could have put a slug right through its ugly head!’
‘Put the gun down, Rick. Calm down.’
‘Calm down? Like hell I will. Why did you stop me shooting the bastard?’
‘If you see one of the Greys, Rick,’ he said, ‘promise me you won’t fire at it.’
‘But—’
‘Rick. It won’t do any good. In fact, it will only make matters worse.’
Kate shook her head. ‘Why don’t you want us to fire at them?’
‘There’s to be no shooting,’ he said gently.
‘But don’t you know what they’re doing? Do you know what they did to Kate?’
‘Rick. No shooting, please.’
‘But look at her face. Can’t you see that cut on her lip? Those bruises round her eye?’
‘I see them, Rick. Please…Rick, let me speak.’
Kate said quickly, ‘Ben, you told us that we’d be safe from the Greys. Is that true?’
‘It is. If you do as I say.’
Impatiently, I asked, ‘Do what exactly?’
‘Just keep calm. If you see one of those Grey Men at the window, do nothing. Even if you see one in this room, do nothing—absolutely nothing.’
‘In the room! Christ, Ben!’
‘Ignore it. Can you promise me that?’
‘Ben, that’s insane. They’ll tear us apart, don’t you understand?’
‘I do understand what they are, and I understand why we will be safe…but only if you do what I tell you. Rick, you trusted me?’
‘Yes, of course I did.’
‘You still do?’ Lightly he stroked the silk scarf that covered his mouth.
I looked at him.
Softly he asked, ‘You trust me still, Rick?’
I sighed. ‘Yes, Ben, I do. At least, I will do if you tell me what you know.’
Ben nodded. ‘Of course I’ll tell you. But keep this in mind: if a Grey should appear at the window, or come through that door, do nothing. Just relax. Continue talking to me as if nothing unusual is happening.’
Kate said, ‘That’s a pretty tall order.’
‘But you’ll do it, won’t you? Kate? Rick?’
We nodded.
Ben sighed with relief. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll put your rifles across here out of harm’s way.’ He took the two rifles, then locked them in a cupboard at the far end of the room.
Uneasily, I looked out of the window expecting to see legions of Greys marching this way.
There was, however, nothing but black ash, burnt tree stumps. The dying breeze lifted a dust devil that moved, slowly spinning, across the dead forest for a moment before falling back to Earth.
‘Now,’ Ben said, ‘As far as I know, I’m the last man alive in Fairburn…or what’s left of Fairburn. Before the last group of villagers left, my old friends from the parish council did this to me.’ He lifted his hand to where he’d tied the ends of the silk scarf in a knot behind his head. ‘Ah…Kate, would you help me with this, please? I tied it tight. I didn’t want it to slip down while you ate.’
Kate untied the knot. The silk scarf slipped down to unmask the lower half of his face.
We’d seen some terrible sights, but this made us look away.
Ben continued talking in that calm way. In fact, more than just calm. The man was serene. As if he’d found an inner peace in all this mayhem. ‘You’ll realize my old friends had found out that I gave you food and persuaded you to leave. So they cut off my lips.’
I looked back at Ben. The lips had been completely cut away, leaving the teeth permanently exposed. Saliva dripped through the gaps in the teeth.
Christ, the bastards had made a mess of his mouth. The sight sickened me.
‘That’s enough, I think. But I had to show you what rational, civilized men are capable of. Kate, will you help?’
She helped him tie the silk scarf back in place, like a surgeon’s mask. She glanced at me. Her eyes were full of tears.
I swallowed, then focused myself. ‘What happened to the refugees?’
‘When they learnt all the food was gone they moved on. Not before killing hundreds of other refugees first. And dozens of villagers. I heard most turned to cannibalism. Our people, too, I suppose. If you’re hungry enough you’ll eat anything, won’t you?’
We nodded.
‘So for the last couple of months I’ve been here alone. I listened to the few radio broadcasts that were being transmitted. I read a lot, too. Also, then I started to see the Grey Men.’
‘You don’t want us to fire at them because you’ve found a way to communicate?’ Kate sounded hopeful.
