Keller found it impossible to strike. It was just a feeble, insane old man beneath him. A desperate, struggling wreck of a human being. He was evil, but it was the evil of madness, a sickness. He threw the knife to one side and saw Pendleton’s remaining open eye glaze over with incomprehension.
The voices inside Keller’s head wailed in protest.
But he would not kill for them!
For a frozen, eternal second, the struggling had ceased, but suddenly, Keller felt a sharp kick that sent him reeling backwards to land sprawled on his back on the floor. Pendleton had managed to get a foot between them and had kicked out with all the strength and fury of a madman. The co-pilot quickly raised himself to one elbow and saw the older man was trying to catch his breath, was struggling to his feet, still clutching the shotgun in his hand. Keller rose at the same time, forcing his body up, and for a brief moment, both men faced one another across the room. Keller gazed into Pendleton’s only open eye and saw it was filled with hate.
Then the shotgun was pointed at his stomach and he saw the finger squeeze the trigger as if in slow motion. He saw the flame leap from the black hole, then felt himself falling, tossed back through the open doorway by the blast.
The world was filled with the roar from the gun, the anguished voices of the dead, the laughter from the madman. It spun around him, a crazy carousel of light and sound.
He opened his eyes and looked down at his body. His stomach had been torn open by the explosion. He was propped against the balustrade along the landing, so he could see the blood oozing out on to his thighs. His shirt and top of his trousers had been ripped away, and he watched as his glistening intestines began to protrude through the gaping wound. They began to flow out with the blood, steam rising from them.
He reached down, his hand quivering, and held the warm, slippery organs to him, pushing them back in an attempt to preserve his life, but incredibly, he felt no pain. He assumed it was the shock.
And then, he pushed himself to his feet and walked back into the room, one hand still trying inadequately to cover the hole. Pendleton watched him with new terror and fell to his knees, holding the shotgun to him.
Keller felt no hate. Only an immense sadness. It wasn’t the man’s fault; he had been driven to it. He could only feel pity for him. And then, a lightness overtook him. A white, blinding lightness. He felt himself rising, lifting from his body, carried by a new surge of strength, strength and potency he’d never experienced before. The lightness filled every part of his being, rushing through him, making him a shapeless, floating thing. The sweetness was almost ecstatic, but it was pure, fulfilling.
He looked down and he saw the room receding from him, saw Pendleton raise the shotgun to his own throat, saw his finger squeeze the trigger. Sorrow swamped his new being, but it passed, never really leaving but becoming part of this strange elation. He saw his own physical body lying on the floor, burnt to a crisp, a black, and hardly human, form, and he began to understand.
He hadn’t survived the crash. He had died with the others.
Unholy forces had preserved him, left him there to avenge their deaths, so the tormented ones could be free. They’d got their freedom now, for the man who had killed them was now dead himself. And he, Keller, had not been the cause. Relief now mingled with the elation, each sensation becoming a new, awesome experience, so unlike the muted feelings of life. He soared.
The spirits of the air crash victims were all around him, rising with him, joining; but the evil had left them, the one who had been called Goswell had gone. He reached down for the spirit of Pendleton, just as unseen hands reached down for him, welcoming, helping. Before the room, the house, the field below, left his vision, he caught one last glimpse of Hobbs. Hobbs who stood against the car, looking upwards, knowing what was happening, his suspicion as to Keller’s unreal existence now confirmed. The strangely muted aura around Keller had caused the suspicion and now Hobbs understood – not fully, but enough. The dying woman in the High Street, her fear showing as she looked at him. She had known in her own moment of death. He felt the goodwill flow from the medium, and he smiled in his new being, his new birth.
He felt their presence. He felt Cathy close to him. It was nothing like their physical love, for everyone was as one now. The love was far greater. They reached for him, they consoled him in his apprehension and drew him onward. The first glimpses of understanding touched him; glimpses, but far greater than the sum of all earthly knowledge. This was self-knowledge, the essence of everything. Now he knew why there had been cruelty. Why insanity fed upon itself. Why there was malice. Why there was murderous pride. Why there were wars.
Sadness touched him, but there was no bitterness. There was joy, joy he could now understand, a happiness that spread and bound him even more closely to the others. There was so much more to learn, to understand; the knowledge already gained told him this was only the beginning, the first hesitant step. There were many more, each more significant than the previous.
