by Simon Clark
Again I imagined pale faces at windows, staring with bulging eyes in terror as the tidal wave approached. I imagined the people’s despairing screams when they realized that in just seconds they would be engulfed and destroyed, utterly destroyed by the millions of tons of water that would hit them with the force of a colossal battering ram.
What does it sound like, when a whole city screams?
‘Rick?’
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Uh…sorry…I was thinking about…’
‘About what?’
I shook my head quickly, my skin prickling icy cold. ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Sorry, what were you saying?’
‘Can you see any sign of Stephen and the rest?’
Still unable to shift from my head the screams of a million doomed people I looked through the binoculars.
‘Nothing,’ I replied, ‘only the ship. Hell, it’s a big one. Looks like a Royal Navy destroyer.’
Kate took the binoculars. ‘It seems in one piece. The tidal wave can’t have damaged it too badly.’
Even without the binoculars I could see the ship looked intact. It still stood on its keel, but leaned to one side, probably held there by a build-up of sludge left by the flood. The sludge had then baked hard from the subterranean heat, cementing the ship at that weird angle.
‘How far?’ asked Kate.
‘An hour’s walk, maybe?’
We moved on. We were exhausted. But the prospect of seeing Stephen and telling him what Jesus and Dean had tried to do was a good incentive to move as fast as we could.
Kate said, ‘At least they haven’t been hit by the hallucinations. The electrical activity here must be pretty muted. Have you seen any Greys?’
‘Not a thing. But have you seen what’s happening to the ground?’
She nodded. ‘There’s a hot spot building up down there, isn’t there?’
‘Looks that way to me. After the flood dried out there must have been just one endless expanse of hard mud. The place would have looked like a vacant car park, but it’s cracking apart. See the steam?’
She crouched down to rest the flat of her palm against the ground. ‘Feels pretty hot too.’
‘No time to waste then, let’s press on.’
As we walked we heard the crick, crack of the mud cracking open. Jets of hot gas blew up against our bare hands. At first it wasn’t too bad; but after ten minutes we were walking holding onto the shoulder straps of our backpacks to keep our hands away from the scorching blast of air that jetted from the cracks in the mud.
I began to cough, my throat burned, my eyes watered. ‘Kate,’ I said, trying to catch my breath. ‘I don’t like this. I’m finding it hard to breathe, are you?’
‘It’s toxic gas, isn’t it?’
‘Just pray it’s not carbon monoxide.’
I looked across the black plain. The warship seemed as far away as before. I could only just make out the barrels of its huge guns poking outward.
‘Ouch!’
‘What’s wrong?’ I shot a look at Kate.
‘There’s sparks coming out of the cracks. One hit me in the face.’
‘Let me see.’
She coughed. ‘I’m OK, Rick. Keep walking.’
‘Finding it hard to breathe?’
‘Worse than before. My whole chest’s burning.’
We walked on as fast as we could but pretty soon it felt as if we were wearing lead boots. Each step made our legs ache. My eyes were a streaming blur. I had to wipe them each time I tried to see if we were any nearer to the ship.
Crack!
The ground split a few paces to my right. It wasn’t a wide split; only wide enough to insert a pencil, if you had the inclination, but a gust of sparks shot out. They were a bright yellow, giving a good indication how hot it was getting just a few centimetres down.
This wasn’t good, I told myself. There’d been quakes felling trees, killing animals and people. Then there’d been a flood that had laid a thick layer of silt over the top of all that vegetation and animal matter. That whole mess had been rotting for months under a cap of dried mud.
Methane gas, inflammable methane gas had probably been accumulating there week in, week out, given off by fermenting corpses and grass and trees. Now the ground was heating up fast. I looked out anxiously across the plain. Ten thousand acres of land might go up in one God-almighty explosion.
All the more reason to reach Stephen, then get everyone moving out to the coast.
I walked faster.
‘Go ahead and warn Stephen,’ Kate said, ‘you can walk faster.’
