by Paul Finch
“It’s come up from nowhere,” the woman replied. “I’ve seen these Hebridean storms before. With luck, he’ll already have set off. Let’s just hope he made it.”
Once they broke out of the cover of the trees onto the open glen, the rain came down in a deluge so fierce it was nearly impossible to make headway against it. Cape Wrath was indeed aptly named. Yet amid all this noise and chaos, the real terror was still Ivar. As the fugitives ploughed along, finally moving uphill away from the marsh but plunging to their shins in brackish, peaty quagmires, Alan glanced continually back, expecting at any moment to see Linda’s naked form, still painted in barbarous hues, come lithely out of the woods in pursuit. That thought alone drove him on. Even as the gradient steepened, and the rocks and stones cut into his feet, and the breath was like a knife in his wheezing lungs, he pushed himself as hard as he could. His pin-cushioned body was ravaged with pain, but escape was now all that mattered. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, escape suddenly seemed a possibility, for the head of the Stair was at last before them.
The swampy ground hardened and levelled out, and then they were tramping over flat rocks, and found themselves on top of the island’s eastern bluffs. Directly in front of them, the ground fell away into a precipitous gully, at the base of which, explosions of foam revealed the point where rocks met sea, the noise of it vastly amplified up the great limestone chimney, the gale howling in their faces as though coming through a wind-tunnel. Still leaning against each other, they began to clamber down, buffeted, drenched, feet slipping and skidding among boulders not only loosely packed but now awash with rainwater.
“I can’t … I can’t see McEndry!” Alan shouted.
“Keep going,” the Professor urged. “He must be here.”
And, by the grace of God, he was.
The doughty Scot had been there for some time and, once the storm had blown up, had dragged his boat as far onto the shingle as he’d been able to. The two survivors were half way down the Stair before they were able to spot him. When they did, they began wildly shouting, coming down the remaining 80 feet of rubble at reckless speed. Several times they fell or caught themselves on juts of stone. McEndry, packed inside a heavy oilskin mac, and with a broad oilskin hat jammed down on his head, could only gaze up at them, astonished.
Neither Alan nor the Professor even paused to consider the bizarre sight they must have made; both nude, the boy visibly cut and bruised in dozens of places, the woman incredibly tousled, the pair of them wet through and bone-weary.
“What in the name of … ?” the boatman began, as they descended onto the beach.
“We’ve got to go,” Alan jabbered. “We’ve got to go now – right now!”
McEndry shook his head. “I can’t put out on this sea. It’s a miracle I even got here …”
“Mr McEndry,” said the Professor firmly, “do as he says. We have to go now!”
The boatman was still too stunned to make any real sense of this. He gazed up the Stair. “Where are the rest?”
“You don’t want to know,” the woman said, grabbing him by the lapels of the mac and turning him round to face her. “Believe me, you don’t want to know anything about what’s waiting back there!”
“Or what might be on its way towards us right now,” Alan added.
Something about them – about the desperation in their haggard, harrowed faces; about the way they stood; the way they were dressed, or rather undressed; the way their eyes bulged like duck-eggs and their voices creaked with a hoarseness born only of incessant shrieking – made his mind up for him. John McEndry was a native of Cape Wrath. He knew its terrible moods and awesome powers; he also knew its weird history and its strange, hideous legends.
There was no real contest.
Without further ado, he turned and waved them towards the boat. The moment they were aboard, he began pushing it out into the surf, stopping only to help the two passengers as they hurled out the various boxes and food-parcels he’d shipped across the firth for them, but which now would only hamper their escape. Within two minutes they were all on board, all using oars and paddles to negotiate the narrow pathway back to open water. But only when the motor roared to life did they at last begin to gain real distance.
The vessel dipped and tilted alarmingly as it rode the ponderous swells. The rain drove into their faces, the wind screamed across the grey, rolling sea, ripping up swirls of spume. They ploughed on anyway, drenched repeatedly, rising and falling ’til they were sick to the pits of their stomachs, but even then the two passengers felt only relief that the crags of Craeghatir were falling behind them. And yet … yet, there was something that drew their attention back.
Alan was the first to look. He was in the process of pulling on an old, bilge-stained sweater and a pair of oilskin trousers that the boatmen kept in a locker under his bench, when he felt the overwhelming urge to turn and stare. He did so, and the moment he did, he swore with such venom and volume that the others turned and stared as well. They were stunned to see a naked female figure standing atop the highest of the island’s cliffs, spreading her arms and then throwing herself out into space in a perfect swan-dive.
“I don’t believe it!” Alan screamed. “That psychotic bitch!”
