The Colony Trilogy

by Cottam, F. G.

  ‘How did you know about today?’ The words were spoken to Edie, but Ruthie was looking at Phil.

  ‘He didn’t tell me,’ Edie said. ‘Patsy’s at work in London, except at weekends. When I spoke to you on Wednesday night, I didn’t get the feeling you were inclined to wait much longer before doing something. So I reckoned on today.’ Edie looked at Helena. ‘You’re the only surprise,’ she said. ‘I told Felix Baxter you were a genius. Seeing you here I might have to revise that judgment.’

  ‘We should all listen to what Ruthie has to say,’ Lassiter said, ‘without heckling, Edie. I’m sure there’ll be ample time for discussion when she’s finished.’

  Ruthie had pondered long and hard on what the late Georgia Tremlett had told Phil at their meeting in Manchester. Dr. Tremlett had described the magic used to bring back Rachel Ballantyne as vastly more potent than that used to summon the Being. She thought this significant. To her it meant that Rachel – the thing Rachel had become – was intrinsically more powerful than the Being was.

  There was a clue to this in the names given by the Albacheians to the domain inhabited by a creature such as Rachel. They described it as the Land without Light or the Kingdom of Decay or the Realm of Anguish. They described it too as a place where death itself was contagious; but the clear implication was that New Hope was hers to rule, or to misrule. As her father’s daughter it could be claimed she had a dynastic right to govern the island. But it was her power now, rather than the bloodline she’d possessed when naturally alive, that really signified.

  ‘I think it’s within Rachel’s power to destroy the Being,’ Ruthie said. ‘I strongly suspect that it keeps out of her way.’

  To Lassiter, Phil said, ‘The Being tolerated you because all the while you were there it was learning from studying you how to appear in human form. Then it got very pissed off when you discovered a couple of its hiding places, so pissed off you had to scarper.’

  ‘I’d think of it more as a dignified retreat,’ Lassiter said.

  ‘I get your reasoning,’ Helena said to Ruthie, ‘but I don’t see how knowing this, even if it’s true, has any practical application’

  ‘I do,’ Edith said. ‘Ruthie thinks that Rachel took such a shine to Patsy when he was there that she’d happily put herself out for him.’

  ‘There’s no need for the sarcasm,’ Ruthie said, ‘no one thinks Rachel Ballantyne does anything happily. But from what Patsy’s told Phil, he was tactful and kind when she spoke to him in the sepulchre.’

  ‘All I’ve done so far for Rachel is fail to deliver on a promise I made her,’ Lassiter said. ‘That’s not much of a basis for getting her to do anything, let alone battling a monster.’

  ‘I don’t think it would be a battle,’ Ruthie said. ‘I happen to think that particular encounter would be rather one-sided.’

  ‘And we take your word for that, which is all we’ve got, and we go back to New Hope and risk all of our lives on the strength of a hunch,’ Edith said. ‘Fucking brilliant, Ruthie, and I have to say fucking typical of you.’

  ‘Calm down, Edie,’ Fortescue said.

  Edie said to him, ‘Divided loyalties, Daddo? Or not even that?’ Her eyes were shining now with unshed tears.

  ‘What none of you except Helena knows is that I’ve been in regular contact with a source on the island,’ Lassiter said. ‘I say regular, though it’s actually intermittent because wireless transmissions aren’t dependable from there. But I’ve had several long conversations at New Scotland Yard when the wavelengths have permitted it with Baxter’s head of security.

  ‘He saw the trophy an intruder left for Helena after Greg Cody’s disappearance. He saw the wreckage that washed up after two men vanished aboard a rigid inflatable. He heard Georgia Tremlett scream when she was taken in the windowless church and he smelled the feral stink afterwards of the thing that took her. He’s a frightened man in need of help and I’m inclined to offer it.’

  Helena said, ‘And your promise to Rachel?’

  ‘I think I know how to keep my promise to Rachel and I think Ruthie is right to suspect she’ll be disposed to help us if she knows I’m going to do it.’

  ‘Couldn’t help but notice that plural creep in there, Patsy,’ Edith said. ‘How many of us are you committing to this?’

