Speaking
in tongues? To Mark it made no sense. But he knew Tony was trying to
communicate something of enormous importance.
"You
know, you feel as if your mind is a single thing inside your head.
It's not, you know. Not at all. It has different parts. Now ... I
feel as if part of it is becoming separate. ... Sort of moving away
from the other parts. Like two people who've danced together so
closely, for so long, you think it's one person. ... But ent. ...
ent-uh ... but it isn't." His speech was disintegrating.
"They're
hanging apart now. And you realize that's how it was long ago. When
we were covered in black bristles and lived in the forests. You know
... You know, that's what makes us human. For us the separate minds
inside our head dance so closely together, they seem like one. Always
in the same step ... you know, like a waltz. Two dancers-one young,
one very old. Both following the same step so closely you think it
really is one entity." His eyes darted up at Mark. "Don't
you feel it?"
Mark
shook his head. His old friend had not been able to keep a tight
enough grip on his sanity. Now it was slipping from him.
"Weird
... 'S weird ... Like it just shouldn't happen. Like holding a radio
battery in your hand and watching it grow in size; to as big as a
brick ... fills the room. The battery keeps growing and growing until
it's bigger than all the airplanes in the world put together. ... And
they sort of melt into one that's so big ... Only it's inside your
brain ... growing and growing until it wants to split your head
apart. Ha, a pregnant brain. That could be it. Your brain's pregnant
and it's growing and growing ... only the skull's too small, too
tight. ..."
The
grip on Mark's forearm tightened. He looked down. Tony's eyes had
suddenly cleared.
"Mark
... You'd better warn everyone. It's coming through. Warn them things
are going to start happening. We're-we're going to see things, hear
things ... probably experience things, physically."
"Look,
Tony ... Take it easy. You need-"
"Listen,
Mark, listen." Tony Gateman's voice was crisp now. "Everything
we've seen in the last few days will be nothing compared to what will
happen in the next few minutes. All that with the Saf Dar,
Wainwright, the Fox twins ... Forget it. It's nothing." Tony
watched the walls as if expecting the stone blocks to bud eyes,
noses, mouths and call strangely down to him.
"All
that's happened is trivial," whispered Tony, his thin fingers
digging painfully into Mark's arm. "The events of the last few
days. Those things the Saf Dar did, killing Wainwright, resurrecting
those dead men from the sea and dancing them across the beach; they
were just like a few dry leaves that the breeze can slide across the
street. What's coming now is the real force of the gale. The kind of
wind that can lift the roof of your house or blow a car into a river.
Mark, it's coming. That old, old, old god is going to enter this
place ... And Mark. ..." He pulled Mark's arm toward him. "We're
not ready. He will expect to make the trade; we have nothing. We have
no sacrifice."
Tony
Gateman crouched against the wall, looking almost fetal.
Mark
turned away, not wanting to see his friend like this.
As
he did so his hand brushed the wall.
He
stopped and stared at the wall. A buzzing filled his ears. He reached
out and pressed his palm to the stone blocks.
They
felt warm.
As
if, impossibly, hot-water pipes ran beneath this two-hundred-yearold
fortress wall. He took his hand away.
It
left a palm-print.
Not
dirt or sweat. The pressure of his hand had actually deformed the
wall. As if he had pressed his hand against a block of soft
plasticine. The print stayed.
Instinctively,
shotgun in hand, he moved back to the mother and child. Instinct,
yes. Back to the tribal pack. Males protect females and children.
Ruth
looked up at him, trustingly. David stirred briefly to touch his
grazed forehead with his little fingers.
But
who are you protecting them from, Mark? he asked himself.
Who?
The
Saf Dar? They were still beyond the locked gates. But for how long?
From
the Reverend Horace Reed? An old man, a drunk, unarmed. Hardly. But
as Mark looked across the courtyard at him, sitting on the caravan
steps, his broken dog-collar sticking out, he noticed seven or eight
villagers standing around him; an impromptu congregation listening
carefully to the words peeling from those dry lips. After all, the
man had been parish priest for thirteen years. He still carried some
authority. Even now he might be telling them that the easy way out
was to make the sacrifice. Kill David.
The
villagers were dividing into two camps. If the Hodgsons chose to go
under the black wing of the Reverend Reed, then life would get very
difficult very quickly.
Or
was he protecting mother and child from Tony's god of this little
island, the boundary post between ocean and prehistoric swamp? What
could he do? Without his trying, the image oozed into his mind of
that ancient time-bleached spirit or god or whatever you wanted to
call it stepping into this world as easily as a psychotic killer
steps into a bedroom full of sleeping children.
Or-the
thought sneaked into his mind-or was he really protecting the child
from Chris Stainforth? The man's face had suddenly become
terrible-and terrifying-before he had walked determinedly toward the
building and disappeared inside.
What
was he planning?
Stainforth's
face had completely altered. Was he gripped by the same contagious
madness that infected Tony? Now that madness seemed to be infecting
Mark. Because he could believe that Chris had been possessed by the
spirit of an old man. No, not an old man, but a man from long ago, so
long ago that the eyes that blazed from the face occupied some place
between human being and beast.
