"So
this is what the god wants," said Chris. "All this ...
emotion. Why?"
Tony
gave a shrug. "Could you explain to a robot why we need to eat?
It's something that the god wants. Needs. We probably can't even
comprehend what does happen. But I imagine it nourishes itself on
this huge emotional discharge after the sacrifice. Somehow it absorbs
it, if you like, drinks it telepathically."
Chris
snorted. "Well, you've just put us on the level of cattle. Along
comes the supernatural farmer, milks us of emotion, slaps us on the
rump, and out we go to pasture again until the next time."
Mark
spoke. "It doesn't sound that pleasant, Chris. But if this thing
that is coming through enjoys juicing up on whatever's inside
here"-he placed his finger against his head as if it were the
barrel of a gun-"then I'm not over-concerned. Because, like a
farmer, he gives something back that his herd wants."
"And
that is?"
"And
that is protection from those things out there."
"But
it wasn't always like that."
"No,
Ruth. As I said at the barbecue, this is a healing place.
OutButterwick draws people to it who are physically or spiritually
ill. I was an alcoholic, remember. It draws people to it that suffer
from depression, anxiety--people who find everyday life just so plain
hard that they can't go on anymore. They came here one by one, and
one by one, instinctively, they knew what was going to happen. For
the last few years we've known that it was coming-the visitation, if
you like. That there would be a burst of some miraculous power
through this place. And every one of these men and women would have
their own personal wish granted."
"But
it would have to be bought by sacrifice?"
Tony
nodded, the thick lenses flashing beneath the light. "Not that I
would do anything as insensitive as enquiring what that would entail.
But I'm sure everyone was developing their own personal ritual and
choosing something they would give. Although it's highly unlikely
anyone was planning a blood sacrifice. You might guess my sacrifice,
a cynical old capitalist like me. Money."
Mark
rose from his chair restlessly. It was as if he sensed that time was
running out. "And you two fine people will have guessed that all
this thing's gone bad. There we were, all waiting for nice miracles.
But then those things showed up. And to put it bluntly, they are
going to hijack this bit of magic we've all pinned our hopes on. Then
..." He shook his head, his face grim.
"But
who are they?"
"The
Saf Dar? From what I can discover they were a gang of psychopaths,
different nationalities-American, British, German, African,
Indian-who came together shortly after World War II. Dabbled in
piracy, arms smuggling, assassinations; they were mercenaries for
whoever paid the right money. Later they specialised in destabilising
governments in Third World countries. Simply by doing what they
loved: killing. Butchering men, women, children. Hence the name Saf
Dar-breaker of the line. In 1961 they were en route for England."
Mark
spoke. "And that's when I met them. I was apprenticed to a
merchant ship, the Mary-Anne. They hijacked her. Butchered most of
the crew and forced the rest to sail for England. God knows what they
had been hired to do here."
"But
they never made it," said Chris.
"Correct."
Mark's dark eyes bled pain. "I scuttled the Mary-Anne. The Saf
Dar, my crewmates, they all went to the bottom of the sea not half a
mile from here. I was the only survivor."
Understanding
hit Chris.
"Look..."
Mark's voice was laced with urgency. "I see it plain and simple.
Any time now there's going to be an almighty great chunk of power
that no one's seen in five hundred years come whistling into this
place. ... Then it's going to be a case of who grabs it first. Us, or
those bastards on the beach. Because we're like two teams in a
line-out, waiting for that ball of magic that's going to be chucked
into Manshead. Whoever catches the ball first is the winner, the
other loses. And I'm talking about absolute winners and absolute
losers. Chris, Ruth, those things out there are our rivals. They want
this power first. If they could, they'd kill us now, then turn us
into things like Wainwright, Fox, and the others out there. That way
we wouldn't be in competition with them for that power surge when it
comes. And believe me, if they get hold of that power they can do
anything. These stone walls might as well be made out of paper. We
wouldn't even have the choice of dying. We would become their foot
soldiers. We would be marched off inland to kill anyone who gets in
our way. Those that we killed would become like us. You can imagine
it as a cancer spreading, spreading across the country."
Ruth
said to Tony, "How long have we got? Before this force breaks
through?"
"No
more than two to three days. You've probably felt it yourself, a kind
of tension building. All the signs are there. Already the barrier
between this world and that other place is stretched so tight that
the magic, supernatural force-manna, cosmic power, whatever you want
to call it-is leaking through. It's strongest in these few hundred
square yards around Manshead. If you like, we're at ground zero.
Living things are being altered or affected by it. It's turned up the
life energy already, a bit like increasing the volume of a radio. If
you're ill you feel better; if you're tired you feel stronger."
All
at once Chris thought of his tireless work on the seafort, the
goldfish, the monster celery plant. ... Christ, those shells David
had picked up two weeks ago.
Mark's
grip on the shotgun tightened. "And sometimes things that die...
they come back. For a while this is going to be the only place on
earth where even death has died."
"The
goldfish," whispered Ruth. "You remember, Chris?"
Tony
leaned forward. "You've seen things?"
Mark
pulled something from his breast pocket and handed it to Chris. "And
you might have seen one of these."
It
was a common cockleshell. He knew what it would have on its concave
surface.
"A
face," said Ruth. "A picture of a face."
"The
beach is littered with them," said Mark. "There's
probably-shit..."
