Hugging
his wife, he gazed out over the sea. He didn't see the Saf Dar's
alien stare; he saw only his dream of the future. And it was a good
dream.
"People
pile!" shouted David as Ruth and Chris lay on the double bed in
the caravan.
"Shh
..." whispered Ruth. "Remember there are other people
trying to get to sleep."
Chris
smiled. "Quick people pile, then."
David
jumped on top of Chris, his head lightly butting into Chris's chin.
This was one of David's favorite games. People pile. It consisted of
Chris at the bottom, Ruth next, then David sitting, kneeling or
standing on top of her.
"People
pile," laughed David. "Come on, Mum. You next. I'll sit on
your head."
"You
won't. You weigh a ton these days. Just lie down across your dad's
chest and we'll cuddle."
"All
right, then. Can we leave the light on and talk before switching it
off?"
"You
don't switch off a candle, you blow it out."
David
looked at the candle that lit the caravan bedroom with a yellow light
and filled it with odd wavering shadows. "When are we going to
get 'lectric back again?"
"Soon.
There's a fault with the power station. When they fix that we'll get
the electric back."
"And
the water?"
"Yes."
"Will
all those people go back to their own houses then?"
"They
will, David. This is just temporary."
David
snuggled his head against Ruth's face.
"We'll
blow out the candle now, David. We've got a lot to do tomorrow."
David
put his arm around his mother's neck and hugged her.
"All
right, then ..." he murmured drowsily. "I'm going to go to
sleep now. Love you."
"Love
you." She leaned across to the bedside table and blew out the
candle.
They
would need a good night's sleep. Because tomorrow they were going to
fight a war.
Three
hours later Chris awoke. He lay for a further forty minutes
struggling to sleep again. In the end he slid on his leather jacket
and left the caravan, guided by the same kind of urge that drives you
to stare at wrecked cars beside motorways.
He
climbed the steps to the top of the wall and looked out. Enough
moonlight seeped through the mist to reveal them as they arrived. One
by one across the beach from the depths of the darkness beyond.
At
first they were just fuzzy shapes in the mist. He could almost
believe they were just people approaching the seafort during some
midnight walk. As they grew nearer their outlines hardened, revealing
more and more details, until he could no longer con himself into
believing they were human.
His
mouth dry, he glanced about the beach for the Saf Dar. Although he
couldn't see them, he knew they were there somewhere. Probably sat in
that weird Red Indian warrior way further up the beach in the mist.
Now,
walking slowly toward the seafort in a semicircle, were the pathetic
figures he'd seen the night before.
The
Fox twins, one grossly fat, the other scarecrow-thin; Wainwright, the
dirty rag of a bandage around his neck, dark red growths like bunches
of Burgundy grapes hanging loosely from the gash in his face.
Chris
zipped his leather jacket up to his throat and hugged himself.
They
were changing.
Growing
worse.
There
were more of them now. Two dozen men and the boy. Drowned or killed
at sea anything from a few hours to fifty years ago. Their bodies
changing, hour by hour. The massive life force that electrified their
once-dead flesh swelled their limbs and distorted their faces. Worse
things were happening too.
He
chewed his lip. He needed to see this. These bastard sights. They
were like razor blades peeling away his outer civilized layer, the
nicey-nice Mr Stainforth, who didn't push into queues or swear at old
ladies (not to their faces, anyway); peel all that artificial
civilized society crap away to expose the primal man. The man who
would do anything to anyone, no matter how savage or bestial, to
ensure that he and his family survived. Nice men don't kill.
Nice
men don't sacrifice what they love. That thought had been planted by
Gateman earlier. What would a man two thousand years ago have done,
faced with this?
He
knew. The man would have gone to his wife and taken the little
dark-eyed boy from her arms; he would have dressed him in his best
clothes, told him he was special, that he loved him; then he would
have laid him across the stone, picked up the bronze axe, and-
He
blinked. Coldness trickled down one cheek. Shit, Tony Gateman, I bet
you can sell fucking condoms to the Pope.
The
figures were closer now. They stood in a long line in front of him,
staring at the seafort.
Again
he saw that these things were not kept alive in some insipid way,
like geriatrics on a life-support machine. No, these things were
alive with a vibrant, forceful rush of energy.
He
watched the figures. Concentrating on every detail of the distorted
bodies to rip away the civilized exterior that had encased him like a
shell nearly all his life.
He
had to turn back the clock to allow that blood of his warrior
ancestors to flow through his veins. He had to learn to hate in a
full-blooded way. And channel that hate into a force he could use.
This would be a battle for survival.
Their
swollen bodies looked as if they would rip the skin that tried to
contain them. Hugely enlarged hearts pounded ferociously against
their chests like engines. Their naked chests shuddered with the
concussions. Where a body had been damaged that crude rush of energy
had healed it with tumorous growths. Red tomato cancers ballooned
from eye sockets where eyes had been torn away. There, a shattered
mouth had been repaired by a protruding flesh balloon.
Some
of the older corpses had mingled with shellfish and seaweed until you
could not tell where the man ended and where the flotsam and jetsam
of the sea began.
