Portent

by James Herbert

  The blackened sky was lit up by lightning flashes every few minutes or so by now, with no indication that the storm would soon pass, and Diane began to wonder just how much longer Rivers could continue this nightmare journey; he'd had little sleep the night before and had been exhausted when he had returned to the hotel. She offered to take over the wheel, but he declined; he told her he preferred to be doing something while the world around them went to hell.

  They had to stop several times and use other roads when the way ahead was flooded; and sometimes the sheer force of the rain obscured their vision totally, despite the overworked wipers, and they were forced to halt and wait for the worst to pass. Eventually they were within a mile of Hazelrod, but by now night had fallen and added to the darkness around them.

  And before they had reached the muddy track that would lead them to the house, Josh started screaming.

  ***

  He steadied himself as the walls around him, the roof above him, and the ground beneath him shuddered. He felt the vibration course through his thin legs, but he was no longer afraid. At least, he was not as afraid as he had been.

  The final moment was nearly here.

  The final moment for him.

  But perhaps a new beginning for mankind.

  If those who laboured towards a different outcome were defeated.

  And if they learned the lesson of this terrestrial holocaust.

  A deeper judder nearly sent the old man backwards, but he recovered and staggered to the door. Once outside he took five steps forward and stopped. From above he heard the shrill cry of the eagle. Was it leaving this valley in search of a safer abode as the other birds had? Surely it was protected on the high ground? But no, rocks would have tumbled, crevasses would have opened, and nowhere was safe. Better to seek new ground, for food alone would be hard to find for some time.

  The roaring was from both directions, his keen ears told him, a seething maelstrom of sound, a rushing storm of water; but one was closer.

  The Great Glen had finally succumbed to the wise man's prophecy. The Earth itself had shifted along the massive trench rift and the seas from both shores were pouring in to fill the deep channel it had created. Ah, pity those who had perished either in the eruption itself, or now, under the deluge as ocean and sea raced to join with each other. He prayed for their souls, and he prayed for the lives of those left behind, not just here in these rugged regions of the north, but for those who would survive the Earth's grand tragedy, for there would be much for them to accomplish once peace returned and the terrible forces were rested once more, much for them to sow, and much for them to learn again. The world, they would find, was to be a different place.

  If…

  He shuffled around to his right, wind and rain pounding at his upturned face, for there the noise was loudest. It was from there, along that long and thin gulley that eventually led to the western coast and the Atlantic Ocean that the waters would arrive first.

  The trembling of the land had ceased, but it was the old man himself who trembled now as fear returned. Yes, he knew fear, for death itself was invariably painful and the paradise that was waiting was hard to contemplate at such a time. Still he prayed, and not for himself: he prayed for those who, at this very moment of earthly metamorphosis, fought the evil that sought to destroy. The evil that endeavoured to end it here. In the hands-in the minds-of the innocents lay mankind's destiny and only their champions could deliver them from the physical malevolence that conspired against them. He thought of the one who had found him only yesterday, a man who knew suffering, and one who bore the frailties and weaknesses so inherent in the human race, yet still had the goodness in him to achieve so much; and he wondered if this man was resolute enough to succeed. His task, like that of so many others around the world, was to help the little ones to assert their power. But would he-would they be firm enough in spirit? Some would lose, the law of uncertainly decreed that. But others would win through and he prayed there would be enough of them.

  Yet the answer to this he would never know. At least, not in this world would he know.

  He heard his animals bleat their terror as they fled or sought false sanctuary within the walls of the cottage and he felt sadness for them. Just as he felt pity for every living creature in this wonderful but abused planet. His blind old eyes wept for them even though it was too late for such pity.

  He fell to his knees as the waters rushed into the valley towards him, and its booming terror took any other sounds from his ears.

  And when they crushed his weary body he welcomed the oblivion and hoped for the paradise.

  29

  'Hush, Josh, it's just a bad dream. Everything's okay now, we're nearly home.'

  Rivers had stopped the car so that Diane could climb into the back and comfort her near-hysterical son.

  'The witch…' Josh was saying over and over again '… she's waiting… she's here…'

  The interior light was on and Rivers could see the stark terror in the boy's eyes and the drawn whiteness of his face.

