Unhallowed Ground (34 page)

The sinister light floods the little square bedroom, but Georgie doesn’t wait any longer. This is not a friendly light, somebody come to see to their welfare at five o’clock in the morning. This is not Oliver. She stampedes down the stairs, slamming the door at the bottom and pushing the table in front of it, she dashes into the kitchen and grabs the cauterizing knife, wrenching the kitchen door closed behind her, and then she takes up her position as defender of the helpless, rigidly at attention beside the slumbering form of Dave. Georgie hardly breathes. She is a tablet of stone.

And if the creature is on the prowl,
what has happened to Oliver?

She wishes she had closed the curtains as Oliver had advised her to do. She had foolishly said, ‘If I keep them open at least the windows give you some little glow of light to direct you.’

‘Oh, Dave, Dave,’ Georgie’s voice quivers. She licks her lips which are as dry as his. ‘What the hell do I do?’

Dave’s bloodshot eyes only flicker.

Lola barks loudly, hackles raised, staring intently at the window.

Gradually, with palpitating heart, Georgie makes out the unutterable horror of the face at the window, the face which presses against the window forming it into some ghoulish mask, some diabolical carnival mask evoking some unspeakable hell, spread nose, flattened lips in a grotesque grin, eyes stretched into slits of hatred. Aghast, she can only stare as the creature’s breath accumulates on the pane and melts the ice patterns there, so that they slide in an awful watery glaze down the features of the demon, giving them another dimension, a pulpy, rubbery sheen.

Lola jumps up uselessly, her lip curled, a bloodcurdling growl issuing from somewhere deep in her throat. But Lola is a softie at heart. Plenty of bark but no bite.

So this is it. This is the end. At least Dave is well out of it. No-one in their worst nightmares could imagine a death as terrible as this…

It’s a crashing against the door, the hammering of a man at the end of his tether, it hardly reaches Georgie as she stands, awed by the horrible nature of her own imminent demise.

‘Shit!
Where the hell are you?
Open this sodding door…’

Like a bird hypnotized by a snake, still she stares at the idiot face.

Lola, excited, yelps behind her. The battering on the door attains the decibels of heavy metal. ‘Georgie, GEORGIE COME ON…’

She jumps to life at the sound of her name but it sounds as if somebody is calling from some half forgotten other world. She turns from the face at the window towards the echoing sound, by the time she turns back the face has gone, and along with it the light that preceded it. There is nothing there now, just snow-swept darkness, and the hammering on the door is increasing.

‘
Oliver!
’ She must reach him before the face…

‘Hell, what are you trying to do…’ he says as he falls in, a figure entirely encased in white.

But Georgie is on the floor, collapsed in a trembling heap at his feet, under attack from Lola who thinks this is a game.

‘What the shit is going on here? What sort of crazy are we dealing with? Pushing his face against the window, pulling faces, hanging about in this sort of weather, Jesus, it’s unreal, it’s infantile, it’s incredulous, outrageous…’

‘There’s no point going on,’ says Georgie wearily, ‘it happened. But I’m so relieved you’re back safely I seem to have ceased to care about him.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ pants Oliver, still out of breath. ‘Shit. I thought he must have been in and got you both, and the dog, while I was gone.’

‘Just let me cling a little bit longer.’ Georgie has not let go of his arm since he lifted her firmly and moved her to a comparative place of safety, on the floor in front of the fire. ‘I’m not ready to let go yet.’

‘I don’t want you to let go.’

‘I want to hear what happened to you.’

‘Nothing compared with what happened to you,’ he strokes her arm, she’s still clinging. ‘I’m surprised you’re still coherent, surprised you haven’t cracked up completely. Obviously it’s more dangerous to be in here than outside. Next time…’

But Georgie shudders. ‘Believe me, there’s never going to be one of those.’

‘I found the cowshed, more by luck than judgement, and then I had to fight my way through nosy cows wandering around between cubicles. Christ, it was so bloody dark in there, and all the while I was trying to listen for Lot—impossible with the blizzard. I had to give up in the end and just press on, told myself the quicker the better…’

‘…and there was no sign of anyone with a light? No new footprints?’