Tony
had told Chris about the old ways-fathers sacrificing their children.
The most potent sacrifice of all.
Releasing
a torrent of emotion for the god to feed on.
Would
he have to protect the son from his father? He looked up into the
sky.
It
had changed.
The
color was pink, like blood-flushed skin.
He
wished he could believe in a benevolent god, who would gather them up
and take them away from this.
He
hated seeing this skin of civilization torn from every man and woman
here. It was ugly. Even more ugly was knowing that the primitive
man-beast had been there all along, inside them all. That as soon as
the civilising forces were removed it rose up through the depths,
like an ugly ape emerging from the undergrowth-to take control again.
"Mum...
I'm cold."
David
was looking up at his mother, shivering. She wrapped the towel around
him more snugly and whispered something to him; David nodded. Ruth
looked up at Mark.
"I
need to get David some dry clothes. And a warm drink."
Mark
looked across at the Vicar and his flock congregating around the
caravan.
"I'll
get him some. It might be best if we went into the seafort, though.
Can you manage with David?"
"I'll
manage, Mark. If you could just-"
Bang.
The
seafort doors crashed open and Chris strode out.
Mark
watched him stride purposefully across the courtyard toward Ruth and
David. In his hands he held the huge hammer.
He
did not like the look in the man's eye.
He
looked as if he had made the most difficult decision of his life. One
that he was determined to see through to the bloody end.
Mark
thumbed the safety catch of the shotgun and,holding it at hip height,
raised the barrels until they pointed at Chris Stainforth's knees.
This
was shit. Mark hoped the feeling he was getting from Chris was wrong.
He liked the man. Christ, if it came to blasting his legs ...
Chris
approached them, his eyes frozen into an ominous stare, the face set,
a rigid mask of tensed muscle.
Mark
Faust put himself between Chris and Ruth.
"Ruth."
Mark
heard the icy calm in Chris's voice.
"Ruth.
Bring David."
Chris
held the hammer with two hands across his chest as if he were holding
an executioner's sword.
"Chris
..." Ruth began, but Chris turned and walked purposefully to the
gates. With the hammer he knocked away all but two of the timber
props.
Then
he turned and said:
"Come
on. Bring David. We're leaving."
"Come
on. Bring David. We're leaving."
It
felt as if the words that spilt from his lips had been spoken by
another person.
He
hammered away the two remaining props. Even though the force of the
hammer blows was enough to explode yellow wood splinters from the
timber, he felt in control. No. More than that. He felt
over-controlled; the kind of deadly calm before the volcano erupts.
He
slid back the gate bolts.
Then
he turned and spoke to everyone in the courtyard. Not a shout. His
voice was calm, even, amplified by the explosive force growing inside
him.
"Everybody
out."
"What!"
Mark stared at him.
"Get
out. You. Everyone. Move."
"Chris
..." Holding David wrapped in the towel, Ruth grabbed his arm.
"Chris!
You can't send everyone out there."
"You're
mad," cracked Reed, limping forward. "Those things out
there will kill us."
"He's
right," said Ruth. "It's murder, Chris."
"You
can't ..." Reed took another step forward.
Chris
raised the hammer to head height. "Get any closer, Reed, and
I'll crack your skull." He heaved open the gate. "Now ...
Walk. That goes for everyone," he called. "Everyone out. No
..."
"Chris,"
pleaded Ruth, "you can't do this. You can't!"
He
smiled grimly. "If they don't run, then they will burn."
"Chris,
what have you done? What-"
A
muffled roar rolled from the direction of the seafort building.
Smoke spurted from a broken window on an upper floor.
"Oh,
God, Chris ... Don't tell me you've done this."
He
turned to the crowd. "Get out. Now. There are six gas bottles in
there. They're full. When they go this place will be blown to kingdom
come."
"Chris,
you're out of your mind. ..." Mark's eyes bulged. "Where
will we go?"
"Up
to the dunes."
"Why?
They can still reach us."
"Why?"
Chris looked up at the bulk of the seafort, smoke bleeding from the
windows in white streamers. "Why? ... Because I want to see this
place burn. I want to see everything I've worked for, everything I've
sweated over, cut my hands to shreds for, I want to see it go up in
smoke and turn to rubble and shit."
A
violent hissing was followed by a sharp crack and a yellow glow that
shone through the windows.
Feeling
that unnatural calm freeze him inside, he said, "Move."
He
stood by the gate, the hammer in his hands, watching the villagers
file by; the Hodgsons led the way without protest.
There
were no Saf Dar on the causeway now, but six formed a line to the
beach in the sea, their heads above the water like blood-red islands
set with two glittering eyes that watched the ragged procession of
frightened villagers. There were more Saf Dar in the dunes. Four
stood across the coast road.
They
were massing. The hunted were walking as meekly as lambs to the
hunters.
Mr
and Mrs Smith pushed Mrs Jarvis in her wheelchair.
The
rest followed.