‘I’m not…I’m not leaving you. We can…Hell, it’s getting tough to…to breathe. Kate…. Kate. Here, let me put my arm round you. Better?’
‘Better.’ She nodded but I noticed her eyes looked dull.
‘Hang on, we’ll reach the ship.’
We walked on, supporting each other. After ten minutes we shed the backpacks. They were nothing but a dead weight.
We’d keep the rifles just in case.
I looked at Kate’s face. Her eyes were almost closed. Her lips were turning blue.
I pulled the rifle off her shoulder, let it fall to the ground.
I’d keep mine. We might meet one of Jesus’s men still under his orders to shoot us on sight.
Five minutes later I dumped my rifle, too. Its weight seemed to be dragging us down into the cracked earth.
We walked on. Hot gas spurted from the cracks. Every so often a shower of sparks would blast up into our faces. They felt like hot pinpricks against our skin. They burned holes into our clothes the size of full stops…
We walked almost blinded now. The ship, rearing out from the plain, was nothing more than a pale shape.
‘You all right, Kate?’
No reply. But I saw that her feet still moved.
Crack.
More sparks hit my face, stinging my lips and eyelids.
They hurt, but at least the pain kept me awake.
Because all I wanted to do was sleep.
Curl up on the ground, Rick, said a voice in my head. All nice and cosy and warm. You can sleep…sleep so sweetly. Lulled by the crick-crack-crick of all those little fissures popping open in the ground. See the sparks, Rick. Like a firework display, aren’t they? Yellow sparks, red sparks, white sparks, all shooting up, up, up into the sky.
I looked to my right.
A hundred Grey Men walked at my side.
I looked to my left.
Another hundred marched there too.
I was King of the Greys.
I shook my head dizzily.
They’re back.
Grey heads, grey arms, grey legs, grey faces.
And their eyes, their bloody red eyes.
I looked right again.
One walked alongside, its huge arm round my shoulder in a matey gesture. I smiled.
It smiled back.
The bloody red eyes blazed. Its black lips parted, exposing jagged teeth. A claw of a hand came up, took hold of my hand, raised it to its lips.
Then it bit.
Hard.
‘Rick…Rick. Come out of it, or I’ll bite again.’
The grey monster bit my finger.
‘Hell…’ I came out of it. The grey face with the wet red eyes dissolved. It was Kate again. I looked round; the legions of marching Greys had vanished also.
‘Don’t go out on me again, buster.’ She forced a smile. ‘I’ll bite that pretty nose of yours next time.’
I coughed. My chest burned like I’d inhaled hot cinders. More sparks blew into my face.
This was Hell, this was really Hell.
Kate wiped my face with her hand. ‘You were losing it again, weren’t you?’
I nodded. Coughed.
‘Did you see the Grey Men?’
‘Uh…hundreds of them.’
She pulled at my sleeve, prompting me to continue walking. The electrical activity’s growing more intense here. Come on, buster.
We’ve got to reach Stephen before they start hallucinating like crazy and hack each other to pieces.’
‘How far…Christ, Kate, I can’t see.’ I coughed. ‘How far to the ship?’
‘Ten minutes…Hell, I wish I could breathe. My throat’s on fire.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it. Once we’re on the ship we’ll be above the gas. If it’s carbon monoxide…it’ll be low-lying…uh…Kate, you’ll have to guide me. I can’t see at all now.’
‘Keep your eyes closed for a moment. Give me your hand…now walk. Faster.’
I shut my eyes, allowing Kate to lead me by the hand across that nightmarescape of hard, black mud. All the time I heard the crick-crack-crick as it cracked open. Sparks stung my bare skin; hot gas gusted upward; my throat burned. I found myself turning my face up towards the sky in an attempt to avoid the poison gas.
Eyes tight shut, I’d been walking perhaps ten minutes when I heard a voice shout.
Then a burst of machine gun fire.
‘Down, Rick!’
