On Deadly Ground

by Simon Clark

  It’s coming closer. When I see its head. That’s when I’ll fire into its—

  Chapter 107

  My name is Rick Kennedy.

  The first thing I saw was the head. It was framed by the trap door opening to the roof of the church tower.

  The dust storm nearly obliterated it. But I could see its grey smudged shape.

  That was enough for me. I brought up the rifle. Aimed at the centre of the face.

  I could kill these things. I knew that now.

  My finger tightened on the trigger.

  ‘Rick! Rick!’ The voice echoed down into the stone tower. ‘Don’t shoot. It’s m—’

  Too late. The firing pin slammed into the base of the bullet.

  The gun roared, discharging the bullet upward at the face.

  Christ, that was Kate’s voice! I ran up the steps, hauled myself onto the roof of the tower. Kate lay slumped back against the parapet wall. The gale blew her hair in fluttering strands.

  I remember thinking, Oh my God, I’ve killed her.

  But as I reached out towards her she sat up. The bullet could only have missed her head by millimetres. When she saw the muzzle flash it was sheer survival reflex that jerked her back.

  I all but threw myself onto her. The dust storm raged around us, grit stung the bare skin of our faces; we didn’t give a damn. We just held each other.

  ‘Look at the state of you.’

  I grinned. ‘Look at the state of you!’

  We were still in danger. But the relief was so great we couldn’t stop grinning as we looked each other over. Our clothes, our skin, every millimetre of our bodies was black with soot. Our hair was so thickened by it that it was coarse and as dry as straw to the touch.

  I watched Kate as she wiped her face with tissue from her backpack. Her long body taut as a chord, her waist narrow. The jeans clung snugly to her legs following the lines of her thighs, knees and calves down to her boots. She looked back at me, smiled, her teeth white against the black-streaked face. And, believe me, it was so good to see her again. I found myself staring. I didn’t give a damn. I just kept on staring, unable to take my eyes off her.

  My heart missed a beat. All of a sudden I noticed her torn clothes and injured face. I was stunned. ‘Christ, Kate, what happened?’

  ‘Those monsters.’

  ‘They did that to you?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll survive. The important thing is we get away from here. They’re all round the building.’

  I reached out and hugged her close again. ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘Shit…I’m so fucking useless. I should have been here.’

  ‘You’re here now, Rick. That’s all that matters.’

  She looked up, smiling, tears cutting two pink pathways through the black dust on her face. ‘You saw my sign, then?’

  ‘It was the first thing I saw as I came up the hill to Fairburn.’ I smiled. ‘You’re a resourceful kid if nothing else.’ I looked at her swollen lips. ‘Oh, Christ, Kate, what did they do to you?’

  She shook her head, then slipped her arms round my waist to squeeze me tight.

  ‘Kate. How did they hurt you?’

  ‘There isn’t time for that now. We’ve got to get away before they attack again.’

  I looked into her face. My heart went out to her. Even the expression in her eyes seemed bruised. Her injuries were more than skin deep.

  ‘Come on, Rick. We can’t wait any longer.’

  I sighed. ‘OK. I guess they’re still out there but the dust storm is so heavy they mustn’t have seen me.’

  ‘Did you see any?’

  I shook my head. ‘There’s nothing but a thick black fog out there. It’s blinding. Are you sure you’re going to be OK?’

  ‘I’m not made out of china, Rick Kennedy. Come on, move it out.’

  ‘Keep your rifle handy.’

  ‘Where do you think we should make for?’

  ‘Ben Cavellero’s house. It’s no more than ten minutes’ walk from here.’

  Kate pulled on her backpack, gently easing the straps onto bruised shoulders. She did not wince. ‘You think he’ll still be here?’

  ‘It’d be a miracle if he is. But we can’t stay here. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Once we’re outside, keep moving. Don’t shoot unless it’s absolutely essential.’

  ‘Rick. Just a second before we go.’

  ‘What are you doing with the bandages?’

  ‘You’re going to look like something from an old Hammer Horror, but you’ll need some protection from the dust storm. Sit down there on the pew. Now…keep your head still.’

