Banquet for the Damned

by Adam L. G. Nevill

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Outside the Land Rover, the air is cool and windless, the night sky clear. A bright moon turns the fields to frosted glass and the trees into jagged shapes, the spaces between them quenched by the dark. Stars seem closer to the earth, twinkling in a purple-black immensity above the hills and glens, patched with snow at their summits and older than the frailest ruin by the sea. The night's icy beauty, and the sense that a ghastly confrontation awaits, overwhelms Dante with the most powerful feeling of insignificance he can remember. For a while, he just stands at the entrance to the field, and holds the top of the gate for support. Watched by Hart, he is allowed to take a moment. Probably the last moment of reflection he will allow himself tonight.

  Eventually, he eases himself up one side of the gate and down the next, using the horizontal metal slats as rungs. Hart passes the cardboard box of Molotov cocktails over the fence. Dante places them on the ground by his feet. 'And the canisters. All of them.' He speaks with urgency now. 'We'll break through the trees at the side of the cottage and try the back door. Might still be busted.'

  'We'll never carry them all,' Hart groans, hoisting another loaded box with RIBENA printed on the side.

  Looking around nervously, Dante zips his jacket up to his throat. 'Stay here for a bit while I check the place over. Count to thirty or something and then follow me. And be real quiet.'

  Hart nods.

  'Now pass me the axe. You take the crowbar.' Price tags are still tied with tiny loops of white string around the smooth handles. The arsenal rattled around on the aluminium floor behind the front seats as they drove out to the cottage. He strove to ignore the sound of them as they trembled and juddered against the cold metal of the Land Rover, seemingly aware of their impending role in a violent conspiracy. Crowbar for the door, and the axe for . . . He doesn't want to think about it. That was the plan that afternoon, as he groaned and wheezed his way between lawnmowers, garden chairs and pots of enamel paint in the hardware store.

  The heavy fire axe, with the shining red paint on the blade, is handed over the gate. Dante turns to leave, and Hart begins muttering. 'Don't go tear-arsing in there without me. Stay cool.'

  'Don't worry. Wouldn't dream of taking the glory without you.' Dante winks at the pale face in the bushy beard, and then turns to look at the distant spectre of the cottage, a black clump on the other side of an open field. For reassurance, he peers over his shoulder at the American and says, 'We're fine on the outside of the property. They can't see us. The trees are too thick and there's a fence at the back.'

  Hart appears unconvinced. Dante walks across the hard clay of the field. It is furrowed in long curving rows, but the topsoil is dried hard and crumbly. His boots crunch up toward the distant row of poplars, chestnuts and baby ferns, planted like a natural corral down the side of the cottage. Above the top of the highest branches he can see the solid black outline of the roof.

  Stooped over but running, with the axe clutched across his chest, he covers the last twenty feet. His throat dries out and a single greasy strand of his fringe whips across his eyes, threatening to dislodge a contact lens. Engulfed by the cool and piny smell of the trees, Dante pauses and rearranges his hair. After pulling the collar of his biker's leather up to his chin, and pulling his red scarf over his mouth, he pushes himself through the trees.

  Branches and sharp twigs crackle and stick into his hair and jacket, preventing him from moving more than a foot. Crouching down at the base of the barrier, he quickly rethinks his entry. By crawling sideways, he finds a small opening at the bottom of the trunks of two trees. Peering between them, he can see the cottage wall and the weedy path leading to the rear garden on the other side of the trees. Carefully, he assumes a press-up position and smuggles his head and shoulders through the hole. The smell of dark soil and peaty leaf mould fills his sinuses, and the cold presses through his jeans. It seems to take an age to struggle through the gap, his back so delicate, and he is forced to roll onto his side to complete the manoeuvre. Reaching out with both hands he drags his body, up to the waist, into the grounds. He looks left and right, tingling from the sense that he is most vulnerable on the ground. To the front of the cottage he can just see where the lawn begins, but the rear is a wall of darkness, made from the shadows cast down by the trees and fence. He pulls his legs through.

  Slowly, Dante stands up. The cottage is silent. As before, it appears deserted. He begins to wonder if it is and hopes that the occupants are out, lighting fires back in the town, or wreaking havoc elsewhere. Behind him, on the field side, he hears Hart's boots scrabble across the clay. Dante drops to his knees and peers through the hole he's just widened.

  'Hey now,' Hart whispers from the other side. 'I carried both boxes together. But I fell twice.'

  'Cool,' Dante says, only half listening. 'There's no one around. Would they be inside directing their energies, or whatever they are? Or would they have to go out someplace to do it?'

  Hart sighs. 'They gotta be in there, man. The whole coven. Only way to raise hell elsewhere.'

  Dante nods, and then spits at the earth.

  'What we do now?' Hart asks.

  'Pass the stuff through. Then crawl after it, real slow.'

  With his back to the hedge, Dante smokes half a Marlboro inside cupped hands that shake about the Zippo flame, while his mind does loops and circles, trying to think of fresh strategies and double-guess any potential for disaster. Now they are out in the cold, under the stars and moon, the entire venture begins to reek of the absurd. He wants to rely on his wits, but finds himself belittled by the thought of their cardboard boxes stacked up against a hedge. Too much planning only creates a mire of obstacles and indecision in his mind.

