Out of Nowhere (10 page)

‘I want this to stop,’ Kirsten said.

‘It’s not going to stop,’ Stephen said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. ‘All we can do now is see it through to the end.’

‘I don’t want to know what the end is. I want it all to go away
now
.’

Stephen stared at the scene outside. The monks were moving back slowly, recoiling as the reality of what they were seeing sank in.

‘I want to run away and hide too,’ he said. ‘But there’s nowhere to go.’

‘Then I just want to curl up and die,’ Kirsten said.

He looked at her. Her eyes were wide, registering something way beyond horror.

‘I’m going out there,’ he said.

‘You’re mad!’ she whispered.

He shook his head.

‘They need all the support they can get,’ he said firmly. ‘And I doubt there’s one of them out there less terrified than we are.’

But Kirsten was already backing away from the window, one hand thrown up in front of her face as though to protect her from the sight of the scene outside. She was shaking her head.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Please, don’t go out.’

But he was already going, forcing himself put one foot in front of the other.

As he went down the stairs he heard feet running, and when he got outside he saw that the scene there had changed. Thomas’s nerve had finally cracked, and he was running in panic across the courtyard towards the doorway of the bell-tower. The little pistol lay on the ground where he’d dropped it. The three monks remaining stood facing the car. Philip, his right hand shaking visibly, held his pistol up in front of him, aiming it at the driver, who opened the door and casually got out. Stephen crossed to stand beside the abbot, keeping his eyes on the driver, unwilling to look at the headless passenger in the front seat.

The man who got out of the car was small and slight. He brushed down his suit and straightened his tie. The thin face under the dark hat was smooth and reserved, and his pale eyes looked at them shrewdly as he stood away from the car. His hands, hanging at his sides, were empty. He held them out, palms up, as though in token of peaceful intent.

‘Good morning,’ he said pleasantly in a clear voice. He took his hat off and held it in front of him. The morning sun shone on his thinning sandy hair. He looked terribly ordinary. It was hard to believe he could be a party to such terror.

Nobody answered his greeting. He looked around thoughtfully at their tense faces. The three monks stood like statues, apart from Philip’s quivering hand. Simon’s face was every bit as impassive as the driver’s. He held his gun trained on the car, steady as a rock.

The driver completed his survey of their faces. His eyes turned to Philip. He nodded at the black pistol wavering in the big man’s hand.

‘Be careful with that,’ he said mildly. ‘You might blow a hole in something.’

‘In you, maybe,’ Philip said. The bravado of his words rang hollow. The driver smiled a smile that was actually quite pleasant.

‘Very possibly,’ he said. ‘And that would be inconvenient. I have work to do, and I can’t do without a body just yet.’

He spoke with no suggestion of threat. It was only his words that sounded crazy.

‘Who are you people, and what do you want?’ demanded the abbot.

The man looked at him, still smiling.

‘I’ll be happy to satisfy your curiosity,’ he said. ‘But right now I was hoping that you could lend some unfortunate travellers some assistance. As you can see, we’ve had a little accident.’

He gestured with his hat towards the interior of the car.
A
little accident!
There was something almost brutal about the phrase when you considered what he was obviously referring to.

‘I wonder,’ the man said, ‘whether you’d have a quiet place where my friend could rest for a little while. Just a small time, to recuperate. After that I’ll be only too pleased to answer any questions you have.’

His demeanour made the whole situation seem quite unreal. His words didn’t help. In the real world people don’t
‘recuperate’ after being beheaded.

The abbot was having trouble keeping control of himself. You could hear it in his voice. But the stranger’s request had at least put the situation into some kind of familiar context.

‘Forgive my manners,’ he said. ‘You must realise that your appearance is … unusual, to say the least.’

‘Of course. I quite understand. But now – I don’t wish to seem hasty, but the sooner I can tend to my friend, the sooner we can sort all this out.’

‘God almighty!’ Philip’s interruption was an angry croak. Looking at his face, Stephen realised that it must have taken all of his willpower not to run away with the novice.

‘You’re not going to let these … these
things
stay here, are you?’ Philip demanded of the abbot.

‘I get the impression,’ Paul said dryly, ‘that I don’t have a great deal of choice in the matter.’

He looked at the driver, who shrugged.

‘Well,’ the man said, ‘I don’t think any of us have. This is an unfortunate business, but it needs to be sorted out. The sooner it’s sorted, the happier I’m certain all of us will be. You can’t sort it. We can – it’s what we’re here for. So sooner or later you’ll have to deal with us, and sooner or later we’ll have to deal with you. We may as well go about it in a civilised fashion.’

Paul looked at him. Then he nodded.

‘Put up your guns,’ he said to the other two monks.

Brother Simon obeyed after only a slight hesitation. But Philip’s weapon stayed where it was, aimed shakily at the driver’s chest. The man looked sniffily at the gun, but when
he spoke to Philip his voice was almost apologetic.

‘I’m afraid I can’t let you kill me,’ he said. ‘As I’ve told you, it would be inconvenient.’

‘Philip!’ Paul said sharply. ‘Put it down!’

