Portent

by James Herbert

  Opposite and facing them were two of Mama's zombies, their eyes lowered but not quite closed, as if they, too, were lost in prayer.

  Crazy. Fuckin' crazy.

  Drivin' to th'airport at this godforsaken hour, skippin' town-skippiri the fuckin' country!-when the cops were this suspicious! But on a return ticket, that was the craziest thing!

  A body had been found out in the swamps (Mama's goons had forgotten the swamplands were mostly dried up nowadays and had dumped the corpse-or what was left of it-where the'gators no longer belly-walked) and word had reached him from impeccable and well-rewarded sources that Mama Pitie was in for some severe questioning. Seemed like the dead guy had been last seen in the company of one of her disciples, a loose enough connection, sure enough, but not when linked with the girl who'd gone missing weeks ago.

  We shoulda stayed cool, Shadebank told himself, and hung around until the dumb cops got tired of askin' the same dumb questions. This way it looked like we was runnin' out.

  Not that he, himself, had intended to remain at the Temple for very much longer anyway. In fact Shadebank had decided only last night that it was definitely time to move on. Things're gettin' too dam' hot, he'd told himself not for the first time over the last day or two. No packed suitcases, justa quick dip inta the safe, then long-gone. Sweet. You might say he was now an old hand at the game.

  But the bitch had spoiled his plan. It was still dark outside when she'd phoned him at the run-down hotel where he rented cheap rooms and told him to reserve four seats on the next plane out of New Orleans. 'Anywhere partic'lar?' he'd enquired testily down the phone, not quite sure if she was kidding him or not. 'England,' she'd said, her voice suddenly quiet and breathy.

  England! What the fuck was there for them in England? And why the hell did she want him to go with her? The last question he already had an answer to. Shadebank was an 'educated niggah'; he knew about flying and foreign countries and things. Mama Pitie, for all her wiles and ways, was not experienced in such things. Truth was, she was plain dumb in such matters. That's why she'd taken him in the first place. She was aware of her own limitations, and she knew he could be useful. He tugged at his cufflink and wished her freakish heart would collapse under the strain of keeping her big body functioning before they reached the airport.

  23

  The first thing that Diane noticed about Rivers was that he was no longer limping. She had reached the hotel's lobby when he came striding through the entrance, his footsteps hurried and an urgency in his expression that stopped her in her tracks.

  He saw Diane immediately and made his way towards her, skirting round a middle-aged couple in walking boots and carrying canvas backpacks who were leaving the reception desk. He raised a hand towards her as he approached.

  Relief followed by anger swept through her.

  'Where…?' she began to say, lips tight, eyes blazing, but instead of finishing the sentence she stepped forward into his arms. 'We've been so worried,' was all she managed.

  His fingers ran through her hair at the back of her neck and he drew her close against his chest. 'We've got to ring the airport and make reservations,' he said, his voice breathless and tense. 'We've got to get back as quickly as possible.'

  She lifted her head away from him. 'There are no late-night flights-I checked when I booked tickets for the journey up. But why, Jim? What's this all about?'

  'D'you know the first morning flight?'

  She shook her head. 'Why the rush?'

  'We have to get back to Eva.'

  Still shaking her head, Diane smiled up at him. 'She's all right, Jim. She's awake now. Poggsy says…'

  'Yeah I know. But we've got to get to her before it's too late.' Diane drew away completely. 'How could you know?'

  'The old man told me she was fine.'

  'The Dream Man? You saw him?'

  'I've been with him all day. It was me all the time, Diane, not Josh. I was the one the old man needed to see.' He took her by the arm and led her out of the lobby into the corridor.

  'You're not limping any more,' she said through her confusion. He smiled grimly and she saw his weariness, an exhaustion that was mingled with something else. Anxiety? Yes, it was certainly that, but there was more to it. She realized it was a guarded kind of elation that shone from his eyes.