Timeless moments seemed to pass as Linda’s supple form plummeted the 200 feet to the ocean, gracefully but at shocking speed. When she hit the waves, she smashed straight through them with only the slightest spurt of foam.
“Jesus Christ Almighty!” McEndry bellowed, flinging himself against the tiller bar, bringing the outboard around.
“What the hell are you doing?” the Professor demanded, turning on him.
“Didn’t you see?” he replied.
“I saw!” she said, still struggling to get into the spare mac he’d given her. “Keep going! We have to get back to the mainland!”
“But she might’ve survived …”
“She’ll have survived all right,” Alan put in.
“I’ve got to go back and see,” McEndry insisted.
The outboard was now coming round in an arc that would take it directly back to the island. Frantically, the Professor tried to wrestle with the boatman. “You’ll kill us all,” she protested.
He shrugged her off, then bent down, opened another locker and drew out the orange packaging of a life-jacket. “I don’t know what ungodly things you people have been doing over there, but I’m not leaving anyone in this sea …”
The professor looked at Alan hard. He immediately caught her meaning and, hefting the oar he’d been using, swung it round in a massive circle, slamming it against the back of McEndry’s head. The Scot crumpled sideways in a senseless heap, and for a moment it was all Alan and the professor could do to save him from toppling overboard. However, by the time they’d dragged the unconscious man back over the gunwales, and laid him in the bilge, they were chugging back towards the island, and probably only 50 or 60 yards from its outer shoals.
Hurriedly, the Professor scrambled along the boat, to take charge of the tiller. Alan, meanwhile, still armed with his oar, stood at the prow, scanning the heaving waves for any sign of Linda. Tufts of weed, torn up from the sea-floor, were visible, clouds of sand and shingle could be seen roiling beneath the surface, but there was no trace of human life. The shadow of the island now fell across them; the water seemed darker, it was starting to break on the rocks and reefs. Alan turned back to the Professor, who had managed to get hold of the tiller-bar, but who, fearful of capsizing them, was attempting to bring the vessel about slowly and with care.
“She must’ve drowned,” he shouted. “I can’t see even Ivar lasting in this …”
And the Professor screamed and pointed.
And before Alan could react, he felt claw-like hands seize hold of his left leg.
He looked down in astonishment. Linda had arisen beside the boat like
some demonic mermaid. Washed clean of blood and filth, but grinning insanely, she had reached over the gunwales and taken hold of him. Instead of using him to try to climb aboard, however, she was yanking at him, doing everything in her not inconsiderable power to drag him down to her. Fleetingly, Alan had a vision of what that would entail: a slow descent into the icy, echoing deeps, Linda kicking down behind him with unnatural vigour, forcing him further and further down, a greenish, ochre darkness slowly enfolding them, until only the gleaming whites of her feral, wolf-like teeth were visible.
Petrified, he began swinging the paddle down onto the top of her head. But such was her strength that she’d already almost overbalanced him. If it hadn’t been for the slick surface of the oilskin trousers, she’d probably have been able to take a proper hold and then exert massive pulling power. As it was, Alan’s position was precarious enough. The boat swayed horrifically, and with every blow he aimed at the girl, his centre of gravity changed for the worse. He shrieked for the Professor to help him but, bewilderingly, she stayed where she was, fighting with the tiller.
“Jo, for Christ’s sake!” Alan yelled.
Linda had now got his foot over the gunwale, and was hauling it down into the water. Inevitably, Alan toppled backwards and landed on his butt. As he did, the girl drew her body up and braced her feet against the side of the craft to give herself greater leverage. Alan cast frantically about to grab hold of anything he could, and kicked at her with his free foot. The heel impacted on her nose, flattening it so that blood shot across her face like raspberry ripple. Even the notion that he had once loved this misshapen creature had fled in the face of his desperation to survive. She might have been only a vehicle for Ivar’s crazed spirit, but she was a vehicle that simply had to be destroyed. Alan kicked at her again and again. His heel now smashed into one of her eyes, mangling it, but still it made no difference. She rent and tore at him ferociously.
Alan glanced again towards Jo. Bafflingly, she was still leaning hard on the tiller. And then, in an instant, he realised what she was doing … leaning on the bar so hard that the boat wasn’t so much turning, as pivoting round on its axis. At once, Alan knew what the plan was; it was perhaps the only plan, but it would be no use unless … unless …
With a wild shout, he stood up and threw himself overboard.
