The Fly-By-Nights

by Brian Lumley

  “Of course I wanted to! You must know I did!” Garth shot to his feet and faced the other. “But how could I? What, I should frighten the life out of Layla? Or talk to Big Jon and explain how I, er, perhaps nod off out there on the perimeter every so often? Or get myself laughed at, ridiculed, by raving on about ghosts in the mist, not to mention that really nasty one in my dreams? I mean, who would take me seriously? And tell me something if you will: is there anyone among us who hasn’t had bad dreams about fly-by-nights from time to time? God, surely it’s enough that I’ve doubted my own sanity without inviting anyone else in to judge me?”

  His father nodded and said, “Take it easy. I only wanted to be sure you weren’t falling apart like Peder Halbstein, is all. And I can well understand how you thought you might be!”

  “But I’m not?” Garth desperately needed to be sure.

  “Hell no! And don’t worry about it, for when I speak to Big Jon—which of course I must—I won’t mention your sleeping on duty. Fact is you mightn’t have nodded off at all, not if those creatures really can get into a man’s mind. Hey, Ned Singer was a bad bastard even in life! So who knows what he may be capable of in death, eh?”

  “Or undeath?” said Garth.

  And his father nodded again. “Or undeath, yes.”

  “So, you’ll speak to Big Jon…and then what?”

  “I’ll let you know,” said Zach. “But until then say nothing to anyone else. Layla isn’t the only girl you might frighten to death. And not only the girls, either…”

  X

  From that moment on a small handful of changes had been guaranteed to take place in Big Jon Lamon’s security procedures; in fact they were in place for the first time that very night, but had been kept so low-profile that only the men involved would ever have noticed them. Garth and the other night-watch bosses were aware of them, of course, and every squad member had been cautioned to silence; likewise the hastily recruited—or “volunteered”—inner cordons of shift workers: three eight-man teams working four-hour shifts from eight at night till eight in the morning, within the area occupied by the convoy’s vehicles and temporary habitations as opposed to the outer perimeters. Such teams were in addition to the mobile standby squads with their motorized, often customized two-wheelers, and their tasks were specific: in the event of all alerts to rouse the standbys up, and should any attack by fly-by-nights ensue to assist in sending these armed riders off to wherever their fire-power seemed most in demand; then to occupy prearranged defensive positions of their own right there in the central area of the encampment.

  Moreover, the manpower of the night-watch squads had been doubled; from now on no man would ever be on his own out there on the perimeters but would have a partner to keep him company and learn from him through the long nights. Thus as of now, if or when there were sinister things to be seen out in the mist, there would be at least two sets of eyes to confirm such sightings. Only the three night-watch bosses—whose duty with immediate effect would be to stay alert and constantly on the move, patrolling from post to post without undue pause—would be unaccompanied, for any excessive movement or unusual activity out on the perimeters might easily set Garry Maxwell’s “sniffers”—not to mention the rest of the watchdogs—barking their heads off all night long!

  Conceived in light of Garth’s conversation with his father, then put into effect in haste but as quietly as possible, these additions to the convoy’s security measures greatly reinforced its dark-hours defences. At least, such was the mutual opinion of Big Jon Lamon and Zach Slattery. As for the majority of the travellers: they remained in ignorance of the perceived threat, if indeed any threat as such existed. For what purpose would be served in unsettling the people now, when the end of this arduous trek—one way or the other—might already be in sight?

  Something less than five hours after speaking to Zach, as darkness fell Garth was back on duty with his enhanced squad, along with Don Myers, Bert Jordan and their teams. But alert as never before, Garth was far easier in his mind now.

  Easier in his mind, yes…

  Introspection his father had called it: the analysis of the processes of one’s own mind. Safe enough and even beneficial in a sane man, but hazardous if one’s sanity was suspect, and more especially so if the mind in question wasn’t entirely one’s own but was suffering from regular attempts at infiltration by some loathsome other for its own fell purpose. That way a delicately balanced intellect might well be driven over the edge.

