The Lurkers

by Guy N Smith

  'Did he bring you straight home?'

  'Yes,' Gavin nodded, 'but he kept talking all the time, trying to frighten me, I guess.'

  'How?'

  'He said'—Gavin swallowed—'that there used to be druids at the stone circle a long time ago, that although they were dead their ghosts still haunted the place. That—that they had set fire to the trees to keep folks like us from going up there.'

  'What utter rubbish!' Peter's lips tightened.

  'He gave me the creeps.' Gavin trembled violently. 'Kept looking at me with those weird eyes of his, like he could see right into me and knew what I was thinking. He said folks like us ought not to be living here because we're townies and didn't understand country ways, that maybe that was what was angering the druids' ghosts.'

  'The bastard!' Peter hissed. 'How low can you get, working on a young boy to try and terrorise us? He's just out to scare us away so that maybe Clive Blackstone will sell Hodre to him. I'm bloody well going to have words with Mr Ruskin before very long!'

  Gavin went up to his room. Maybe he couldn't hold those tears back any longer, Peter guessed. It would be years before the boy could get the sight of that mutilated rabbit out of his system. Now he would know just what had happened to Snowy; their efforts to spare him the gruesome details had failed miserably.

  Janie whirled on Peter the moment they were alone, her voice an angry low hiss which she hoped would not carry upstairs. 'Damn you, if you hadn't gone off and got back too late to pick him up from school this would never have happened!'

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Hell, what was the point in going into details, explanations? There was nothing to be gained by telling her about the hoax hospital call. She was leaving anyway. Perhaps it was best that way; at least he wouldn't be worrying the whole time about what fresh horrors his wife and son might be subjected to.

  'Maybe Ruskin wasn't so far from the truth in what he said to Gavin.' She poured two mugs of coffee, slopping them because her hand shook.

  'Don't be ridiculous, I've never heard such poppycock in all my life. I don't think even Gavin believes it. He's just upset about what's happened to his rabbit.'

  'You're not just insensitive, you're damned well bund!' Her eyes flashed angrily. 'You're so wrapped up in yourself that it takes me to notice things. That—that—what happened tonight, didn't you notice anything? You had your torch on it for long enough.'

  'What the hell are you talking about? Whoever it was stole that rabbit from its hutch, tied it to the stone and—and gutted it.'

  'I don't mean the rabbit. God that was bad enough'—there was a condescending note in her tone now—'I mean the stone it was lashed to.'

  'What about the stone?' He stared at her blankly.

  'Simply this.' Janie took a sip of coffee. 'That stone is the very same one that was there thousands of years ago, hauled up that slope in the days before mechanical pulleys by those vile priests for a specific purpose. It's a sacrificial stone and Gavin's rabbit was sacrificed on it!'

  11

  In a way it was a relief to be without Janie and Gavin, Peter decided. At least he did not have to worry for their safety.

  He turned back into the cottage after the lanes had swallowed up the Mini, and told himself that his book was now a priority; he must just ignore everything and everybody else.

  By mid-morning he was finding it difficult to settle down at his typewriter. That was strange because for the first time in his life he had all the peace and quiet for which he craved. No distractions. Yet it was hard going and he still had not solved the concluding paragraph to chapter one and was having no small amount of trouble coping with chapter two.

  He found himself sitting there staring out of the window, his thoughts drifting away from the book. Truth is stranger than fiction—a hackneyed phrase down the years, but it was true. These happenings at Hodre were somehow making his own plot slight, a fantasy that was beyond belief because the reader would say it couldn't happen. Just what he'd say about the Hodre events: the product of an over-fertile imagination. Unless you happened to be there.

  The cloud was definitely coming down again, an unfriendly opaqueness that had an air of permanency about it. Hodre, land of everlasting fog. It was depressing, and seemed worse now that he was alone. If Janie had just gone to her parents for the day and Gavin was at school, Peter probably wouldn't have even noticed it. Suddenly everything was different; a creeping loneliness seemed to eat into his soul, a feeling that bred despair and hopelessness. Maybe he should pack up and go too; at this rate he was getting nowhere with his book. No, that wasn't just why he was staying. As he had told Janie, he had a score to settle. Against whom? The Wilsons? Bostock and Peters? Ruskin? Whoever was responsible for these outrages, they'd pay for it. He'd get back at them in some way.