One,
a large barrel-chested man who could have been a ship's captain,
stood nearer than the rest.
His
chest, as white as milk, was covered with narrow slits in the skin.
The slits were probably as long as a thumb. As Chris watched, the
slits slowly parted. Pushing through them from inside the man's chest
to the outside came twenty or so hard, dark tips.
Chris
clenched his jaw until it ached.
The
dark objects being forced outward by the internal pressures were
mussel shells. Hard. Blue-black. They must have been anchored to the
man's rib cage and periodically squeezed through the skin slits,
further and further until the shells protruded proud of the skin like
rows of long black nipples. A coating of fine mucus gave them an oily
gloss that gleamed in the moonlight.
Then
the shells would crack open to expose the pale morsels of salty flesh
inside. A moment later they closed and withdrew into the man's chest.
Each
time the mussel shells protruded through the man's skin, his face
split into an agonized grimace as if he were being tortured with hot
pieces of metal. But no sound came from the raw mouth.
Chris's
face burned. His head rolled. Sometimes he didn't even know if he was
standing on the wall watching them, or barefoot in the sand, looking
up at the man on the wall, feeling the terror and the pain. And all
the time the gnawing need, the naked want... to GO HOME.
...
GO HOME ...
Just
run and run. But the Saf Dar, in their bright red skins, forced us
...
Chris's
mind blurred. ...
...
the Saf Dar in their bright red skins forced us to come here, to
stand on the beach, pain ripping and exploding through our bodies,
pain gnawing like rats at our testicles. ... Ohhh, the burning skin,
the burning skin on our bodies ...
They'll
let us go
GO
HOME
when
we smash down the doors of the house on the beach, pull out the
people inside, like soft fruit from a tree. Then we give the Saf Dar
what they want, the people from the house on the beach, then we-
WE
GO HOME.
We
need love.
Love
us! Love us! Love us! Kiss this burning skin on my body.
Chris
dimly recognized blows hitting his body. He struck out with his
fists. They smacked against hard stone.
He
opened his eyes. He'd blacked out and fallen down on the walkway. His
stomach churned; the sweat sliding down his face turned icy. And he
felt... Christ, he felt like shit.
Legs
trembling, he pulled himself to his feet and walked unsteadily down
to the caravan.
Tense,
Mark Faust called down to them: "Here they come."
Chris
followed Ruth up the stone steps to the top of the wall.
He
glanced around at the others. Mark stood looking out over the wall,
the loaded shotgun resting over his shoulder, looking every inch the
Wild West frontiersman. The two Hodgson boys were in their positions
at the far end of the wall. They were armed with .22 rifles which
were probably as effective as a couple of feather dusters against the
Saf Dar, but it kept them occupied. At the section of wall above the
main gates stood the two elder Hodgson brothers, their massive
freckled hands clamped around the shotguns.
Tony
stood leaning back against the wall, his face as white as paper, a
cigar between his lips.
"Tony,
best not smoke too near those bottles. They're full of gas."
Tony
looked like a man waking from a dream. "Gas?"
"Gas.
... Petrol." Mark Faust looked at his old friend. "You
feeling okay?"
"I'll
be fine." He carefully stubbed out the cigar. "Now, we've
got everything." The business-like tone came back into his
voice. "Enough shells?"
"Should
be ... There's forty in the box on the table."
Tony
turned to Chris. "You've told everyone to stay in the building
until it's over? We don't want people milling about up here;
someone'd end up getting hurt."
Chris
nodded. "And I've filled the buckets with water in case anyone
manages to set themselves on fire when we start lobbing those
things." He indicated another table that carried thirteen
bottles, filled with petrol and soap powder; wired to the neck of
each bottle was a handkerchief-sized piece of cloth.
"Water?"
"Don't
worry," said Ruth. "Sea water. While the tide was in, Chris
and I lowered buckets on string." She managed a smile. "I
think we did pretty well."
"Best
run through the procedure, folks. Mark, Tom and John are using their
shotguns. Chris ... You and I are chucking the bottles. Be careful.
If we drop one, we'll fry."
"I
won't drop them." Chris had stuffed his fists into the pockets
of his jeans so no one would see his hands shake.
"Right.
Procedure, folks. When the Saf Dar are close enough, we pour fuel
into that pie tin. Chris and I each take a bottle. We dunk it
neck-first into the tin to moisten the rag wick. Hold it out to Ruth
who lights the rag with the cigarette lighter, then we chuck the
bottle at one of the men ... one of the things down there. Oh,
needless to say, pick your target first. You don't want to stand
there with a burning bottle in your hand longer than you have to.
Right. ... Any questions?"
"Only
one." Ruth looked out across the beach. "When are they
going to come?"
For
the first time that morning Chris looked out over the wall. Twenty
feet below, the sea washed around the rock on which the seafort
rested. Great clots of kelp floated in the turbulent water. The tide
was dropping, sections of causeway were being exposed between waves.
The roar of the surf softened.
Eight
figures had advanced halfway across the causeway. The Saf Dar.
Standing as they always did, like a line of red dominoes, the sea
swirling around their bare legs. Their hairless heads were turned
toward the seafort and those eyes glared with an unquenchable
brutality.