The Coming of The Strangers

by John Lymington

  “She must have somebody staying,” be said aloud.

  He had the sudden wish to go back down to the end of the beach and look again, but he had only a couple of hours before.

  There had been nothing. The three houses had been silent, sleeping, perhaps even deserted. That could be so. Deserted. Now, he thought, if there is anything there, as we suspect is, they stay still when anyone goes to look. Nothing moves. It is like an animal, seen in the undergrowth, which stays perfectly still, letting stillness and natural camouflage trick the hunter’s sight.

  Except that these needed no camouflage.

  Yet if they stayed still when anyone came to look, it was unlikely anything could be done about them.

  To keep going down there, looking around, trying to find something would be only to prepare them for action. It could be the worst possible thing to do.

  Could they wait, as Mac suggested?

  He had a dull feeling that if he could persuade higher authority of the truth of these things, then they would agree to the waiting game.

  For suppose some kind of attack was made and dozens of these angry, invisible monsters were scattered through the town ? He felt a cold chill in him, and turned in sudden alarm to the ghost of Mac’s voice.

  Yes, Darrow realised, Mac was right.

  4

  Daylight and the brilliant shafts of the new sun heightened the fantasy in Beach End. Somehow failing to see a threat by night was almost acceptable, but by day it could be only half understood.

  “Somebody must come now,” said Elfrida, nervously pushing her faintly mauve grey hair into place. “The milkman. The postman. You know. They all come.”

  Robert turned, grey-faced to Sebastian, but it was Laura who answered first.

  “The bread and the milk come every other day this end of the beach,” she said “They came yesterday.”

  “The postman then! ” Harris said sharply, almost pleadingly to Sebastian.

  “That depends entirely on whether there’s any post” Sebastian said.

  “Somebody must come!” Elfrida said.

  “We shall have to wait and see,” Laura said.

  Jill came in at the door.

  “He seems all right,” she said. “What do you think we ought to do?”

  She looked round. Robert made a heavy face and turned away. Harris shrugged.

  “As long as he sleeps he’s all right,” said Elfrida. “In any case, he’s very little worse off than we are.”

  “There must be some way of signalling” Jill said, impatiently.

  “They’ll see us,” Laura said. “We’ve been over all this before. They can see and hear us. What other way of signalling is there?”

  “Why do we have to keep on treading the same circle?” Sebastian said, angrily. “We’ve talked this over a dozen times already, and everybody always says the same thing”

  “You as well! ” Robert growled.

  “Yes, me as well,” Sebastian said, wearily.

  “I wonder why they stopped—-underneath,” Laura said.

  “Perhaps…” Harris looked suddenly excited. “Perhaps it’s something they can’t do in the daylight !”

  “Yeah!” Robert said eyes widening- “Sand! When you tunnel there’s a lot of sand you got to get rid of if nobody must sec it. Sand! That’s it! ”

  “So that they’ll have to wait till tonight… ” Sebastian said.

  “Oh no!” Laura said, suddenly breaking. “I can’t bear the thought … all that time! Something’s got to happen before then ! Something’s got to!”

  Sebastian went to the windows, sudden hope rising in him. he Looked out at the short lawn grass and turned back again.

  “Are they still there?” Jill said.

  “Yes,” Sebastian answered. “Yes. Deliberately standing on the grass so that we shall know.”

  “If we had a gun we could shoot above the marks,” said Robert.

  “How many times have you said that?” Sebastian shouted. ‘For God’s sake! we haven’t got a gun! We haven’t got anything … anything at all…”

  “Look ! ” Laura said, touching his shoulder. “The postman !”

  A sudden chill silence fell on to the room. Everyone turned to look out. Elfrida got up.

  Far off, the little red van had turned into the promenade, heading towards Beach End. It stopped by the pavement, a Half mile away. They saw the man get out and go in through the gateway of a house.

  No one spoke.

  “If he gets near enough,” Jill said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Break a window and yell, ‘Help, don’t come near, fetch help,” Sebastian said, without taking his eyes off the postman as he appeared again.