  But regardless of whether the place is occupied or not, they will have to get inside and burn the cottage from there. And if anything is waiting in the dark for them, they will have to get in close with it and use the axe. The shakes take hold of Dante's legs and arms. Being so near the cottage makes him remember his last visit. He can almost smell the kitchen with its damp and rot stink. But his thoughts of the paintings are the worst.

  If the witches can start fires and storms with their minds, what can he and Hart do with a supermarket box of whisky and milk bottles filled with leaded petrol? He thinks of running. It feels like his clothes are soaking. He touches his thigh. His jeans are damp from the grass, that's all. Then he swallows and stands up at the sound of Hart wriggling the boxes through the hedge. Between the wheezes he makes to regain his breath, Dante hears Hart's anxious voice set at a whisper as he comes through. 'Any sign of life?' He bends down so Hart can see his face, and shakes his head, too afraid now to even whisper. When Hart's bulbous shape squeezes itself noisily through the tunnel, pushing the cardboard boxes through before his body, Dante cringes at the noise and reaches into the hedge to pull the boxes free. Sticks snap and leaves scratch Hart's khaki jacket as he follows. In his mind he begins to recite, Come on, come on, come on, until Hart is clear of the hedge and crouching beside him, out of breath.

  Dante stays silent, and motions to Hart to follow him to the back door of the cottage. Carrying a box each, with the axe and crowbar hanging over the crook of their elbows, they creep to the back door. Dante drops to his knees under the kitchen window. Hart kneels and stiffens against him. Flashing his torch over the lock reveals it to be broken. Splintered wood erupts from the frame after his previous visit with the screwdriver. Tentatively, Dante reaches out and presses the door. It moves an inch, and then becomes stuck against something inside the kitchen. He guesses the occupants have lodged something against the door from the inside.

  Standing up, but bidding Hart stay put with a down stroke of his hand, Dante edges his face around the window frame and shines a torch beam through the bottom pane of glass. In the murk, the torch reveals part of a messy table top, littered with something he cannot see clearly due to the grime on both sides of the windowpane. But the table itself looks solid and heavy, and
he remembers seeing the type of table he associates with farmhouses on his last visit to the cottage. 'Hart, we'll have to put our shoulders against the door and push it in. There's a table or something holding it closed. That's all.'

  'What then?' Hart's voice is a whisper, followed by an audible swallow.

  Wide-eyed, Dante wipes his mouth. 'We go in quiet. Real quiet, and we soak the place. All through the ground floor. Do as much as we can until they hear us. I reckon they're in the basement. That's where everything starts out here. Then we light it up. They'll be scared of fire. Beth is. I remember her face in St Mary's Court when I lit a fag. And there's loads of newspaper and wood inside. It'll all go up.' Hart nods. His eyes are fixed on the boxes while his lips move, in the way mouths move when someone repeats the same thing to reassure themselves. 'But we got to be quiet. Really quiet,' Dante whispers. Hart nods.

  They move the boxes clear of the weed-covered garden path, place the tools on the ground near the boxes, and then put their shoulders to the door. It bends in the middle with a woody groan, but the table doesn't budge. They change positions, with Hart pressing the lower half and middle of the door with his shoulder and Dante pushing the top half with his outspread hands. Slowly, and with a scraping sound they cringe at, the door moves inward with a jerk. A thin black space appears as the portal widens. For a moment, they stop pushing, each reluctant to be too close to the space they have created.

  'Can you feel it?' Hart mutters. Dante nods, and remembers the story told to him by Harry and Arthur. A perceptible iciness slips through the gap they have created, as if unnatural currents and draughts are at work inside the building.

  'Come on,' Dante says through clenched teeth, and they double their efforts to widen the gap until it is big enough for one man to squeeze through sideways. Outside in the dark, shivering from the drop in temperature that suddenly engulfs them, they pause again, as if by the side of cold water they must plunge into.

  'I'll go first,' Dante says. Quickly, he picks up the axe and his torch and then squeezes his body between the door and the frame, leaving Hart on the outside, standing with the crowbar clutched across his chest.

  For a few seconds that pass quickly on account of an overwhelming attack of nerves, a feeling that he will jump through the ceiling at the first creak of a floorboard nearby, Dante's torch beam flicks the ceiling and walls, looking for the door that leads from the kitchen to the rest of the property. It is shut. His presence of mind stretches far enough to make sure he is alone in the kitchen, and that it is still sealed from the rest of the house, but it reaches no further, and he is capable of no other thought when the light from his torch shines upon the table they have partially shoved to one side. Something has recently eaten.

  'Oh God,' is all he says, before lurching backward and hitting the sink unit. He squeezes the axe handle until his hand is tight and completely white. He points the torch down and away from the table top, but on the floor are scraps, fallen from the table, on which a man lies flayed. Indelibly imprinted on his mind, even once his eyes are squeezed shut and covered by a hand, is the streaky white and red mess that was once the university Hebdomidar. When Dante imagines raking hands and dipping mouths, made wet by their food, he says, 'No,' and shakes his head from side to side. But the image of the exposed ribs and, above them, the eyes still open in agony and shock, he cannot banish. It is as if the bulky remains of Arthur Spencer have been left as a message to intruders.