‘Nothing like that. I turned on the torch in the parlour, and managed to clear one bottom shelf before I chickened out and turned and legged it…’ Oliver opens the string bag to reveal an odd assortment of rusty tins, slimy jars, several rolls of coloured tape, boxes of vials containing mostly colourless liquids, syringes, some disposable needles, cans and a spray of WD40, tractor grease. ‘Mostly rubbish. Sod it! I should have taken more time, but I told you before, I’m no hero. I don’t suppose for a minute you found your drug book…’

Her smile is still a nervous one. ‘Well, I did, actually.’

‘I’ll get it.’

‘No, don’t leave me. We’ll go upstairs together.’

Settling back on the floor Oliver holds up a jar full of grey granules. ‘God knows what use these are… looks like some cure for indigestion.’

‘Oh no,’ Georgie blanches. ‘Don’t tell me. This is too much. You’ve fetched old Buckpit’s ashes.’

The sudden silence, the incredulous look on Oliver’s face, reduces Georgie to a kind of sobbing, hysterical laughter. Between bursts she manages to hiccup an explanation for his grisly find, and soon he joins her, the tension is released for one whole manic, marvellous minute. ‘Perhaps we should sprinkle them on the stump…’

‘Oh no, old man Buckpit’s black soul might be introduced to Dave’s body, a kind of incubus—’

‘Or we could throw them into Lot’s eyes and blind him—’

‘Stop it. Stop it. Perhaps if we rub the jar the genie of old man Buckpit might rise up and offer us a wish—’

‘We could hold the ashes for ransom, demand a tractor in return…’ and Oliver wipes his eyes.

They cackle and crow with this disrespectful, macabre stuff until they realize how juvenile they sound, how responsible they still have to be and how vulnerable they are… but it is a moment of blessed release and both feel better after it.

And after a serious study of Oliver’s haul they come across two items which might well be of use—one is a spray which contains Tetracycline, and from what they can gather from the rusted instructions it is used for disinfecting wounds, and the other is a box of capsules labelled Lignocaine, used in the farming profession as a local anaesthetic administered by injection.

This find poses the next problem: dare they use the drugs on a human? And when?

‘We could use the spray now,’ says Oliver, ‘that can’t possibly do any harm and it must be stronger than anything you’ve got in your kitchen. But I think we’ll leave the local anaesthetic until it seems necessary…’

‘You mean until Dave wakes up screaming?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Yes. I agree.’ Georgie is also reluctant to start sticking needles in Dave, especially anywhere near the vicinity of that ghastly wound.

Dave’s stump is a lurid purple.

‘That’s done, thank God. The colour alone would scare off infection. Now let’s try and relax until dawn.’

Relax? Some hope. But at last she has stopped shaking. They spread a rug on the floor, two large cushions for pillows and lie down next to each other until Lola spies them and, a jealous creature by nature, inserts herself rudely between them. All the curtains are firmly drawn. There is no chance of sleep, even if either one felt like it. Four eyes are better than two. Two weapons better than one. ‘Lola,’ groans Georgie, trying to shift the dog over, ‘why aren’t you a pit bull?’

‘She’s lovely,’ says Oliver, stroking her, ‘just the sort of dog I would choose. They say stroking dogs is good for the heart, reduces blood pressure, too, so we ought to stroke her for dear life because my heart, for one, is about to give out.’

She rests her head on his shoulder, and while he strokes her cheek and neck she keeps her eyes closed and her lips slightly smiling. ‘Are we going to get out of this alive, Oliver?’ Suddenly she turns deadly serious. ‘Tell me what you truly think.’

They both gaze ahead of them, staring at nothing. ‘If we do, you and I ought to spend some time together, sane time, calm time, get to unknow each other a bit.’

‘With our defences up, you mean?’

The laughter lines crinkle beside his brown eyes. ‘Certainly. I’m a much more acceptable person when I can hide the shit underneath. You should see me at parties. We can’t have a decent relationship based so disgustingly on truth.’

‘You are absolutely right,’ says Georgie, encouraged to hear that, all being well, this will not be the end between them. It’s a long time since she felt such pleasure. These close and tender feelings must have something to do with fear. Maybe if they had bungee jumped together it would have produced the same chemistry, the secret and perilous games of children. How ironic that these are the terrible circumstances in which, for the first time in almost a year, Georgie feels expectant and alive.

‘Perhaps we should share a bottle of wine together right now, just in case we don’t get another chance,’ says Oliver, picking up Georgie’s hand. ‘I don’t see why we should be done out of that by some sick bastard staggering around the hillsides with an axe.’

