The Returned (45 page)

And then it stopped.

It had lasted less than an hour, but it had felt like years. He looked around the faces of the people there, pale and scared, as the warning sirens at the dam began to howl.

The sirens stopped just before dawn, and Alcide insisted on waiting until daylight before he would consider looking outside. The thin lines of sunlight coming between the joins in the shutters
were comforting, he thought, yet oddly made the building feel more claustrophobic.

He sought out Pierre Tissier. ‘Is there a way to see what’s out there before we open the shutters?’ asked Alcide.

Pierre seemed like an empty shell, moving in a stupor. He shook his head.

‘A way for me to get out alone, then?’

Pierre thought, then nodded, talking slowly. ‘There’s a doorway in the basement,’ he said. ‘It leads to another locked door, then to the outside stairs at the side of the
building. I could let you out and lock the basement door behind you.’

The bundle of keys Alcide had taken the night before were clipped to his belt. He took them off and handed them to Pierre, who hunted for the key that would unlock the outer door. Pierre worked
it off the keyring and handed it to Alcide.

They went down to the dark basement, torches in hand. Pierre unlocked the inner door and opened it. Alcide stepped out into the corridor, clenching the key as Pierre locked the door behind
him.

His mouth was dry. He played the beam of the torch along to the end of the corridor and saw there was a doorway gaping wide, darkness beyond. The door had been forced open, the jamb splintered.
He pocketed the key, took his pistol from its holster, and approached slowly.

‘Hello?’ he called. He thought back to the man in the Lake Pub rushing the captain, and tensed. He moved through the doorway, noting just how powerful the blows must have been to
force the door.

Force it from
within
, he realized.

Inside was some kind of medical room. He’d heard that an injured man had arrived at the Helping Hand shortly before the police had come; he’d also heard that the man hadn’t
made it. This must be where he’d been brought. Bloody cotton swabs and towels lay on a padded treatment table, which itself was covered in blood, but there was nobody in the room. The
man’s corpse wasn’t here, either.

With gun and torch raised, Alcide left the room and headed for the other end of the corridor. The key was in his pocket, but the suspicions he’d had since seeing the broken medical room
door were confirmed as he approached the exit.

Although the exit door was closed, he could see that the lock had been forced here, too. With no need for the key Alcide pushed the door open, wincing as the daylight hit his dark-adapted
eyes.

Carefully, he went up the steps. When he reached the top he could only stare at what he saw in the distance, stare in horror, but he had a task to get on with. He tore his eyes away from the
town and slowly circled the building.

There was no sign, no sign of anything. His colleagues had gone; the dead horde was nowhere to be seen. There were no guns lying on the ground, and no blood. The metal shutters showed small
dents in places, but other than that there was no clue that anything had even happened here, in the dark of the night.

When he was certain there was no threat, Alcide returned to the basement door. Pierre let him back in, and Alcide raised the shutters. Questions came, especially from the captain’s
fiancée, but he had little to tell them.
No trace. No trace at all.

He unlocked the door and led the way outside. All he could do was stare again at the sight before him in the valley. Alcide looked to his right, and in the distance he could see the dam.
Impossible
, he thought. Despite the sirens that had sounded, it was intact.

One by one the others joined him. One by one they all stared.

At the drowned buildings.

The drowned buildings, in the flooded town below.

By Seth Patrick

THE REVIVER

THE RETURNED

First published 2014 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2014 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-4472-6728-7

Copyright © Seth Patrick 2014

CANAL + Original Programming Produced by Haut et Court TV
Cover Images © Jean-Claude Lother / Jérome Prebois / Haut et Court TV / Canal + © Blaze986 / Shutterstock

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