  'He's a healer,' Rivers said to her without slowing his step. 'Like Josh and Eva. Like thousands of children of their generation.' Now he stopped to look directly at her and for the moment any elation she might have imagined in his gaze was replaced by another emotion. His words echoed the sadness therein. 'They're our only hope, Diane. Without the children we're lost. The whole bloody world is lost.'

  He walked on and Diane hurried after him.

  24

  Diane examined the sky as she held open the rear car door for Josh to scramble in. The clouds, so dark and brooding, concealed the early morning sun and shadowed the very air itself.

  Everything was still.

  There was no birdsong.

  And no breeze.

  The long road was deserted.

  And even the houses seemed devoid of life.

  It wasn't cold, yet Diane shivered. She looked across the car's rooftop at Rivers, wondering if he, too, sensed the unearthly mood. The look he returned assured her that he did.

  'Ready?' he asked her.

  She nodded and climbed into the passenger seat. She touched his arm when he joined her in the car. 'Can it be true?' she said.

  'We'll know soon enough,' he replied, reaching for his seat-belt.

  'I'd like to see for myself.' It was more of a request than a demand.

  Rivers was firm. 'No. He insisted that we had to get away from here.'

  'To protect Eva?'

  'Not only that.' He switched on the ignition before turning to Diane. 'We have to trust him.'

  'You don't feel any different this morning? You still believe in him?'

  'Did you think I wouldn't?'

  'Cold light of day and all that…'

  The car rolled forward from the hotel's parking bay into the road and swiftly began to pick up speed as it headed towards Fort William. Because of the morning's greyness, Rivers switched on the headlights.

  'Did you manage to sleep last night?' Diane asked because her own sleep had been so fitful.

  'Like a baby, even though it wasn't for long. I guess I was too exhausted to think any more.' He didn't bother to add that it was the first time in months that pain had not disturbed him. 'And I woke this morning without a doubt in my mind. Don't ask me how or why, but I knew everything he told me was true. Incredible, fantastic-unbelievable-as it is, I know it's right. Even if I hadn't been convinced by his words the lights I saw over the loch showed me something extraordinary was happening.'

  'But what can we do, Jim?'

  'Not much. It's already too late to change anything.'

  Josh, who had been strangely quiet since Diane had roused him that morning, spoke up from the back. 'Are we going home because of Eva?'

  'Yes, Josh,' Rivers answered.

  'Is something bad going to happen to her?'

  Rivers hesitated. 'I'm not sure, Josh.' Leave this place and protect the children, the old man had told him. Keep the innocents from the harm that seeks them. There had been no explanation, no reason given, just an insistence that Rivers return to Hazelrod without delay.

  'You heard me speak to Nanny Bibby before we left our room,' said Diane, leaning over to touch her son's hand. 'They're collecting Eva from the hospital this morning if the doctors say it's okay, so you see, there's nothing to worry about.'

  The ominous bulk of Ben Nevis loomed up on their left, its Delphian presence even more forbidding in the grim light. Today the mountain seemed more sinister than majestic, more threatening than impressive.

  'It might have been better if Eva had stayed in the hospital,' Rivers said quietly to Diane.

  'They don't keep anyone in longer than necessary, you know that. They feel she can
just as easily be watched at home as in hospital.' She had the uncanny feeling that the mountain was observing them and she tore her gaze away, chiding herself for such foolishness. Rivers' disclosures last night-true or false-had spooked her. 'Jim,' she said, 'I'm not sure about any of this.'

  Despite his own deep disquiet, Rivers couldn't help but smile. 'There's a turnaround,' he said. 'I thought I was the cynic.'

  'It isn't easy, can't you see that?'

  'Oh sure, I can see it, and I don't blame you at all.'

  'This is just so extraordinary. You're asking me to… to…'

  'Have faith? Right, that's what I'm asking. But it makes no difference what you or I or anybody thinks: the process started a long time ago and nothing's going to change it now. It's too late, we've all been too bloody stupid.'

