by Alan Hyder
‘I’m sorry to be a nuisance,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m better now. I won’t faint again, I promise you. Let me get up.’
‘Sure you’re all right?’ I grinned at Bingen. ‘Everybody’s hanging around here apologizing to each other. You apologize to me, and then we’ll all have begged each other’s pardons. Come on. Let’s move on.’
We walked along the road without looking back, and I had an uncanny feeling of that Vampire hovering there, watching us go, like a well-gorged man watching the remains of a meal being carried from the room, knowing that when he is hungry once more a short walk to the larder will re-bring it within his grasp. When at last I did look back, it hung unstirring, in the same position, so far as I could see, staring after us. And among the houses we left behind I thought I saw some movement.
‘Can you see anything back there, Bingen?’
‘No, and, what’s more, I don’t want to. Let’s get out of here.’
But I stood looking back. It might have been that little fat man in the ridiculous bowler with the ridiculous umbrella moving among the ruins. Vividly to me came a thought of him solemnly doffing his hat to the black Vampire hovering above and saying, ‘God’s wrath! But there, excuse me, I must be off to the office.’ And I could imagine the thing staring down at him with bleak incomprehension. . . . Ugh!
‘We’ll all keep together from now on,’ Bingen greeted me when I turned to them again. ‘It’s no use separating.’
‘No! I’ll go in front as before,’ I insisted. ‘With me scouting ahead, there’ll be less likelihood of running into something we can avoid. You come along afterwards, but you needn’t keep so far behind this time.’
I did not want the girl to come unwarned upon the piles of bodies we constantly passed. I wondered why, in most cases, the people had managed to die together in crowds. Some human characteristic brought them together to avoid dying alone. yet, if there is one thing a man must do alone, it is to die by himself. Queer! One’s sheer panic, two’s fear, four’s courage . . . and all’s food for the Vampires!
At noon, with the sun directly overhead, we called a halt to sit and eat our frugal lunch in the shadow of a rubble wall which topped one side of a ditch running by the roadside. We ate, and lay upon the sloping side of the bone-dry ditch silently, at least I was, contemplating unbelievingly the events of the past few days, speculating on the future. Janet, with an arm under her curls, was at the bottom of the ditch, while Bingen and I were higher, where we could see along the road.
‘Both the bottles are empty, Bingen. They’ll have to be filled as soon as we can. This heat is queer for England! Now if it were Cairo . . .!’
‘Queer! Can you tell me anything nowadays that isn’t queer?’
‘No. I suppose I can’t.’
‘How much farther is this place we’re going to?’
‘I think you can see it from here.’ I sat erect and shaded my eyes to stare. ‘Away to the south-west. That line of blue hills against the sky. They’ll be Churley Hills, I fancy. We should be there this evening. Hope we get there before dark. Whether or no we’ll find the cottages as I remember them, I couldn’t say. Hope so. Shall be glad to get where I can have a long sleep. This sun is making me drowsy.’
‘Look! Garry! Look!’
Janet’s voice, holding terror, jerked both of us to our feet, but even as I jumped up I remember how foolishly glad I felt that on each occasion when Janet was frightened she called upon my name rather than Bingen’s, and I was ashamed to think about it, even as I thought.
‘We’re done! We’re done!’ Bingen cried. ‘They’ve got us!’
‘Don’t be a fool.’
From out of the very blue there dropped upon us a close clustered group of Vampires!
As the solitary one had done, so did these, descending near to earth, and then hovering above, to turn and stare down at us. Momentarily, I could not move, standing looking upwards with gaping mouth. I felt Bingen slide to the bottom of the ditch, and when I did glance down he was crouched close to Janet, with his head buried in his arms. And Janet had placed a hand protectingly about him! he quivered, jerked suddenly into a sitting position, and his eyes fixed in panic. His chin sagged to let a thin sobbing scream from his parched throat. I could not help him, for I waited for the things to fall . . . drop on to us.
Janet looked at me, her lips moving, then she crawled to hide beneath my arms, and her movement, as though loosening springs in his body, lifted Bingen to his feet. He mouthed noiselessly at the sky and then he was gone.
I could not call him back.