Philip lowered the pistol reluctantly. His face wasn’t so much white as colourless. It shone with a sheen of sweat. His whole body shivered violently.

The abbot spoke quietly to the driver.

‘There are bedrooms upstairs, to your left,’ he said. ‘We’ll put your friend in one of them.’

‘That would be perfect,’ the driver said. He looked into the car, at the thickset man in the back seat.

‘Help my friend,’ he said curtly. There was nothing mild in his voice now.

The big man got out of the car. He looked around him with distaste. He opened the front passenger door and took the arm of the headless man, who climbed out carefully. Watching him with reluctant fascination, Stephen felt the fear moving in his bowels. They called this thing a man, but it couldn’t be a man – headless men are dead men, and this thing wasn’t dead. Beside him he heard Philip give a low moan.

The headless man carried a plastic bag in one hand. The bag was bloody, and it bulged with something solid, something about the size of a human head.

The driver looked around at them.

‘It’s only an injured body,’ he said gently. ‘I’m going to fix it, that’s all. That’s what we’re here for, to fix things. We’re fix-it men.’

He looked to the abbot, who gestured towards the doorway leading into Stephen’s wing of the abbey.

‘This way,’ he said.

He led the way inside, followed by the driver and then, more slowly, by the thickset man and the headless one. Those in the courtyard stood looking after them, even after they’d disappeared inside. Then the old monk went off towards the bell-tower, looking for the vanished novice. Stephen stood there stupidly, looking around at the car and the abandoned guns lying on the ground. Behind him, Philip said something he didn’t catch. He turned around.

‘What?’ he said.

Philip’s eyes had been fixed on the car. When Stephen spoke they turned towards him. Stephen had seen that wild-eyed look more than once now, but never like this. These were truly madman’s eyes.

‘The dead coach,’ Philip said.

The gun in his hand swung up. He held it at the level of his hip, pointed straight at Stephen.

‘First the fetch,’ Philip said, ‘and now the dead coach and its headless rider.’

Stephen remembered what the abbot had said the night before, that the fetch was his double. What the dead coach or the headless rider might be, he had no idea.

He was terribly aware of the gun in Philip’s hand. This was the second time in less than forty-eight hours that the big monk had pointed that gun at him. Yesterday he’d come close to pulling the trigger, but he’d thought better of it; today, to judge by his mad eyes, he wasn’t thinking at all.

Stephen licked his lips

‘Philip,’ he said carefully, ‘I swear I know nothing about this. Kirsten and I are as frightened as everyone else.’

Philip stood stiff and unmoving for a moment longer. Stephen could see a sneer forming on his lips.

Then he hit Stephen.

While the boy was watching his face, the monk swung the gun up and hit him in the side of the head with it. It wasn’t a heavy blow, but Stephen was stunned, as much by the surprise as by the blow itself. For one moment he thought he’d been shot. He saw stars. When his vision cleared he looked up to see Philip walking away. Stephen stood blinking after him, dazed, his eyes smarting and an ache in his skull. He was suddenly angry. He was a boy; Philip was a man, over six feet tall and built to match. Fear or no fear, he was simply a bully. He wasn’t going to do anything like that to Stephen again.

Stephen had already noticed the silver pistol lying on the ground. Now, without thinking, he bent down, scooped it up and stuffed it in his back pocket. Then he heard Kirsten scream.

Stephen raced through the doorway and up the stone stairs. The corridor above was empty when he got there, but the door of the room next to his was ajar. He heard voices inside. He was about to push the door open when the abbot came out. He stopped short when he saw Stephen.

‘So,’ he said. ‘You didn’t run away.’

‘No. I think I was too frightened. What was that scream? Is Kirsten all right?’

‘Yes. She came out of your room as we were passing. She got a bad shock. She almost walked right into the, uh, injured man.’

Stephen looked at the door of his own room. It was firmly shut.

‘Can you explain to her?’ Paul asked.

Explain
? Stephen couldn’t even explain it to himself.

‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you need help?’

‘I’m just going to fetch the things that they asked for: towels, water and … a needle and thread.’

‘Thread?’ said Stephen flatly.

‘Yes. Thread. The stronger the better, the man said.’

Stephen thought about that.

‘I think I’ll talk to Kirsten,’ he said.

The abbot nodded, then hurried on his way. Stephen went into his room, careful to knock and call out before he entered.

Kirsten was sitting hunched over by the table, staring glassily at the table top. The very look of her made Stephen pity her. She didn’t react when he said her name. He went over and touched her shoulder. When she looked up at him she started to cry silently. The tears ran down her face and she made no effort to wipe them away. Stephen felt unbearably awkward.

‘Monstrous!’ Kirsten said. ‘It’s monstrous!’

Her voice shook.

‘Please, Kirsten,’ Stephen said. ‘They say they’re here to help. We can’t afford to panic. Paul needs us all to be solid now. Thomas lost his … lost control completely. Philip too. There’s only us and Simon now.’

She buried her face in her hands and her shoulders shook, but little by little her crying eased. After a while she looked up, trying hard to control her emotions.