  'Dante, Dante,' Hart whispers through the door. 'Say something.'

  Feeling the air cloud in a freezing vapour around his face, Dante is unable to answer. A second torch beam is clicked on and shines through the gap against the side of his face. Dante turns and looks into the light Hart has shone on him. He cannot see Hart through the brightness, but the shock on his face must register instantly with the American. 'Jesus,' Hart says. 'What is it? What is it? What is it?' Uselessly, Dante shakes his head. 'I'm coming in,' Hart says. Holding his torch and crowbar, Hart squeezes through the gap. As he is thicker than Dante, the table moves again from the force of his roundness against the door, and for a moment the Hebdomidar trembles on the table, as if stirring in his sleep.

  As it comes into the kitchen, Hart's struggling body bangs against Dante and sends him sprawling against the sink. The risk of falling down snaps him alert and he regains his balance by seizing the cold metal of the draining board. As he stands up and swings his torch around to light Hart's progress, he sees that the American's entrance to the house is complete, and his introduction to the cottage sufficient. Down beside the dripping table, something yellow and runny drops through Hart's beard and splashes onto the floor tiles, adding a new scent to the putrescence already evident in the kitchen.

  When he finishes puking, Hart turns and rushes noisily back to the kitchen door. Dante moves in his way and holds Hart's shoulders, his grip useless while he still clutches the torch and axe. 'Let me through, Goddammit,' Hart says, his voice low.

  Dante clears his throat of a lump. 'No.'

  Hart renews his efforts to escape, and pushes Dante hard against the back door so it slams shut, sealing them inside the kitchen. They wrestle in the dark, their feet skittering on the tiles where they are dry, and occasionally sliding where they are moist. Coughing, Dante turns his head to the side to avoid the gusts of vomit-breath that gush through Hart's beard.

  'I gotta get out,' Hart says, panting from exertion, his strength peaking through his panic. Then he gets one hand under Dante's chin, pushing hard so his head cracks against the door behind. But the pain from the blow refreshes Dante. He drops the torch and axe, which clatter on the floor, and then knocks Hart's arms away from around his neck and face. 'Cut it out. Hart, ease off. Just stop, you fuck –' he says through gritted teeth. But Hart continues to fight to get back through the door. With what mobility he can summon with one arm, Dante strikes out at his shadowy opponent. His fist stops short of his arm lengthening, but connects with a crispy beard, and he hears a muffled grunt across the narrow space between them. Then Hart's glasses hit the floor with a tinny clatter.

  Suddenly, the struggle stops. All they can hear is their own breathing, hard and trembling with emotion. 'Sorry,' Dante whispers. 'We have to . . .' he tries to say, but never has the air to finish. Hart falls against him, clutching handfuls of his leather jacket and sniffing into the lapels. Dante seizes the back of Hart's matted head and wants to cry to relieve the pressure inside him, the terrifying tension from seeing what has been done to Arthur Spencer, and so many others too. This is Tom; so quickly he has the realisation. So recently, Tom found the same end in this stinking cottage where foulness is worshipped and fed with innocence. 'Burn it. We got to burn it. We got to kill it,' is all he can say, quickly and repeatedly to his friend. Hart raises his head slowly, but it is too dark in the kitchen to see his face.

  'Get the fuel,' the American whispers.

  Behind him, as he fumbles to reopen the door, Hart shoves the table aside, no longer worried by the noise he makes by scraping the thick wooden legs across the old floor tiles. Outside, Dante greedily sucks at the fresh air and then rearranges his scarf over his mouth. He drags the cardboard boxes, which make a glassy jingle as they are moved, inside the kitchen. We're still thinking too much, he says to himself as he does this. We need to just stop thinking and do this. If we don't, we'll die out here. God, we could die out here.

  As soon as the boxes are on the floor of the kitchen, Hart's small hands are busy inside them. The shock of seeing Arthur and the emotion of the fight seem to have given the American a new and decisive approach to his work. Using the torch by holding it between his teeth, he recovers his glasses from the floor and now pulls the rags from the top of some bottles. Staggering about backward, without a pause, Hart then splashes the fuel across the table and the thing upon it, over the kitchen surfaces, up and against the cabinets, down his own clothes, and across the floor, so the petrol runs across the uneven tiles like olive oil in red wine.

 
'Careful,' Dante says, gripping his axe in one hand, while lighting Hart's clumsy progress with his torch in the other. 'We should light this room last. On our way out. We could get trapped.' He is unsure if Hart hears him, or even if he does, whether he's taking any notice of the precautions they must take with so much fuel now sloshing around beneath their feet and evaporating into the already close air. He is about to repeat the warning when he hears something that stops him. Hart carries on wetting the kitchen, but Dante angles his head toward the inner reaches of the house, beyond the kitchen door. There it is again. A voice. No, more than one. Voices. 'Hart,' he whispers. 'Hart, stop!' he says in a desperate, hissy voice.

  'Nearly there,' Hart says.