  ‘I can keep my promise to Rachel, but don’t believe I can do it alone. I’ll need help for that. But I’m obliging no one.’

  ‘I’m there, mate,’ Fortescue said.

  ‘I’m in,’ Ruthie said.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Helena said.

  Edie was quiet. She sniffed. She rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand and said, ‘Ruthie here told me late on Wednesday night about a little visit she’d received earlier in the evening from a woman named Lizzie Burrows reluctant to stay dead, or anyway to stay restfully dead. In your place, Ruthie, I’d quite likely be driven to what you’re planning. I mean if I thought my sanity was at risk. You want to stay sane, you reckon you don’t have a choice.

  ‘You’re committed, Daddo, because you feel an obligation to protect Ruthie, regardless of how hair-brained her misjudged scheme. I don’t like that, but seven years ago it was the same instinct made you to help me when I was a snot-nosed adolescent calling out of the blue.’

  Fortescue smiled slightly. ‘You weren’t that bad.’

  ‘What about you, Patsy? You’re usually such a sensible man.’

  Lassiter frowned. He said, ‘If I hadn’t taken my island sabbatical rebuilding the cottage, I’d have started drinking again. I’d never have made my promise to Rachel Ballantyne. I’d never have met Helena.’

  ‘So it’s love or it’s infatuation,’ Edith said. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘It’s fate,’ Lassiter said, ‘the island’s unfinished business for some of us. Not for you though, Edie. I’d rather you didn’t come.’

  ‘That’s just hypocritical.’

  ‘No it’s not,’ Fortescue said ‘At worst it’s a double standard. It’s one I share. You shouldn’t come.’

  ‘What about you, Helena,’ Edith asked. ‘You I don’t get at all.’

  ‘I had some bad experiences on New Hope,’ Helena said, ‘mostly in the company of Derek Johnson, who was heaven sent. But I’m more concerned about the thing from hell, Edie. I believe it’s there. The complex was built to my blueprint, every joist and board and screw. I don’t want to collude in a catastrophe.’

  ‘What about you, Kiddo?’ Fortescue said.

  Edie sniffed again and in a wobbly voice said, ‘If any of you think you’re leaving me behind on my own you’re even more misguided than I think you are.’

  ‘Getting there in a hurry, from here, is going to be horrendously costly,’ Helena said. ‘Has anyone even thought of that?’

  Ruthie and Edie looked at Phil. He cleared his throat and said to Helena, ‘Have you heard of Alexander McIntyre?’

  ‘He was the media tycoon who financed the expedition you and Patrick went on seven years ago. A year and a half ago, he died on the island.’

  ‘Violently,’ Edith said.

  ‘I’m the main beneficiary of his will,’ Fortescue said. ‘I haven’t touched the money, haven’t felt entitled, to be honest. But it’s there. And I don’t think Alex would argue with me spending some of his legacy on this. I can charter us a helicopter for this afternoon. We can be on New Hope by tonight.’

  ‘We’ll have to get some gear together,’ Ruthie said. ‘It’s late February. Even what passes for good weather there will actually more likely be atrocious.’

  ‘Its fine there now,’ Fortescue said, ‘I checked this morning. But that’s only going to last until about midday tomorrow.’

  ‘Daddo?’

  ‘Edie?’

  ‘That helicopter’s already booked, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Edith, it is. It’s chartered and fueled up and waiting for us now.’

  ‘We only need clothes,’ Helena said. ‘There’s food and accommodation at the complex. I’ve still
got a passkey and the bloke in charge of security won’t chuck us out.’

  ‘He’ll think we’re the cavalry,’ Fortescue said.

  ‘Then he’s deluded,’ Edie said. ‘How long do you think we’ll be there, Patsy?’

  Lassiter smiled at her. He said, ‘Are you familiar with the theory that nothing ever goes to plan?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘If we haven’t succeeded by tomorrow night, we’ll have failed.’

  ‘And if the weather turns, we’ll have no way of escaping,’ Edie said.

  Ruthie said, ‘Then we’d better not fail.’ She looked through a bleared windowpane at the neglected seating outside. It was cold and raining which was why they had sat where they were. She recalled her recent encounter with Lizzie Burrows, the scalding of her skin and harrowing of her soul that confrontation had inflicted.