‘No,’ he said, softly. ‘However, I do know what they are.’
Chapter 111
‘The Grey Men?’ I asked impatiently. ‘What are they?’
‘Are they from out of the ground?’ Kate asked.
‘In a manner of speaking.’ Ben lifted the silk scarf where it had slipped. ‘The truth of the matter is, they’re not really here at all.’
‘Don’t talk in riddles, Ben. We’ve seen them.’
He leaned back in his chair, the tips of his fingers pressed together as he thought through what he’d say next. The black grit continued to drizzle against the glass, making a sound like light rain. Beyond the windows, night had buried the black desert that was once my home village of Fairburn. I could see nothing but the random flicker of fires in the distance, where inflammable gas continued to flare off through cracks in the ground.
I still felt uneasy. I wished I hadn’t let Ben take the rifles and lock them in the cupboard. What if we needed them in a hurry? Could I trust Ben’s statement that the Grey Men were harmless?
I began to rub the palms of my hands up and down my knees as the anxiety kicked in. I glanced at Kate. She seemed tense, too. She shot wary glances out of the window.
The endless sizzle of grit on the window began to get on my nerves.
I needed the rifle.
Kate’s eyes widened. She’d seen something.
I turned half round on my chair to look out.
Grey shapes. I could see them. They gleamed with a cold radiance. Here they come, I thought, alarms screaming in my head. The Grey Men are marching on the house en masse and Ben is sitting here talking about—
‘Rick…Rick.’ I spun round to look at Ben. He was speaking calmly. ‘Rick, take it easy. Here, let me top up your—’
‘No. I don’t want any more wine! Ben, can’t you see them?’
‘Please drink the wine. You too, Kate.’
Kate stood up and went to the rifle cupboard. ‘They’re coming towards the house.’
‘Ben, are you going to sit here and watch them tear us apart?’
‘Rick. Kate. Please sit down.’ Ben spoke with deliberate calmness. His movements were slow too, as if he hoped we’d be lulled into that same relaxed manner. ‘Rick. If you do as I say they can’t hurt you.’
‘But you can see—’
‘Sit down, Rick…relax.’
Kate said, astonished, ‘Relax? How can we?’
I added, ‘With those monsters out there? They’re killers. You know that, Ben, don’t you? They are fucking killers.’
Ben nodded. ‘I do know that. But if you relax, ignore them, they can’t harm you.’
I forced myself to sit down; my muscles were so tight I quivered. ‘OK, Ben, you’ve got two minutes. Then I’m taking that key from you; we’re taking back our rifles and we’re shooting our way out of this place.’
Ben nodded; again it was a slow movement; nothing he did was rushed; he was trying to transmit to us a calming influence through body language and the gentle tones of his voice. ‘All right, just give me a moment.’ He eased the silk scarf back higher up his nose. ‘Not so long ago an atmospheric chemist by the name of Professor James Lovelock likened the whole of our planet to a living, self-regulating organism. He called this living planet "Gaia." The Earth isn’t an inert ball
of rock floating through space that just happens to have life living on its surface. In a sense—’
‘Forty seconds left,’ I warned.
‘In a sense the planet actually breathes, it has a respiratory system. Living creatures exhale carbon dioxide that, left free in the atmosphere, would eventually destroy all life on Earth. Gaia, this living planet, reabsorbs this carbon dioxide through plants on land and in the sea—these over millions of years are converted into coal, oil and limestone that are locked safely away underground. Gaia has maintained this balancing act for millions of years, ensuring that oxygen levels remain at around twenty-one per cent of the atmosphere and carbon dioxide stays safely pegged at 0.03 per cent.’
‘Ten seconds left, Ben.’
‘The planet is also alive beneath its surface. The Earth’s core is a solid mass of compressed iron. It’s incredibly hot. Surrounding the inner core is the outer core. Although it, too, is iron, it is in a liquid state. Then you have the hot stony mantle before you reach the thin crust on which we stand. Continents slide across the planet, collide, throw up mountain ranges. The movements in rocks beneath our feet generate electric currents. These radiate—’
‘Ben. Time’s up. Give me the key. We’re getting out of here.’