  Not that Garth considered himself mentally suspect, not any longer and definitely not to that degree! But if what had happened to Jack Foster—a scav from his father’s younger days who had been seduced by fly-by-nights and fallen under their influence to such an extent that he joined a swarm and used his altered or assimilated human intelligence to lead an attack on the Southern Refuge!—if telepathic powers of the same order were now cunningly at work on Garth himself…well it no longer so much alarmed as infuriated him! Not least because the source of this malicious interference, this product of hateful changeling animosity deliberately targeting the clan but aimed rather more specifically in Garth’s direction, was oh-so-well known to him.

  A hateful changeling, yes…Ned Singer, of course! Singer and his new-found undead existence.

  Garth no longer entertained any slightest doubt of it…

  To all intents and purposes the night was passing uneventfully if slowly, when in the small hours, as Garth trudged his perimeter, he arrived for the fifth or sixth time (he hadn’t deemed it necessary to keep a count) at the observation post of Eric Davis: an older man from Ned Singer’s original scav team where Garth had first known him. Having also served with Davis as an outrider, Garth liked and trusted him.

  Despite being Garth’s senior by at least three years Davis held no grudge; as Big Jon Lamon had not so long ago observed, a boss’s job was onerous, bearing a great weight of responsibility. And while Davis was no slouch, still he preferred to be led rather than to lead. Moreover he recognized Garth’s leadership potential from their time together as scavs and outriders, and he valued the younger man’s friendship.

  Stationed with Davis at a vantage point looking out over a broad, misted stream, one of Big Jon’s “volunteers”—a fresh-faced, nervously thoughtful young man called Gavin Carter, not much older than Garth himself—seemed in the flickering glow of electric torchlight for some reason to appear very pale and shivery. Having noticed this at a glance, Garth asked what was wrong; when last he’d stopped by here all had been well.

  “Oh, young Gavin will be all right,” Davis shrugged it off. “He thought he saw something out across the stream, that’s all. We were sitting on that old log there when I suddenly felt him slump against me. If you ask me I’d say he’d simply nodded off for a second, but after he bumped into me he shot awake scared for his life! That was just a moment ago, right before you got here.”

  Nodded off? It was easily done, as Garth was only too well aware! As for being scared: but wasn’t that entirely understandable, too, of a highly-strung impressionable young fellow out here in the dark and the mist? Of course it was…and yet:

  “Scared?” Garth stared hard into Carter’s eyes. “Scared of what, Gavin? What was it you think you saw? Or is it just that you knew you shouldn’t be falling asleep?”

  The other licked dry lips, shivered again and said, “First off, I didn’t nod off…at least I don’t think so. It was—oh, I don’t know—more like I had fainted or something! Except I don’t think it was that either! Maybe it was some kind of daydream: scary pictures in my head that were there and then gone; something out there, across the stream…” For a moment as Carter paused, his wide unblinking eyes turned from Garth and gazed fearfully out over the writhing mist and darkly swirling water. But then, giving himself a shake, he sheepishly added: “Anyway, I’m sorry if I’ve let anyone down and…and it’s not going to happen again.”

  Garth took his arm, gripped it and said, “It’s okay, and no harm don
e, Gavin. But you still haven’t said what you think you saw. It could be important.”

  Eric Davis, who of course knew of the changes in the watchkeeping routines, if not why they’d been made or why he must be quiet about them, frowned and said, “Important? How, important? What’s going on, Garth?”

  “Nothing special,” Garth lied, releasing Carter and turning toward his friend. “Just a theory Big Jon and my father seem to have cooked up between them. I don’t understand it myself!” And before Davis or Carter could question him further, he added: “I shouldn’t worry too much about it…” And then, to Carter: “But Gavin—if you should have any more of these faints—well, I suppose you can always tell me about them later, okay?”

  “I’m truly sorry, Garth,” Carter answered him. “But anyway, like I said, it won’t happen again. I’ll stay sharp, and that’s a promise.”

