by Guy N Smith
"So am I. What are you going to do, though? I mean, about that girl?"
"I dropped her off home, and as far as I'm concerned that's that"
"So we're back to square one. Just you and me."
"Perhaps we can manage to make a go of it this time." he said, avoiding her gaze.
"Maybe." She picked up a broom and began sweeping up broken glass. "Like everything else, we'll just have to await developments."
Chapter Three
The Wooden Stables, as the sprawling, untidy outbuildings were known, had fallen gradually into a state of disrepair since the war. Once they had been the property of the Marquis of Anglesey, and thoroughbred stock had been stabled there. Then, with the breaking up of the estate, which had once stretched from Cannock Wood down to Lichfield, they had undergone a series of ownerships, and the quality of horseflesh housed there had deteriorated along with the structure.
Walter Williams cursed to himself as he swung the old Austin pick-up truck off the Cannock Road and felt the wheels spinning in the mud of the rough track. It had not rained for almost a fortnight now, but the bridle path was still like a quagmire. He revved up, and as he felt the vehicle shoot forward he made a mental note to bring a load of slag up next time and attempt to fill in one or two of the pot-holes, something which he had been meaning to do ever since he had bought the place three years ago.
Dusk was gathering, and the shadows from the conifer wood on his left prompted him to switch on his headlights. The twin beams lit up the dereliction ahead of him, a vista of crumbling brickwork and rotting timbers, with gaping holes in the slate roof of the nearest building. Something large ambled out of the shadows and trotted towards him as he brought the vehicle to a halt.
"Hello Penny, old gal," he called out to the piebald mare as he climbed out and went round to the tailboard. There were four bales of hay in the back of the truck. With luck he wouldn't have to come up here again for two or three days. He would be glad when his daughter, Shirley, was old enough to look after her own horses. It had been the same all along, the rabbit, the guinea-pig, the dog, even the goldfish. Walter had had to tend to the lot.
The mare nuzzled him as he let the tail-board down.
"There's a good girl," he coaxed, fondling her. "But where's Stango?"
Stango was Penny's mate, a black stallion who looked good until one examined him closely, and realized why he was housed in the Wooden Stables.
Walter peered into the darkness. It was strange, indeed, that Stango had not come to meet him. Perhaps the horse had already bedded itself down in the building. It had never happened before, though. Then he heard the drumming hooves in the field.
"Hey, Stango," he called. "Good boy. C'm'ere!"
Stango came into view at a fast gallop, moving from left to right, passing in front of the truck but making no attempt to approach it. With a whinny the animal came to a halt about twenty yards away, and stood there flicking his tail restlessly the way he usually did in hot weather when the flies were troublesome. He pawed the ground and snorted.
"What the devil's up with you?" Walter walked steadily towards the horse, hand outstretched. Stango backed away, and in the darkness Walter Williams saw the whiteness of his rolling eyes. The stallion snorted and, breaking into a canter, galloped away to the other end of the field.
"Bloody vandals been up 'ere again," Walter muttered. "Throwin' stones at 'im, I suppose. No wonder the bugger's upset. Better 'ave a look an' see if 'e's 'urt."
But Stango had no intention of letting Walter Williams approach him. Ten minutes later a breathless and angry Walter was shaking his fist at the silhouette of the horse which stood on the opposite side of the small field.
"All right, bloody well stay there if that's how you feel, damn you!" he snarled, and returned to his task of unloading the bales of hay from the pick-up.
"C'mon, old girl," he called to the watching Penny as he struggled to the nearest building carrying a bale. "Some nice fresh hay 'ere. Come and get it."
But Penny would come no further than five yards from the doorway.
"So you're bein' bloody stupid, too, are you?" Walter was fast losing patience. With a final curse he threw the bale into the stable. It thudded onto the stone floor, rolled over, and then, as it came to rest, he heard a movement in the rafters.
He stood still, listening. The noise came again. A soft rustling sound like moths beating against a lampshade.