  The postman got into the van and started off, heading to the end of the beach. Once more it stopped. The man got out and this time walked back to a gate. He disappeared there, then came out again and entered a second gate.

  It was as if they had never seen a postman before. They watched every detail of his movements, breathing with miserly care, as if some sound might upset the magic of the distant action.

  Sebastian put a hand to a window handle.

  “I’ll open it just a few inches. Be ready to slam it again in case they grab it…” He whispered as he watched.

  The postman got into the van again and started off once more. He drove two hundred yards, and stopped at the last of the continuous block of houses facing the sea. Seventy yards separated him from Elfrida’s cottage.

  “What are you praying for?” Laura breathed in Sebastian’s ear.

  “I can’t look,” said Elfrida. She sounded calm, but she turned her back on the window and started looking for her cat.

  The postman came out of the gateway, walked round the van and got in again.

  “No,” Harris said.

  Sebastian gripped the handle.

  The van started off, turned in a great semicircle, bumped up on to the pavement bordering the beach and slopped off it again as it turned tail and ran back to the town.

  “Bloody silly bastard!” Robert shouted. “He’ll ruin those tyres. Knock the walls out of ’em! ” He turned away and brought his pouch out, but his hands trembled so that he dropped it.

  Laura drew a long breath.

  “I’m glad,” she said.

  “You must be crazy! ” Jill said angrily.

  Laura looked at her, and when she spoke it was with unexpected bitterness.

  “He would have been killed,” she said.

  Sebastian dropped his hand from the window crank.

  “Yep,” he said. “Perhaps it was best.”

  “If he’d been killed it would have attracted somebody’s attention ! ” Harris shouted. “As it is there’s nothing—nothing at all to show these houses aren’t all empty! What chance is there now? Look! Clouds. Lots of ’em!” He pointed out over the sea.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Robert said, startled.

  “It means it’ll turn dull and cold,” said Harris. “And that means nobody’ll come down to the beach. There won’t be anybody like there was yesterday. You know what it’s like this time of year when it’s cold—just like a ruddy desert. All you’ve got along here are a few boarding-house keepers hibernating in those houses right away along there. They never come out till the season starts now. Too many bank managers waiting on the corners. We’ve had it, I tell you! We’ve had it!”

  “Somebody might be looking for me, though,” Jill said calmly.

  Harris and Robert turned to her sharply. Sebastian merely looked.

  “Why?”

  “My father,” Jill said. “He treats me like a child. He’s bound to be worried. He’ll tell the police.”

  5

  The Duty Sergeant rubbed the end of his nose with a ball point and looked as if he would sneeze as he listened to the rattling voice in his telephone.

  “Yes, Mr.”—the sergeant looked at his note—“Mr. Denning. But your daughter is twenty, you say? … And she acte
d as if she meant to run away? … Oh, she did run away! Well, you know, sir, it’s only a few hours ago. A girl her age might go and stay with a friend for the night. Just till she gets over it, you know … Oh yes, yes! Of course I’ll report it to the Inspector. Yes, yes . .” The sergeant read another entry as he listened to the rattling voice. “Yes, I will, sir. Goodbye.”

  He rang off and looked up as a constable came in.

  “Getus another cuppa, George, there’s a good feller,” he said.

  “You know I told you about this looney who rang up and reported he was attacked by ghosts with choppers and tore his coat? Well, he’s on again. He says his daughter’s disappeared. A girl of twenty, and it’s only since last night! Blimey! I’d like to know the number of girls that didn’t come home last night.” “He’s not afraid she picked up with a ghost with a chopper is he?” George grinned. “I tell you, we’ve got ’em.”

  “My mother always said, if the public ever realised what it really behaved like it’d shoot itself,” said the sergeant. “I used to imagine a bloody great gun with ninety barrels.”

  George took the sergeant’s cup.

  “There does seem to be something spooky down there, though,” George said. “Ever since yesterday there’s bin a lot of talk and funny reports.”