Helplessly, with my arms about the shaking figure of Janet, I watched him go, running swiftly, foolishly, along the ditch, with outstretched hands and clutching fingers. His eyes must have been closed, for he ran blindly, bumping, staggering from side to side. Out of the ditch he climbed as though by accident, and it seemed for some seconds tried to run through the stone wall, for he kicked and pushed at it before clambering over, out of sight.
Above, the Vampires hung, and if some of those terrible eyes followed the screaming, blindly fleeing figure of Bingen, they did not move to follow. My arms tightened about Janet. I tried to crouch over her, wanted to bury my head in her frock, but I had to stare upwards, waiting . . . waiting. Seconds dragged into minutes. They did not stir. I regained a little courage, ventured to whisper.
‘I believe we’re safe. I don’t think they’re going to come any lower. Anyway, there isn’t too many for me to deal with.’ Too many! What chance would we have stood if that crowd had dropped! My arm tightened about her. ‘Try not to faint. I’d want you to help if they . . .’
‘I think I’m all right.’ From my shoulder under the tangled mass of dark curls came the reply softly, so softly that I scarce could hear. It gave me courage, strength. She whispered again. ‘I’ll try to help but . . . I just can’t look at them.’
‘They don’t mean to touch us. They’d have done it before now, and Bingen’s gone.’ Janet jerked panically as I whispered, and I reassured her quickly, afraid of hysteria. ‘I don’t mean they’ve . . . He got away safely. They didn’t go after him. They aren’t going to touch him.’
Stooping to whisper, my gaze fell from above, and when I looked up again the Vampires were moving. I pushed Janet to the bottom of the ditch, stood erect, ashamed to have been crouching afraid, and a savage exultation thrilled my veins from the close contact of her, until I realized the hovering Vampires were moving . . . and moving upwards. They were going!
I did not speak until certain, then I called to Janet.
‘They’re going away! They’re going!’
Vertically into the air, as though drawn up by invisible strings, they went, ascending rapidly, leaving one behind, and that solitary one stayed motionless with ribbed wings twisting minutely. Fainter and fainter the rest faded from black to grey, merging into the intense blue of the heavens, and were gone. But one was left. It could not harm us. If only it would descend low enough for me to swing at it with the sword; but there it stayed, some twenty or thirty feet above, lying horizontally, staring downwards, and for one heart-stilling moment I wondered whether it stayed to trail us; whether the one that had watched us before had communicated with its kind; whether, having found us, they had gone off, leaving one to watch until they wanted food. I laughed. It was too incredible.
‘What is the matter?’ Janet’s voice asked quickly at the unexpected sound, and she looked up at me wonderingly.
‘Nothing, except that they have gone.’ I lifted her to her feet and she looked up nervously. ‘It’s nothing to be scared of. It’s the only one left. They didn’t want to touch us or else they are frightened now they know I can deal with them. We’ll get along if you can manage it.’
‘Yes. Of course I am ready. But surely we ought to wait for . . .’
‘It isn’t any good waiting for him,’ I cut in rather abruptly, for this eternal worrying about Bingen annoyed me. ‘We’ll go on, and it’s ten to one we’ll run int
o him before we’ve gone far.’
We went quickly along the road, not venturing to glance over our shoulders until we had covered some distance, and, similar to the other, that Vampire hovered there like a butterfly on an invisible pin, until we left it, a mere speck in the distance.
‘I wonder where Bingen is,’ Janet said. ‘I feel we ought to wait for him. Poor boy, losing control of himself like that. But I can understand.’
Hearing Janet speak of Bingen as a ‘poor boy’ sounded humorous to me, and I did not bother to control my laughter.
‘You seem to have hit it off with Bingen. I’m glad you like him,’ I said.
‘I like him, yes!’ she answered. ‘But I expect it is because I feel sorry for him. He’s frightened, and he hates me seeing it.’
‘Then you don’t feel sorry for me?’
‘But you don’t get frightened.’
‘Good God! Is that what you think? If you only knew.’
‘But you haven’t had those things on your skin like he has, and you don’t let us see when you are scared. Bingen does, and that is why I feel sorry for him. Because I understand.’
‘Understand! You know, Janet, I’m not sure that you really do understand,’ I told her falteringly, stared down at her worryingly. Very slim and dainty she was, striding alongside with dark eyes shining and curls tumbling about her forehead. ‘Let’s have a bit of a talk about everything. It’s only fair that you should understand.’