Sparrows roosting in the rafters, he told himself, but knew that it was not so. The movements were too light. He experienced a prickly sensation up and down his spine. There was definitely something up there in the roof.
He turned and headed back to the truck. Three more bales of hay had to be carried up here. He paused, opened the driver's door and groped in the untidy glove-compartment until he located the cylindrical metal shape of the flashlight which he kept there. He flicked the beam on. It was bright with the power of a new battery. He would soon find out what it was up in the rafters that was disturbing the horses.
As he turned back he noticed that Penny had deserted him. Dusk was turning to deep darkness, but he could just make out the shapes of the two horses by the fence on the far side of the field. They were definitely restless.
He could hear the rustling noise again even before he entered the old building. It wasn't exactly louder, but it was more pronounced, as though whatever had been responsible for that initially had been joined by others.
"Let's 'ave a look at yer, then." His hand trembled as he directed the beam upwards. There was a sudden rush of air, and Walter recoiled. The light from his flashlight picked out dozens of pairs of tiny wings, jinking, swerving, and the air was suddenly filled with shrill squeaks.
Something struck him in the face. The force of the impact was no greater than a well-aimed table-tennis ball, but he recoiled in alarm.
"Bats!" he grunted in revulsion.
Another hit him on the hand, and he dropped the flashlight.
"Ugh!"
He groped on the ground and located the fallen flashlight. He tried the switch, but nothing happened. A brief examination revealed that the glass was broken. Possibly the bulb was damaged.
Walter Williams cowered in the darkness for a few seconds, and then straightened up with a hollow laugh.
"Bleedin' flyin' mice," he grunted. " 'Armless but 'orrible. Well, they've all gone so p'raps the 'orses'll come back now." He gave a whistle, and heard Penny and Stango moving in the darkness, but they did not come near him.
"Please yer bleedin' selves then," he muttered, and began fetching the remaining bales of hay from the pick-up. He did not enter the stable. Instead he flung each bale in through the doorway, and within a few minutes he was reversing his vehicle back down the muddy, rutted track.
It took him less than five minutes to drive back to his small house on the outskirts of Chase Terrace.
"What on earth's the matter with you, Walter?" Gladys Williams inquired, looking up from the oven as her husband stamped into the kitchen.
"Nothin'," he answered, and began struggling to remove his Wellington boots.
"Well, you look as white as a ghost, just like you'd seen one."
"Bats," he puffed as a Wellington finally yielded to his efforts and came free of his foot.
"Who's bats?"
"I don't know who they bloomin' well belong to."
"It's you who's bats," his plump, red-faced wife was only half concentrating as she pulled a casserole from the oven.
"Bats," Walter repeated irritably, endeavouring to pull off the second boot. "With wings. Flyin' mice."
"Where?"
"Wooden Stables."
"Oh, that's all right then. It's when they get in the 'ouse I'll start worryin."
At that moment a slim, fair-haired, freckled-face girl of about ten came in from the hall. She had changed into jodhpurs on her return from school, something which she always did lately. It was small consolation for being deprived of a daily horse ride, but in
a few weeks, when the daylight extended into the evenings, she would be able to walk up to the Wooden Stables and enjoy all the riding she wanted.
"Penny and Stango all right, Dad?" she asked. Her greatest regret was that her father insisted on feeding them on his way back from the building site at Hednesford. She had tried more than once, unsuccessfully, to persuade him to come home first and pick her up. Not only would she be able to see her horses during the week then, but it would stop him from complaining that he was forced to look after them, Walter Williams would not have been happy, though, if he couldn't have a moan about something.
"All right," he grunted. "More or less, anyway."
"What d'you mean, 'more or less'?" Shirley Williams demanded, alarm on her face.
"Nothin' to worry about" Her father was already wishing that he had said "they're O.K.." At least he would have been able to enjoy his evening meal in peace.
"What is it?" Shirley's voice was strained, and her eyes seemed to bore into him just like the time three years ago when old Biggy, the family's dog, had died and Walter had lied and told his daughter that the animal had gone over to stay with Uncle Bill for a while. Walter knew that he would never be able to lie to her again.