  Then we’d better not fail.

  Ricky Hurst had positioned himself on the heights. He had found a spot both sheltered and concealed from below by a scatter of boulders on a shelf of rock. He had a view of the whole of the old colony settlement, its perimeter wall, even the sad red crumple of Dr. Tremlett’s abandoned tent, almost directly below him 300 metres distant. He had been there for two hours and dusk was close to falling.

  He’d trained as a sniper during his decade of service in the Royal Marines. He hadn’t done it prolifically in combat zones, had only two confirmed kills to his name, but remembered the field-craft required. He was disciplined at keeping still and his eyesight was excellent. His breathing was regular and close to inaudible. He was warmly clothed and comparatively comfortable. The knowledge that he wasn’t going to find himself in the crosshairs of an enemy’s scope sight might have been a comfort. But present circumstances on New Hope meant that it wasn’t.

  He’d climbed to the spot he occupied because logic told him that whatever was picking them off was probably based at the centre of the island in the seclusion of the settlement. The boundary wall meant you couldn’t see movement inside it from below. And almost everywhere on the island was below that wall. So it offered concealment as well as shelter. It was a World Heritage Site, which put it out of bounds to visitors, except by prior arrangement. It was a creepy place, even worse if you knew about its bloody history, but he didn’t think whatever responsible for the recent deaths either squeamish or superstitious.

  Being at the centre of the island put you at its hub. It meant you could reach the other significant locations moving downhill and therefore rapidly. He didn’t know precisely what he was looking for, but would if he saw it. He wasn’t there to kill it or even to try to take it on. He thought that the Sig Sauer semi-automatic snug under his arm in its shoulder holster gave him a measure of personal protection. He couldn’t make a shot with a handgun at this distance though and that wasn’t his intention.

  He just wanted to see it; to know what they were up against and to have his theory about its hide proven to him so that he could go back and tell Johnson and between them, they could come up with some feasible plan of action.

  Hurst rated Derek Johnson. The big ex-copper was brave and shrewd and led by example. They were in a serious predicament they knew nowhere near enough about, but he was grateful that Johnson would have his back when things got lively, as he expected they would. Or as he hoped they would, because thus far they couldn’t even lay claim to chasing shadows.

  Now, the shadows around him were not just lengthening but growing indistinct as the sun dipped on the horizon. Soon he would have to give this up. He’d have another crack at it tomorrow. He couldn’t see in the dark and staying where he was when night fell was just too hazardous a risk to take in the dim hope of hearing something that would give their antagonist away. Hurst didn’t relish fighting this particular battle but if it was to be fought, wanted it done in daylight.

  He was about to move, cautiously, deliberately, when he thought he heard something. He’d been aware of the ambient sounds; the shrill whistle of wind gusting through granite apertures, the cries of seabirds. But this was different, a snarl of pain or fury that sounded at once human and impossibly old, ancient, even primeval; a mythic voice not meant for mortal ears, an utterance from dark legends. It reverberated loudly through the heights and faded to nothing.

  Something unfolded from the rocks below him and closed the distance to the settlement’s stone perimeter in a blink where the eight-foot wall momentarily gave it scale before it vaulted over and was lost to sight among a cluster of buildings.

  Hurst rolled onto his back and stared at the darkening sky and let out a long, silent breath with both fists clenched tightly at his sides. He could smell it now, sour and feral, the spoor drifting up on the lightest of breezes. He’d never seen anything human move at anywhere close to that speed. He’d never seen anything human built to that scale. It seemed impossible. But he had to believe the evidence of his own eyes. It had looked like a man, powerful and naked, agile and huge.

  And hungry, he thought. He thought what he’d heard, that single expulsion of sound, nothing other than the raw bellow of its impatience. It was waiting. It was rationing itself, as Johnson had feared and confided in him. This was the fast, but the feast would soon enough follow.

  He wondered if the creature scented him now, late in the darkening winter day, would it be able to resist its own strong, un-sated appetite. The thought of being consumed wasn’t a comfortable one. And he had no doubt the creature he’d just glimpsed could easily do it. He had no confidence the bullets in the pistol he carried would penetrate its hide. That was if he managed to get a shot off at something so preternaturally quick. In spite of its size, it had moved with the sleek suddenness of a cobra strike.

