The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  "Apparently not," Mary said, walking backward to ensure that the old man was not following them. "They haven't lost the will to live, any way." She had recognized the old man as Neville Jacobs. Half-an-ounce of Golden Virginia and a Daily Mail. She wondered vaguely who had got at him. His wife? She remembered a white-haired smiling old lady with a corgi on the end of a lead. A friend? Jacobs was often to be seen chatting to other pensioners of the bench outside the Post Office on High Street- or someone he hadn't known? Perhaps one of the innocent looking children they had seen, dressing gowns trailing through the puddles as they headed to the river. That was surely where they were all heading.

  They had veered off towards the centre of Measton. Mary surmised that the best place to cross would be at the Old Bridge.

  "Why do we need to cross the river at all?" John-o asked. "How do you know they're not on this side?"

  "It's the tunnels," she said. "They're on the other side, on the Abbey side of the town."

  John-o squinted into the darkness of

  Ash Road. The street lamps were out. "Okay. But why the tunnels? I'm unclear on that."

  Mary shook head. "Don't know but that’s where they’re going, I am sure of it."

  "Come on, Mary, you'll have to do better than that," John-o said.

  Mary shook her head. "That's where I was," she said. "Inside my head."

  "Oh, right," he replied brightly. "Of course. Silly me."

  "You asked," Mary muttered.

  There was no-one on

  Ash Road and none of the lights were on in the flats and bedsits above the dusty-windowed shops. Ash Road had always been the town's most rundown commercial street but at night it took on a different life. The cheap accommodation above the second hand shops and discount stores had always housed the young, the single or the alternative to those that that lived on the more respectable streets of Measton. Music was invariably heard well into the early hours of the morning and the comings and goings of the night crowd guaranteed some movement. It was commonly known that Measton's seedier side was located well and truly in the heart of Ash Road's bed-sit land. But tonight the curtainless windows stared down at them blankly and the pulse of bass orientated music was conspicuous by its absence.

  "Christ, can you believe this?" John-o exclaimed.

  The river had crept up

  Ash Road higher than at any other time in known history. Ash Road descended towards Bridge Street and Riverside at an angle that made flooding unlikely, if not impossible, they had thought but here it was; the river had invaded the so-called “safe” part of town. The water lapped insatiably at the road as though wanting more of it. John-o and Mary stood at the new tide line and looked in disbelief at the waterland before them. At the bottom of the road the top of traffic light was visible. Bizarrely the lights were still working despite being almost completely submerged. As they watched, the red light that had shone over the black water, highlighting its rippling current, changed to amber beneath the surface and then green. The effect was eerie. It lit the water there with an unnatural phosphorous glow. The shops at the junction were submerged up to well over head height, the water's dominance decreasing as it traveled up the road to meet them. To their left the chip shop was barricaded with sandbags. To the right a long closed-down wine bar with soaped out windows- a foolish venture in the spit and sawdust part of town- was invaded by the first inches of river water.

  "So what do we do now?" John-o asked and shuddered. A bitter wind cut in off the river up

  Ash Road. It always had done in the winter months. Mary grimaced in response and looked at the bridge in the distance. The water had almost compromised the crossing place such was its depth.

  "We'll have to find another way over," he said.

  "There isn't another way," Mary answered. "We'll have to cross here."

  John-o barked a harsh laugh in response. "Are you fucking joking?"

  Mary looked at him. "What's the alternative, John?"

  "We go back and get Tom and hole up until morning. Then we get the fuck out of this town."

  "No. Not me." Mary stepped into the water. John-o grabbed her by the shoulder.

  "Are you completely insane? You'll never make it across. If the cold doesn't get you, you'll surely be pulled under. It's-"

  "The undercurrent," she finished. "I know all about that." She still had the newspaper clipping among her old things at home. She remembered the words well. It's the undercurrent that makes it so dangerous. The surface is a false calm. Many have made that mistake.

  "There you are then, Mary. You'd be stupid to do this." He studied her determined features in the oddly reflected light of the underwater traffic lights. "I understand that you want to find Dave but killing yourself won't achieve any thing will it?"

  Mary had a half-memory that may not have even been genuine. In it she was absolutely frozen in the darkness and trapped on all sides by the sibilant suggestions of the voices. There was no way she could move. The whisperers had drawn all hope from her; she was in the labyrinth of despair, devoid of warmth or human emotion. Then the voice had drifted through the solid blackness, separating the cloying curtains. Come on Mary, it had said- a familiar voice calling through the darkness- come back to me.

  "Please," he entreated. "Let's just regroup and think this through." Mary stepped back out of the bone-numbing water. "Good," he sighed. "That's a relief, I thought I was going to have to-" He trailed off as Mary squatted and began to take her shoes off. "No! Don't be fucking stupid!" Mary tied her boots together by the laces, looped the lace around her neck and began to squeeze her spare magazines into her jeans.

  "You don’t have to come," she said briefly checked that the rifle was securely placed across her back and shoulder and set off into the water. John-o's mouth hung open.

  "Oh for fuck's sake!" He pulled off his trainers and tied them together. Mary heard him cursing and turned around. She was shivering violently, already extremely cold and the water barely reached her thighs.

  "Go back," she called through chattering teeth.