  'There's no witch, Josh,' Diane told him soothingly. 'You've had a nasty dream, like the one you had the other night, that's all.' On the night they had been unable to wake Eva, she reminded herself. Had they both had the same nightmare? 'Not far to go now, Josh, just a little ways. Don't you want to see Eva? I bet she's wide awake waiting for us to come home.'

  Josh clutched his mother even more tightly. 'The witch lady, Mama, Eva knows the witch lady.'

  Diane looked at Rivers in desperation.

  'Maybe he'll calm down once he's back in familiar surroundings,' he said quietly to her. 'It's hardly surprising he's in a state with everything we've seen today.'

  Diane nodded. 'Let's get him home.'

  Rivers swung round and engaged gear once again. Although the wind still nudged the car, the rain had become a drizzle, and the headlights cut through the darkness, rendering the trees and shrubbery peculiarly one-dimensional. Josh's cries had become a weary whimpering by the time Rivers turned the car into the muddy track leading down to Hazelrod. By the time they pulled into the courtyard, he was quiet.

  Rivers slammed down on the brake just inside the entrance, sending Diane and her son sliding forward in their seats. She stopped them both from slipping on to the floor by pushing her elbow against the back of Rivers' seat. She looked at him in surprise, then followed his gaze towards the house. In all there were three cars inside the courtyard: Hugo Poggs' Toyota, Mack's pick-up parked across the yard outside his apartment over the stables, and a metallic grey Grenada. But it was something lying close to the porch steps that Rivers was staring at.

  Diane spoke with a flat kind of dread in her voice. 'It looks like a body,' she said, then added, 'Oh God.'

  Advancing slowly, his foot soft on the pedal, Rivers swung the car around slightly so that the lights played fully on the object on the ground. He brought the car to a gentle halt.

  'I think it's…' Diane began to say, but he had already switched off the engine and opened the door.

  'Wait here,' he told her.

  'No, I'm coming with you.' She was out of the car and moving towards the body before he could protest. Rivers turned before he got out to warn Josh to stay where he was and it was at that moment that flash lightning lit up the car's interior. Josh was frozen in that brief, flickering blaze: he could have been made of white marble, he was so still and pale, his eyes wide but not moving. The light was soon gone, but the thought lingered on: with his shock of black hair against his pallid skin, Josh had looked like a tiny elfin-creature from a child's storybook. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distant hills.

  Rivers left the car and quickly caught up with Diane who, by now, was standing over the slumped body. Something-perhaps her own apprehension-was preventing her from stooping to see who it was.

  Rivers gently drew her aside, then knelt beside the body. 'It's Mack,' he said before he had even touched a shoulder to roll the body face up.

  'Dear God�
��' Diane quickly knelt beside Rivers. 'I thought it was Mack, but how 'Oh shit,' said Rivers as the burly handyman's eyes stared sightlessly up at them. Rivers had moved slightly so that the car's headlights were unimpeded by his own body, and now they both saw the neat dark line beneath Mack's throat where blood drained mostly from one comer to run like a small river between the cobblestones of the yard, the drizzling rain diluting the flow.

  'Get back into the car,' Rivers ordered Diane as he pulled her to her feet.

  'Mack… oh my God, why… who would…?'

  He gripped her tightly above the elbows and pushed her towards their car. Josh's small face was watching them from behind the glass. 'I want you to wait in the car, Diane.' Rivers' command was calm but insistent. 'Sit in the driver's seat, switch on the engine, and wait for me. Understand?'

  'No, I've got to-' She tried to break away, but he held her firmly.

  'Do as I tell you. Let me find out what's happened inside first.' He opened the driver's door and, using considerable force, pushed her in. He bent over her, a heavy hand on her shoulder. 'If you hear anything that doesn't sound right, or if you see there's trouble, I want you to get away from here to a neighbour's or a phonebox and call the police. Listen to me, Diane.'

  With an effort she looked away from the body and stared up at Rivers. 'I'm afraid, Jim. Eva…'

  'It's important that you stay out here. D'you understand me?'

  She nodded her head slowly, but he still kept his hand on her shoulder.

  'Turn the car around so you're facing the gates. Remember, if you see or hear anything you don't like, get out fast. Josh, I want you to watch the house too.'