"Just bats," he grumbled. "Nothin' to get excited about."
"And what have bats got to do with Penny and Stango?" she faced him, hands on hips, determined to pursue the matter to the end.
"I dunno. I guess the 'orses don't like sleepin' in a stable with bats in the rafters."
"You mean," Shirley demanded, stepping towards him with an angry glint in her eyes, "you mean that Penny and Stango are out in the field and you left them there?"
"They won't come to no 'arm." Walter looked to his wife for support, but she was too busy serving up the stew to concern herself with such mundane topics as bats and horses. "Couldn't do nothin' about it," he mumbled. "They wouldn't come in, so I chucked the 'ay inside for 'em. More than likely they're in there now, guzzu'n' themselves . . ."
"Oh, Dad!" Shirley was close to tears. "If they're frightened of the bats, they won't go in."
"It's a warm night. Almost like summer. They won't 'urt."
"I don't like them outside all night," Shirley was beginning to shout. "Those yobbos from the Oakdene Estate, the Pearson boys on their motorbikes, might go up there and throw stones at them or chase them."
"The Pearsons won't go up there. They'll be stuck down at the Cottage Spring, where they are most nights."
"But anything could happen to them, Dad!" The young girl was on the verge of hysteria.
"The bats've gone," Walter said. "They flew out when I shone the torch on 'em. Penny and Stango'll go back."
"But we don't know. We can't be sure."
"Come and get yer dinners," Gladys Williams called out, having decided it was time that she intervened. "And don't fret yerself, Shirley. Yer dad'll run yer up afterwards just to make sure."
Walter Williams glared at his wife, opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again, and nodded. "All right," he muttered. Anything for peace and quiet. It would only take a quarter of an hour, and he offered up a silent prayer as he took his place at the table that Penny and Stango had come to their senses and gone back into the stable. He didn't fancy trying to round them up in the darkness. The memory of the bats returned to him, and he shivered involuntarily. Harmless, but horrible.
The horses were not in sight when Walter Williams drove back up the rutted track which led to the Wooden Stables and sat with the engine running, his headlights piercing the darkness and illuminating a section of the field and the buildings.
"Where are they?" Anxiously, Shirley was peering through the windscreen.
"Probably in the stable." Walter told her. He did not relish going inside the buildings again. Perhaps if he could satisfy his daughter that they were not out in the field then she would be agreeable to going back home again. But in his heart he knew that he would not escape so lightly.
"They could be anywhere," Shirley said, opening the passenger door. "Maybe round the back of the stable. Let's go and see. We'd better check the stable first."
"All right," Walter sighed, groped for his flashlight in the glove-box, before he remembered that it was broken. "The flashlight is smashed."
"Leave the headlights on, then. They'll help."
Walter was decidedly uneasy as he led the way towards the half-ruined buildings, the piercing beams of light from the vehicle behind them illuminating the dereliction and creating eerie shadows. Bats at dusk were bad enough, but in the pitch blackness of night they filled him with dread. He'd never thought much about them before. Horrible little things. Usually they fled at the approach of man, but this lot had appeared to attack him. That one had really dashed itself against him viciously.
He halted in the entrance to the stable, listening. Not a sound came from within, no movement or horses, munching of hay.
"Penny . . . Stango." Shirley's call echoed inside the building. There was no answering whinny, no welcoming stirring. Just silence.
"We'd better check the field at the back." Shirley's voice was tinged with anxiety.
"We don't have a flashlight."
"We won't need one. If they're there we'll be able to spot them."
"Let's try whistling them first."
They pursed their lips, emitting a series of high-pitched, unmusical whistles. Walter's mouth was dry. It wasn't easy. After a time they paused to listen.
"I can hear something," Shirley spoke in a low tone, unsure but optimistic.