But if this was only the beginning, how frightening, how awesome, was the journey to be? The trepidation was only momentary and it quickly became another part of him, another part of all of them. He could feel their warmth, their encouragement coursing through him, touching and merging with him. He cried out with the exhilaration and the exultancy of it.
And he went on.
Epilogue
The old man sat on the iron bridge, tucking his scarf tightly around his neck. The night – or early morning – was hazy with drifting clouds of smoke, the grey smoke that mulled around long after fires had been quenched. It was over now, although small groups of people still gathered, slowly making their way back across the bridge to their homes in Windsor, having enjoyed the earlier spectacle of burning buildings. There were not many people around now, for the excitement had died away hours earlier.
The old man listened to their tired voices, their wonder at what had happened. First, there was the fire along the High Street, which started in a photographer’s studio and spread until it had taken three other shops with it, completely gutting two and severely damaging the third. They still hadn’t recovered the bodies; that would have to wait until morning when it would be safer to search for them. And then the College: starting in the ancient chapel and spreading around the yard until many of the old buildings had gone up in flames. The headmaster was missing, and a count of all the boys was still being made. One boy at least had been found near the burning buildings, but it was said he was still in a state of shock, still unable to speak. Even the town’s vicar had collapsed and gone into some kind of coma. Whatever had happened in Eton that night would be a matter for speculation for years to come. The voices drifted away into the night and, finally, the old man was alone on the bridge.
He turned stiffly on the wooden bench, craning his neck to look back towards the field where the aeroplane had crashed. It seemed like years ago now. He grunted silently to himself. The shimmering cloud had gone. He’d seen it hours before, just as dusk had set in over the town. He’d been waiting for something to happen all day, knew the dreadful oppression that had hung over Eton since the crash was reaching some kind of peak, reaching bursting point. And he had been right; it had well and truly burst. Peering through his curtains, afraid to go out, he’d seen the wispy cloud, translucent above the field. But now it had gone, lifted, and the oppression had gone with it.
The atmosphere had altered abruptly, just as the flames were at their worst. He’d felt the change, almost like a spiritual upheaval, a grey veil lifted from his own heart. And the flames had begun to die from that moment.
He turned back and gazed down into the blackness of the river. He had waited in the darkness of his room, waited for the clamour and the excitement to fade. Then, after so much time inside, he had wrapped himself up and left the house, a new lightness in his old steps. It was as if the fires had cleansed the town.
It was over now, he was sure. He’d always been sensitive to such things. Hadn??
?t he looked up at the aeroplane just before it crashed? Hadn’t he felt something was wrong? Yes, over now. The town could repair the damage and try to forget. The College would never be restored to its former glory – you couldn’t rebuild history – but it signified the end of an era, the beginning of the new.
It had been so long since he’d sat here last; it was good to be back. He looked up into the sky. So big. So deep.
The old man shivered as he felt the icy wind rush past him. He thought he heard someone whisper, a low growling sound, then what could have been a snigger. But it must have been his old ears playing tricks on him. It had only been the cold night wind fleeing from the oncoming dawn. His old bones felt the sudden chills too easily now. Still, it was gone, had passed away into the night. Let it chill somebody else’s old bones.
He smiled to himself, then trudged back over the bridge, back to his home, back to his warm bed.
The Survivor
James Herbert is not just Britain’s No. 1 bestselling writer of chiller fiction, a position he has held ever since publication of his first novel, but is one of our greatest popular novelists, whose books are sold in thirty-three foreign languages, including Russian and Chinese. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his nineteen novels have sold more than 42 million copies worldwide.
Also by James Herbert
The Rats
The Fog
Fluke
The Spear
The Dark
Lair
The Jonah
Shrine
Domain
Moon
The Magic Cottage
Sepulchre
Haunted
Creed
Portent
The Ghosts of Sleath
’48
Others
Graphic Novels
The City
(Illustrated by Ian Miller)
Non-fiction
By Horror Haunted
(Edited by Stephen Jones)
James Herbert’s Dark Places
(Photographs by Paul Barkshire)
First published 1976 by New English Library
This edition published 1999 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2011 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-447-20325-4 EPUB
Copyright © James Herbert 1976
The right of James Herbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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James Herbert, The Survivor
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