Stranger

by Simon Clark

  Anyway, after taking a strip of skin from my knuckles as I tried to loosen the wheel nut rusted to damnation, I decided to take a lungful of fresh air. The late afternoon sun slanted down across the wood. Again it was silent except for the call of a lone bird in a tree. Despite the demon wheel nut, I’d put some good work into the Jeep. I’d cleaned the plugs, filters, topped up the oil from a sealed can I’d found in the garage. Once I’d replaced one badly worn tire with the spare all I’d need would be the gasoline. Then I saw myself roaring along those country roads in the rugged little Jeep, the breeze blasting through my hair. Sounded good.

  After shouting “Twat” at the corroded nut a good half dozen times I was ready for a break anyway. There’d be little chance of Michaela, Ben or any of the others turning up now. They’d called by early morning to say that they were out on a gas search that would take all day. Of course, I offered to go along and help. They thanked me but passed on my offer. Some in the group were still uneasy about me. But then, witnessing the goatee guy having his head exploded by buckshot must still be as fresh in their minds as his mess of brains sticking to the fence.

  I circled the barn two or three times like a restless dog. In my mind’s eye I found myself picturing Michaela’s face. She hadn’t spoken about relationships, but had she formed an attachment to . . . attachment? No, this was a visceral world now. Had she mated with Zak or Tony? Yeah, mated; that’s the word. I counted skulls in the swimming pool. Got bored by the time I reached eighteen . . . and I’d seen the telltale holes in the tops of the skulls where fractures radiated in a sun-burst affect—that was a sure sign that hornets had rounded up everyone in the neighborhood, then killed them with a blow to the head. I guess a pathologist would describe the injury that killed those poor bastards as a “grievous insult to the brain.” In other words the hammer blow would crunch right through the skull to rip the victim’s brain like wet toilet tissue. Then they’d been dropped into the swimming pool to rot.

  So, to stop picturing those scenes of mass murder . . . complete with the screaming, the shitting of pants, the begging, the tears, the blood (see what I mean? It’s insidious, isn’t it?). To stop those mind movies I collected my rifle before heading off into the forest. And, perhaps, I even needed to get Michaela with those beautiful dark eyes out of my mind, too, for a while. Because right then I didn’t want her mated to anyone. The truth was, old Greg Valdiva experienced a tingling stir of interest.

  For God’s sake stick to the path, Valdiva, I told myself. If you wander off it you’ll never find your way back. You’ll be lost our here until hell gets ice.

  The moment I stepped into the shade of the trees it was like stepping into a cathedral. One of those big old Gothic ones, where even on a summer’s afternoon it’s cool inside. And here, too, the fat columns of tree trunks rose up into a gloom-filled roof.

  The path in front of me might have been made by ramblers. Then again, it might have been a million years old and formed by long-extinct animals with evil pig eyes and tusks that could rip you right through to the backbone. I walked deeper into the wood, the rhythm of my footsteps somehow matching the rhythm of my heart. Joining that was the rhythmic shush . . . shush . . . shush sound as a breath of wind whispered through the leaves.

  Underfoot, there wasn’t much grass to speak off. Long fallen leaves, dead branches and moss formed a velvet shroud the same color as that dark, moist green that creeps over the faces of corpses within a month of burial. Grave moss. That’s what it looked like. Cool green grave moss.

  That sensation took over again. Walk deeper, Valdiva. Keep walking. Lose yourself in this place. Lose yourself forever. . . .

  Leaves whispered all around me. . . .

  Those snakes are slipping out of the grave moss, buddy. They’re following you. They’re licking your heels with forked tongues. I moved steadily on. Crazy as it sounds a promise of oblivion haunted this place. I wanted that cool, moist air of the forest to embrace me. To pull me in deeper. I smelled damp moss, decaying leaves, the rich scents of a million years of dead timber that formed the earth beneath my feet.

  This is good, Valdiva. You can dissolve in here. You can forget about your mother and your sister lying beneath the stone tomb. You can forget that the world has toppled and broken into a million pieces. You can forget that thing in your blood that makes you kill infected men and women. You can forget, you can forget, you can forget . . .

