Chris
did. Or at least as much as he could remember. Even in the retelling
his hands began to sweat; the saliva in his mouth bled away, leaving
his tongue paper-dry.
He
fumbled for words, trying to say how even though the white-faced
thing looked disgusting and repelled him he had felt it exert a kind
of magnetic pull on him. He had wanted actually to go forward, closer
and closer ... to embrace it. The idea revolted him again as the
memory suddenly squeezed up into his mind as warm and as fresh as the
night it happened.
The
tea in his mouth burned his tongue. Sweating, he looked down into the
cup, not realising he'd even taken a drink.
"Even
telling you now, Tony, makes me ... Shit... It brings it all back.
It's actually hard for me to describe it."
"You
know, Chris, what you are describing is a numinous experience."
Chris's
bewilderment must have shown.
"Numinous.
Rudolf Otto, a nineteenth-century theologian, identified the primal
religious experience: the numinous experience. This is religion in
the raw, stripped of all rituals, prayers, hymns, words, even
rational thought." As Tony's talk became more and more animated,
Chris understood less and less. "What you felt, Chris, when you
encountered that apparition, is fundamental to all religions, the
mysterium tremendum."
"The
what?"
"Mysterium
Tremendum. Translated, the tremendous mystery. Such an encounter
provokes this response." Tony flicked his fingers, ticking off
the words:
"Shuddering
revulsion ... irresistible attraction. That's the creature feeling
people experience in such an encounter."
"What
are you talking about, Tony? What did I encounter?"
Tony
looked at Chris with an expression that seemed like awe. "Chris
... What I'm trying to say is that on that night you came face to
face with the old god."
The
figure that he approached across the rough grass, the bike's motor
ticking lightly, had died a long time ago.
Drowned.
Perhaps
a sailor washed overboard, hauling up lobster pots from the North
Sea.
It
stood upright, rags of clothes wrapped in bands around its distorted
body, almost like the bandages around an Egyptian mummy. Barnacles
rashed across its face and one eye like a hard white leprosy; seaweed
sprouted from a vertical crack in its bare chest in a horse's mane
gone green.
Mark
rode a little closer. It did not move. Its arms hung by its side; its
remaining eye was shut.
Fifteen
yards away. The thing twitched. The mouth dropped open. It was full
of sea anemones.
Ten
yards away. Mark walked the bike forward.
Eight
yards.
Its
remaining eye snapped open.
It
bulged out, an inflamed red, like a hard-boiled egg filled with
blood.
The
expression also altered with a snap. To one of shocked pain.
It
tilted its head abruptly to fix the blood-red eye on Mark.
Without
thinking, he twisted the hand throttle; the motor revved with a sound
like metal sheets being torn in two. The bike lurched, almost
throwing him like a bucking stallion.
Then
the bike was screaming across the tussock grass, the front wheel
barely kissing the turf.
The
agonized face with its crust of barnacles flicked by a yard from his
shoulder as he hurtled by.
The
buffeting of the bike became a smooth rushing motion. He glanced
down. He'd ridden the bike off the raised tussocks and onto the
mudflat.
For
what seemed an impossibly long time the momentum carried him forward.
As if he were driving a powerboat, the mud sprayed up ten feet into
the air on either side of him in a great black V.
Then
the momentum went. The bike slowed, to settle into the deep black
soup of mud. The engine choked and cut instantly. Hot metal hissed
against wet sludge; white steam boiled around his legs.
Managing
to keep upright, he clumsily climbed off the useless bike, leaving it
to gurgle in the mud. He made for the nearest raised tussock of
grass. The mud made walking as difficult as wading through treacle.
He reached the tussock, dropped forward onto his hands, and began to
pull himself out. One leg came easily. The next stuck. It seemed as
if his foot had become stuck on some-
Christ!
Suddenly
panicky, he wrenched forward, hands winding around the marsh grass.
For all the world it felt as if a hand had gripped his toes beneath
the mud's surface. With a tremendous wrench he pulled it free.
He
pulled himself to his feet, panting. As he straightened, a pain
speared up his calf where he had yanked the muscle.
An
ancient timber fence-post leaned at an angle in the middle of the
tussock. A hole had been bored near the top for a non-existent rail.
He stretched out his hand, using the post as support as he checked
his ragged breathing. God, his leg hurt. He felt for the iron bar
that he'd tucked through his belt. It had vanished somewhere into the
swamp.
At
last he straightened and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Where his
mud-slimed hand had rested against the timber post it had left a
large dark palm-print, the fingers outstretched.
He
breathed deeply, trying to ignore the pain in his leg.
No
doubt about it. He would have to go on. It would take longer, but he
could make it, jumping from tussock to tussock as if in some
holiday-camp game. Keep out of the water; and get to a phone. The
prize?
Survival.
For
him and the others back at the seafort, waiting for him to bring
help.
He
thought about the Stainforths-"nice folks," he had told
Tony. The thought of them ending up like Wainwright and the Fox twins
sent him leaping from mound to mound across the mud.
He
had to do it.
He
didn't even pause when a misshapen hand thrust up from the mud at his
leaping feet, the fingers snapping shut-a clumsy grab. But Mark heard
the crack of fingers against palm.