  They had reached the town of Fort William and as they drove through Diane watched the houses and hotels, imagining the people inside, perhaps just waking or having breakfast, many no doubt still sleeping, all of them unaware of what was happening to the world around them, complacent, irresponsible, even negligent in their ignorance. And totally unaware of what was going to come.

  'God help us,' she said softly, and Rivers wondered if He would bother.

  They were a few miles past Crianlarich when Rivers brought the car to a juddering stop.

  Diane, whose eyes had been closed, a hand resting across her brow, her elbow on the sill, jerked forward with a start. Josh, who had been so quiet throughout the journey they thought he was asleep, shot forward too, only the seat-belt preventing him from banging his head against the back of Diane's seat.

  All three stared through the windscreen at the road ahead.

  Diane blinked, then screwed up her eyes, unsure of what she was seeing at first. The highway cut through moorland and valleys whose slopes led to mist-laden mountains. Silvery flows fell from the craggy steeps, becoming rushing, rock-filled streams, burns, on the lower stretches. Trees were sparse here but vegetation, although browned and dried by the season's sun, was abundant. It was from these grasses, shrubbery, and gorse that the small animals poured, making their way across the roadway in their hundreds it seemed; mostly it was rabbits and hares, but among them ran smaller creatures, voles and field mice, and the occasional fox and deer. They teemed over the highway in a mad dash for other territory.

  'What are they running from?' Diane said in dismay.

  'It's started,' was Rivers' reply.

  Diane tore her gaze from the fleeing animals. 'What's started? What do you mean?'

  'The old man said there'd be panic among man and beast. The animals are frightened of something we're not aware of yet, something we can't see.' He began to move the car forward, quickly reaching the edge of the flow.

  'Jim, you can't.' She grabbed his shoulder.

  'We can't miss that plane, Diane. We've got to get through.' He thumped the car's horn and the nearest animals veered away, but nevertheless carried on their charge across the road. The vehicle bumped over something and Diane shuddered, imagining the tiny crushed bones beneath the wheels. Rivers continued to press the horn as he eased the car steadily through the stream of furry bodies. A fox startled them as it appeared against the windscreen and scrambled across the bonnet without even glancing in their direction. It leapt from view and they listened to the thumps against metal and frequent squeals as other animals dashed themselves against the bodywork on Rivers' side. He remained resolute, closing his mind to the sounds and the bumps, keeping progress steady, resisting the urge to accelerate, to get it over with, to get beyond this tide of suicidal creatures as quickly as possible.

  He braked only when two red deer bounded in front of them, and advanced again immediately they were clear. Josh curled up in the back seat, hands over his ears so that he wouldn't hear the tiny screeches, while Diane closed her eyes and bit into her lower lip as the car slowly eased forward. Rivers took advantage of clear patches here and there, speeding up then slowing to snail's pace when more animals blocked the way.

  It was a protracted and distressing journey, but eventually they were through. Anxious to make up time and relieved to be free of the relentless drove of fleeing beasts, Rivers stepped on the accelerator and quickly gained speed. Diane looked back through the rear window, upset by what Rivers had done and curious to know why the animals were so frightened. She scanned the land behind them, but there was nothing evident that could cause such panic. She faced the front again and concentrated on the road ahead.

  Last night when she had finally returned to her own room, leaving the exhausted Rivers to sleep, she had been both terrified and bewildered by his revelations. Even though it was very late, she had phoned Hugo and warned him to keep a watchful eye on Eva when she came home from hospital. She told him that she, Josh and Rivers would come back the next day and then they would explain everything that had happened. Naturally Hugo had plied her with questions, but Diane had been too confused-as well as wearied herself-and had bade him wait for their return. Now there were so many more questions that she, herself, needed to ask, for there had been too much to take in before, the concept too immerse to be absorbed at once.

  She checked on Josh, reluctant to ask Rivers questions in front of her son. Josh was still awake, knees curled up, his shoulders hunched; his head rested against the back of the seat, and he was staring at nothing in particular. Occasionally his eyes would blink, but otherwise he was still, almost lifeless.