  “It’s what the papers call the Silly Season,” said the sergeant. No one looked for Jill.

  6

  Mrs. Fabian looked up from her voluminous morning mail, ,dealing with her activities in numerous organisations and noting her honorary positions. Mr. Fabian, at his side of the breakfast table was surrounded by ruffled newspapers thrown down to the carpet and standing like miniature mountains.

  ‘“Well, he isn’t here,” he said. “And the car’s not there either.” “What an extraordinary thing,” said Mrs. Fabian. “Do you think he’s had one of his Desert Blanks?”

  “What you so delightfully handle as a psyehological weakness I put down to him going off on a booze-up,” said Mr. Fabian.

  “Don’t be vulgar, Henry.”

  “I don’t care about those spasms, but he ought not to have the with him. You’re on the Bench constantly dealing with boozy car drivers and we don’t want Robert …”

  “He’ll come back,” said Mrs. Fabian stiffly. “I’m certain this ss just one of his Desert Blanks.”

  “Have it your own way!” snorted Henry and opened a new paper.

  “Oh! ” said Mrs. Fabian, suddenly remembering. “He may have stayed with Elfrida. She has ghosts.” She crossed the room and rang up, but there was no reply. “Perhaps she stayed with one of the others. Yes, that’s probably it. She must have been a little more frightened than she pretended.”

  Fabian looked over his paper.

  “Then where’s Robert and the car?”

  ‘‘I don’t know,” said Mrs. Fabian, sitting down again. “But for goodness sake don’t start making a fuss. I’ll drive you to the station.”

  “Suppose he’s driven over a cliff or something?”

  “Don’t bo ridiculous. Robert is much too careful a driver.” “When sober,” murmured Fabian.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  So nobody looked for Robert either that morning.

  7

  The Chief Constable scratched his nose and looked uncomfortable. The Superintendent regarded the end of his cigarette. Darrow felt a fool, an angry obstinate fool.

  “Suppose this is true,” the Chief Constable said. So far, or course, it’s purely, er, conjecture. Supposing truth, what would one do? The Army? Navy? Air Force? It seems hardly a police matter, apart from reporting it. Invasion is a service affair, even if it’s interplanetary.”

  ‘There are other explanations that could fit such evidence as there is,” the Superintendent said. “Poltergeists are nothing new. Phenomenons like that do happen. And the tramp, well … You know the speed of the outgoing tide to the Head.

  It could have carried him to the rocks, where he got caught and tore his head off. That wouldn’t be the first time mutilation had happened round there.”

  “And you say Sebastian is still in the end house?” the Chief Constable said.

  “Yes, sir. I had a look through binoculars. He’s there and seems to have other people with him. Mrs. Bcnson—I think the old lady, too. One can’t see too much, of course.”

  “Well, they could be keeping each other company because of the polters,” said the Superintendent. “But anyhow, if they’re all there, alive and kicking, it doesn’t seem that anything can be happening there, or they’d bunk.”

  “That’s true,” said the Chief Constable. “That’s very true.” He shifted in his seat. “I mean, if such things as you envisage are down there on the beach, Sebastian would be the first to know something was going on, but so would the others. Now, Darrow, you’ve been down there several times, you say, and the patrols have watched, too, and none of you have seen a ruddy thing.”

  “No, sir,” Darrow said, as if to hurt himself. “Not a ruddy thing.”

  “I’ve been on the phone to the Almighty in London,” said the Chief Constable, shifting in his seat again. “Their reply was a reflection upon my intelligence. You know, a thing like this is extremely difficult to put over at a distance ”

  “When you don’t fully believe it yourself,” said Darrow. “Yes,” said the Chief, hardening. “Yes, indeed. But it is my duty to act on what my officers tell me, Darrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I then spoke to the C.-in-C., Harport. He laughed in a derisive and insulting manner. I gather the Shropshire is being difficult on the shingle bank, but I felt a fool all the same.”