  “That’s okay then,” said Garth, slowly nodding his forbearance (while in fact itching to know more) but reluctant to pursue the matter in the presence of the inquisitive Davis. Beside which, and as he had suggested, he could always speak to Carter later; if not tonight, perhaps tomorrow. And anyway it was time he was moving on from here.

  Thus, deep in thought as he went—but with all five of his senses tinglingly aware of the night and in tune with the darkness as never before—Garth got on with his patrol…

  Except for the sure knowledge that fly-by-nights were out there in some force in the dark beyond the perimeters, knowledge that was common to the other squad bosses and almost every experienced watchkeeper except perhaps the dullest and least sensitive, the rest of Garth’s duty hours that night stayed mainly free of troubling occurrences.

  The only exception came toward morning, something less than an hour before first light, when a weary Garth visited the most northerly junction of perimeters and met up with the phlegmatic Don Myers who had arrived at the same sentry point while patrolling his own adjoining stretch of the perimeter. On this occasion, however, the normally dour Myers seemed much more disposed toward conversation, and after Garth had spoken to his men the older squad boss took his elbow and drew him aside.

  “Garth,” he said then without preamble, “how about it, eh? I mean…what do you think?”

  “What do I think?” Garth was mystified. “About what?”

  “Why, about what’s going on here, of course!” Myers rasped. “Or rather—” and he flicked an urgent, suspicious glance into the unknown night, “—what’s going on out there!”

  “Out there?” Garth repeated him listlessly. “What, you mean the movement?” He spoke inadvertently, without thinking what he was saying, and only then considered his words.

  But the other had immediately tightened his grip on Garth’s elbow. “Ah!” he said. “So you have felt it, eh?” And he glanced this way and that, and once again into the swirling mist beyond the perimeter before continuing: “Yes, the movement! Damn right that’s what I mean! They’re on the move, these bloody things!”

  And finally it struck home: that insidious, flowing motion that Garth had been sensing all along, without that it had registered as anything especially sinister. A thing of the mind—a mental thing, more often sensed than visible—yet stemming from a physical source. Oh, sinister enough, certainly, as anything remotely connected with fly-by-nights always was; but at the same time cloaked in this disarmingly dreamy inertia, this hypnotic effect, with which Garth, the other watchkeepers, and perhaps even a majority of the clan as a whole had become so—but so what?—so familiar, that it had indeed bred contempt in them…or if not contempt, then at least some kind of acceptance or leaning towards the inevitable!

  Donald Myers was nodding his head knowingly. “Oh yes, I can see that you’ve definitely felt it! And so have I, often—and mainly ignored it, at least until tonight—until it changed!”

  “A movement, yes,” said Garth thoughtfully. “But haven’t we known about it, been aware of it, for quite some time now—at least a week or more? Haven’t we spoken of it at some length to Big Jon Lamon and the other elders? Isn’t it common knowledge?” Now he felt as though he was arguing with himself!

  “Yes, yes!” Myers answered, impatiently. “But that was when the bloody things were only watching us, keeping up with us and doing bugger all else! I reckoned maybe it was because there weren’t enough of them to mount an attack, but—”

  “Not recently!” said Garth, cutting him short. “I’ve sensed that there are plenty of them, far too many, in my opinion! And getting stronger, gathering reinforcements as they follow us—though of course I could easily be wrong, because even one fly-by-night is too many in my opinion!” (Indeed, and in particular the one who was there even now in the darkest inner recesses of his mind!) “And anyway, being few in number—even when they’re down to a handful—never stopped them before! But Don, what’s this you say about a change? What’s happened tonight that’s got you so excited?”

  “Excited, me?” Myers looked taken aback. He’d never considered himself excitable in any way, and didn’t much like it that others might. “No, not so much excited as feeling that I’m only just waking up! As to what I’m waking up to…” He paused for a moment to consider the best way to explain himself, then said:

  “It was one of my new lads, a Big Jon Lamon ‘volunteer’ on his first night’s duty and maybe a bit more timid than most. An hour or so ago I visited him and his partner, one of my regular guys. I found them snapping at each other, as nervous and jumpy as Southern Refuge mice when cats were on the prowl.”