‘Understand,’ Janet snapped surprisingly into speech. ‘Look here, mister, I haven’t lived all my life with Dad on the river without learning things and hearing them, too. I think I understand what you’re going to say to me, and there’s no need to say it. I’ve met fellows like Bingen before, and I can look after myself.’
‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ the words came breathlessly from me with surprise. And I had been treating her as a child! I laughed until the frown on her face stopped me. I apologized, stammering and stuttering, trying to conceal my mirth. Even though I knew I had things like that in my mind, it was not what I’d been going to speak to her about. I grinned. ‘I . . . Eh! That is . . . Hum! Well. Oh, I wasn’t thinking anything like that.’
‘What were you going to say then,’ she asked angrily.
‘Well, what I was going to say, was, I thought you should understand the position of things. You know, I fancied you were much younger than you are? Then, of course, I shouldn’t have wanted to tell you, but as it is . . .’ with the laughter gone from my voice I spoke gravely. ‘Janet, you ought to know that things are bad.’
‘And don’t I know that?’
‘Yes, you know, but . . . I believe they are worse than you think. God knows how many people there are in the country besides us, or, if it comes to that, in all the world. I don’t believe there are many. I’ve seen two others alive, at least one of them was half dead, was dead,’ I corrected myself hastily. ‘And the other was stark, staring mad. So that doesn’t sound very promising, does it?’
‘I’ve known you thought that for a long time now.’
‘You’ve known it. How?’
‘Oh, by the things you’ve stopped Bingen saying. . . . Oh, lots of times. I’ve felt you thought that, and didn’t want me to know.’
‘Hum! Might just as well have told you outright then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s how it is. We came through London in that dinghy, and then we’ve travelled here, and not a soul have we seen. Everything is burned and the people are dead. Only us left.’
‘But Bingen.’
‘Oh! I meant to include him. Three of us. Bingen will turn up soon. Poor old Bingen. I’m catching your disease and feeling sorry for him. You’ll be getting a bad impression of him, but really, he is all right, and, as you say, the things have actually been on him and they broke his nerve. Maybe mine would have gone too, like that. But he’ll be better, when he forgets.’
‘Of course he will.’
‘Janet, you know there must have been millions of those fearful things. Millions! The few we keep on seeing must be just the tail end of them. And that gives me hope they’ve gone. I hope they have, but as you know, there are still a lot about, and we’ve got to get to some place where we can be safe against them. I hope I haven’t frightened you unnecessarily. But I felt you ought to know how I think things are.’
‘You mean you think we three will have to live alone for all our lives because there’s no one else?’
‘I hardly mean that, but for some time anyway. Maybe all the time. Who knows?’
‘Do you wish that you hadn’t found me? Do you think I will be a nuisance to you?’
‘Of course I don’t. I know you won’t be a nuisance. Why, look at the meal you cooked us last night.’
‘Thank you for saying that so nicely, mister,’ Janet said, and was quiet for a moment before glancing at me quickly and asking surprisingly, ‘You don’t like me, do you?’
‘For the love of Mike where’d you get that impression from?’ I stopped and eyed her in amazement. Then I laughed at her. ‘Well, I thought you were good at understanding things I wanted to hide from you. But you aren’t so good after all, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t mean a thing except that I hate to have you call me mister,’ I grinned at her.
‘I’ll try not to in future,’ she said, and then, ‘We ought to wait for Bingen.’
‘Oh, there you go again. Bingen! Bingen! He’ll be all right. It isn’t safe for us to wait. He knows where I’m making for, and even if we don’t run into him, he’ll come along later. We might go on for weeks searching for him, and all the time he’s probably at Churley waiting for us.’
‘If you were alone would you wait?’
‘I dunno. Oh, I might. Why? Better than being alone. To be honest with you, I’m not sure that he would like us to stay around searching for him. He’ll be a bit ashamed of himself. Want time to get over it.’
‘That’s one reason why I’d sooner wait for him,’ Janet said seriously. ‘I’m afraid he’ll be too ashamed ever to come back. If we aren’t going to wait for him, we must call out as we go along.’