  The rhythm of words padding through my head merged with my footstep; they merged with the beat of my dark and bloody heart, my respiration and the hissshissss of leaves. In a trance I walked. The columns of trees appeared as a dense wall in front of me. I began to feel like a microbe passing through the skin of a beast into its muscles and nerves.

  I lost track of time as I walked. It might have been blistering sunlight above the tree canopy; then again, it might have been dusk. I couldn’t tell down in that cool, unchanging gloom. Here, the air was still, with the odor of mushroom stirred richly into it. A dead bird that had been picked by ants down to bones and feathers lay on the path in front of me. I stepped over it, moved on, walking deeper into the forest.

  Once, the path took me by a woodland pond. Round and deep, it looked like a bomb crater filled with water. That water was green as moss, too.

  As I passed through the filter of trees my mind roved ahead, instinctively searching for any danger hiding out there. A gang of hornets maybe. Lurking behind trees, watching Greg Valdiva walk by. Easy meat, they’d think to themselves. We can crack his head like an egg, then watch him as he lies on the ground kicking and puking as his brains run out through the hole in his skull.

  A sound came from my right. A sort of crunching sound like a foot pressing down on a long-dead branch with the heartwood rotted right out of it. The leaves hissed their warnings. Bad things in this place, Valdiva. Only no one knows what they are. No one ever sees them. Until it’s too late.

  Wolves might still roam out here. There’d be bears as well. Grizzlies with bristling fur, savage eyes. With a jaw full of teeth that can bite you clean through. There’ll be snakes bloated with venom. Maybe there are other things, too. A million years ago beasts without names hunted here. Things that were part pig, part bear, maybe even part demon. They had cloven hooves, thick haunches, pelts of shaggy, rust-colored hair. Heads that were as big as a bull’s with teeth like knives.

  Who’s to say that they’re extinct? That snuffling sound now coming way off to your left might be one. Its wet snout might be picking up the smell of your skin.

  This time I did pause to slide the rifle from my shoulder. With the faintest of clicks I eased the bolt back. When I walked again I kept the rifle ready in my two hands. I scanned the forest, searching for a pair of eyes burning at me from the gloom. I didn’t get the Twitch now, but I sensed something out there watching me.

  When I looked down at my feet a jolt like an electric shock ran from my balls to my throat. Goddammit. I’d left the path and never even noticed. I looked back into the wood, searching for that dark band of earth that feet, or paws, or cloven hooves had pressed into a hard track over the last million years or so. But nothing. Nothing but grave moss in a dull green blanket.

  Shit, that’s your wake up call, Valdiva. You’ve gone and done it now. You’re lost. You’ve gone and lost yourself in the fucking dark wood.

  I took a deep breath. OK, keep moving. You’ll pick up the path again. Hell, you might walk another ten minutes and find the end of the forest with a highway and a town complete with fast-food joints and supermarkets. But then again, another voice whispered, dark and low in the back of my brain: You might find that the forest never ends; that it gets darker and denser and more tangled, and you end your life crawling on your belly, dying of hunger.

  Gripping the rifle, I walked forward, determined to find a path. Only as I walked I found the trees in front of me were disappearing into shadow. The moss on the ground looked black as a lake at midnight. “It’s getting dark, you idiot,” I
hissed. “You’ve been walking so long you haven’t realized how late it is. Now the sun’s gone. It’s dark. And you’ve lost yourself in a goddam forest.”

  Keep moving, keep moving . . . I repeated this as I walked. But, hell, it got so it was like walking through a cave deep underground. I could barely see individual trees now. A mist filtered through the wood to glide around me. Maybe these were the old ghosts of the forest coming to claim me. Darkness oozed up out of the ground. In a few minutes I’d be as good as blind. Then all I could do was lie down on the ground to wait until morning.

  But hell . . . to spend a night here curled up on cold earth. Not being able to see what might be an arm’s length from me. That reptile hiss started as the leaves moved in the night air. How long would I lay there in the grave moss before I felt something reach out to touch me in the dark? A snake slipping up over my stomach? A wet mouth closing over my face? A cold hand clasping mine? The point of a knife penetrating my eye?

