Nailed by the Heart (24 page)

"An
extraordinarily violent warrior," added Tony, staring at the
figures. "Exceptionally violent-the Saf Dar were the breakers of
the line. In battles they would hurl themselves at the enemy in a
kind of human blitzkrieg."

Chris
heard a sigh that expressed pain as much as anything. He saw the
Reverend Reed look away from the figures on the beach, his Adam's
apple twitching above the dirty-white dog-collar.

Then
Ruth was at Chris's side, her hand finding his.

"Where's
David?" he whispered. "He mustn't see this."

"He's
asleep in the caravan. What's happening to them? They seem to be
changing color."

"I
don't know. But they seem to be acclimatising themselves to the open
air. They don't need the sea now."

Chris
glanced around at the villagers. With the exception of the Reverend
Reed, no one could take their eyes from the figures.

"Thank
God they can't get in here," said Ruth. "Hatred. You can
feel it, can't you? They're sitting there just hating us."

An
hour passed. The tide slid back, exposing the top of the causeway.

"I'm
going home."

The
sudden voice startled everyone. It was Wainwright, the accountant,
who had spoken. He still wore the bandage like a white headband.

"I'm
afraid you can't, Mr. Wainwright," said Tony. And Chris heard
Mark hiss under his breath, "Pain in the ass."

"No
... I've had enough of this." Wainwright's voice was quick and
clipped. "I'm going home. This-this is obviously some kind of
confidence trick. We've been duped. There are probably criminals
stripping our homes even as we stand here."

"
'S not safe out there, old boy," said the Major. " 'S
dangerous. You wait till we get the er... er..." He tailed off.

"The
Major's right," said Mark calmly. "Stay put."

"Until
when? ... until our homes have been emptied, and-and the crooks are
driving away laughing at us?"

Tony
Gateman sighed. "Mr. Wainwright, those people, and I use that
word loosely, those people out there have ceased to be like us. They
are dangerous. You know that, Mr. Wainwright. Don't leave the
seafort."

"I'm
going home. And you'll all come home soon enough. When you realize
Gateman is making a fool out of you all. He thinks this place is
where some old pagan god has put-has made his den. He's mad. Isn't he
mad, Reverend Reed?"

Reed,
staring into space, said nothing.

"Don't
worry. I'll see myself out."

Chris
followed Tony down the steps as he tried to persuade Wainwright to
stay.

He
was wasting his breath. Within five minutes they'd had to admit
defeat and let the man out through the gate and onto the causeway.
Chris locked the gate after him, before he and Tony climbed back up
the steps to see what would happen.

Chris
noticed that some of the figures had moved. Six still sat on the
beach in a line along the side of the causeway, a twenty-yard gap
between each one. The furthest sat at the point where the causeway
joined the coast road. But the two nearest the seafort were now
kneeling on the beach, flanking the causeway. Like a pair of statues
guarding the entrance to a tomb.

He
shivered. The sharp, chiselled faces with the closed eyes were
expressionless. Yet he had the feeling that whatever happened,
whatever he did, these alien figures would know, and be ready to
react.

He
wondered what that reaction would be.

He
did not have to wait long to find out.

Wainwright
stepped out onto the causeway in clear view of everyone. He looked
straight ahead at the dunes.

Then,
as if he'd consciously blocked out everything but his destination, he
began to walk-a quick, stiff pace.

Chris
did not like the man. When he looked at Wainwright he remembered his
old maths teacher, stiff-necked and gray-skinned like Wainwright,
delivering a full-blooded slap across Barry Mitchell's face. And the
boy had done nothing wrong.

It
had knocked the lad flat against the classroom floortiles. He had
been ten years old. The memory of that had fueled Chris's sense of
injustice all these long years. Wainwright was a man who evoked those
memories of stiff-necked, repressed bastards who make themselves feel
good by making people in their power feel bad.

Yet
at that moment Chris wanted to shout at Wainwright to get himself
back to the seafort. But the man would not have listened. He had
excluded the possibility from his mind that the things on the beach
could pose a threat. For him they simply did not exist.

Wainwright
approached the first two figures which closely flanked the causeway.
Two sentinels-unmoving, sinister. Not a flicker of movement betrayed
that they were even aware of the stiff-necked accountant's approach.

But
Chris knew they sensed him.

Wainwright
slowed, his feet hardly moving.

He
passed between the two sentinel Saf Dar and walked on. Suddenly he
stopped and looked back. The two didn't move so much as an inch.

Visibly
the man relaxed, his shoulders dropping. He continued walking, now
looking as if he was just keeping an appointment at some high-street
bank.

Chris
heard some of the villagers let out pent-up breath.

It
didn't take a Sherlock Holmes to guess what was running through their
minds.

Look.
If he can walk across there, we all can. ... We can go home. ... No
point in roughing it here. ... It's safe. ... We're going home. ...

Wainwright
passed another of the Saf Dar. No movement. Not a flicker across the
expressionless face that might have been carved from burnt brick.

He
walked confidently now. A stiff-legged figure growing fainter in the
mist. He was going to make it.

"Way
to go, rubber-neck!"