I thought there would be little likelihood of him hearing for, from the way he set off, I fancied he would run until he dropped, or until he recovered his sanity again, but to oblige Janet I clambered on the wall by the roadside, cupped my hands about my mouth, and yelled lustily:
‘Bingen! Bingen!’
The shout echoed strangely through the dead world. It seemed it took minutes to die away, and then the ensuing silence, as we listened, was broken by a faint rumbling explosion like a mocking jeer. When the distant noise ceased I tried again, and the call, instead of making us feel we were helping Bingen, caused us to stare at each other nervously, so weird it sounded in the deserted land.
‘It’s not much use. He’s gone, and until he comes back of his own accord, we can do nothing. Let’s get along.’
The small-talk with which I tried to cheer the girl soon came to a stop under her unresponsiveness. She was on the verge of tears, and I took her arm, hurrying her along with the hope that she would forget things in her effort to keep up with me. Somewhere about four we reached a village square surrounded with burned trees and the smouldering debris of ruined houses.
‘I remember this place. We’re getting near the end of our journey. Another hour ought to see us there.’
We left the houses behind and began a long weary climb to the hills and the isolated cottages I remembered, and with the passing of the inhabited land the country began to appear cleaner, fresher, free of the covering ash. Or at least the ash lay thinner, blown here and there to bare the earth, and the air was cooler with the breeze across the hills. On the crest we stopped to rest and stare back over the valley holding the remains of London, hidden in a mist of deep blue. About us rose and fell the heather-covered valleys and hills of Churley.
Away to the west a plateau held several buildings. I re
membered it as an inn and a farm. They appeared to have escaped severe damage, and I resolved to see what the places contained at my first opportunity.
Leaving the road, we walked over the springy roots of burned heather with little clouds of fine grey ash rising and swirling about our feet. But the roots held promise of life, for I could see, when I stooped, the clean green of young shoots among the black stalks. It would not be long, given ordinary conditions, before Churley was green and purple with heather and grass, and yellow and silver with gorse and birch once more. A scrambling descent into a pebble-floored valley, a stiff climb of the hill opposite, and we saw the cottages for which we searched, and, as we neared them, sliding carelessly upon loosening pebbles into the valley where they nestled, we could see the caves which backed them, black in the yellow cliff.
‘Look! We’re here,’ I cried jubilantly to Janet. ‘Look! There are the caves, and the cottages themselves don’t seem very much harmed.’
The cottages, there were three, were of stone, with grey slate roofs from which grew great clumps of roof-leak, and despite damage by fire, stood sturdily. The two end ones gaped open to the sky, but the centre house was habitable, with its roof hardly disturbed. A few slates were gone, but that was all right. The right-hand one was gutted, the one at the other end nearly so, and from all, doors and windows were burned away. Long gardens fronted them, and at the back were yards under the cliff with the desirable caves at the end of them. The long gardens were blackened and clumps of burned vegetation blew in the slight breeze.
‘Will you stay here while I explore? Stay by the gate, and I’ll have a look to see what is there.’
I went through the garden to the intact cottage, turning to call warningly back to Janet.
‘You mustn’t watch me. I’ll be all right. You’re not to look to see what I’m doing. Keep your eyes on the sky, and call me at once if you see anything. Listen in case I call you to come to me. But don’t be frightened by yourself for a few minutes.
The doorway, opening right into the cottage without hall or passage, showed that it was wise to have left Janet outside, for, erectly in two straight-backed chairs, facing each other in death, as I fancy they had faced each other in life, white-haired and wrinkled, two old folks sat. Darby and Joan. Their faces held a look of quiet content, and I believed, perhaps because I wanted to believe, and because they could not have died with serene untroubled faces had they looked upon the entering Vampires, that they had died with the first shock of flames bursting about the cottages. Tenderly I carried them in their chairs through the back-door into the adjoining cottage. Later I would explore the other two little houses to get rid of any bodies they held, burning or burying them. I returned. The back-room was burned, and amid the blackened furniture was nothing of use. The front-room in which the old couple had died was in a better condition. Curiously, one half of the room was untouched, and the remainder only slightly scorched. Upstairs, the two tiny slope-ceilinged rooms were intact, with beds and furniture. Through the little dormer window I called to Janet, and she came running along the garden path. She was in the house as I arrived downstairs.