Walter heard it, too. It definitely was not any sound made by the horses, though. It was more like the wind soughing through the trees, a gentle breeze at first, increasing to gale force. Then realization dawned on him.
"Come on," he hissed. "Back to the truck. It's those . . ."
A stinging blow caught him on the forehead. His daughter was screaming hysterically, flailing her arms.
"Dad . . . Dad, there's something caught in my hair!"
Bats were jinking, swerving, frying all around them. Something was caught up in Shirley's long fair hair, a small furry creature that flapped its wings frantically. She was beating at it, trying unsuccessfully to knock it off.
"Stand still!" Walter spoke sharply, clutching her to him and grabbing the fluttering bat. The very feel of its silky fur was repulsive to him, and every instinct yelled at him to snatch his hand away.
Its claws were entwined in the girl's hair and he could not dislodge it. There was only one alternative. He closed his fingers over it, felt the pulsing body in his palm, and then squeezed. He turned away to vomit, hoping Shirley would not notice. The creature had pulped in his fingers, squelching out a sticky warmth. He wiped his hand on his trousers, heaved again, and then spoke with a determined effort at calmness.
"It's all right, love. It's dead."
"It's still in my hair. Ugh! There's something running down my neck!"
He threw up an arm to defend them from the swooping bats. One brushed the back of his neck, and be began to drag the sobbing girl back towards the truck.
"We'd best get away from here."
"But . . . but what about Penny and Stango?"
"They're probably in the field at the back. They won't hurt."
The bats had disappeared as suddenly as they had come. Probably all gone back to the stable, Walter thought to himself as he helped Shirley into the vehicle. She was white-faced, crying, shuddering at the feel of the loathesome squashed creature entwined in her matted hair.
"I'm . . . I'm going to be sick," her stomach heaved and she vomited undigested stew in the cab. Walter made no attempt to open the door for her to lean out. Instead he crashed the gears into reverse and began backing down the muddy bridle path. Before they reached the main Cannock Road he, too, was vomiting again.
Herbie Whitcombe had driven slowly all the way from the Shoal Hill Tavern to Heath Hayes, He was fully aware that the level of alcohol in his blood was way above the legal limit. Usually he
rationed himself to a couple of whiskies and then drove back to Chasetown. It was a nightly ritual that took him away from his nagging wife for an hour or two.
Herbie was in his mid-fifties. He was grossly overweight, and this fact, plus the unsightly goiter which he had developed in recent years, had combined to prevent him from finding himself another woman. So he had sought solace in drink.
By the time he reached the island at Heath Hayes his earlier caution had evaporated in a cloud of alcohol fumes. His foot pressed down harder on the accelerator pedal and the speedometer needle rose rapidly, to fifty . . . sixty . . . sixty-five . . . The hump in the road opposite the Wooden Stables almost caused him to bang his head on the roof of the 1100. But it did not dampen the sudden exuberance which was building up inside him. He wondered just how fast this car would go. He had never really tested it to its limit.
The needle was hovering on seventy when he caught sight of the two horses in the road ahead of him. A piebald and a black. They weren't just cantering. They were galloping towards him, wildly, panic-stricken tails streaming behind them.
The shock sobered him somewhat, but it was too late. A screeching of tortured rubber, filled his ears as he slammed on the brakes, and a terrified neighing.
Herbie hit the piebald head-on. The animal sprawled across the bonnet, forelegs splayed, screaming its agony as it was pushed along, both back legs breaking under the impact.
Only the crushing weight of the injured animal prevented the car from overturning. Broken glass from headlights and windscreen trailed in the wake of the slewing 1100. Then the ripped and jagged fender tore into the flanks of the stallion. Vehicle and horses spun crazily. The driver's door flew open, and Herbie Whitcombe was hurled out into the road. He lay there for a second, winded. The horses were neighing frenziedly as they attempted to free themselves, tearing their flesh as they did so. Herbie tried to struggle upright. As far as he could ascertain he was unhurt except for a few bruises and a cut on his hand. He knew he had to be away from this place before the police came with their breathalyzers.