Mark
stood up quickly, the shotgun in his hands.
Without
warning the light-bulb had gone out. Even above the distant pounding
on the seafort gates, they heard it clicking as the glass cooled.
The room, gloomy with only the weak daylight filtering through dirty
glass, felt inexplicably cold.
"Could
be the fuses. ..."
"Fuses
be buggered," said Tony. "I'm only surprised they didn't do
it earlier. The seafort supply comes from a cable strung on pylons
along the coast road. It would have been simple enough to bring it
down."
Shit!
thought Chris fiercely. Food running low ... Electricity off. We're
down to candles. What could they...
"Water."
Chris looked up sharply. "Next they cut the water."
"More
difficult. They'd have to dig down through the-"
"No,
would they shit. ... There's a stop-cock on the landward side of the
causeway. All they need do is flip open the iron cover, reach down
and turn a tap. Then ..."
"Damn.
The bastards will soon work that one out."
Ruth
stood up quickly. "We'll get as many containers together as we
can. Pans, buckets, bottles. Fill them full of water."
Mark
walked to the door. "I'll get some help."
As
he walked to the door, Chris saw a figure move quickly back. He
recognized that dried-up profile. The Reverend Reed; he'd been
eavesdropping.
When
Ruth and Mark had gone, their feet echoing away down the stone
corridor, Chris turned to Tony and asked, "Are we going to make
it through this?"
"I
hope so, Chris. ... God knows, I hope so."
"Miz-zess
Stainforth! Miz-zess Stainforth ... Toilet won't flush."
Rosie
Tamworth stood in the doorway of the caravan, her little-girl face on
top of the lumpy body showing childish concern. Ruth, who was
carrying buckets of water across the courtyard with Chris, stopped
and looked at him. Her eyes said it all.
He
put his buckets down on the cobblestones. "So the bastards
worked it out at last. No electricity. No water." The mental
clock that measured the time they could remain in the seafort began
to tick more quickly. A human being can last five weeks without food.
Without water you are talking days.
He
picked up the buckets and carried them to where they were storing
half a dozen other buckets, twenty-three bottles of all different
kinds, two plastic washing-up bowls, pans, ornamental vases, plastic
boxes-all filled to the brim with water. Tony had suggested that they
line wooden crates with plastic sheeting to make their own
containers; however, they had simply run out of time. Somewhere out
on the causeway a hand had reached down into a hole in the road and
twisted shut the stop-cock.
Again
he thought of those monstrously powerful hands. Again he thought of
David's neck. He snapped off the line of thought and went to find
Tony.
As
Chris climbed the steps after locking the water-store door, the sound
of the pounding on the gates connected with his consciousness again.
He realized it had never stopped, but in the rush to save as much
water as possible he'd successfully shut it out.
Now
it came back. It sounded as if death itself was at the gate,
pounding, pounding, pounding. And it wanted to come inside.
On
the wall walkway stood Mark, carrying the shotgun, and Tony. Both
peered over the wall, hypnotised by the sight of the creature,
hacking at the timber gates with a rock.
It
had used several rocks. Splinters of stone littered the causeway
around the gate. The sea, now at high tide, swirled and sucked
thickly around the slab of rock that was their island. More Saf Dar
sat waist-deep in surf on the causeway. Beyond that, green sea
vanished into gray mist.
"I
expect you've heard," said Chris.
Mark
continued to stare, brooding, at the figure thumping the timbers with
the rock.
Tony
turned round, his face as gray as the fog. "The Hodgson lad told
us."
"What
now?"
"Just
wait. That's all we can do. Unless you've got any ideas. There's no
way we can contact anyone in the outside world. We can't run.
Wainwright proved that. We can't fly out."
"I
heard the pub landlord talking to one of the other villagers,"
said Chris. "They thought they might be able to make a raft and
paddle out."
"They
were fucking joking, weren't they?"
"They're
desperate, Tony. They know there isn't much food and we've only got
enough water for a few days and so-"
"And
so they thought they might as well kill themselves; get it over with
quick. Mark, how many of the Saf Dar were there on the Mary-Anne when
she went down?"
Mark
didn't look round. "Fifteen." Those brooding eyes were
fixed on the thing battering the door. He gripped the shotgun so
tightly the veins in the back of his big hands pressed out against
the skin.
"Fifteen...
The most we've seen on the causeway is eight. That means there's
probably another seven scattered around this place. One or two up in
the dunes. One guarding the bridge near the village. And maybe a
couple sitting under the water out there, ready to reach up and tip
anyone into the sea if they are bleeding stupid enough to try and
float out on a raft."
"Tony,
do you think the villagers are just going to sit here and starve?"
He spaced the words so the machinelike pounding, rock against wood,
filled the gaps between his words. "Mr and Mrs Hodgson have two
sons; some men have wives. This instinct to survive, to protect your
family from danger, is surfacing. They have to feel as though they're
doing something. If we all sit here listening to that thing cracking
away at the door we're all going to go mad. If we can't do anything
to stop the noise we might as well-"
The
tremendous bang came at the wrong time. The thing had changed its
rhythm. Chris looked round.
Mark
stood on tiptoe leaning forward over the wall, the shotgun up at his
shoulder. From one of the barrels a cloud of blue smoke rolled
outward.