  Those mental images of being touched in the darkness kept me walking fast. Although now I had to walk with one hand in front of me. In the gloom tree trunks appeared as suddenly as phantoms bursting out of the shadows.

  Five minutes, ten minutes, I hurried through the wood with the weight of all that darkness and gravelike silence pressing into the back of my neck like a corpse’s hand.

  Then the forest ended. As simple as that.

  Once there were trees encircling me like a cage; now there were no trees. I stood blinking, looking into a clearing. Above me, I saw sky. Still blue, yet tinged with red; I realized the sun had just begun to set. Straight-away the air felt warmer. Flying insects moved in that slow, rotating dance of theirs.

  In front of me stood a large house with a smaller building alongside it. The roofs were covered with dark shingles and the walls had been clad with boards that had been painted white. A road ran neatly up to the front door. The lawn was tidy. It gave the appearance of a rich person’s house that had been left untouched by the madness that had erupted in the outside world.

  Only there was something unusual about the place.

  I looked at the lawn again.

  Then I said to myself: “Who’s been cutting the grass?”

  My eyes returned to the house for a second, closer look. This time I saw what it really was. And I remember whispering to myself with a whole lungful of air, “Jesus Christ.”

  Thirty-one

  “Quick,” Michaela shouted as she stopped the bike outside the garage door. “Grab your things and jump on; we‗re moving out.”

  “Whoa, just a minute,” I said holding up my hand. “There’s something in the woods across there that’s worth taking a look at first.”

  “We’re short of time, Greg. Zak saw some hornets three miles from our place. They’re heading our way.”

  “Trust me, Michaela. This is worth seeing.”

  “Maybe. But we don’t have time. Just grab your stuff and climb on.”

  “Hell, no,” I said. “You’ve got to see this. This might be the most important find of the year.”

  Michaela sat astride the Harley revving the motor so it surged in throaty barks. She seemed in no mood to wait for me to tell her about my walk in the woods, or what I’d found. Or that I finally got back to Maison Valdiva at two in the morning by moonlight. Christ, I was bursting to tell her about my amazing find. I’d pictured her look of amazement, even admiration, as I told her. But no. She was shaking her head, talking about getting out of the area as fast as we could. Some-thing like a dirt devil came roaring up the road. It turned out to be Ben on a dirt bike and Zak on the big Harley. His hat swirled behind him by the strap in the slipstream.

  “What’s the holdup?” Zak called. His bald head gleamed like a steel ball in the morning sunlight. “There’s around a thousand hornets back there.”

  Michaela looked back. “I’m trying to get Greg moving, but he doesn’t want to leave.”

  “Christ, Greg.” Ben sounded shocked. “You should see the bad guys in the valley. There’s a whole army of them.”

  I began, “Ben, you’re not going to believe what—”

  “Hurry up, man. They’re going to tear us apart if we don’t move out now.”

  Zak said, “I don’t want to do it, Greg, but we’ll leave you here if you don’t come now.”

  “Wait!” I felt anger flush through me. “Wait thirty seconds while I tell you this.”

  “And that thirty seconds could cost us our lives.” Ben looked scared. “Come on, Greg, don’t piss us off.”

  “Jesus. I’m trying to tell you about something that might save our necks.” I glared at them. “Look . . . how far away from here is the place you’re staying? Five miles? Six miles?”

  “About that.”

  “Then bring everyone here,” I told them. “If the hornets move this way it will take hours for them to get here.”

  Michaela suddenly appeared to take what I’d said seriously. “Just what have you found in there?” She nodded at the forest.

  “To be honest I’m not exactly sure. But I’ve got a feeling it might be—”

  “Oh, you schmuck, Valdiva.” Zak slapped his forehead. “Why’re you wasting our time with this?”

  Michaela flashed Zak a shut-up look. “Give him a chance to explain, Zak.”

  “We don’t have time for explanations.”

  “OK,” I said, “It’ll be quicker to show you.” I slung the rifle over my shoulder. “Michaela, slip back onto the pillion.”