‘Hardly the most ideal situation.’ Georgie smiles as she brings in two glasses and a bottle of Nuit St Georges and stands it beside the fireplace. ‘This is my favourite. I was saving it for something special. But look at us both. Anyone would think… This is madness.’

‘This is the only right thing that has happened since I arrived,’ says Oliver, bringing his lips down onto hers.

And Lola gives a deafening fart.

O
H, PLEASE LET IT
be morning. Either let it be morning or let this closeness go on for ever. Take away all the tomorrows.

It’s hard to tell the difference for the light has only slightly changed with the black turning a pale shade of grey. The candles have less effect on the gloom, and yet whenever one of the flames goes out, Georgie replaces it with another. It is a little positive act, some small achievement, and Oliver, for much the same reasons, tours the cottage now and then, poker firmly in hand while he tests the windows and checks the doors. In the end it seems sensible to drag Stephen’s sideboard into the hall to make a firm barrier behind the front door.

‘Hell, but we can’t stay stuck in here for much longer. At some point we must get more wood or agree to freeze to death. And that poor dog of yours needs to go out.’

‘I’m not worried about that. What’s a few lumps of dog shit?’

But Oliver is right. Keeping themselves warm is essential, especially poor Dave, so at some point they must open the back door and venture out into no man’s land. They are OK for food. Even with the freezer kaput the frozen stuff will last for a few days. Somehow it will have to be cooked on the fire, but that’s no big deal, it will give Georgie a chance to test the little bread oven tucked inside the chimney.

The nearness of the stream means they need never worry about lack of water, and luckily the fire heats the water, so there is no shortage of that.

With the slightly brighter light it is all too horribly clear just what a mess they are both in, blood-smeared clothing gone crispy brown, nails rimmed with the stuff which has settled into the creases in their hands, and it’s in Oliver’s hair, so it must be in Georgie’s. Each assesses the other, both covered with far more blood than Dave, who is relatively clean after their gentle attempts at hygiene. Yes, Oliver and Georgie make a grizzly pair in the pale morning light.

‘What I’d give for a bath, to lie steaming in the blissful heat and soak some of this crap away,’ Georgie says.

‘Have one. You might as well. We ought to sort ourselves out, and there’s nothing else to be done at the moment.’

There’s no change in Dave’s condition. Still burning hot, every so often he writhes and contorts and starts to lick his dry, flaky lips. His golden hair has changed colour in the night, and now it is dark, drenched with sweat, his curls turned into tendrils. Occasionally he cries out, as if from some hideous nightmare, but although his eyelids flicker, thank God they stay closed. They have anaesthetic at the ready.

‘I can’t have a bath because I don’t possess one. There’s no space in the bathroom, as you must have noticed. It’s hard to turn round in there. No, I’ll have to have a shower.’ Georgie stares at Oliver. ‘So will you. You look disgusting.’

‘Let’s venture out first.’ Oliver’s expression is stoic. ‘Shit, let’s get it over with. We could fetch a couple of baskets of logs and fill some buckets from the stream.’

In any other circumstances these would be simple tasks, and the suggestion is casually made, with an air of resignation. But to actually carry out these chores feels like climbing a mountain. If Georgie had been alone she would have let the fire go out rather than take one step into such a sinister unknown. She would have stayed in bed with the doors firmly locked, for water she would use snow from the windowsill. They both know that simply the movement of opening the door will sap all the courage they have.

But, realistically, it has to be done. After last night’s fiasco Georgie refuses to stay behind. They decide to go together so that one can defend them both with the poker, should the need arise, and for extra protection Georgie thrusts her carving knife through the bottom of her pocket. With one constantly keeping watch they will see if anyone approaches the door and they’ll never be too far away to leave Dave unguarded. Yes, it is essential that Georgie and Oliver keep together.

Before the moment of truth arrives they peer out of the bedroom windows to see if anything moves out there apart from the storm itself. Pale and spiky icicles sprout from the overhang of thatch, suspended at the window like broken bars. Heavy snow, slanting, chasing in a roaring wind, blows across their line of vision and blurs it. Any footprints left by the devil have been well and truly covered. ‘Well, good luck to anyone waiting out there, the crazy bastard, he’ll have frozen to death by now,’ says Oliver, ‘and it wouldn’t matter how padded he was. Nobody could survive.’