It
was one of the Hodgson lads. The other whistled, then both clapped
their meaty paws together over their heads.

The
spell was broken. Some of the villagers shouted encouragement. The
Harbour Tavern's landlord chuckled. "Home in time for opening
time, eh, Tony?"

Conversation
rose in an excited buzz. They were going home. They'd woken from the
nightmare.

Jesus!

Chris
saw it. Most must have seen it, because the sound of their voices cut
to a sudden silence that rang in the ears.

As
he looked along the line of dark figures on the causeway, they
changed, as if an electric current had been jolted through their
bodies. Then, one after another, the eyes of the Saf Dar snapped
open. Chris's blood turned to ice.

Inexplicably
there was something awful about it, merely the sight of eight sets of
eyelids snapping back to expose eight pairs of bright staring eyes,
the whites gleaming like splinters of glass.

They
say the eyes are the windows of the soul. If so, these exposed souls
were monstrously twisted and evil.

Two-thirds
of the way across the causeway, Wainwright saw the change in the
things" faces. And he shuddered when he saw the eyes that looked
as large and as shockingly bright as those of a starving man.

Wainwright
began to run, arms swinging, bandaged head jerking up and down.

The
villagers watched, struck silent, holding their breath, clenched
fists resting on top of the walls.

Wainwright
had passed the seventh figure; only number eight to go. Then he would
reach the road through the dunes which would lead him home.

In
his jerking run he approached the eighth and last figure. It still
sat staring straight in front of it in the direction of the seafort,
ignoring the running man.

It
knows; Christ, it knows ... Chris's stomach ached with tension.

Then
its head jerked up. It watched as Wainwright approached at a
desperate run, arms windmilling, his white shirt now showing beneath
his suit jacket.

Then
it moved.

The
figure on the beach leapt in one explosive movement, catching
Wainwright in its red-black arms, sweeping him up, then backward, his
feet whipping up higher than his head. Without releasing its grip, it
swung the accountant down head-first onto the stone slabs that paved
the causeway.

Chris
heard the crack of the skull against the stone even at that distance.

Wainwright
lay on the causeway stomach down, his head on its side. No movement.

The
creature moved a few paces away from the body, then sat down,
cross-legged, staring with those bright white eyes at the seafort.

The
people in the seafort watched, stunned into silence, not moving. The
scene wouldn't let them go.

The
other creatures hadn't moved. They just stared, eyes laser-bright.
They made it possible to believe that they could burn holes through
granite with a single look. No birds flew overhead; the mist seemed
more dense. It grew colder, gloomier, as if the earth lay dying
beneath their feet.

Chris
muttered that he was going to check on David.

He
returned to the caravan to find the boy asleep in the bedroom, his
face poking above the duvet.

He
felt his son's forehead. It was moist with sweat. Gently he pulled
the duvet down to his chest. Then, picking up the binoculars from the
dressing table, he tiptoed out.

As
soon as he reached the steps he knew something had happened.

He
sprinted up to the walkway. The villagers were looking at the
causeway, their heads craning forward.

"Look!"
cried one of the Hodgson boys. "He's shifted. The bugger's
shifted!"

Chris
searched for what had caught their attention. The Saf Dar remained in
their positions. Wainwright still lay ... Chris stiffened. But now he
lay on his back, one knee raised in the air.

He
saw the man's arm move to wipe his face. Then, painfully, he pulled
himself in to a sitting position. It was like watching someone wake
with a monstrous hangover.

After
three false starts, Wainwright lumbered to his feet, head swinging
from side to side.

Chris
jerked the binoculars to his eyes.

Wainwright's
head swung into view, uncomfortably large in the lenses. The bandage
hung around his neck, now stained with fresh crimson. The balding
head appeared; slashed across it, a gash in the shape of a smiling
mouth, the open wound forming over-red lips with something white
showing through. Chris lowered the binoculars and wiped his mouth.

Lurching
unsteadily, the accountant looked around him. He needed to stare long
and hard at the Saf Dar to pull back the memory of a few minutes
before. No nightmare, Mr. Wainwright, thought Chris grimly. This is
stone-cold reality.

Instead
of trying to walk on, away from the seafort, away from the Saf Dar,
including the one sitting on the causeway just five paces away,
Wainwright began to stagger back to the seafort.

"Idiot,"
whispered Ruth, "he should be going the other way. Not back.
Idiot. ..."

Mark
Faust picked up the shotgun. "I'm going out there. Get the doors
for me, Chris, please."

"Mark,
no." Tony snatched at Mark's arm.

"We
can't just stand by this time, Tony. That guy needs help."

"No
one goes out of those gates. It's suicide. No, it's worse than
suicide. You of all people have seen what those things can do."

"Shoot
the cunts," grunted Farmer Hodgson, holding up his shotgun.

"Look,"
stammered Tony, "get ready to open the gates, but only when he
makes it back all the way."

"Tony-"

"Listen,
Mark, listen. You saw what one of those things can do to a man. It
split his head like a tomato."

"Come
on! Run!"

"You
can do it!"

"Move
it! Move yourself, man!"