The Wells of Hell (13 page)

‘Do you have a Bible here?’ I asked
Dan.
‘Just in case we need the dimensions for building an
ark.’

It wasn’t a long drive to old man
Pascoe’s place, but the road wound through the hills and the woods towards
Sherman, and the rain turned my windshield into a dancing, reflecting
kaleidoscope of blurry lights and shadowy trees. Shelley had decided that he
was too cold on the back seat, so he dropped over on to Dan’s lap, and sat
there looking uncomfortable, digging his claws into Dan’s thighs every time we
swayed around a corner.

We didn’t talk much on the way. Dan
wasn’t feeling in a particularly speculative mood, and I was too nervous. Maybe
Dan was nervous, too. I think anybody would have been at the prospect of
meeting two human beings who by all accounts had been turned into grotesque
crustaceans. But it surprised me that we were able to accept the situation with
such relative calmness. What was happening was frightening and logically
impossible, and yet we were facing it without too much panic and in a pretty
practical way. Mind you, a lot of our courage came from plain ignorance.

We didn’t know what we were up
against, and what we didn’t know didn’t frighten us.

Old man Pascoe’s place was always
closed up for the winter. He used to be one of the leading dairymen around
Sherman, but after his wife had died and his sons had grown up and left him, he
had gradually declined into benevolent senility. He still came up to
Connecticut in the summer, and sat on his porch under his proudly-waving Stars
and Stripes, waving and calling to anyone who walked or bicycled past; but in
the winter, when the cold was too much for his bones, he flew south to Miami,
and stayed in a tacky condominium with his younger son Wilf, who sold
insurance.

We reached the mailbox with the
reflective letters PASCOE on it, and New Miljord Tribune in Gothic letters
beneath. Then I turned the Country Squire right through a screen of ash and
birch trees, down the bumpy darkness of a cinder driveway, towards the ghostly
white Colonial house with its green-painted verandahs. I pulled up outside and
switched off the engine, but not the lights. The rain drummed and swept on the
windshield and the roof, and we felt as if we were sitting in a lifeboat at
sea.

‘The barn’s about seventy or eighty
yards out in back, if I remember,’ I told Dan. ‘I guess what I’d better do is
check
everything out first, and then give you a shout.’

‘Do you want to take the camera?’
asked Dan.

‘I couldn’t take a photograph in a
passport-picture booth,’ I told him.
‘Wait until I call you,
and then come out ready to take some shots.’

‘Okay. But go carefully. And if I
don’t hear you call in five minutes, I’m coming after you.’

I held his arm. ‘Dan,’ I said,
pained. ‘This isn’t a Western. These people are friends.’

Dan looked away. ‘Maybe they were
your friends,’ he said quietly. ‘But before you do anything rash, just check up
on what they are now.’

I kept hold of his arm for a moment.
Then I said: ‘Okay. Make it five minutes. And there’s a long pipe-wrench in the
back if you feel you ought to bring it.’

I reached for my soiled and crumpled
raincoat which I kept on the back seat. Then I opened the door of the wagon,
and lunged out into the rain and the wind. I tugged on my coat as quickly as I
could, and pulled up the collar, but I still got soaked. I had to blink the
water away from my lashes, and wipe the drops off my nose, and then I shouted
through the wagon window to Dan:

‘Flashlight!
Pass me the flashlight!’

He quickly opened the door and
passed it out to me. I looked down at it. It was a kids’ flashlight with Mickey
Mouse ears on it, and it gave out about as much light as a birthday-cake
candle. I frowned at Dan through the rain-streaked window, but all he could do
was shrug and pull a face. A Mickey Mouse flashlight was just about his level.