  “Nobody wants to feel a fool, sir,” Darrow said, angrily, “which is why nothing is going to be done.”

  The atmosphere after that was unhelpful.

  “Darrow, as you arc obviously personally dissatisfied, I will assure you that everything that appears to be necessary is being done.”

  “Damn,” Darrow thought. “Now I’ve put his back up.”

  But despite argument and disbelief, a watch was kept on the end of the beach by binoculars from the police station roof. The magnification was such that any movement would have been seen on the beach around the end house, but nothing happened at all.

  The one puzzling thing was that the house party in Beach End seemed to be still in progress. Sometimes the characters appeared at the windows, when they were able to be seen in part, thus showing that they were still there.

  “Perhaps they’re just sticking together,” the Chief Constable suggested. “Anyway, they’re making no signals, and they don’t come out, so they must be all right.”

  “But they don’t know we’re watching,” said Darrow, around ten a.m.

  The watch changed then. One constable had watched Beach End for two hours, and in the time that he handed over to his colleague, the outside aunblinds were pulled down so that no one could see into the house from the higher angle. The second watcher assumed that these had been down before, as he saw no movement, and no report was made on this detail.

  Shortly after that, Mr. Maclaren saw Darrow at the station. “Nothing happening at all?” Maclaren said. “Could it be simple cunning? Or maybe they move at night?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s put the damper on everything,” Darrow said. “They’re calling me Spacehead Darrow, and not behind my back, either. And I may as well tell you, they’ve already solved your problem. His head came off on the rocks.” “Aye. I said as much. So if they say that there is nothing tangible in the way of evidence.”

  “Yes, there is! ” Darrow said, suddenly. “Denning’s coat! ”

  CHAPTER IX

  1

  Outside the day was grey, and the pulling down of the sun- blinds had made the inside of the house heavy with shadows. That had been the only action in four hours and startled the people in the room.

  “Just when you said they’d gone!” Harris snarled. “Why don’t you keep your big mouth shut?
”

  “You thought they’d gone, too,” Robert said. “You said you thought the prints on the grass were fakes just to keep us here. You said that.”

  “He said a lot,” Jill said. “What difference does it make? They haven’t gone.”

  “They’re scared we might signal,” Laura said.

  “Scared isn’t quite the word,” Sebastian said dryly.

  Laura looked at him, and then, as if to avert a clash, turned sharply away.

  “I’m tired, I’m tired,” Elfrida said. “I can’t go on like this.

  just can’t.”

  “Perhaps it won’t be long,” Laura said. “Somebody must come, sooner or later.”

  “Don’t start that again. Nobody has to come,” Jill snapped.

  “I said sooner or later,” Laura repeated. “Wc can’t be cut off for ever.”

  “We will be, once they find out what’s here,” Harris said.

  “We should have gone hours ago. We should have gone,” Robert said.

  “You keep repeating that like some damned idiot,” Harris said. “It’s too late. Shut up.”

  “Who ” Robert began, and Sebastian shoved him back with an arm across his chest.

  “Don’t Start that again!” Sebastian shouted. “We’ve had more than enough already” A momentary silence fell. “It’s true. The more the day goes on the bigger the chance that somebody will come. They must find something soon that’ll make them suspicious.” Why, damn! that last patrol car just switched round and beat off again,” Harris said. “Nobody could have shouted to that in time! ”

  ‘‘That’s what it always does,” Laura said.

  “If they haven’t found out by now they never will,” Robert said. “It’s been going on under their noses for days and they haven’t spotted anything. I don’t reckon anybody’s going to help us. I reckon that we’re going to be the first thing those blockheads to find,

  and we’ll be dead then. They’re not even looking for us. That girl—me—the old lady—him ! nobody’s trying to find out where we are. Nobody bloody well cares. They came down, they swish round and beggar off again just as if nothing’s happening. Then when they find us all chopped up into dog meat they’ll say, “Now how did that lot happen?’ Parker pinchers, that’s all they are.”