They
snapped back the final bolts, then yanked back the gates. They pulled
them back as far as they could, using the massive timbers to shield
themselves from any stray shrapnel from the cannon blasts.
Time
ran slow like a freezing stream and almost stopped. Chris saw
everything. With unnatural clarity.
Beyond
the gate, the nearest figure stood framed by the gateway. The red
skin gleamed; the power that leaked through from that other place had
pumped up the arms, legs, and neck muscles until they bulged
manically, forcing the veins outward like coils of string beneath
plastic shrinkwrap.
Blazing
like white balls of glass from the expressionless face were the eyes,
staring with a bulging intensity at something above Chris's head.
Thirty
yards beyond that man-shaped chunk of cancer were six more of them,
staring at the seafort. Beyond that, only causeway. Sand. Dunes.
"Chris!
Now!"
He
slapped the burning head of the torch down onto the fuse threaded
into the cannon's breach.
Hell.
...
Nothing
happened.
He
looked down at the feeble trail of smoke from the fuse. He could not
believe it. Christ. ...
The
thing wasn't going to fire.
Gateman,
the idiot, had ballsed it up.
He
had killed everyone in the seafort.
Movement
swirled at his side. Ruth stepped level with the cannon's muzzle,
bringing up the barrels of her shotgun.
No,
Ruth! Back.
You're
too ...
Jesus
Christ ...
He
jerked his head around to look at the figure in the gateway.
Abruptly, it tilted its red, hairless head down in a single, fluid
movement. Then those eyes were nailed to him.
He
felt his body jerk back as if hit by an electric shock. The hate
radiating from its eyes punched the breath from his body. They burned
with a ferocious power that seared his soul.
Then
came a sense of darkness. It rushed into him, filling him, like
someone's home being inundated by flood waters boiling with mud and
shit from the sewers, sweeping over clean carpets, swirling away
armchairs and sofa and tables and cushions. Its force hosed out
Chris's memories and polluted them. He glimpsed fragments as they
spun past, caught by the inrush of darkness:
On
the beach with David. He runs in his Superman costume, laughs
happily. David runs kicking up gouts of sand.
But
it becomes blackened, dirty, this lovely memory:
David.
...
Kill
the little bastard. Now. Thin little neck. Easily broken. My son's a
piece of shit. No loss to anyone. Kill the whining little bastard
now.
The
figure in the gateway took a single step forward. Already it seemed
to fill the courtyard, like a train plunging into a tunnel.
Then
it--
CRACK!
The
explosion was so loud he thought a chunk of hot iron had gone
whirling through his skull.
The
cannon had fired.
His
bastard two-hundred-yearold cannon had actually fired! Sending a
bucketful of timber bolts cracking through the gateway at three
hundred miles an hour.
He
blinked.
The
figure had gone.
Just
gone.
Yet
he retained a subliminal image of a gush of smoke, a spray of yellow
flame.
Then
the figure, still upright, simply shrank. The almighty blow of metal
hammered the thing with explosive force backward along the causeway.
Then
Tony's cannon fired, a sharper crack.
The
Saf Dar, twenty yards away on the causeway, jerked backward like dry
leaves before a gust of wind, spinning and turning over and over
across the causeway, some of them tumbling off onto the sand. Liquid
sprayed up into the air as if their bodies had become aerosols. It
hung there, briefly darkening the white mist to crimson before
falling like spring rain to the earth.
A
rapid movement to Chris's left.
Mark
Faust.
Twisting
the hand throttle, he bulleted across the courtyard and through the
gates.
A
second later he scorched through the mess of body fluid on the
stones, avoiding the twisted men that littered the causeway.
Chris
saw movement on the sands themselves.
The
one who had been beyond the angle of cannon fire moved after the
motorbike like a big cat, huge legs blurring with speed, the red body
thrusting forward, reaching out to grab at Mark.
Chris
heard nothing but saw sand spurt at its feet.
The
Hodgsons were firing at the thing.
One
of its legs suddenly rashed with black spots; it stumbled forward,
arm outstretched like a sportsman lunging after a ball; its hands
brushed the spinning back tyre.
But
it fell short, sliding face down across the stone slabs of the
causeway.
Mark
was clear. Already a shrinking dot, accelerating away into the mist
in the direction of the dunes.
The
red monster jerked itself to its feet.
Then
it loped along the causeway. This time toward the seafort, long arms
pumping backwards and forward.
Chris
moved forward. At his side Ruth was shouting. He could hear nothing.
The thunder of cannon had deafened him.
The
Hodgson boys struggled to swing the heavy gates shut. On one side
Tony helped. Chris threw himself against the timbers of the other,
winding himself. He pushed hard and it swung shut.
He
threw the first of the huge bolts as the thing cracked into the other
side. Although his deafened ears heard nothing, he felt the solid
concussion shiver the timbers.
Quickly
he shot the bolts across, expecting to feel the fury of the monster
on the other side trying to batter its way in.
It
never came.
For
now, they were safe.