  Diane shifted her attention to Rivers. His profile was grim and the weariness was still there in his eyes. He was unshaven and the dark stubble emphasized a gauntness in his cheeks she hadn't noticed before. She was glad she'd insisted he ate something the night before, for there had been no time for breakfast that morning. Her fingers touched his face, tentatively, for she was a little afraid of him now. His own hand reached for hers and squeezed it.

  'Will everything be all right?' She spoke in a quiet voice, hoping Josh was too preoccupied to catch its tremor.

  'It's got to be,' he said simply, and she took her hand away, wondering if the power he had spoken of last night could possibly exist. Could he have dreamt his encounter with the old man who lived in a crofter's cottage by the side of a loch? Or had it been a weird hallucination brought on by all kinds of pressure? Was he still traumatized by the plane crash and the pain he'd suffered since? Pain, she reminded herself, that had abruptly, miraculously, gone? Yes, the twins were healers of a kind, but just how much of that healing process was due to the power of the sufferer's own mind? Then there was the constant strain of his work, the ever-increasing demand on him to come up with answers or predictions for a world climate that had become bizarre and out of control. Add to that the grief he must have suffered over the lover he had lost through an illness that had at one time been considered to have virtually died out, but which had risen again, like other such tropical diseases, to epidemic proportions because of the radical change in the planet's environment. (It was ironic that this bygone disease should return so lethally while cures or near-cures had been found for relatively new ones like AIDS and cancer.) Was it possible for anyone to carry such burdens over such a lengthy period without it affecting them in some way? And then, of course, she and Hugo had added to his problems.

  Diane immediately became angry with herself over this last thought. Angry and guilty. She studied him again and he became aware of her scrutiny. He turned to her, curious.

  'Jim…' she began to say, then hesitated. She shook her head and said, 'I'm sorry, there's just so much

  'To take in? Yeah, I know. You could say it's overwhelming.' Now he grinned and in that moment she recognized the strength deep within him that had pulled him through these past ordeals. No, there was nothing wrong with the balance of his mind, despite what he had been through. She believed the story of his meeting with the old man-Josh and Eva's Dream Man-even though he had not allowed her to see him. But what had come from their discussions was a whole lot harder to swallow.

  And
yet… and yet it was only two steps further on from Lovelock's hypothesis that planet Earth was a living, self-sustaining organism, and one step further on from Hugo's theory that their world was simply a huge interstellar life-support system created specifically for the human race. The Dream Man's premise was considerably more profound than either of the first two, but was it any less believable? The answer was possibly no, it wasn't. But did it matter now? According to the Dream Man only a special few would take part in the changes the world was about to endure. In their hands-no, in their minds-lay the destiny of mankind and the planet it dwelled upon. The signs were there to warn us, as they had been for many decades; now they were transformed into tiny psychic markers, portents, precise but enigmatic indicators of environmental disruptions. The early warnings-the warming of the Earth's atmosphere, the holes in the ozone layer, pollution's massive annihilation of sea creatures-these and others had been ignored until it was too late; now the warnings were of a more inscrutable, perhaps even mystical nature, and were precursors of immutable perils rather than distress beacons of things that might be altered. Diane silently began to pray.

  Very soon they had reached the northern tip of Loch Lomond, the twenty-four-mile-long lake whose narrow end cut deep into the Highland mountains. They drove along its shore and on this return journey Diane took little note of the spectacular scenery, the mountain ranges and the lush mixed woods that climbed steeply up the flanks of Ben Lomond from the water's edge. Further south the loch broadened to accommodate a scattering of wooded islands in its calm, slate-grey waters, and more gentle slopes led up from its distant, wide southern shore. They were passing through the point where the Highlands of Scotland met the Lowlands.

  At first Diane thought there was something wrong with the car's suspension, for the vibration initially came from below their seats; it felt as if they were travelling over a thinly spaced cattle-grid, or a surface full of tiny bumps. But then the bodywork itself was oscillating and Rivers' hands were visibly shaking on the tightly gripped steering wheel.