  Carefully, Hurst rolled back onto his stomach. He rose to his knees and elbows. Slowly and deliberately, he stood, at a wary crouch. Then on silent feet, he retreated back in the direction of their compound. He made it without incident, but it was the longest and most fearful walk he could ever remember, expecting to be caught and hauled back out of his boots and into the creature’s crushing embrace at every carefully taken step.

  He was almost there, could see the lights and hear the banter of the blokes there and smell something cooking on their stove when he heard the chunter through the night sky of an approaching chopper.

  They descended the metal helicopter steps just after eight in the evening in darkness. Ruthie was the first of them to plant feet on New Hope’s thin and frugal soil. She breathed in the island scents of brine and wet granite. She heard the tumble of the surf on the shoreline, which in the miasma of light rain and rising spindrift, she could not see from where they’d touched-down at a spot a hundred metres to the rear of Seamus Ballanyne’s old colony dock.

  She remembered the last time she’d arrived there, full of intent and fortitude. She’d rowed herself ashore, dropped in an inflatable kayak from the deck of a fishing smack by the brave, taciturn boy named Adam Cox, skippering the vessel. She’d encountered Patsy Lassiter on the beach near the Shanks’ cottage ruined by grief and she’d hauled off the ground and put the pieces of him back together again. Together they’d ascended the heights and done something that had saved the lives of Phil and Edie. Though Rachel Ballantyne had actually saved the lives of Phil and Edie on that long, eventful night 18 months ago. That was the significant truth giving Ruthie what scant hope she clung onto now.

  You couldn’t call it a welcoming committee, because they were unpacked and roomed inside the complex when the hammering at the door came. They’d been there about an hour, about the time Helena Davenport reckoned it would take a quad bike in this clement weather to get from the workers’ compound to them. She thought it safe to open up. It was dark, but it wasn’t Jack Nicholson out there with his fire axe from The Shining and it wasn’t the island’s resident monster. She knew who it was and she looked forward with a thrill of affection to seeing him again.

  ‘Steady on,’ Lassiter said, as Helena threw her arms around Derek Johnson.
‘Think about the damage a PDA like that does to a man of my vintage.’

  But then Johnson confused things by embracing Lassiter no less ardently.

  ‘We need some introductions here,’ Edie said.

  ‘We need some explanations too,’ Fortescue said.

  To Hurst, Lassiter said, ‘You’re packing shooter. I can see the bulge under your left armpit. I’m confident there’s a plausible reason?’

  ‘One of the two of you has seen it,’ Ruthie said, ‘or both of you have. You have, haven’t you?’

  Introductions were made. Everyone sat down. They were in Helena’s suite because she was sort of their hostess. It was a different suite from the one where she’d found Greg Cody’s incisor. She’d not yet noticed, in the darkness outside, that the window facing that one had been replaced. No one had wanted to berth there anyway.

  Hurst told them about what he’d seen a couple of hours earlier, at dusk, from the heights overlooking the colony settlement.

  ‘Like Grendel in Beowulf or like the Wendigo,’ Fortescue said. ‘Poor Georgia Tremlett was spot on.’

  Johnson said, ‘The only reason it hasn’t attacked us in our compound is greed. It’s sensed all the activity on the island, all this industry, means more people are arriving. So far as it’s been able, it’s resisted taking anyone because it doesn’t want to jeopardize that happening.’

  ‘So it’s clever and cunning as well as big and strong.’

  ‘We’ve had two unconfirmed deaths and two disappearances and they look for all the world like a probable suicide, a maritime accident and an as yet unsolved,’ Johnson said.

  ‘The only false step’s been leaving the Cody trophy for Helena,’ Ruthie said. ‘That was showing off.’

  ‘And allowing itself to be seen by Ricky this afternoon,’ Lassiter said. ‘That was careless.’

  ‘I think you lot are vulnerable here,’ Johnson said.

  ‘Which is a bit like saying water’s wet,’ Edie said.