Kate pushed her leg out in front of mine, tripping me so I fell face down onto that hot mud.
There was shouting. I opened my eyes. Blinked.
The ship was no more than a kilometre away now.
Hot gas vented through the cracks in the mud. Kate coughed so hard it sounded as if she’d bring up the lining of her throat.
Another burst of machine gun fire. Bullets chewed the ground five paces from my head.
‘Stop shooting,’ Kate yelled, ‘Stop shooting!’
My eyes cleared. ‘It’s Tesco! Hell, I thought he was dead.’ I looked for my rifle, realized I’d dumped it, then lay flat again as he aimed the Uzi machine pistol.
Christ, I thought, he’ll have been given orders by Jesus to shoot us the moment he claps eyes on us.
Tesco fired again, the bullets rushing at us in flickers of red to slice through the air above us.
He was firing wildly. Then I saw why. He was terrified.
I heard him screaming: ‘Greys…fucking Greys! They’re all over the fucking place!’
‘He’s hallucinating,’ panted Kate. ‘Our appearance probably triggered it; but…but he’s seeing Grey Men everywhere.’
Tesco raised the machine gun again. Then he fired a long burst; red tracer flashed all around us.
Chapter 129
‘Tesco!’ I yelled. ‘It’s me. Rick! Stop firing!’
Tesco, standing a hundred paces away, frantically pulled the spent magazine from the Uzi. I walked forwards as he pushed a fresh clip of ammo into the gun. The strips of orange and yellow silk fluttered around him.
‘Tesco. Look at me. It’s Rick Kennedy. You know Kate Robinson. We stayed at the hotel on your island. Remember, the cellar? Remember, I punched you, didn’t I?’
Tesco worked at the gun, trying to shove the ammo clip home. His face was distorted with terror, his eyes were the same as Stenno’s when he attacked me in Fullwood’s garage. The pupils and irises had contracted into tiny black dots.
Twenty paces from Tesco. I could see the scars radiating from his lips.
Fifteen paces.
The gas jets blew the silk strips straight upward to flutter above his head.
Thirteen paces away.
He struggled with the clip. He shouted back in the direction of the ship. ‘Greys! Stephen, fucking Greys. The bastards are all over the place!’
Ten paces.
I whispered to Kate. ‘I’m going to have to slug him.’
‘It’s too late.’
‘I slug him. You grab the gun.’
Seven paces away.
All fingers and thumbs through fear he had the ammo clip in place but he fumbled, trying to pull back the firing bolt.
Six paces.
Once the bolt was pulled back, the gun was cocked. He could fire.
Five paces.
‘Tesco. Look at me. I’m Rick K—’
With a terrified scream he pointed the Uzi machine gun in my face. His finger whitened as it tightened on the trigger.
‘Christ…’ he panted with shock. ‘Christ, Rick? I nearly blew off your fucking head. Keep down. The Greys are all over the…Jesus H. Christ.’ He looked astonished. ‘Where did they go? They were all around the…’
‘We know where they went, Tesco.’ Kate, hanging onto me for support, managed a smile. ‘We can tell you all about the Greys.’
‘But where did they go?’
‘Tesco…’ I said, as Kate sagged against me, almost unconscious from the effects of the gas. ‘We need to get back to the ship. Now, Tesco. Feel the gas jets? Toxic…it’s poison gas…’
Now I felt myself go. It was as if a black wave had rolled into my head. The last thing I remember was Tesco somehow trying to catch both of us as I fell forward with Kate in my arms.
Chapter 130
The blur assumed the outline of a head. That sharpened, revealing blue eyes and a mouth.
The mouth smiled.
‘How’s it feel to come back from the dead, Kid K?’
‘Stephen?’
‘Come on, kiddo, how many brothers do you think you’ve got?’
‘Knowing Dad…probably legions of the buggers.’ I smiled. Although my throat burned like I’d tried to swallow a piece of Hell.
Stephen grinned. ‘You’re probably right, sunshine, but I’m the only one you know about. How you feeling?’
