The Camp
Page 26
Billy Evans blinked, clutched the towel tightly around his waist. Valerie had a beach towel draped diagonally across her body, like some ageing holiday camp queen, winner of the grannies’ beauty contest. Embarrassed, but the offer of freedom was beyond their hopeful dreams. Better go before the buggers change their minds.
‘You didn’t find us any clothes, then?’ A reminder but he wasn’t going to make an issue of it.
‘I’m sorry, we don’t appear to have anything that would fit you, but if you hurry back to your … back home, you’ll be all right.’ Standing to one side, get the hell out of here, the chief’s orders.
‘We’ll catch pneumonia,’ a whine, looking to his wife, hoping for some sympathy for the female of the human species.
‘It’s stopped snowing.’ There was a condescending tone in the other’s voice, even a trace of embarrassment. ‘I should hurry if I were you.’
‘What’s going on?’ Billy Evans shielded his eyes against the brightness of the fiery night sky, glanced hesitantly behind him but the door of the sinister low building was closed. No lights showed from within those bastards had locked up and gone home.
‘Some sort of firework show it looks like,’ Valeria replied.
‘What, in the bloody snow when everybody’s tryin’ to get away?’
‘Perhaps, it isn’t as bad as they make out.’
‘It’s bloody cold enough,’ he shivered. ‘Come on, no point in ’angin’ about.’ He stopped, a worried look on his face. ‘Can you remember the way ’ome, Val?’
She looked puzzled, shook her head. ‘No … but I thought we weren’t going home. We’re supposed to be going south with everybody else.’
‘We’ll ’ave to go home to get some clothes, won’t we?’ he said. ‘Come on, we’ll recognize it when we see it, we can’t stand about ’ere forever. And just watch out in case there’s any more of them hooligans about. Christ, what a bloody stink, something’s on fire. Look, over there, a big ’un, must be a warehouse fire or something. Nothin’ to do with us.’
Valerie trudged in her husband’s wake, pulled the towel even tighter around her. Not just because of the biting cold, she winced in the orange darkness, she would never ever forget that degrading experience. Those dreadful youths had gawped at her private parts, they were sick, ought to be put away. Castrated even. But at least they hadn’t touched her. There was a lot to be said for good old boring Billy, she had made her mind up to stick with him. She wasn’t going to go having a fling on the side, this latest business had turned her off sex. It was revolting.
People ran past them, a woman cradling a crying child to her bosom. Panic everywhere. Valerie was frightened, caught up with Billy, hung on to his arm. Oh, God, would they ever find their way home in all this?
Now another group were coming towards them, slowing to a halt, barring their way. Just like this morning, a menacing stance and they looked to have cropped heads, too. Billy had stopped, he backed off, trod on her foot.
‘Is it them again, Billy?’ she whispered.
He did not reply. Four or five youths, advancing slowly, the foremost one dangling something in his hand that chinked and shone in the fiery glow.
‘They ain’t got no clothes on.’ Coarse mirth, the others were laughing. ‘Just come from the beach ’ave yer? You’ve missed all the fun. But never mind, better late than never!’
Something snaked out, Valerie heard it strike Billy, a kind of rattling blow that sent him staggering back. He screamed, tugged free of her and clutched at his face. And even as he bent double, crying out with pain, a forest of blows rained down on them, solid whiplashes that tore through flesh and gouged bone sent them both tumbling into a heap on the ground.
Valerie tried to cover her face with her hands but they were no defence against the driving force of heavy lengths of chain. Ripping, shredding, she couldn’t see properly, clasped at her eyes and felt something dangling by a sinew, a slippery orb that seemed to be attached to her. Realization had her screaming, a cry that was cut off as her teeth smashed to splinters of bone filling her mouth.
Then the heavy boots with their steel toecaps, piledrivers that crushed bone in a relentless onslaught. Two whimpering naked victims who gave up trying to cling on to consciousness and had surrendered long before the inevitable welcome blackness engulfed them.
Professor Morton sat naked on the side of the bed. His features were flushed with anticipation, his quivering body responding. Impatient, like a virgin bridegroom on his wedding night waiting for his bride to return from the bathroom.
He felt heady, it had to be the wine although he could not remember drinking any. They surely had a dinner, not that he could recall dinner, either. Nevertheless, he put his condition down to drink, he was too busy thinking about the immediate future to delve into the past. A vague realization that he was on a clandestine weekend with somebody else’s wife. He did not have a wife so it was all clear on his side, just the worry that Ann’s husband might turn up. He didn’t want a scene, nor any scandal.
Trying to picture her in his mind, it was funny how detail eluded you in moments of eroticism. Dark-haired, long or short? It didn’t matter. Jesus Christ, she was taking her time! All women did, part of the seduction game. Not that he needed any seducing! He laughed at the thought; whatever the consequences of drink they didn’t affect one’s libido!