  Josh regarded him gravely and all Rivers could see was the boy's eyes staring out at him from the shadows.

  He squeezed Diane's shoulder and left the car, closing the door quietly even though he knew it was too late for such a gesture-if there was anyone inside Hazelrod they would have heard the car drive up, or at least have seen the headlights sweeping in. Lightning flashed through the night sky again and the thunder that followed was nearer, and louder. Surprisingly, lightning flared again, even as the thunder rumbled on and the house was lit up in an eerie strobe effect. The sight reminded Rivers of all the cliched horror movies he had seen when that particular cinematic trick had seemed laughable rather than scary; unfortunately there was nothing funny about this moment.

  The porch door was swinging slightly in the wind and he held it steady as he went through. Although there was no light on inside the porch, a faint brightness came from behind the lace curtains of the entrance door. He moved forward, gripped the door handle, turned it, and pushed.

  The soft light from a small lamp on a hallstand lit the scene inside and Rivers' first instinct was to close the door again and get the hell out of there. His next instinct, however, was to help Hugo Poggs, who was slumped against the wall, his eyes closed, but his chest heaving as he drew in shallow wheezing breaths. His wife's prone body lay across his lap.

  Rivers opened the door wider and quietly stepped inside. Another body was propped up against the bottom steps of the stairway, the wooden handle of a knife-it looked like a kitchen knife, one of those with a strong broad blade that was used for carving meat-sticking out of one shoulder, just above the man's chest. The blood that stained his shirt and ran down between his outstretched legs was congealing into a slick dark mess, and only the whites of his eyes showed beneath his half-closed lids. These looked whiter than normal, for the man himself was black. To Rivers he looked very dead.

  More than ever he wanted to retrace his steps back to the car. More than ever he wanted to leave Hazelrod and take Diane and Josh with him. But he knew he couldn't leave Poggs like that, nor Bibby. And besides, Eva was somewhere in the place. Unless, of course, she had been snatched away. He remembered Josh's dream-the little cottage in the middle of a darkly weird forest, the witch lady who waited for the children inside-and quickly chided himself for the foolishness. A child's nightmare was one thing, the situation here another. Rivers went in and, keeping his attention solely on the black man's corpse, edged his way over to Hugo Poggs.

  He was almost beside the geologist and his wife when he thought he heard a noise from upstairs. He paused and listened. No other sounds. Save for Poggs' wheezing breath. Rivers crouched next to the geologist, who opened his eyes in alarm. The fear stayed there in his eyes for several moments and it didn't quite leave even when he recognized Rivers.

  'Hugo, what happened?' Rivers kept his voice low without knowing why.

  Poggs' lips moved, but the window at the end of the hall blazed silver-white and thunder, so near and so loud that the window frame rattled, boomed through the night. Rivers leaned closer to catch the half-conscious man's words.

  'Eva…' Poggs rasped. 'Upstairs… she has her…' He began to cough and for the first time Rivers saw the blood seeping from the geologist's plump stomach into Bibby's grey dishevelled hair. He tried to turn her head, for her face was buried deep into Poggs' lap, but something felt wrong, the head was too loose, somehow too flexible. He let go, then put his hands beneath Bibby's shoulders and lifted.

  Her plump breasts flattened against his own chest as he held her, and her head fell backwards as if she were in a lover's swoon; the angle of her neck was too acute, too distorted and he grimaced as he realized it was broken.

  'Barbara…' Poggs murmured, and one of his hands fluttered in the air as he tried to touch her. It fell uselessly back to the floor, palm upright, fingers curled. Rivers laid Bibby's heavy body to one side and turned back to her husband.

  'Who did this, Hugo?' he asked urgently, his voice still low.

  Poggs tried to raise himself to a sitting position, but only managed to push himself further up against the wall. He drew in a long, hoarse breath, the wind whistling into his lungs. His shoulders hunched against the pain and one hand, lifted now in reflex action, clutched not at the bloody wound of his stomach, but at his chest. 'Oh God, it hurts,' he said feebly.