  “Greg.” She sounded reluctant. “We really don’t have time.”

  Zak folded his arms. “And I’m not going on wild-goose chases.”

  “Neither am I.” Ben could hardly keep his hands still. They fluttered like edgy doves on the handlebars of the dirt bike. “We don’t stand a chance if the hornets catch us.”

  “Then don’t let them catch you.” My patience had all but burned dry. “Listen. You’ve got to bring everyone along this road anyway, otherwise you’ll run slap into the arms of the hornets, right?”

  Michaela nodded.

  “So go back to the gas station and bring them up here.” I shrugged. “One, you don’t lose any time moving people out. Two, Michaela and I will be back by then.”

  “OK, OK.” Michaela gave in. “If Greg says it’s so important it’s worth checking out.”

  Zak grumbled, “Sounds like a waste of time to me, but what the hell do I know?” He took a deep breath. “OK. I’ll go back and bring the others here. We can do it in one trip anyway; we found a truck yesterday that’s still in running order.” Opening the throttle, he swung the rear wheel around in a blur of dust. “We’ll be here in under an hour.” He shot Michaela a significant look. “I’ll wait here. But if those hornets arrive we move on without you. OK?”

  “OK.” As Michaela nodded she slid back onto the pillion, allowing me to climb onto the seat. I felt her hand slide ’round my waist to hold on. The palm of her hand felt warm through my shirt.

  Ben’s expression had changed now that I seemed to have resolved the immediate problem. “Greg,” he called over the clatter of Zak’s Harley as the man roared away, “just what have you found in the woods that’s so interesting?”

  “Why don’t you come along and see for yourself?”

  “You’re on.” He shot me a grin. “But only because you’ve made such a damn mystery of it.”

  What had taken a couple of hours on foot in the dark took just minutes on the bikes in broad daylight. The night before, after grabbing a closer look at the house and that neatly trimmed lawn that just couldn’t . . . or shouldn’t exist . . . in this ruined country of ours, I’d followed a road as it wove through the wood away from the house. Hell, it got dark. A darkness that you could carve with a knife. But I stuck to the blacktop. Eventually the road connected with a highway that I’d recognized from a walk earlier that day. Well, I recognized the burned-out school bus at the junction anyway, with a skull embedded in the melted windshield. After that it was a strai
ghtforward enough walk back to the garage I called home.

  Now I rode down the center of the road with Michaela holding on to me, her long hair blowing out, all fluttering black like raven’s feathers. Ben rode just a little behind, shooting anxious glances into the forest. Maybe he sensed something sinister in there, too.

  Barely ten minutes after leaving the garage I pulled up at the entry to what I’d first taken to be a house.

  Ben stopped alongside me. He shook his head at the trimmed lawn. “My God, will you look at that,” he said. “Who the hell’s cutting the grass out here?”

  “Wow,” Michaela said in something close to awe.

  “Now that’s what I call gold medal standard gardening.”

  “Take a closer look. It’s not what it seems.” I nodded at the brilliant green lawn. “It’s synthetic. Probably astro turf.”

  Michaela looked at the neat collection of white painted buildings. “So that’s no ordinary house?”

  “Got it in one. Hold on.” I opened the throttle to take the bike skimming through the gates onto the driveway. Seconds later I stopped outside the front door. “See?” I said. “It’s all as phony as the grass. The windows aren’t real. They’re painted onto the walls. Even the door’s painted.”

  “Jeez!” Ben looked incredulous. “It looks like a movie set.”

  Michaela spoke. “Not a movie set. Look . . . solid con-crete.

  “You got the Cold War to thank for that little beauty,” I told them, switching off the motor. “That and a multibillion-dollar defense budget.”

  Michaela slipped off the bike to stand there gazing up at the imposing face of the fake house. “It’s a nuclear bunker, isn’t it?”

  “A grade-A pedigree one at that,” Ben said. He climbed off the bike to walk quickly to it, where he ran his hands fluttering over the painted door. “Heck. They’ve even painted the handle in gold paint.” With a sudden playful grin he rapped on the make-believe door. “Knock, knock, anybody home?”