The Coming of The Strangers

by John Lymington

  He put his hands to his head.

  “No!–“ he gasped “No ! You can’t make me…”

  And then the confusion grew less, his mind calmer, but still pulsed with the heat of fear and desire, as if each fought the other to control him.

  “What do you mean?” the girl said. “You weren’t talking to me then. You weren’t talking to me!”

  He turned and looked at her, standing as if every muscle hardened into a resistance against her. He tried to keep Laura in his mind now, but all the desires of the past seemed to caress his thoughts, warming them, concentrating them on Jill. He felt himself going towards her, as if all the force in him concentrated suddenly upon wanting her.

  “Get out!” he croaked. “Get out of here. Quickly, quickly!

  He shut his eyes, turned her round and pushed her in the direction of the door. She went, startled into obedience, and went through into the hall, with him close behind her, as if he were thrusting her forward from some pursuit. But even as he touched her the thrill of it went through him again.

  They came into the hall. Jill stopped, so did Sebastian. Harris turned from looking out of the window to the front of the house and turned to them auickly, almost eager for bad news.

  “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Sebastian said.

  “We’re making tea,” Jill said, and turning, went back into the kitchen alone.

  3

  Elfrida lay on the sofa with the cat sleeping on her chest. She stroked the cat slowly and did not seem to see Robert, now alone in the room with her, marching softly about, teasing tobacco from a pouch into another cigarette paper.

  At last he stopped and stood there for a moment, listening. Far off he could hear voices talking together. It was surprising how big the house really was.

  He listened for a moment, as if making sure of something, then he came and knelt down by the sofa.

  “Listen,” he said, in a half whisper. “We don’t want to take too much notice of him. I had officers like him in the desert. They just try to do something, but they don’t know if it’s right or wrong. He says to stay here, but I think he’s wrong.”

  Elfrida sat up suddenly and looked at the man’s earnest face. It was slightly beaded with sweat like glass splinters in the moonlight.

  “What do you mean, Robert?” said Elfrida, frightened.

  “I mean we ought to try and get away from here while the going’s good,” Robert said.

  “How can it be good?” she demanded in a low voice, as if she, too, were scared of being overheard. “Those things arc outside.”

  “The longer we wait, the more we’ll get outside,” he said. “Look, in the desert we used to calculate the chances. It was a long way to anywhere, there. If Jerry started surrounding you, you had to judge when the chance balanced up; to stay and let him get stronger, or take a chance and run while he still hadn’t got too many. Either way you took the chance. It’s like that now, see?”

  “But you can’t see these things,” she said. The cat, disturbed, walked away across the sofa in an offended way.

  “Look, we couldn’t see Jerry either—not at the times when we made a bunk for it. It was dark, usually. We did it several times. Calculated risk, we used to call it. Well, I’m calculating now. I reckon we don’t stand a chance, staying in here, but we do if we run for it.”

  He was desperately urgent, his eyes brilliantly intense. She drew back slightly as she sat.

  “You didn’t say this just now,” she said, puzzled and alarmed by his fervour.

  “I’ve been thinking it over,” he said. “You can see their feet on the grass out there. Like he said, if you can see their footmarks you know where they are.”

  “But not on the road,” she said. “Not on the road.”

  “We can go along the sand. He said they were slow.”

  Elfrida drew a deep breath.

  “You forget, Robert—so am I! ”

  “I could carry you,” he urged.

  “Wc should be slower still,” she said doubtfully. “And suppose they went in the sea and along and then came out ahead of us. He said they could swim fast.”

  “They couldn’t do that! ” he said impatiently.

  “You don’t know what they can do,” she said, trembling a little. “No, Robert, I… ”

  “Look, we stand no chance here. He said that. It’s just a question of waiting till there arc more and more of them. What’s the-good of that? Let’s take the chance. Now.”

  Elfrida put her hands to her head.

  “Robert, don’t. I can’t think! I’m all buzzing. Let me try and sort it out … I don’t know…”

  “We got no chance here,” he said. “It’s time for the calculated risk. Let’s get out.”

  “No, no. I don’t want to. I can’t think properly…”

  “It’s now or it’s never. Look…”

  “Don’t! Let me think. For goodness sake! What’s the matter with me? My head’s all over the place … Is it sense? Should we go? Heavens! 1 don’t know ”

  “Look, it’s no good waiting. Adore might come while we hang about.” He bccame more urgent the more he felt that he was winning against her.

  “Leave me alone!” she moaned. “Don’t keep on at me. I’m trying to think…”

  “This isn’t the time to think,” he said between his teeth. “This is time to up and go ! Now! While we’ve got the chance! Come on! Come on! ”

  He stood up and caught her hand. She swung her feet to the ground and stood up, trembling slightly.

  “All right, Robert,” she almost sobbed. “Yes. All right. I’ll go with you. I’ll go with you.”

  He led her to the French windows. There were no marks out on the stone paving of the balcony; nothing to show that anyone was there. He pulled, the long bolt of the windows, and suddenly she caught her breath and turned back into the room.

  “Kissen! ” she hissed, tearing her hand from his. ‘ Kissen! I can’t go without her. Wait! Wait!” She began to go quickly back across the polished floor.