  Nervous, and jumpy! Garth’s thoughts flew back two hours to his visit with Davis and Carter—but more especially Carter—and suddenly he was wide awake. “So, they had some kind of problem,” he said. “But what was it?”

  “Not just them but me too, now!” Myers replied, and went on: “It was the young kid. He swore that he’d seen something out in the night and was arguing with Tom Griffin—the older guy, who I’ve known for years to be steady as a rock—that they should be sounding the alarm! But old Griff, with a load of experience back of him, was having none of that because he’d seen nothing. And there and then as I tried to reason with them: ‘Look!’ says the new kid. And we looked…”

  Garth felt a shiver run down his spine. “And you saw…?”

  “Movement!” said the other. “Out there where the mist broke on the far edge of darkness, they were on the move!”

  “Fly-by-nights!” Garth barely breathed the words, and Myers nodded.

  “It had to be,” he said. “And yet even now I can’t be sure! Even though—or perhaps because—I not only saw it but felt it, as if it was in my head! That forward-flowing motion; those gliding, spectral figures; that drift of tattered shapes, leaning into the night, hardly looking at us at all—but when they did with burning eyes, like so many fireflies at that distance, and quickly blinking out—and moving as if driven by the mist, or as if they were a part of it or even riding it! For a moment they were there, and then…there was just the swirling where they’d been, and they were gone!”

  “But where to?” Garth’s mouth was dry as a stick. “In which direction?” And before the other could reply: “North!” he answered his own question, and with certainty. “And yes, now you’ve woken me up, too. For Donald, I’m sure that you have seen them, and felt them: the fly-by-nights! No longer satisfied to remain parallel with the convoy, they’re moving on, going north—and getting there before us!”

  With which Garth also realized there was no longer any need to speak to Gavin Carter. He already knew what Carter had seen, and pretty much what he would tell him…

  As the new dawn broke, however, and the sun lifted free of the horizon into a blinding blue sky, there were people whom Garth must speak to. And so, having stood his squad down, he at once sought out his father and the clan’s leader.

  Accompanied by Donald Myers, he found Zach and Big Jon engaged in apparently gloomy conversation at the latter’s rauper. There, when the elders saw the squad bosses
approaching—their serious expressions and grave manner—they broke off talking and instead prepared to listen.

  In deference to Myers’ seniority, Garth held his tongue and let him tell the story of the night’s occurrences, then corroborated it word for word. But as he was finishing he gave Zach a look whose meaning the other clearly understood: that there was more to be told, perhaps best in private, at least for the time being.

  “So,” said the leader when Garth had finished speaking, “It appears they’re moving ahead of us and getting stronger as they go. Huh! As if we needed more bad news! When I saw you two corming I had dared hope you weren’t bringing me problems, for I’ve enough of my own. And anyway let’s face it, the fact that a body of fly-by-nights is heading north isn’t proof that they’re especially interested in us. I mean, they haven’t attacked us yet, have they? And who can say why they’re on the move, or why they do anything for that matter? Enough, for I have other things on my mind! Off you go to your rest—and thanks for nothing very much!”

  But then, as if he suddenly realized there was little else they could have done but make their discovery known to him, Big Jon added: “Wait! There’s an immemorial saying: ‘don’t kill the messenger.’ Or in this case, don’t be so ungrateful to him! For it’s far better to know what’s in the wind than to get blown arse over tit by it when it turns into a storm! So, despite the somewhat dubious nature of your report, still I must thank you for bringing it to my attention. Now go and get some sleep.”

  At which Zach said, “Garth, stay if you will. I’d very much like a few words with you. And turning to Myers, who was looking a bit puzzled, still taken aback by the leader’s response: “It’s personal, Don: father and son stuff, you know?”