  With that she wrapped the bandage around my head, covering my mouth, nose, forehead. Soon only my eyes were exposed. Kate allowed me to do the same for her. It should have looked funny. Like we were attending a fancy dress party decked out as Egyptian mummies. But the whole situation had left humour far behind. Two of our friends, Howard and Cindy, had died in the last forty-eight hours. I didn’t know what had happened to Tesco. I could only imagine the Grey bastards had caught him in the burnt forest.

  Now, somehow Kate and I had to get through the cordon of monsters outside.

  And what had happened to Kate? My imagination supplied answers that made my stomach churn sickly.

  Chapter 108

  The blast of grit hit us the second we left the building. It stung our eyes until we could barely see. But at least we could breathe. Soon I felt the trickle of grit down my bare back beneath my shirt as the wind forced it through every chink in my clothing.

  The dust storm turned the world into a mass of boiling black. The sky looked like the ground beneath our feet. Black, black. We could see nothing.

  Holding hands we stumbled into the storm. Once through the graveyard gate I turned left. Somewhere under that drifting ash lay the road to the village. At least, I hoped it lay there still.

  We stumbled on blindly. I held the rifle in my free hand in case one of those grey monsters came lunging out of the wall of dust. It took no effort of imagination to picture them running towards us, hands reaching out claw-like to our throats

  Suddenly the earth beneath my feet hardened. The same wind that was covering the ground with black had momentarily blasted the dust clean away. I saw five metres of road. The white painted lines led directly in front of us.

  We pushed on, the wind buffeting, pulling us first left, then right, then pulling us back the way we came; then, with a wicked push, driving us forward so we fell onto our hands and knees.

  With your bare hands touching the ground, that’s when you felt the heat bleeding up through the surface. The road’s blacktop hot to the touch; stingingly hot.

  We pulled ourselves to our feet, walked on.

  Dimly, I saw the shape of houses to our left and right. They were ghost shapes in the black fog. Windows had gone, leaving cavities that reminded me of the eyeless sockets of skulls. Roof beams, denuded of roofing tiles, were the bones of the dead.

  Instinct kicked in. I’d walked these streets for ten years.

  Now I sensed the shapes of buildings, rather than seeing them in the black fog. The low flat-topped block to my right was the village post office; the depression to the left, the dried-up pond; then a tent-like shape, the frontage shaped like a capital letter A; now that was Fullwood’s Garage. Great holes had been punched into the corrugated-iron wall panels.

  The ash mounded into drifts. We clambered over them. Trudged on.

  The wind screamed. A living sound, like a woman screaming in pain. Rising to a hysterical shriek, then falling to a low moan. It dragged at our bodies, then roughly pushed, whipping clouds of dust that stung blindingly into our eyes.

  Still I saw none of the Grey Men. Although I expected any second to see them dart towards us out of the black filth that boiled around us.

  I turned right. At my feet was a street name. Fixed to posts, it should have been waist-high, but the ash had b
uilt up on the ground here into a thick layer of black. I kicked away the drifting ash. The sign read: TRUEMAN WAY.

  Home.

  I’d returned to the street where I’d lived with my mother. At that moment the emotion it evoked was all but overwhelming. I’d thought I’d never see it again. But then what I did see at that moment had become profoundly altered.

  I looked round. Trees were burnt trunks. Fences were charred stumps; hedges had been reduced to dust, then blown away by gales. Houses lay in ruins. They were indistinct box shapes in the Hell-black fog. I recognized Mr Harvey’s Volvo estate car lying on its back, wheel hubs seared naked of tyres; they looked somehow stumpy, evoking thoughts of the scab-coated stumps that remain after arms and legs are severed.

  All around us might lurk those grey, inhuman beasts. Maybe they were waiting for something to tell them to attack, to tear our faces from our heads.

  I gripped Kate’s arm. She looked at me, her green eyes narrowed against the stinging grit. Poor kid looked exhausted. But we had to press on. We had to get clear of the monsters.