  It was then that John Sebastian came in at the door.

  “What are you doing?” Then alarm took him. “You! Come away from that window! ”

  He ran across the room. Robert was fighting to pull clown the stiff bolt. It gave just before Sebastian reached him, and he sprung down the handle and pushed the window open a foot as Sebastian grabbed him. Robert half twisted and struck at Sebastian’s face. John staggered and then both men went to the floor, rolling over, Robert fighting desperately to break away.

  “Don’t—you fool! ” Sebastian gasped.

  “Let go! ” Robert panted, hitting out wildly. “Let go! ”

  He made a lucky hit in Robert’s wind. The chauffeur stopped struggling, rolled over on to his back, held his stomach with both hands and gasped at the ceiling. Sebastian scrambled up, and at that second, Kissen made a dart and got out of the open window.

  “Kissen! ” Elfrida shrieked. “My God! Kissen! ”

  She ran forward with the agility of despair and almost got out of the window when Sebastian caught her.

  “No! Don’t, don’t! ” he gasped, holding her tightly.

  She struggled violently, and kicked with the vigour of a woman much younger.

  “Kissen ! I can’t lose Kissen, I ….! ”

  He turned her, then got one arm free and slammed the window. Elfrida broke free, backed away from him.

  “If anything happens to her, I’ll kill you! ” she panted. “I’ll kill you, I swear…” She broke off, covered her face with her hands and burst into tears of terrible distress. “What am I saying? What—what… ?”

  John Sebastian looked through the windows and saw the cat streaking along the beach, back towards her own home.

  He followed Elfrida and put his arm round her shoulders.

  “She’s all right,” he said, hoarsely. “She’s too fast for them. Don’t worry. She got away.”

  “So could we,” Robert
grunted, sitting up breathlessly.

  That’s it. So could we.”

  “You didn’t think that a little while ago,” Sebastian said, curiously.

  “I’m entitled to change my mind,” Robert said, and began to get up, moving heavily and having pain when he breathed. His face was sullen. As he watched, Sebastian had a warning sense that Robert had changed altogether; that a hostility had grown up between them.

  “Why did you suddenly change it?” Sebastian asked sharply. “Maybe I didn’t suddenly change,” Robert said, turning and staring at the windows. “Maybe I felt it all along.”

  Sebastian turned and looked at Elfrida. She stood there with her hands to her mouth, as if praying. He felt a band of cold sweat break out on him, as the idea of gradual defeat penetrated his brain.

  4

  Harris came into the small dining-room and saw Laura standing by the window. She turned her head towards him as she heard him come.

  “What’s the matter?” he said. “You ought to be with the others.” He came close.

  “I wanted to think,” she said.

  “About these—things?”

  She hesitated.

  “What else?”

  “I had the feeling just now I ought to get away from here,” Dickie Harris said. “Do you know how sometimes you get a sort of hunch—an instinct that you must do something.”

  She looked at him.

  “Didn’t you hear what he said about them?” she asked. “Yes,” he said, in an odd tone. “And he said they were very slow.”

  “There may be dozens of them waiting outside this house now,” Laura said. “How would you know? It doesn’t seem to matter how slow they are, so long as they can see you and you can’t see them.”

  “Can they see us?” Harris asked quickly. “If their pigments don’t reflcct our light, how can they have something in their eyes that does? You’ve got to have something that reflects to see.”

  “I don’t understand these scicntific things,” she said. “But John knows these things, and you don’t.”

  “He was on their side,” Dickie Harris said. There was a tension in his voice as he said it.

  “You mean that he still is?” she snapped angrily.

  “I don’t know,” he said, staring at her. “But when you’re in a spot, you’ve got to think of everything. If we got out of here we could tell the authorities and get something done. But staying here there’s just more and more of them coming and nothing being done to stop them.”

  “Whatever John did has been wiped out,” she said, between her teeth. “You can take that from me. I know him!”

  “Okay. But they had a hold on him, didn’t they? He said so. How did he suddenly break it off?”

  “He did it. That’s all that matters.”

  “But we don’t know for sure, do we?” Harris said.

  “I know.”

  “Supposing he’s got to keep us here to let them get on out-, side?” Harris said.

  “You heard what he said,” she cried. “You must have known it was the truth he told you. Why have you changed round now? Why accuse him?”

  “I don’t know,” Harris said. “I just “

  He stopped. Something scraped on the glass of the window, making a faint squeaking sound. It stopped almost at once. He took her arm and drew her back from the window, staring at it with big, wide eyes.

  “Yep,” he said and swallowed. “There’s something out there still.” His breath was quick. The interruption had scared him badly. He felt her arm in his fingers and the touch of her burnt in him suddenly. He trembled. She felt him and moved away. “Something—rubbed the window,” he said.

  “Trying to get in,” she said. “I’m going to the others.”

  She passed him quickly and went out. After another look at the window, he followed her.

  Jill had taken tea on a tray into the room, but only Elfrida seemed interested. John Sebastian watched Laura closely as she came in. The queer light of the moon seemed to show expressions like off-guard photographs.