‘Dizzy. Thirsty. Very thirsty…my God…a bed. I’m actually in bed?’
For a wild moment I thought I’d dreamt everything. That when I looked round I’d see the familiar surroundings of my bedroom in Fairburn, right down to the poster of Jim Morrison on the wall. And printed in that plump hippy script would be the title of the old Doors song: C’MON BABY LIGHT MY FIRE.
I blinked.
The walls were steel. The window a round porthole.
‘The ship? We made it to the ship?’ I verged on a state of babbling idiocy.
‘Not the ship.’ Stephen said, pulling the ring on a beer can and handing the can to me. ‘We’re high and dry, unfortunately.’
‘Uh…the warship?’
‘That’s the one; stuck right in the middle of this vast plain that seems to stretch into flaming infinity.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it to Heysham by the time the Mirdath drops anchor. Here…drink.’
‘Beer?’
‘You wouldn’t believe the supplies on this ship. Cabin after cabin is crammed with them.’
I lifted the can to my lips, then froze as a thought forced its way through the thick fog in my brain. ‘Kate…is Kate OK?’
Stephen rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. She’s fine.’
‘Where is she?’
He nodded at the wall. ‘In the next cabin, sleeping off the effects of the gas.’
‘I want to see—’
‘She’s asleep,’ he said firmly. ‘You take it easy. Here, drink the beer. It’s cold.’
I pulled on the can thirstily, beer dribbling down onto my chin. Christ, but it felt good; as cold as snow sliding down my throat, chest, and into my stomach. I drained the can
I could see Stephen looking at me anxiously. ‘You know, you were really out of it for a while back there. At one point I wondered if you’d make it. Then you were talking in your sleep.’
I lay back on the bunk with a sigh. ‘Nothing to make you blush, I hope.’
‘No…only some pretty weird stuff, Kid K. You’ve really been through Hell out there.’
‘Probably no worse than you.’
‘Did you see the Greys? The monsters were everywhere, weren’t they?’
I pushed myself up onto one hand and looked up at Stephen who was opening another can of beer. ‘Stephen. I’ve got to tell you something.’
‘Take it easy. It can wait.’
‘No, it can’t.’
‘Can.’
‘No, Stephen, I’m not joking. It’s the Grey Men.’
‘Don’t worry, Stephen. I believe you no
w. There’s no doubt about it. They exist.’
‘No…Ben Cavellero told us that—’
‘Ben Cavellero? He’s alive?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘We heard Fairburn was buried in ash. Where is he?’
‘At his house.’
‘His house? Didn’t—’
‘Stephen. Please listen to me…just listen.’ My voice was going croaky it was so burned. ‘Stephen, Ben told us all about the Grey Men; he explained everything.’
‘We know enough about them now, Rick.’
‘You do?’
‘That they’re a murdering bunch of monsters that should be wiped from the surface of the planet.’
‘Stephen, you don’t—’
‘Did you know they killed old Mr Fullwood?’
‘I found your note in the letter box. But please…listen for just a moment. This is important…Christ, my voice is fucked.’ I took a swallow of beer. ‘It’s about the Grey Men. They aren’t what you think they are.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean? Not what I think they are?’
‘Look, it’ll take me half an hour or so to explain.’
Stephen nodded, face serious. ‘OK, brother. It sounds important. Shoot.’
‘Ben Cavellero explained that the rocks in the Earth are in a constant state of movement, grinding against one another constantly. This friction produces heat. It also generates an electric field.’
Stephen nodded. He was taking this seriously. ‘Go ahead, kiddo. I’m listening.’
I tipped more beer into my mouth.
‘The important thing to know about these creatures is—’
‘Stephen!’ The door banged open. Tesco leaned in. ‘Still no news on Jesus, Victoria and the rest. Want me to send out a search party?’
‘Give them another half-hour,’ Stephen said. They might turn up soon.’
‘OK, boss,’ Tesco said, then left the room.