‘Rick. You’ve still not heard my explanation. Don’t you want to hear the truth?’
‘You’ve explained nothing, Ben. We’re moving on before those monsters tear us apart.’
‘Are you in such a hurry to die?’
That stopped me.
Kate looked at him. ‘A hurry to die? What do you mean?’
He gave a weary sigh that made the silk scarf balloon around his face. ‘Yes, in a hurry to die. Because if you don’t listen to what I have to say you won’t last more than a couple of days out there.’
‘We’ve survived so far.’ I wasn’t so much angry with him as disappointed. I had always trusted Ben Cavellero. I’d listened to his words of advice hungrily as I grew up. Perhaps he was the nearest thing to a father in my mid-teen years. But all this talk about Gaia, the Earth as a self-regulating organism, made no sense; it certainly didn’t seem relevant to what was happening here.
Ben spoke softly. ‘Kate. Look out of the window. If you see the Grey creatures now you can take the key, collect your rifles, then be on your way. Now, Kate, what do you see?’
She looked out of the window, her eyes searching the darkened terrain. She looked puzzled. ‘They were there a minute ago.’
‘You don’t see them now?’
‘No, but it’s too dark to be sure.’
I went to the window and looked out through the endless drizzle of black ash falling from the sky. ‘They are there,’ I said firmly. ‘I saw them.’
‘How many are there, Rick?’ Ben asked.
I shook my head, confused. ‘I don’t understand it. I saw them. Hundreds of them.’
‘Sit down, both of you. Please listen. The reason you can’t see them is because they were never out there.’
Kate looked at him, suspicious. ‘Where are they, then?’
He looked at us, then touched his temple. ‘In there.’
‘You’re suggesting they’re hallucinations?’ Kate shook her head.
‘I am. Yes.’
‘Impossible.’ Kate slapped the top of the table. ‘We’ve all seen them. For Godsakes, Ben, they nearly killed me today.’
I chipped in impatiently. ‘Look at our faces. Just how the Hell do you think we came by these bruises, Ben?’
‘If you’ll just calm down, relax, then—’
‘Then what?’
‘I’ll tell you exactly what—’
‘For Godsakes, Ben, Kate and I have been fighting these bastards tooth and nail. Now you’re sitting there pouring out the wine like nothing’s fucking happened.’ Fear, fury, impatience, exasperation—the whole fucking nine yards—it erupted inside me. I slung the cup at the wall where it shattered in a spray of red wine.
‘I’m sorry, Ben. I’m fucking sorry I came here,’ I yelled. ‘You’ve obviously found your own way to survive, lost…lost in some fucking dream world where the planet’s a living creature and all these Grey Men are nice as fucking pie.’
‘Rick…’ Kate looked scared of my fury.
‘No, Kate. We’re getting out of here. It’s a fucking madhouse. Ben!’ I held out my hand. ‘Key!’
Kate shouted, ‘Rick. The window!’
I spun round. A massive grey head loomed out of the darkness to press its face hard to the glass. The red eyes blazed in at me with such hatred I recoiled.
The bastards wanted in.
‘Ben, give me the key. The key! You stupid bastard.’
I roared sheer fury now. I was ready to snatch a knife from the table and drive it through Ben’s face. For some insane reason he’d sat us there to talk, giving those grey monsters a chance to move in.
That was it!
Ben had somehow gone over to them. He’d conspired with them.
I didn’t even notice the door open behind me. Suddenly the grey figure was in the room, moving towards Kate, its great arms thrust out, the muscle tension forcing the arteries up to show beneath the skin like knots of cord; its red eyes burned like they were pieces of living Hell itself.
I snatched a knife from the table, then launched myself at it.
That’s all I remember.
The blow to the back of my head knocked me forward. And down.
Then, suddenly, all I could see was brown carpet filling my whole field of vision. I couldn’t stand. A darkness began to flow into me. My eyes blurred. Sounds grew distant.