  Sebastian looked from her to Harris, from Harris to Jill, scanning.

  “Anybody else want to go?” he said sharply.

  Dickie Harris drew in a breath as if he had been discovered. Robert took a step forward.

  “I thought we ought to go—make a run for it,” he said gruffly.

  Laura looked at Harris, and Sebastian saw the glance.

  “You?” said Sebastian, looking at the reporter.

  “I thought ” Harris said, and hesitated. “Yes. I think we

  ought to. Before there are too many of them.”

  “Oh dear,” Elfrida said, miserably.

  “Why this sudden change of mind?” Laura said, curiously. “Haven’t you had the feeling, too?” Sebastian said.

  ‘‘Yes. A kind of Death Wish,” she said, with a faint smile. “Same sort of thing as suddenly thinking you might throw yourself in front of a train that’s coming in.”

  “Jill?” Sebastian said, turning to the girl.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I just want to stay,” she said, looking directly at him. “But…”

  “What?” Sebastian asked.

  “Yes, I did have an idea, out there, making the tea,” Jill said. “Just suddenly I thought we might go. There was nothing moving out there. It seemed so silly to stay”

  “It is silly,” said Robert aggressively. “It’s like being in here afraid of nothing. He said they were slow and couldn’t move much. He tricked them out there on the sands. Well, why can’t we have a go, too? There can’t be as many as all that.”

  “So we all think this do we?” Sebastian asked. “In some degree or other, in some way or other, we all think it. We’ve stopped being afraid, and think we ought to make a dash for it. But only a few minutes ago you thought it best to stay here. Now you haven’t been together. You haven’t told each other. You’ve just all got this idea at the same time, though you were in different parts of the house. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  He looked round.

  “Telepathy, do you mean?” Laura asked, without looking at him.

  “How could you change cach other’s minds by telepathy?” Sebastian asked slowly.

  “Nobody changed mine,” said Robert. “I just thought it over and came out on the side we ought to make a bolt for it. Nobody told me what to think.”

  “It’s a reaction from being shut in,” said Harris. “We just think of any excuse to get out, I suppose.”

  “Do you still think it?” Sebastian asked sharply.

  Harris shook his head slowly.

  “No. Now we’re all together again, it seems daft,” he said. “What are you getting at, John?” Laura asked.

  “They want to get us out of here,” Sebastian said. “While we stay here they can’t touch us. We remain a danger. But outside—that’s a different story. They arc making us think the way they want. That’s how they first got in touch with me. The tape didn’t matter. It was just something that I could understand. A device I could recognise. They could have got into my head without that, but perhaps not with such detail.’’

  “You mean those bloody things changed my mind?” said Robert, and then sneered. “Listen, Mr. Sebastian, I’ve got a mind of my own and no sergeant-major ever changed it for me, and no crab’s going to do it either. I think we ought to go. That’s what I think, not somebody else.”

  Elfrida lay back on the sofa.

  “It’s so exhausting,” she said. “I’m as weak as a kitten.” Sebastian came to her side.

  “Don’t go to sleep,” he said.

  “Let her rest if she wants to,” Robert said angrily. “She’s old. She needs some sleep. You don’t want to interfere with everybody.”

  “It would be dangerous to sleep,” Sebastian said. “Surely you can see that, now?”

  But as he spoke he realised that there was something more than a thought being transmitted; there was a kind of abandon, as if civilised fears were being put out. Had he not f
elt it himself? And it was this fearlessness which made them want to go, to risk it, as if, like Jill, nothing mattered any more but what she wanted.

  “You mean these things arc willing us to leave the house?” Laura said slowly.

  “‘They’re trying to,” Sebastian replied.

  “That’s fairy bunkum,” said Robert contemptuously. “Nobody can make up my mind for me.”

  “What if they don’t succeed?” Harris said quickly.

  “They’ll start coming in,” said Robert. “That’s what I keep telling you. They’ll just smash these windows and be in.”

  “Then why haven’t they got in now?” Laura asked.

  “They’re up to some game,” Robert said, nodding. “The Jerries were always up to some game, too. It wasn’t best to wait for it, either.” He looked round at the others.

  “They can’t get in!” Jill said violently, and staring challengingly at Sebastian. “You said so.”

  “I don’t think they can,” he said.

  “You said they didn’t have weapons,” Laura said.

  “They told me they hadn’t.”

  “They told you a lot of bloody stuff, too,” growled Robert.

  “I know. But I think if they had they would be in here by now, not waiting outside,” Sebastian said.

  “You said they were burrowing into the cliff,” Harris said, thrusting his head forward. “Well, if they can do that, can’t they burrow underneath here?”

  “Oh my goodness!” Elfrida hoisted her feet on to the sofa and cuddled her skirt round her legs.

  “I don’t know,” Sebastian said. “I don’t know enough about them.”

  “No. That’s just what I’ve been saying,” Robert said, angrily. “We’re supposed to do what you say, but you don’t know enough about them.”

  Sebastian flared up.

  “Well, why don’t you g…” He stopped himself in time and turned away from his tormentor.

  “Why don’t I what?” Robert challenged.