  We put our heads down and walked into the wind. It screamed through the ruins of the houses. That banshee wail seemed to bore right through my skull. An end of the bandage wrapped around my head tore free and rippled out in the wind.

  I was too exhausted to retie it.

  We forced our way on through the gale.

  Then I saw the remains of more trees; here they were little more than blackened stumps, snapped off at head height. These must be what remained of King Elmet’s Wood.

  Just when I thought we’d have to walk through that slice of black hell forever I suddenly saw the outline of Ben Cavellero’s house loom before us.

  Chapter 109

  The doors of Ben’s house were buried beneath the ash that had mounded against the wall like monstrous black snow drifts.

  They even rose as far as the first floor. Exhausted, we clambered up the soft ash. Sometimes we slid back down again, in a flurry of dust that choked us despite our bandage masks.

  At last we made it up the slope to a window. It had been boarded with plywood. After a struggle, I managed to lever it off so it hinged by the nails holding it along its top edge. The toughened glass had smashed into sugar-like crystals making it easy for us to climb inside without being cut.

  I pulled the plywood board down again. It flapped a little in the wind; dust still jetted through the sides but it held, shutting out the worst of the storm.

  I pulled off the bandages from around my head, then took a massive lungful of clean air. ‘You all right?’

  ‘In the circumstances…fine. Hell, this dust. My eyes are burning.’

  ‘Come on, we’ll find some water. You’ll need to wash that muck out.’

  As Kate unwrapped the bandages she looked about her, her large green eyes appraising her surroundings. ‘Looks deserted. I wonder how long they’ve been gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ I shrugged. ‘Or been taken by those things.’

  She gave a visible shudder. ‘Rick, what about the Greys?’

  ‘Pray that they lost us in the storm. As soon as we can we’ll push on.’

  ‘Back to Fountains Moor?’

  ‘Of course, you don’t know. The plans have changed. We’re walking to the ship.’

  Quickly I told her what had happened. About Howard’s plane being shot down. And how we’d decided we’d all walk west to join the ship on the west coast.

  But from the look stamped into our exhausted faces I knew we wouldn’t walk far. We needed rest. But that would give the Greys time to catch up with us. Christ, I wished we could just sprout wings and fly ourselves out of there.

  ‘We need to search the rooms,’ I told her. ‘We might find some supplies—food, bottled water. More ammo’d be useful, too.’

  She nodded. ‘You take the left-hand side of the corridor, I’ll take the right.’

  I opened the nearest door on my left. It was Ben’s study. It had been ransacked. But somebody had done a good job of trying to straighten the place out again. The leather swivel chairs and sofa were upright. The posters advertising Ben’s mystery play had been taped together, then put back on the wall, alongside his watercolour paintings of trees and wildflowers.

  Who’d go to all that trouble? If all they needed was a place to shelter for a night or two?

  ‘As I live and breathe.’

  At the sound of the voice behind me, I turned, startled.

  ‘I knew you’d come back, Rick.’

  ‘Ben?’

  I looked into the shadows along the corridor. A figure emerged.

  ‘Ben!’

  ‘Mr Kennedy, I presume.’

  There was no denying the familiarity of those softly spoken words.

  Astonished, I watched, wide-eyed, as he walked slowly towards me. The eyes twinkled, he was pleased to see me. But for some reason he walked towards me with his hand over his mouth, as if he’d inadvertently let slip a dirty word in front of his mother.

  ‘Hello, Kate.’ He spoke in those soft tones. ‘From the look of you I expect you could use a bath, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Ben,’ I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Ben, how long have you been here?’

  ‘I’ve never been away. How is everyone?’

  I told him the truth. It sounded brutally short but there was no way to sugar those particular pills. I told him about the deaths, and the plans now. He nodded, listening carefully, the blue eyes twinkling. But still for some reason he held his hand in front of his mouth, not moving it even for a second. Also, when he did speak the words sounded different.

  When I finished speaking he said, ‘Help me fill the bath; no mains water, alas. I pull it from the old well in the basement. The upside is it comes out ready-heated. Then would you like to eat?’