He
ran on.
"That's
the first time you've kissed me in days," said Ruth with a
smile.
Chris
kissed her again. "When all this is sorted out we've a few
things to catch up on."
They
had snatched a few minutes alone together in the room where the gas
bottles were stored. Alone apart from David's goldfish which still
torpedoed around its bowl, churning the greenish water until it
frothed.
"Jesus
... That thing will have to go. We can tell David it--"
"Forget
the goldfish for a moment, Chris." She pulled lightly at his
t-shirt. He felt the electric trickle of a desire he'd not felt for a
long time. For the last few days they had simply ticked over as if in
hibernation. Mark's breakout that morning had brought everyone back
to life. They talked, moved about the place. He had even heard the
sound of laughter echoing down from the gundeck room. The big man
would bring help. They would be going home soon.
He
kissed Ruth on the soft skin of her throat, pushing her hair away
with his face, enjoying its cool wash across his skin. Her hand
stroked down his spine and she tucked her fingers into the back of
his jeans.
He
bound her to his chest with his arms, holding her tightly. God, he'd
missed this. The physical closeness. It was as if his senses were
coming back to life. Even though they were existing on smaller and
smaller portions of food, today was the first day he had felt really
hungry. He wanted to eat a huge piece of sirloin steak. The desire
burnt so strongly he could almost taste the meat on his tongue, hot
and savory; he could imagine his teeth working through the meat,
devouring it.
"Chris,
I want you to make love to me."
Waves
of hot blood surged up through his body. He'd never felt so excited
... or alive.
It
was as if the volume control of his senses had been turned up full.
With the heat flooding his body, his sense of smell and taste
heightened, he could taste her saliva, the sharp tang of salt on her
skin. His sense of touch, somehow amplified, transmitted the
delicious silk feel of her bare arms up through his fingertips. This
felt good. His body-motor revs were high; something was pressing his
accelerator hard.
Her
hands worked at him through his jeans. Christ... He'd never felt like
this before. He felt as if he were going to explode right there in
her hungry hands.
Rabbits
shit here, he thought as he ran doggedly on.
Like
handfuls of dried currants it littered the marsh grass. Rabbits had
found a route through the stagnant pools and expanse of liquid mud.
If only to shit.
With
a grunt he jumped to the next tussock.
Christ,
how long now? Soon the ground should dry out as it rose into meadow.
Then an easy jog to the nearest road. A phone or house shouldn't be
far away after that.
If
only he could see further. The fog thickened. Visibility dropped to a
dozen yards. All around him at the edge of the thick white muck he
imagined (hoped he imagined) that he saw shadows; the shades of dead
men or worse following him, waiting for him to fall exhausted so they
could move in-and make him one of their own.
He
made a terrific leap across a pool of liquid mud.
Surely
he must be nearly there. The marsh didn't go on forever.
The
pounding of his running feet juddered up through his torso and neck;
his eyes blurred; his forehead bled sweat; his breath was torn from
his lungs in panting gasps. Soon, Mark, he promised himself. Soon.
Here
comes another mud channel; jump to the next tussock and-
Oh,
Jesus, sweet Jesus!
He'd
nearly run into it. He twisted to avoid the dark shape rearing out of
the turf and slid to his knees.
Arms
up to defend himself, he slithered back, blinking the sweat from his
eyes. The dark shape towered above him.
Shit.
He
shook his head, a choking laugh rising in his burning throat.
A
post. Just a stupid old fence-post.
A
thought slid into his brain with all the menace of a poisonous snake.
No.
Don't believe it, Mark ... Jesus. The fence-post. The rotten post
sticking up in the middle of this bastard swamp.
Panting,
he rose slowly to his feet and limped forward to look at the timber
post.
The
post, old, rotting at the base, leaned slightly toward him. Near the
top of the post a round female hole which long ago took the male
fence-rail. Just below the hole a muddy palm-print, fingers splayed
out. Trembling, Mark held out his hand and covered the handprint
perfectly.
For
the last hour and a half he had been running in one huge circle.
Tony
looked up into the sky. Is that the color of real cloud? Or is it
changing? Has it begun?
"More
evidence of your god, Gateman?" the Reverend Reed's voice was a
rasp. "He's coming, isn't he? He's on his way. Following his
well-worn track down here to Manshead."
"What
do you think, Reverend?"
"Down
he comes, Gateman. What footprints does he leave on his garden path?
Are there toes, a heel? Or are they the hoofprints of a goat? Does he
have a fine head of hair like a Greek god? Or does he have horns ...
here and here?" Reed pressed his fingers to either side of his
head. As if they were horns.
To
the rhythm of his running feet words thudded through his brain. "Move
in a straight line. ... a straight line ... move in a straight line.
..."
He
ran on, leaping from tussock to tussock rising like islands from the
marsh. Most were within leaping distance from one another across the
pools of mud. Some were not. Mark would leap as far as he could
before splashing down into the swamp mud and water. Its wet-earth
stink oozed up through his nostrils. It squelched through his
clothes, splashing his face with what looked like cold diarrhoea; it
coated his teeth and tongue with a gritty paste.