He heard the door opening, looked up. His eyesight wasn’t good, he should have been wearing his glasses but, damn it, you couldn’t get into bed with a bird with your specs on! He stared, she looked different but he couldn’t be sure. Was her hair long or short? It was short now, and fairer than he had imagined. Christ, did it matter? Sod it, she was still dressed, what the hell had she been pissing about at?
‘Hi, Ann!’ And just look at this; he thrust his thighs forward.
‘You’re really in the mood, lover boy!’ Her voice sounded different, deeper, huskier.
‘You’ve kept me waiting.’ A mock reproach.
‘And by the look of you it hasn’t done you any harm.’ The other crossed to the window, opened the curtains a fraction, peeped out.
‘There’s a hell of a din going on out there,’ he said.
‘I shouldn’t let that worry you.’ She was behind him, fingertips stroking his bare back, goose pimpling it. He giggled, leaned back against her, felt her hands going up to his neck, smoothing and circling it. She’d found an erogenous zone he hadn’t been aware of, if she continued doing that it might bring him to a climax before he was ready. But it was nice; he moaned softly.
‘Aren’t you going to get undressed?’ he enquired after a while. Foreplay was fine but this was going a bit far.
‘All in good time.’ Her hands were withdrawn, then they were back again, slipping something over his neck.
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re ticklish, aren’t you?’ Teasing him now.
‘In the right places.’ Christ, whatever it was it was tight.
‘It’s just my pendant.’ The voice behind him; seemed distant, harsher.
‘Ease up!’ His fingers went up to his neck, tried to get a grip on whatever encircled his throat, afraid that he would choke.
Suddenly it was tight, cutting into his flesh, biting; deep into his windpipe. He tried to shout, only gurgled. Too tight to get a grip on, being dragged back, flailing his arms, kicking his legs. Writhing helplessly, head right back and through a darkening crimson haze he saw her face. Oh, God, it wasn’t a her, it was a him!
Confused, his terror escalated, his attacker was so strong, the eyes merciless and then they began to fade into the mist, but those hands did not relinquish their grip. Tony Morton felt himself start to go limp before he finally blacked out.
Muliman remained there on the bed, holding the noose tight. A perfectionist, he had once been fooled by releasing his victim too soon; when he returned the ‘dead’ had walked, a terrorist whom he never saw again. And Muliman never made the same mistake twice.
&nbs
p; Where was that bloody Stackhouse girl? That was what was worrying him now. Certainly she wasn’t in the chalet, he had checked it out thoroughly. Obviously she had ditched her sugar daddy, left him to get a hard on in the bedroom, slipped him a C-551 and done a runner. Cunning bitch! He allowed himself the luxury of thinking about her unprofessionally. She was a turn-on if you allowed her to be, and why not for once? If she turned up, which she wasn’t likely to, then he’d allow himself a few minutes of pleasure with her. Let her fight all she liked, it wouldn’t make any difference, more erotic in fact.
It was a long time since Muliman had had a woman. He was trained not to think of them sexually, objects to be used for a purpose, cast off when that purpose was exhausted. But just this once …
He felt a stirring in his lower regions, allowed it to continue. It was nice, all the more so because it was an infrequent occurrence. In his adolescence he had practised self-pleasure without actually touching himself, perfected it. Mind over matter and the ultimate result was far more pleasurable, like a whirlwind inside your body fighting to get out. It left you spent, totally satisfied, an experience to relish.
Morton was gone but he still maintained that strangulating hold on the wire, it added to his excitement. He’d do the same with Stackhouse, hold her down until he was finished. Just one difference; he would get up and walk away, she would lie there until somebody found her. He smiled at the thought.
He sensed a quivering of his body, he had not lost the art. He allowed his mind to focus on the girl, saw her naked, felt her struggling. Beautiful! It should not be long now, he tried to prolong the sensation, savour every second.
And then he was aware of a cooling draught on his face, knew that the door had opened. Somebody was watching him. Stackhouse, it had to be her. Come on in, sweetheart, I’m just about ready for you. We’ll push this bugger on to the floor and …
A crash of splintering glass against the wall behind him, instinctively rolling off the bed on to the floor to dodge the falling shards. Hand going to his jacket pocket but the pistol wasn’t there any more. Throwing himself flat, hugging the side of the bed, opening his eyes.
And in that instant the bedroom exploded into flames.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Two people walked along a grey dawn beach wet sand beneath their dragging feet where the tide had recently receded, a thick sea mist reducing visibility to a hundred yards or less. The air was heavy with moisture, rain was forecast for later. The long dry spell of weather had run its course.
They held on to each other, might have been a courting couple out for an early morning stroll but for the fact that they glanced behind them periodically, stopped to listen as though they feared pursuit.
‘We’ll never ever be safe,’ Ann Stackhouse spoke in a hushed voice. ‘No matter where we go we’ll always be looking over our shoulders. A lifetime on the run afraid that one day they’ll find us.’