Ears
buzzing, he followed the others up the stone steps to the top of the
wall to see if Mark had made it.
But
Mark had disappeared into the mist.
If
Chris had been able to hear, he might have picked up the whine of the
high-revving bike powering away along the coast road behind the
dunes. He heard only a buzzing with a constant ghost echo of the
cannon explosions.
He
glanced back into the courtyard. Smoke filled it, almost
liquid-looking; lying on the stone floor, spluttering torches still
burned, casting a flickering violet light that flashed against the
suspended sheets of gunsmoke and the metallic surfaces of the car and
the caravan, like images from a silent movie.
There
was Ruth, moving across the courtyard in the direction of the
seafort building-she would be going to check on David-her movements
jerky in the flickering light.
Tony's
cannon had snapped free from its cradle with the force of the
explosion and was pointing vertically upwards, a piece of metal the
size of Chris's fist torn from the end.
The
Hodgsons leaned forward over the top of the wall to stare down at
what lay on the causeway.
From
the sound and the fury and the pandemonium of five minutes before,
the scene on the causeway below was now one of stillness.
As
if some sick artist had been using finely minced raw beef as
modelling clay, six man-shaped figures lay sprawled across the
causeway in a pool of what looked like thick red oil. Not one moved.
Most lay on their backs where they had been thrown by the hammer blow
of the cannon blast. The one that had been standing in the gateway
had caught the worst of it and had been batted back almost twenty
yards. It was little more than a wet skeleton.
Even
though the couple of hundred timber bolts flying outward at three
hundred miles an hour had done an effective flesh-shredding job, it
wouldn't last long. Already the force that had driven these things
from the wreck of the Mary-Anne to lay siege to the seafort would be
repairing the mutilated bodies. The growth of cancer flesh would
start to fill in the holes made by the iron bolts; arteries would
worm through the bloody mess to reconnect to whatever heart pumped
those fluids through their bodies; new skin would slide over torn
muscles; new eyes would bud in their sockets.
Even
as they watched, the one on the causeway heaved its ripped body onto
the sands; then, on all fours, moving like a seal ruptured by a
ship's propeller, it began to drag itself down to the sea. In a few
hours it would be back. Stronger than before.
Like
the one that now sat ten yards from the gate. After its charge at the
gates it had simply knelt down on the causeway. It stared at the
seafort like some sinister but wise Red Indian warrior, its
heavy-lidded eyes blinking with a slowness that was not human.
These
things were in no hurry. Down there on the causeway the creature
broadcast through its body language alone: We will win
We
have only to wait. ...
"Careful,
Mark, old son, careful."
He
spoke the words aloud as he eased the throttle down.
"No
rush now. Slow down. ... Take it easy, old son."
The
back tire slid as he turned from the causeway onto the coast road.
Don't
spoil everything now by falling off the blasted bike. Easy does it.
He
throttled down further. The speedo needle slid back to forty-five.
He
breathed deeply, refreshing himself with the cool misty air blowing
across his face. It left the taste of sea salt on his lips. And, God,
the air smelled sweet here away from the seafort. The sudden sense
of freedom was immense.
He
shook his head to try to dislodge the aching pressure from the cannon
blast on his ears. What he had seen would take longer to fade. The
strawberry mash of twisted bodies he had driven through-and over.
Bits of the red grue still clung to the front tyre.
The
manic hammering of his heart began to slow; he felt cooler, in
control. His eyes scanned ahead as far as the mist would allow.
No
Saf Dar. Maybe they were haunting somewhere else with their red
statue faces. The dunes looked deserted. Ahead, as far as he could
see in this damn mist, the road was empty. Same as the flat expanse
of sea marsh to his right.
Mark
rode, keeping the bike at around forty-five, actually enjoying the
feel of it as it ticked confidently across the tarmac. At this rate
he would be in Munby in twenty-five minutes.
The
time was 8:29.
David
stopped, his stomach hurting with the shock.
The
room was full of strangers.
He
stared for a moment until his vision blurred, the goldfish bowl
clamped in his fists.
How
did strangers get inside the seafort? Tall. Strange color. Stood up
straight. Not moving.
Shout
for his dad?
No
...
Suddenly
he gave a little chuckle.
No.
"Bottles.
... Bottles full of gas." He said the words aloud to dispel the
scary feeling.
In
this room it wasn't easy to see that well. The window was small and
really, really dirty. And there was no electricity. It had gone
somewhere. He wasn't sure where, but he hoped it would come back
soon.
He
crossed the room, walking by the six big gas bottles that stood there
on end. They looked like ghost soldiers all in a line, with blue
uniforms, standing stiff and straight.
He
placed the goldfish bowl on the windowsill. It was covered with
fluffy bits of old cobweb and an ashtray with dusty cigarette ends
piled up in it. Not that anyone would be allowed to smoke in here now
with the gas bottles.
"Flammable,"
his dad had said. "We have to keep these away from fire, kidda.
They can go up like bombs if we're not careful."