‘I hate crying,’ she said. ‘My face puffs up, and I look like a rabbit. I’ll be all right, honestly. It was just such a shock walking into that … that
man
.’

There was a polite knock on the door. The abbot, Stephen thought.

‘Come in,’ he said.

The door opened, and a head looked in. But it wasn’t Paul. It was the stranger who’d done the talking in the courtyard – the driver. Once more Stephen was struck by how harmless he looked. Only the shrewdness of his blue eyes suggested anything else. He looked at them now with a pleasant smile.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to apologise to the young lady for frightening her.’

‘Oh,’ Stephen said. ‘I don’t think it was you. Not personally, I mean.’

‘No. But it’s my responsibility at the moment. I’m pleased to see that both of you are all right. You mustn’t worry. Everything will be fine soon. We’ll get all this sorted as soon as we can.’

There was a warmth in his voice that hadn’t been there in the courtyard. There he’d been affable, polite. Now he sounded positively friendly. There was also a tone in his voice that Stephen had thought gone forever from the world – he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. And there was something else too, a faint undertone of …

‘Do you
know
us?’ Kirsten said suddenly, recognising the tone before Stephen did.

The man gave her question some thought.

‘That question,’ he said, ‘raises what you might call metaphysical difficulties. On the one hand I’ve never seen either of you before in my life. But on the other I do know you, yes. In fact I know you both very well indeed.’

He made a face.

‘It’s hard to explain now,’ he said. ‘Please be patient. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, believe me.’

‘Why should we?’ Stephen said angrily. ‘Bad things have happened to us already. Why shouldn’t they happen to us again?’

The driver’s smile twitched slightly.

‘Because I won’t let them,’ he said softly.

And with a last nod he was gone, closing the door behind him. His smile seemed to linger in the room. Kirsten and Stephen looked at each other. Kirsten had stopped crying.

‘He
knows
us!’ she said. Then she said it again, because it sounded so strange. She glanced over towards the mirror, and caught a glimpse of her own haggard face.

‘Yuck!’ she said. ‘I look a fright. I’m going to wash my face.’

There was a bathroom at the end of the corridor, but to get to it she’d have to pass the headless man’s door. A minute before Stephen couldn’t have imagined her doing that; now she positively breezed out of the room. Stephen went to the door and watched her saunter down the hall. The suddenness of the change in her astonished him. But then she’d been like that since they’d met, he supposed – changeable.

The abbot came back up the stairs carrying a steaming bowl of water and, draped over his shoulder, several bath-towels.

‘How is the Fräulein?’ he asked.

‘She seems all right now. She’s washing her face.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m going to leave these things in with our guests. Then I must go and check on the patients. And the monks too, for that matter. I don’t know what to expect – or rather I fear I do.’

‘I’ll go with you,’ Stephen said.

‘Is that wise? Philip was very upset in the courtyard. He may well direct it at you.’

‘He already has.’ Stephen told him how Philip had hit him. The story obviously upset Paul.

‘I’d best leave these things in with the strangers,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll … I’ll sort things out. Somehow. Philip has got to
get a grip on himself. There’s too much to do. The patients haven’t even been fed this morning.’

He went into the strangers’ room, and as he came back out Kirsten emerged from the bathroom. Her face had a pink, scrubbed look. She wasn’t exactly smiling, but she was certainly calmer than she’d been earlier.

‘Paul,’ she said, ‘who’s looking after the sick people?’

‘No one as yet,’ the abbot said. ‘I was just telling Stephen. We must organise the rest of them. Simon is like a rock, but he can’t do everything. I need Thomas. Most of all I need Philip.’

‘We have to talk to Philip,’ Stephen said, not wanting to. ‘He’s gone crazy. We have to try to reason with him.’

‘Certainly
I
have to talk to him,’ the abbot said. ‘As for yourself and the Fräulein … do you think it would be wise?’

He eyed Stephen dubiously. Stephen reluctantly told Kirsten how Philip had hit him. She made a face.

‘He was upset,’ she said. ‘Frightened. He has no
real
reason to fear us – what have we done to him? No, Stephen is right, the sooner we face him and talk some sense into him the better. Maybe I should try. He wouldn’t listen to me yesterday, but maybe today– ’

‘No!’ Stephen said. ‘Absolutely not! He certainly won’t listen to you now!’

Her mood had improved, but that gave her no right to be stupid. Of course, she didn’t know about the apparitions yet. Philip would no doubt have heard Thomas’s story by now, he might be every bit as hostile towards Kirsten as he was towards Stephen.

The abbot considered. For the first time since Stephen had met him he seemed unsure.

‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘But Fräulein Herzenweg is right. We must try to talk to Philip.’

‘Then let’s do it now,’ Kirsten said. ‘Before I start getting afraid again.’

Paul hesitated. He looked at Stephen.

‘It won’t get any easier,’ Stephen said.

The abbot nodded.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

And they did. But as they went down the stone stairs Stephen brushed his hand across the back pocket of his jeans, where the little silver pistol nestled reassuringly.