‘Maybe we could talk to the papers,’ Jeff Beebe spoke without conviction, ‘blow the whole thing wide open, and if we bring the government down then they’ve asked for it.’
‘Nobody would listen,’ she replied, ‘we don’t have any proof, they’ll make sure of that. An experiment has gone wrong, they’ll wipe the slate clean and start all over again with something else.’
They walked on in a subdued silence. If they had had the strength they would have run, and kept on running. They could not go much further, perhaps they would be lucky enough to find a cave or some other form of shelter in which to sleep for a few hours. Then they would set off again, putting as much distance between themselves and the Paradise Holiday Camp as possible.
It was only by sheer luck that they had found each other, Jeff did not dare to think what might have happened if he had not spied that band of marauding skinheads coming down the chalet street after he had stalked away in anger from Morton’s digs. Luck again, he had seen them before they had spotted him, had had time to turn and run, found Ann coming out of the chalet. His duty had been to protect her and together they had fled across the kiddies’ playground, down through the donkey field and out on to the dunes. There, in the long spiky grass, they had lain and listened to the sounds of battle, the screams of the injured, the arrival of police, ambulances and fire crews.
It was there that Ann had told him the full story. Elsewhere, he might not have believed it, but with the camp blazing and the stench of burning in his nostrils he never doubted her. Everything fitted; it made him both afraid and angry. Part of the System which the man in the street never realized existed, an undercurrent of ruthlessness which matched anything which the Nazis had perpetrated almost half a century ago. Playing with people’s lives and emotions, turning them into fantasy beings and then, when it was found to be impossible to reverse the process, destroying the evidence. If you were part of a failure, you died; a success did not bear thinking about, your destiny for the rest of your life.
And it would all go down in history as a hooligans’ riot, another Heysel Stadium. Clear it up, bury the dead. And start all over again.
It was raining fast now, saturating their clothing even as they spied a place of possible refuge, a cave at the foot of the cliff, its entrance almost hidden by piles of seaweed. A welcome aroma, the musty tang of rotting marine vegetation, it had a cleansing effect after the stench of the fire.
If anything, the mist rolling in from the sea was thickening, a grey curtain sent to hide the shame of what lay behind them, a cover for fugitives, a barrier separating them from a bizarre world which might only have existed in their tortured minds. A nightmare. They would sleep and then wake, see if it was still there then. They were too exhausted to do anything else.
‘The thing that worries me most of all,’ Ann lowered herself down on to the floor of the cavern, rested her back against a rock, ‘is not so much what has happened at the camp. We know all about that. It is what is happening elsewhere, all around us even now, that we don’t know about.’
There was no answer to that and Jeff was too tired even to begin looking for one. For the moment they would sleep, enjoy a brief respite from it all.
The End
Thank you for purchasing this ebook.
I hope you enjoyed the read!.
Guy.
This ebook is the fifieth book to be published as part of a project to convert Guy's entire back catalogue to ebook format. Beginning July 2010 it is expected to have all books available by the end of 2012.
The list of books so far published is :
1. Werewolf by Moonlight.
2. The Sucking Pit.
3. The Slime Beast.
4. Night of the Crabs.
5. The Truckers 1 - The Black Knights.
6. The Truckers 2 - Hi-Jack!.
7. Return of the Werewolf.
8. Bamboo Guerillas.
9. Killer Crabs.
10. Bats Out of Hell.
11. The Son of the Werewolf.
12. Locusts.
13. The Origin of the Crabs.
14. Caracal.
15. Thirst.
16. Deathbell.
17. Satan's Snowdrop.
18. Doomflight.
19. Warhead.
20. Manitou Doll.
21. Wolfcurse.
22. Crabs On The Rampage.
23. The Pluto Pact.
24. Entombed.
25. The Lurkers.
26. Sabat 1: The Graveyard Vultures.
27. Sabat 2: The Blood Merchants.
28. Sabat 3: Cannibal Cult.
29. Blood Circuit.
30. Accursed.
31. Sabat 4: The Druid Connection.
32. The Undead.
33. Crabs' Moon.
34. The Walking Dead.
35. Throwback.
36. The Wood.
37. The Neophyte.
38. Abomination.
39. Snakes.
40. Cannibals.
41. Alligators.
42. Bloodshow.
43. Thirst II: The Plague.
44. Demons.
45. Crabs: The Human Sacrifice.
46. Fiend.
47. The Island.
48. Mania.
49. The Master.
50. The Camp.
The next book will be :
51. The Festering.
"For Mike and Holly Mannion, the tumbledown cottage in a quiet country village seemed the ideal retreat from the rat-race. But when a team of contractors is hired to drill a water-well, a deadly plague is unleashed - a macabre, terrifying entity that had lurked in the bowels of the earth for centuries. The Festering Death had risen from its burial place..."
To view all ebooks currently available, including the one above, please follow the link below.
View Ebook Catalogue
Best regards,
Guy and all at Black Hill Books.
Table of Contents
Title
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
The End