  Subconsciously his hearing had picked up the distant drone of an engine. He didn't take any notice of it until it cut out and made him aware of the sudden silence again.

  Peter got up from his desk. Another excuse to get away from his book for a few minutes; he was clutching at any legitimate means of procrastination. The vehicle had stopped a little way down the road. On a clear day he would have been able to see it from the garden gate. With the thickening fog he'd have to walk down the road for a hundred yards or so. He didn't have any reason to, it was none of his business. But he'd do it all the same.

  He shrugged on his duffle coat and went outside. God, it was much colder than yesterday. Another drop of a few degrees and the fog would be freezing.

  It was so silent that he felt like going back indoors in case he made a noise. He was a trespasser in this empty world, an intruder who slunk along furtively glancing back into the mist, ready to flee at any second. From what? Peter didn't know; that was the worst part. The fear of the unknown.

  A raven was croaking somewhere. Peter found himself peering into the gloom trying to spot it. Maybe it was the same one that had fed on the mutilated flesh of the cat, perhaps even before the creature was dead.

  Surely he must come upon the parked vehicle soon. The damned fog cloaked all sound. It could only be a few yards ahead, its occupants sitting there listening. Waiting. For what? He shivered.

  Then without warning he came upon it. One second there was nothing but a wall of damp grey opaqueness in front of him, the next a square bulky thing parked up on the verge at an angle, almost threatening to topple over.

  A Land Rover Peter caught his breath and took a step backwards, icy fingers seeming to caress his back. His mouth was suddenly dry, his eyes straining, attempting to see inside the vehicle. A brief feeling of relief when he saw that it was empty, just a bale of hay in the back. Then the uneasiness returned. Where were the occupants, what had they stopped for, and what were they doing, cloaked by the elements?

  It was Ruskin's Land Rover all right, the one that had nearly piled into the Saab yesterday morning. What the hell was he doing here? He'd no business on Hodre ground, and that was surely where he was.

  Peter did not hesitate. Ruskin had obviously climbed over the remnants of a stile in the hedge and followed an old winding sheep track that led upwards ... in the direction of the stone circle.

  Peter felt his pulses begin to race. Maybe Tim Ruskin had some insidious motive; to remove the dead rabbit, destroy the evidence? Or perpetrate further atrocities?

  Peter moved quickly, angry now, wanting to confront his neighbour at the earliest opportunity. There were a lot of questions the other had to answer, like not phoning back last night to enquire whether or not Gavin had turned up safely. And all this bullshit he'd fed the boy about druid ghosts and blood sacrifices.

  The circle couldn't be far away, Peter knew, but he'd lost all sense of direction in the fog. The raven was croaking angrily now, the way it had when he had disturbed it from its feed on feline carrion. Maybe its feast of rabbit flesh had been interrupted too. By Ruskin. The bastard wasn't far away.

  Then Peter saw the trees, grotesque caricatures in
the gloom like a child's impression of something beyond adult comprehension. Dead yet alive, seeing him. Reaching out for him. Malevolent.

  Something moved, making Peter's heart thump madly. A shape that became human, walking on dead ash, kicking up clouds of it as it moved, the sole survivor after the apocalypse when the earth had burned and cooled to a dead world.

  'What the hell d'you think you're doing, Ruskin?' Peter shouted, his words seeming to be blanketed and robbed of their venom by the fog. 'Come to take that rabbit away, have you?'

  The man turned slowly, his aquiline face a mask of predatory anger. Showing no surprise, the deep-set eyes hooded and fixed steadily on Peter. In the grey light the lone hair and flowing beard seemed pure white, an aged reincarnation of ancient evil rising up out of the ashes to reclaim its domain of past centuries. A druid priest returned from the dead.