  ‘God, yes,’ I suddenly realized how hungry I was. But I was troubled also. ‘But what about the Grey Men?’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He kept his hand over his mouth. ‘I know all about those fellows.’

  ‘They’re all over the countryside like damned pox,’ I said, confused. ‘Why haven’t they attacked you?’

  ‘As I said, I know all about the Grey Men. But they won’t harm you here. If you do exactly as I tell you.’

  Kate’s eyes widened in astonishment. ‘Can you communicate with them?’

  ‘Come and have your baths. Then, when we’ve eaten, I’ll tell you everything.’

  Chapter 110

  ‘How’s the stew?’ asked Ben Cavellero.

  ‘Delicious,’ Kate said, and hungrily spooned more into her mouth. Still pink-skinned from the hot bath, her blonde hair loose to her shoulders, she wore a blue denim skirt and black lambs wool sweater. She looked fantastic.

  I was too busy with a big chunk of bread and half a bowlful of gravy to do much more than answer Ben’s question with an approving grunt.

  Ben poured more wine into our tea cups. ‘Sorry about the cups. The glasses were smashed in that last big gas blast.’

  I looked up as Ben talked. He now wore a yellow paisley pattern silk scarf over his mouth. It covered the entire bottom half of his face like a mask worn by a Wild West bandit.

  As ever, his voice was soft, ‘you’d left before the hot-spots reached here, hadn’t you?’

  I nodded. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Pockets of naturally occurring methane gas underground…they exploded like bombs. You saw what’s left of the trees in the wood?’

  ‘The tops were sheared off.’

  ‘A hot-spot detonated a gas pocket out there in King Elmet’s Wood. Left a crater big enough to slot this house inside. Blew in all the windows at the other side of the house.’

  He continued to talk in those soft tones I remembered of old. But again I realized there was something wrong with the way he enunciated the words. Also, now he had a slight lisp that I hadn’t remembered from before.

  By that time it was almost night. Kate and I had taken our baths. Now we sat eating in what had once been a bedr
oom, the soft light of oil lamps casting lazy shadows on the wall.

  I knew I was eating faster than was polite. But I was growing more agitated by the minute. The drift of ash had reached the bedroom window. I repeatedly looked out at the black desert that ran in undulating dune waves through the deepening gloom to the village. Although the storm had blown itself out, grit continued to hit the window with a sizzling sound.

  Ben noticed the way I shot anxious glances through the window.

  ‘Relax, Rick. You really must relax. More wine?’

  ‘No, thanks. Ben, do you realize the danger you’re in?’

  ‘Danger? From what?’

  ‘Christ…surely you know?’

  ‘The hot-spots?’

  ‘And the rest.’

  ‘As far as I can tell the nearest hot-spot that’s of any concern is a kilometre in that direction.’

  ‘The water in the well was—’

  ‘Yes, the water in the well was warm; but the subsoil seems to have stabilized at a comparatively low temperature. You’re in no danger.’

  ‘No danger?’

  ‘Rick. You must relax, believe me. It’s for your own good.’

  ‘Mr Cavellero—’ Kate began.

  ‘Ben. Please. More wine? Come on, you two, I insist.’

  He’s gone insane.

  The thought struck me as solid as stone.

  He must be. Surely he knows what’s happening in the world? About those Grey monsters invading from God knows where? And why does he wear that yellow mask?

  Christ, this was insane: sitting there; we were sitting ducks.

  I looked up.

  The Grey face seemed to fill the window. The blood-red eyes glared in at me.

  They were here to finish what they started.

  ‘They’re here!’ I yelled. ‘Kate…get down!’ I snatched up the rifle that I’d leaned against the table leg.

  Ben jumped between me and the window. He held up both hands and frantically beat them in the air, back and forth. ‘Don’t shoot. Rick! Don’t shoot!’

  ‘Ben, for Godsakes! Get out of the way!’

  ‘No. Put down the gun. Rick…put it down.’ He spoke more calmly but his breath was ragged. ‘Put it down, Rick. Easy does it. There’s a good boy. Relax…easy…’