I remember feeling intense disappointment. I’d let Kate down. I couldn’t fight anymore. The Grey Men would take her. Then do whatever they wanted to her. And I could do nothing to prevent her torture.
Chapter 112
Torture…pain…despair…
Kate screamed endlessly. I couldn’t move.
‘Rick…’
With a tremendous effort I managed to move my head. My arms and legs felt as if they’d been nailed to the floorboards.
The Grey Men had her. One stood behind her, holding her arms straight out by the wrists, forcing her into a crucifixion pose. She struggled. Her head flicked this way and that, her hair whipping into the monster’s grey face.
There was no expression on that face. The blood-red eyes alone gleamed with a monstrous passion that turned me sick to my stomach.
‘Rick.’
She struggled, her face a picture of sheer horror. She knew they planned hurting her in a way that would be monstrously cruel.
She tried to kick her way loose from the creature’s grip. Desperately she lifted both feet into the air to throw herself forward.
But the monster didn’t even move. It held her as easily as you or I would hold a butterfly by its wings.
Another Grey moved into my line of vision. In a cool, unhurried way it bent down to grab Kate by one of her ankles. She screamed, ‘No, no, no!’
I think at that moment she knew what they’d do to her. She screamed so loud the sound tore at your eardrums. Her terror and sheer, sheer despair cranked the scream still louder until it vibrated the bones in my skull.
The Grey holding her by the ankle calmly lifted it as high as its own head. Simultaneously the other monster let go her wrists. She swung down until she was hanging by her ankle in the second monster’s huge fist.
She struggled, her body forming a U-shape as she tried to reach up to claw the creature’s thick grey fingers from her ankle.
The first creature grabbed her free ankle. The two held her between them like she was a living wish-bone, so that she formed a Y shape, her head swinging, long hair brushing the carpet.
I could see what they were going to do. Christ, I knew, I knew. I could see them tensing for the pull.
Kate screamed.
I was shouting, ‘No, don’t you dare…don’t you fucking dare. I’ll kill you!’
‘Rick.’
&nb
sp; The two creatures each pulled a leg.
As easily as if they were tearing apart a turkey wishbone. A scream. The sound of pelvic bone, cracking, splitting…
‘Rick…Rick!’
I opened my eyes.
Grunted.
‘Rick?’
Ben’s face, still covered with the silk mask, loomed into view. ‘Welcome back to the world of the living.’
‘Hell…’ I grunted. ‘My head. Jesus, what happened?’
‘You’ve been unconscious for a few moments. Don’t worry, you’re not damaged. Your head’s too damn’ hard for that.’
‘Kate?’ I looked up suddenly. ‘Kate?’
She smiled down at me. I realized she was squeezing my hand in hers. ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine…’
‘But the Greys had you; they were ripping you up…aw…shit. Uh, I dreamed that one, right?’
‘Right.’ She smiled, nodded. ‘You were out cold, but you were shouting out in your sleep.’
‘I was?’
‘Don’t worry, I’m used to your snoring by now anyway.’ She grinned.
Ben Cavellero caught her eye and raised a knowing eyebrow.
‘But they’re here!’ I sat bolt upright. ‘They’re in the room!’
‘No, they’re not, Rick,’ Kate said soothingly.
‘You saw them!’ I struggled to my feet. The room began to spin. I wanted to puke. ‘You saw them in this room!’
Kate nodded. ‘But while you were having your beauty sleep Ben had the opportunity to tell me what you wouldn’t give him the chance to finish. Rick? Take it easy, you’re still groggy.’
Ben pushed a chair towards me. ‘Don’t rush things.’
I sat down on it heavily. ‘Uh…my head…what happened?’
Kate gave a sympathetic smile. ‘Something hit you.’
‘Someone hit you.’ Ben gave a little shrug of his shoulders. ‘Me.’
‘What in God’s name for?’
‘You’d have killed us if I hadn’t lamped you one with the stew pan. Sorry.’
‘I’d have killed you?’
‘You would have tried, anyway.’