  'I happen to be looking for some stray ewes.' A cultured, dominant voice that brooked no interference. 'A task which I am perfectly entitled to carry out.'

  'You're trespassing. Apart from that it's sheer bloody bad manners to go tramping about on somebody else's land without so much as a by-your-leave. You know where I live, you could have called at the house first.'

  'I saw no reason to disturb you about something you probably wouldn't understand.' Ruskin's eyes narrowed. 'Up here we have an unwritten law that if your stock go missing you go and look for them. Nobody is going to change a way of life that has gone on for centuries. Certainly not an outsider!'

  But Peter wasn't listening. His eyes were seeking out the big centre stone, which Janie maintained had been used as a sacrificial altar by the ancient druids, anticipating his revulsion, preparing himself for the sight of that slaughtered rabbit again, mutilated still further by the raven's pre-dations. But the dead animal was no longer there; even the lengths of string were gone. Just patches of dried blood remained, which the elements would erase slowly, nature's method of destroying the evidence.

  The rabbit had disappeared just as the cat had done. Only to be returned later? It might be foxes, of course. This time the victim had been within vulpine reach. Only Peter knew the culprit wasn't a fox. His gaze returned to Ruskin, instinctively searching his waterproof clothing for some tell-tale bulge that might reveal a small rabbit carcase stuffed hastily into a pocket. But there was none. Not even a bloodstain or a loose tuft of grey fur adhering to the damp material.

  'I rang you last night.' Peter's voice vibrated with his rising anger, his frustration at finding no evidence of the farmer's involvement in the recent happenings.

  'Did you? Why?' Abruptly he half-turned away, with an I've-got-things-to-do shrug of his broad shoulders.

  'My son was missing.'

  'I wouldn't know anything about that. I dropped him off at your place, as a favour for Malcolm Hughes.'

  'We found him here:, his pet rabbit had been tied to that stone and mutilated. Just like our cat was the other day.'

  'Strange things happen in these hills.' Ruskin's expression was impassive. 'We locals have learned to accept them, not to ask questions.'

  'Well I always ask questions.' Peter took a step forward, his hands clenched. 'And another thing, Mr Ruskin—1 take great exception 'to all that rubbish about druids and spooks and the like which you tried to frighten my son with.'

  Tin only telling your boy what every other child in the village knows.' Ruskin's tone maintained its unemotional level; Christ, didn't this guy ever get angry? So bloody sure of himself, dominant, talking down to you. 'The other kids aren't scared, they just keep well away from Hodre, and that way they know they'll be all right.'

  'Well I don't believe that crap and I'm not keeping away. You won't drive me from Hodre, Ruskin!'

  'Me?'

  'You or anybody else. I'm staying put, and if there's any more funny business somebody might get hurt!'

  'Is that some kind of a threat, Mr Fogg?' Twin red spots appeared on Tim Ruskin's cheeks and began to blotch and spread. His lower lip appeared to tremble slightly but it was difficult to be sure because his beard screened most of it.

  'Depends how you take it. I'm looking for anybody on this place without permission from now onwards.'

  'I've still got to find my ewes. I can't have 'em lost up here at this time of the year. As you'll find out, blizzards can come without any warning and before you know it your house is buried up to the chimneys.'

  'OK, go and look for your sheep.' And you won't scare me with snow talk, either. 'But next time I'd appreciate a call before you come walking over Hodre ground.'

  Tim Ruskin turned away without another word and set off uphill away from the circle, his heavy working boots powdering ash in his wake. Peter watched him until he was lost in the fog. He had an uncomfortable feeling that this was an encounter which he had lost. No way would Ruskin come and ask permission to enter Hodre's meagre acreage. Day or night he would come, a feudal baron who was not to be denied access to that which he already considered to be his.

  Peter managed to settle to an hour or two of work later that afternoon, forcing himself to hammer the words out of the typewriter. He consoled himself that this was only the first draft; an awful lot might be changed in the second.

  It was almost dusk when he happened to glance out of the window. The shadowy panoramic landscape was silhouetted clearly against the skyline. The fog had lifted, the low cloud formations moved on elsewhere.