Clutching my raincoat collar tight
around my neck, and hunching my shoulders against the rain, I crossed the
cinder driveway and made my way cautiously around the side of the house and out
towards the back yard. From what I could see through the rain, the barn was
three or four hundred feet away across a sodden patch of worn grass, right up
against a dark and wildly-waving stand of fir trees. I wiped the rain from my
face with my hand, and trudged across the back yard, holding the feeble
flashlight oat in front of me. I stumbled once, against a rusty and abandoned
plough blade, and snagged my sock. I lifted my head and listened for a moment
or two, but all I could hear was the seething trees and the persistent lashing
of the rain. Up above me, in the early darkness, the clouds hurried like black
phantoms on their way to a ghosts’ gathering. I
listened
a second more, and then I carried on walking towards the Pascoe barn.

Soon I was standing right by the
barn doors. They were old and rotted and slick with wet. I raised the Mickey
Mouse flashlight and cautiously investigated the rest of the building. Old man
Pascoe had obviously left it derelict for years. The shingle roof was sagging
and overgrown with moss, and several of the panes in the fan-shaped windows
were broken. It smelled of dust and damp and neglect.

I cleared my throat and called
softly: ‘Jimmy? Alison?’

There was no answer. About a mile
away, across in New York
state
, the thunder grumbled
again, and I saw lightning. The rain beat down and plastered my face and my
hair, and I felt like a sickly kitten that some farmer had thrown out to die of
exposure.

I heard a creak within the barn, and
my nerves tightened. I waited a few seconds, and then I called again: ‘Jimmy?
Alison? Are you there? It’s me, Mason!’

I waited some more, and the rain
dripped off my earlobes like diamond earrings. The Mickey Mouse flashlight
began to falter and dim, and I only hoped it was going to last out long enough.

I didn’t relish meeting up with any
kind of creature in the pitch dark and the rain, no matter how friendly we used
to be. A rat or a mouse scurried along the length of the barn, and made me jump
with nerves. It didn’t seem like Jimmy and Alison were here. But then, young
Paul Demon had said they were in back of the barn, and not actually inside it.
Three or four minutes walk into the woods, he had said. I guess because it was
pouring with rain, I had automatically jumped to the conclusion that they would
have gone to the barn to seek shelter.

But – supposing they didn’t need
shelter?
Supposing they were dead?
Or supposing they
felt quite at home in the wet?

I shook a little more life into the
flashlight, and then I tossed my head to hurl off most of the drops. The woods
were less than welcoming on a night like this. Close to, they made a sound like
gnashing monsters, and under their branches it was as dark and baffling as the
inside of a conjuror’s cloak.

I took a deep breath, and started to
walk away from the barn and into the trees. The ground was matted with wet
leaves and fallen twigs, and knobbly with fir cones. There was a strong scent
of conifers, mingled with the fresh metallic smell of the rain.

It was quieter here, and the rain
was far less torrential, although it fell on the branches above me like the
pattering of invisible feet on an upstairs floor. I kept both hands out in
front of me, to protect my face from projecting branches, and I shuffled slowly
along as if I was a blind man.

After a minute or two, I paused, and
called: ‘Jimmy? Alison? I’m here. Can you hear me?’

There was no reply. I waited a
little longer, and while I waited I made up my mind that I was going to keep
walking ahead for just one minute more and if I didn’t come across them by
then, I was going to turn around and get my ass out of those woods as fast as
conveniently possible. In spite of everything, I was scared now, and I was
alone, and every drop of rain that fell on the floor of the woods sounded like
beasts approaching. My heart was tumbling and beating in great acrobatic loops.

I started to walk, deeper into the
woods. The branches crackled beneath my feet, like the crackling of lobster
shells. I gave a cough that was far too forced, far too loud. I didn’t really
need to cough at all.

A minute had passed. I stopped
again, and listened. Halfheartedly, I called: ‘Jimmy? Alison? Are you there?’ I
stood there, breathing quick and shallow with fright, and hoping to God that
nobody would answer. I knew that Jimmy and Alison had been my friends. I knew
that I owed it to them to try to help. But I knew, too, that I was in the
middle of a dark and rustling wood in an electric storm faced with the prospect
of meeting two hideous and inexplicable creatures and I wasn’t at all sure that
my nerve was up to it.

