The Nightmare Man: (Child of the Vodyanoi)

by David Wiltshire

  As he lay on his back the vomit came with a rush, stinging, burning, choking, thrusting into his nose. He rolled on his side, stomach still ramming up against his diaphragm, mouth working even when nothing else would come.

  When he finally stopped heaving he raised himself on to his elbows, body trembling. He could see the legs of the thing lying motionless to his right.-

  He realised then that it was dead, probably even before his bullet went in, if indeed it had. The rumble would have been the post-mortem movement of gases and fluid in the chest cavity.

  It … he had been dying from the moment he had received his radiation exposure, presumably when the submarine’s reactors had blown.

  Mad, radiated, perhaps even infected.

  Dunlop suddenly panicked. The medical case! Feverishly he dragged himself through the snow towards it. Hands shaking he lifted it. There was the sound of broken glass inside.

  He moaned then, setting it carefully down and struggling with the catches. When he lifted the lid the sight before him caused him to sag with relief. Lying in their protective casing the four jars were untouched. In the front compartment several glass syringes were in splinters.

  He closed the case and struggled to his feet, keeping his eyes averted from the head of the figure. Picking up his stick he shuffled hesitantly away, still looking nervously at the body. Only once did he come to an abrupt halt.

  As he turned forward, the discarded mask lay on the snow at his feet, still looking at him with the one large pink-rimmed eye, now fixed forever like a stranded shellfish.

  Shocked, Dunlop side-stepped, dug his stick in and set off, his stomach churning.

  As he neared Inverdee he found himself sweating with anxiety. He almost expected to see it on fire, a black pall of smoke hanging above it, as the plague ridden town was burnt—and its inhabitants with it. There was nothing—the sky was clear.

  But his relief was short lived. Sweeping across the rooftops came the white and grey, shark-like shape of a Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft.

  With a smooth whine that deepened into a pulsating roar, it passed by and flew on down the loch and out towards the sea. It dwindled into a speck that finally disappeared into the myriad specks at the back of his staring eyes.

  Something about its presence did nothing to allay his fears, in fact the reverse, knowing it was packed with secret electronic surveillance gear. He jumped forward, savagely pushing with his stick, head down, kicking the skis ahead. He looked up just the once. The approaching town seemed deserted, as was the cow shelter used as a patrol centre.

  As he reached the last expanse of snow before the houses, he started calling her name, over and over again in time to his wild thrust of the skis.

  It took some time for him to realize that somebody else was shouting. When he looked up he could hardly believe his eyes.

  The figure running towards him was Fiona, alive, well, reaching out for him. He stopped pushing then, gliding to a halt arid waiting exhaustedly for her to come to him.

  The only thing he remembered to do was to carefully set the medical case down before she flew into his arms.

  They clung to each other, kissing and hugging, tears streaming down their faces. She finally pulled her head back.

  “Oh darling, darling, I was so worried. Those troops, they locked the police in the hall. Who were they? Are you all right? Did they harm you? Did ...?”

  Dunlop closed his mouth over hers, stopping the flow of questions. When they finished kissing he bent down and picked up the case.

  “I’ll tell you all about it later. There’s something we’ve got to do quickly. Where’s Doctor Mackay?”

  “At his home I think.”

  “Come on. Get these bloody skis off me.”

  Together, arms around each other, they reached the town just as three Sea Harrier fighters swept over very low in tight formation, the boom from their Rolls-Royce Pegasus engines echoing and re-echoing in the stone streets, bringing a slate off the church roof.

  When the noise had receded they could hear the distinctive chopping of helicopters. They watched in apprehension as six Westland tactical transporters came in low and fast and settled in a storm of whirling snow.

  Their apprehension increased as the shapes of men could be seen pouring from them in orderly rows.

  And then something happened that set Dunlop laughing and cheering, with Fiona dancing little steps of glee.

  As the men advanced out into the clear, they heard the first notes of Scotland the Brave played on the pipes. A hurrying Inskip reached them at the same time. He gave a sigh of relief. “Jocks, thank God for that.”

  For some reason that was not, at the beginning anyway, clear even to himself, he lied to the senior officers at his debriefing.

  He told them that the mentally deranged pilot of the strange craft had been found and taken with the raiding party.

  A disgruntled Major in the Royal Scots punched the palm of his other hand in frustration.

  “Got to hand it to the buggers. That was a smooth snatch. Very professional. They got everything.”

  To Dunlop’s relief the meeting was interrupted by the arrival of a signaller with a message. Within minutes the troops were moving out, island hopping further to the north in the response to a supposed sighting of the Russians staging for the long haul home.

  But the Royal Scots Major was cynical.

  “Their new carrier, The Kiev, is operating somewhere this side of Iceland. Our fighters have come up against a cover screen of V-TOL jets. If you ask me, their helicopters are already behind it and are home and dry.”

  A team of doctors stayed to take charge of the anti-toxin, and to help Mackay with the vaccinations.

  That evening, as he made love to Fiona and in return was made love to, he suddenly knew why he had lied. Afterwards as she lay asleep beside him, he had time to clarify his thoughts

  If it hadn’t been for the dead Russian Major lying out there in the snow, he might not have held on to Fiona. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain he would have lost her, that she would have gone to Ayr. Then who knows what would have happened?

  Whatever else the man had done, he owed him for that. No, his remains would not be the object of probing revulsion, of dissection, of pity. And besides, there was a debt of honour—to Kornilov. Dunlop smiled grimly. As a fellow parachutist.'

  But mercifully the snow was falling again, heavy and prolonged, settling on the window pane and covering the body. Now there was no hurry.

  It was nearly a week later that he set off one night with a roll of tarpaulin and a sledge. As he drew near to the spot where the dead Russian should have been, and couldn’t find the body, his scalp began to prickle.

  Nervously he played the torch all around him, and down the long corridors of trees. A pair of eyes reflected back at him, making him stiffen with fright.

  It was a rabbit.

  Shortly afterwards his pool of light picked up the snow covered mound. He swallowed hard, and hesitantly set his torch down, accidentally dislodging the snow around the black hideous mask.

  It took him five minutes to recover, and the rest of the night to bring the canvas-covered and weighted body down to the little beach by the derelict coastguard station.

  In daylight he loaded it into a rowing boat and pushed off. When he was well out he brought both oars inboard.

  It took some doing, but he managed to roll the body over the side into the sea without sinking himself.

  The white shroud-covered shape of a man momentarily hung beneath the surface, and then slowly became greener, and then darker as it slipped away.

  Dunlop stared down at the water.

  The Child of the Vodyanoi was returning to the deep.

 

 

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