He arched over Linda’s head, and hit the raging water perhaps half a yard behind her. After being drenched by the rain and swept by the gale, the sea seemed almost warm in comparison, but it was still a terrific shock suddenly to crash down into that dark swell, salt bubbles swirling around him like angry wasps. Urgently, he fought his way back to the surface. He couldn’t allow her to take him down. For her part, Linda – though not looking anything like Linda, looking more like the revenant of some torn, disfigured pirate – broke away from the boat and spun around to face him. Alan struck at her with his fist – futilely, for she caught him by the wrist. He struck at her with his other fist, and she caught that one too. And then she grinned. And it was the most monstrous, malicious thing he’d ever seen. He imagined her lunging forward and biting into his face, chewing on his nose and lips, on his throat even …
But she’d never have the chance.
For in that last second, Alan ducked and swam away from her, diving down into the chill, rolling depths. Linda might have followed him had she not suddenly been distracted by the thunderous noise in her ears and the choking stench of fuel. She turned … just as Jo Mercy rode the bows of the boat round towards her; the bows and the churning, chopping mass of steel that was the 125-horsepower propeller.
There was no time to escape.
Linda went under it with shrill, bubble-filled shrieks.
For several nightmarish seconds she writhed down there, white flesh, flailing hands, deep billows of swirling scarlet, all contrasting sharply with the sandy-grey of the sea.
From where he was, perhaps six feet down, Alan heard an agonised grinding and clanking of metal. Glancing back up, he saw only vague outlines, but he could easily detect thrashing flurries of movement, twisting tortured limbs … then the oblong outline of the boat moving steadily away against the stark brightness of the sea-surface, and an object descending stiffly, wreathed in a murky mist of its own making. As it fell slowly past him, trailing clouds of fish-bait, he caught fleeting glimpses of an arm shorn off at the elbow, of an eviscerated upper torso, and of a skull clad only in threads of skin and hair, itself split five or six times over … Then his air was ready to give out.
Alan kicked his way back to the surface and broke through the bloody waves, coughing and spluttering. Professor Mercy brought the boat back around, though it was much harder to navigate now with the propeller blades broken and dented. Only by throwing out the corded life-jacket did she manage to haul him aboard.
15
Almost nothing was said. Their breathing was hoarse, heavy. In strained, soaked silence, they steered back towards the distant shadow of the mainland. Both of them noticed, though neither remarked on, the almost unnatural way the winds now seemed to drop and the oceans to calm. Soon the waters were chopping rather than swelling, the rain slowly petering out, spitting rather than thrashing. Still they said nothing. If it was a miracle, it had come six lives too late.
An hour later and half way back, McEndry began to stir. For a short time he didn’t know where he was. He lay with his head cradled in Alan’s lap as the craggy Scottish headlands emerged through the clearing banks of mist. The sun now broke out overhead, a dull red jewel swathed in cotton-wool. Shafts of light beamed down, and where they hit the rain-sodden land, there was a dazzling reflection. For a brief, illusory moment, it was all along the shoreline, as though the whole of Britain was in flames.
By pure chance, Alan glanced down at that moment, and saw those flames dancing in McEndry’s dull, ox-like eyes. It wasn’t reassuring to see a faint smile touch the seaman’s crinkled old mouth.
About The Author
Award-winning horror-film writer, ex-cop and historian, Paul writes short stories, novels and scripts. Currently developing Cape Wrath for Dean O’Toole and developing his novella The Stain into a full-length novel and feature film.
Paul read History at Goldsmiths and then embarked upon a career in the police, working the tough streets of Salford, inner Manchester. During this time, he experienced a wide range of assignments, from traffic and accident-investigation duty to anti-vandal patrol and riot control, not to mention numerous plain clothes attachments … Drugs Squad, Robbery Squad, Street Thefts, plus basic CID and ‘Scenes of Crime’ postings. Paul enjoyed the police and logged a large number of arrests, but after several years and various hair-raising experiences, he decided enough was enough, and moved, in ‘gamekeeper to poacher fashion’, into professional journalism, where he spent the next decade, concentrating mainly on crime.
Both jobs provided him with plenty of research material, and he has now sold numerous TV scripts (including three episodes of The Bill), four movie scripts, seven books and nearly 300 short stories, mostly crime, horror and fantasy, many of which have been listed in various ‘Best Horror’ collections for their appropriate year.
His novella, Cape Wrath, published in 2002, made the final ballot of the prestigious Bram Stoker Awards, while several collections of his short stories have been published, including After Shocks, which won the British Fantasy Award for 2001. Paul’s most recent book, Darker Ages, published in 2004, has also been nominated for the British Fantasy Award.
Paul is married with two young children, and is now employed as a full-time writer.
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