I called once more, just to make
sure that they really weren’t there. There was still no answer, so I turned
around and started making my way back towards the barn. The Mickey Mouse
flashlight even obliged by waxing a little brighter, as if it dimmed and brightened
in response to the level of fear.

I was almost at the outskirts of the
wood, when I thought I heard something. It was a low, hoarse sound, like an
animal grunting. A chilly spasm went down the back of my neck, and I froze,
listening. I heard the sound again, and this time it was more distinct.

It was low, thick, and guttural. It
was hardly human. But it had to belong to a human mind, because it twice
repeated, with painful slurriness, the single word: ‘Mason.
Maassssooonnnn.’

I stood there rigid. I was so
shit-scared I didn’t know whether to run or stay where I was. I couldn’t see
anything or anybody through the darkness and the waving trees, but I thought I
heard something. It might have been my imagination, fired up by fear, but it
was too distinct, too plangent,
too
unusual. It was
the sound of rain spattering on to a hard, hollow shell.

‘Jimmy?’ I asked, in a thin voice.
‘Jimmy? Is that you?’

‘Mmaasssooonnn,’ repeated the sound.
‘Hhelllpp mmeee...’

‘Jimmy?’ I called. ‘Jimmy, where are
you? I can’t see you!’

There was a short silence. Then the
thick sound came again. ‘Don’t – come – any – nearer. Stay

-
right
–
where – you – are.’

I frowned into the rainy shadows.
‘Jimmy, if I don’t see you, I can’t help you. Is that you? Is Alison there?’

‘Something’s – happened – something
– we – can’t...’

‘Jimmy! Where are you? I have to see
you!’

There was another silence, and then
I heard a heavy stumbling sound by a cluster of holly bushes, quite close to
the edge of the woods. I stepped gingerly towards it, holding up my flashlight,
trying to penetrate the dark-green glossy leaves. ‘Are you there,
Jimmy
? Can you see my light?’ Pause. And then: ‘Yess,
Massoonn. I – see – it.

Don’t – come – nearer.’

‘Jimmy, what’s happened to you? We
found Oliver. We came out to warn you about the water, and we found Oliver.’

‘We – know – about – Oliver. He –
was – too – slow.’

‘Too slow for
what?
What
happened out there, Jimmy? How did Oliver drown?’

‘He – was – too – slow. He – didn’t –
drink – soon – enough. There – was – no – time – for – him – to

...’

‘No time for what, Jimmy? No time
for him to grow scales? No time to get away from the water? How did the water
get there, Jimmy? How did they fill up his room?’

All the time, while Jimmy spoke in
that grating, guttural voice, I was slowly circling around the side of the
holly bushes, to see if I could penetrate them. They were so damned thick and
prickly it seemed almost impossible for anyone to have found their way inside
without scratching themselves to shreds, but Jimmy must have found a gap
someplace. At least, he may have found a gap someplace. If he was already
covered in shell, then he could have forced his way right through the densest
bush and not suffered a single laceration. I was praying and hoping that he
hadn’t. I was praying and hoping that something human had survived.

‘Where’s Alison?’ I called. ‘Is she
in there with you?’

‘I – cannot – say...’

‘Do you mean you don’t know, or you
won’t tell me?’

‘She – has – gone...’

‘Gone? What do you mean, gone? Gone
where?’

‘I – cannot – say...’

‘Well, what did you want me for?’ I
asked. ‘Young Paul Demon came up to the house half scared to death and said you
needed my help. Well, I’m here. I want to know how I can help you.’

There was a further silence, I
sniffed the rainy air, and I was sure I could detect the lingering odour of
decaying fish. I took a few more steps around the holly bushes, but with each
step I took it was becoming increasingly obvious that they were quite impenetrable.
At least to a soft skinned endomorph like me. ‘It – happened – so –
quick
-’ said Jimmy, harshly.

I stopped my circling. ‘What did?
What happened so
quick
?’