  When Rivers pulled away the buttons of Poggs' shirt so that he could examine the wound, he began to understand that it was not the cuts to his body that had left the geologist in this state, for although there were several slashes, they were mainly small and superficial, but the man's belaboured heart that was causing the problem. The draining of blood from Poggs' usually ruddy face, the purplish tinge to his cheeks and the slight blueness of his lips confirmed his suspicion that the injured man had suffered a heart attack. He leaned closer to listen as Poggs tried to speak again.

  'Help Eva… upstairs… we tried to… to stop… her…'

  He said more, but lightning bleached the sky outside once again and thunder cannoned directly overhead and seemed to rush through the very house itself. And as it slowly rumbled away, somebody came out of the room at the end of the hall.

  ***

  Nelson Shadebank had flushed the toilet as the thunder struck. The sound from overhead had made him jump and he cursed the country, the weather, and the plane journey over that had upset his system so. But most of all he cursed Mama Pitie for draggin' him halfway'cross the world to terrorise a kid that knew doodle-squat. What the hell was she playin' at? Three people dead, one of them their own, another on his way: and for what exactly? What the fuck were they doin' in this place? He had zipped his fly and was hoisting one strap of his red braces over his left shoulder as he opened the toilet door. Shit-scared he might be of Mama, but enough was enough. He was goin' to split soon as the right moment came, soon as she was too busy to see him go. Like right now, mebbe. Take the hire car and blow. Mebbe stay in this country, find a new life. No, wrong move. Git out, sure, but don't hang around, git back to Harlem, boy, where you kin lose yourself, be jus' another buck. Murder over here wasn't took so light.

  He walked out into the hall. The fat ol' guy was probly dead by now, his fat ol' lady sprawled 'cross him with lame-brain George-not Chicken George, but Chicken-shit George, he'd named the zombie-layin' dead as a bug by the stai
rs with eight inches of steel buried in him, stuck with some balls by the ol' lady when Chicken-shit George had whopped her ol' man; Mama had taken care of her after that and the ol' bag had squawked like an ol' hen when her fat neck'd been broke. That was what he'd expected to find, but never a fourth body, this one very much alive.

  Shadebank gave a whoop of alarm and stared at the newcomer who was crouched beside the fat man. Fuck, he said to himself, it jus' had to start goin' wrong!

  ***

  Rivers stared back as the black man slowly lifted the strap of his bright red braces over his right shoulder. It was a long, long moment in which he was able to take in the intruder, who seemed just as startled: the shiny brown and cream shoes, the light-coloured linen trousers whose creases were there by design rather than the material's natural flaw; the immaculate blue pinstripe shirt with its neat double cuffs and gold cufflinks. Perhaps it was bizarre to notice so much under the circumstances, but moments of shock were often full of such incongruities.

  Rivers' question was not quite so incongruous, but it was fairly close. 'Who are you?' he asked.

  The other man pushed back gold-rimmed glasses to the bridge of his nose and replied: 'The fuck you say.' Then, to Rivers' amazement, he called out: 'Mama!'

  Rivers took a wary step backwards and then another.

  'Mama Pitie!' the black man yelled again, but even louder. 'We got comp'ny!'

  ***

  The car's headlights had lit up the room, swinging across the walls and ceiling like a searchlight, chasing deep shadows that sunk back into the overall gloom when the illumination had passed. Mama Pitie bent over the child on the bed, the gown she wore as dark as those shadows. Her temples throbbed with the probing, her giant's fists clenched with the tension. The girl was resisting her. No, not that, not resisting. Young as she was, the wretch had realized her weakness and her mind had run from Mama, had found a place inside her own self where no one could touch her. Oh blessed child, don't mess with Mama! Your power is useless on its own, it needs the thoughts of others to give it worth. Come back to me, l'il girl, come back to Mama an' let me show you the way. The right way. The way fo' Mama Earth to rise above her tribulations an reign supreme agin. Don't fool with me, child, you cain't escape, ah'll drag you back an tear your skinny arms 'n legs off 'til you give up the power you don't deserve to have. Ah'll make you holler an' scream an all the other l'il ones will feel your pain an' taste your fear an they'll tremble an' shake an' their minds will wither an' die an' they'll stop what they're doin' an' they'll scream for their own mamas an' their mamas won't be there no mo' an' the whole wor…