  Something on the horizon attracted his attention, dots that moved, stopped, moved on again. He squinted as he tried to identify them. There were dozens of them, whatever they were; too big for sheep, too small for cattle. And suddenly he knew, and the realisation made him catch his breath. Deer; a herd two or three times the size of the one that had wandered on to Hodre previously!

  The big buck leader was recognisable by his aloofness from the rest of the animals, and an alertness that was visible even at a distance of almost a mile. They were edgy; that was why they kept on the move. Probably they had lain up in the big forest all day and now with the approach of nightfall they had come out to feed, regal beasts which from time immemorial had played the role of the hunted.

  Then the dusk deepened and Peter could see them no more, but he knew they were out there, fighting to survive. Why did they come to Hodre with the approach of winter when the valleys offered warmth and shelter? Perhaps there was a greater degree of safety in these wild hills and mountains, places to hide, refuge from the lowland hunters. He had read an article in one of the daily newspapers some months ago about how widespread deer-poaching had become in some parts of Britain. No longer was the poacher the romantic village Robin Hood who set forth on moonlit nights content to bag a joint of venison for the larder. Romanticism had escalated into big business. Gangs armed with shotguns and crossbows hunted in the lights of vehicles, heedless of the cruelty involved. Wounded deer escaped, limping away into thick cover to die a terrible lingering death. Ruthless men had turned a peaceful countryside into a violent land. Gangs amalgamated for bigger kills and bigger profits. Men who poached by night and slept by day, desperate thugs who would kill rather than be caught, planted their own decoys to fool police and forestry rangers. And at the end of the day they became rich and gave no thought to the needless suffering they had caused by their greed.

  The deer were welcome on Hodre, Peter reflected. At least they weren't subjected to that', only cats and rabbits apparently.

  He found work somewhat easier in the evening. It compensated for Janie's and Gavin's absence and dispelled loneliness. In a way Janie had done him a favour, because he would finish his book that much quicker, and maybe he could even be out of here by late spring.

  He worked on late and didn't break off until shortly before midnight. He could have gone on longer, but past experience had taught him that long concentrated spells of writing were no advantage because tiredness slowed him down the following day. Like a cross-country runner, one had to maintain an even pace.

  He made himself a mug of coffee
and sat drinking it by the Rayburn in the kitchen. It was the worst time of the day for him, the time when he got round to thinking about things, when the protective shield of work was lowered. He glanced at the clock: eleven-fifty. He had a sudden pang of uneasiness: Janie should have phoned. Or maybe she was still being stubborn and putting the onus of communication on him. It was late; probably her parents had already been in bed for an hour. She might even have turned in herself.

  He pursed his lips and stared into the muddy-coloured liquid that was supposed to be instant coffee, recommended for calming the nerves. That was a load of bull, the way he felt right now. To phone or not to phone, that was the question.

  Peter stood up. He knew he'd have to make the call. His conscience was beginning to trouble him. This was how marriages broke up: a temporary separation to begin with until you got used to being without each other, then you didn't really want to go to the trouble of getting back together. He didn't really have a good reason for staying. He didn't need Hodre to write a book; a thousand other places would do. Neither did he have to involve himself in local feuds, prejudices and cock-and-bull stories that wouldn't even make good background for a novel because they were so common. Almost every old house, tract of wood, moor and heath had its own resident spook, according to the locals of those places.

  He went into the hall and started to dial. He was only on the third digit when he got the feeling that something was wrong. The instrument seemed lifeless, as though the dialling mechanism was performing the motions but nothing else; no clicking into place, no sound of wires humming and picking up the message.

  Peter's uneasiness increased. He finished dialling and listened. Silence. He tried again with fading hopes. Nothing.

  Oh, Jesus Christ the fucking thing was dead! He slammed the receiver back, wanting to pummel it with his fists, smash it. But he didn't, because the prickling sensation was creeping back up his spine and into the nape of his neck, goose-pimpling his skin.

  He glanced at the door and made certain the bolt was shot home. He'd check the downstairs windows too before he went upstairs. Just to be sure.