  "Yeh, right," John-o muttered. "Go back and tell everyone that I let a woman swim off into the night after her boyfriend and the beast from the-"

  Mary didn't hear the rest. She dived into the water, feeling her heart palpitate with the shock and concentrated on getting into a rhythmic front crawl. It was difficult as a result of the icy water. Her lungs resisted the effort of pulling in gulps of air and pushing it out into the water. She closed her eyes when she put her face into the water so- every ten strokes- she had to look up to check on her progress towards the bridge. Twice the metal the rifle cracked her painfully on the back of the head. It was more exhausting than she had thought it would be as a result of the chill and the current that pushed her off to her left. She passed the traffic lights and thought that she had perhaps another forty metres to swim. She could hear John behind her spluttering in the water and felt a pang of guilt. She should have ensured that he had left her. What if he didn't make it? How would she feel then? She would never forgive herself.

  As she put her face in to the water she felt something brush against her legs. She instinctively opened her eyes and saw a bloated pale face inches below the surface, its lifeless eyes staring up at her. She blew out air and struggled to hold it together.

  The eyes blinked with awareness. It was alive.

  Pale arms wrapped themselves around her and- after gasping in more air- she looked into a woman's pallid face. She tried to pull the woman's arms away from her sides but felt the grip clench. The woman's legs kicked at Mary until they too enfolded Mary's waist. She tried to scream for help and took vile tasting water into her throat. She gagged and went under. The woman rolled her. Mary looked up and saw the woman's hand as it pushed down on her face. Her chest was on fire. She held her breath but knew that she could not hold on for much longer. The woman stamped on her chest- causing what precious air she had in her lungs to escape in a series of belching bubbles. She felt herself go de
eper. In the throes of panic, Mary pumped her legs and arms but she had no strength. It was the old dream when you had to run but your legs were immobile, weighed down by an unseen encumbrance. A white shape hurtled towards her face and then there was no more.

  River water entered Mary's lungs and she drowned. The green of the traffic light bathed her in an ethereal glow as she floated motionless above

  Bridge Street.

  *

  7

  Claire screamed as the large fist smashed through the central panel of her bedroom door. It withdrew and immediately reappeared, doubling the size of the hole. She could see the shoulder and face of the man now. It was Mr. Byrne from three doors away. He had three children her junior and a mischievous Jack Russell terrier that constantly kept getting out. He was a good-humoured friendly man that always smiled and waved if he was in his garden as she passed by on her way to school. Byrne opened his mouth as though he wanted to eat the door and a harsh wheeze came out. Claire stopped screaming and listened. The others, in the hallway behind him were doing the same in peculiar chorus. Without closing his mouth, Mr. Byrne began to tear splinters of wood away from the door. The hole would soon be large enough to allow entry but Claire could not think about that any more.

  All she could focus on was that sound.

  The fear left her as she listened. What had at first sounded like air escaping from a balloon, became whispers. They were talking to her, reassuring her. Everything was going to be alright now. There were many of them around her, stroking her, making her feel warm and part of the crowd. Claire felt the way she had felt when her mother stroked her hair last thing at night just before she went to sleep, safe, with everything as it should be, everything as it always had been. The voices became hands caressing her in places where she had never been touched. She pulled away embarrassed but they told her it was alright to enjoy- it was alright to let yourself go once in a while. Always had been, would be al-

  A deafening roar brought her back to herself.

  She was kneeling on the floor in between her bed and the window wall but Byrne who previously had been outside, mouth gaping at her through the ragged hole in her door, had been- up until the disturbance- crawling across her bed towards her but now he craned his neck around and looked over his shoulder towards the source of the explosion. She screamed again. As though in response another terrific bang shook the plaster from her walls and she saw a doubled up figure fall past the hole in the door. Byrne headed back to the hole in the door and began to climb out, his frame blocking any view of what was going on in her hallway.

  The third explosion ended things for Mr. Byrne. His body slumped half way through the hole and then the impetus carried him through. She heard his head thud against the floor and saw that his left foot was curled around the jagged teeth of the hole that he had created. As she looked at it, it twitched several times and was then still. Through the damaged door she could see blood on her mother's fussily chosen wallpaper.

  A face poked through the hole. Claire screamed.

  She covered her face and kept screaming. She couldn't stop. Hands pulled at her wrists and she resisted them. A voice spoke to her and told her it would be okay now, you're safe, everything'll be alright, but we have to get out. She resisted the voice and waited to die.

  "Come on Claire," the voice pleaded. "We have to go!" The hands pulled her wrists away from her face, squeezing them hard enough to make her cry out with pain. "Come on, we have to get back to Kevin! He'll be scared!"

  Claire looked into Jack's face, blinking in disbelief and began to cry.

  "Come on!" Jack shouted and yanked her to her feet. She wiped her eyes, trying to control her hitching sobs, her hands shaking uncontrollably. Jack pulled her bed back from the dresser savagely and pushed her dresser to one side. He picked up the shotgun he had placed on Claire's bed, a strangely abstract object among Claire's pink bedding and fluffy toys and expertly slotted two cartridges into the chamber. Jack opened the door. He stepped out into the hallway and beckoned to her with a jerk of his head. Claire whimpered. She knew that they were out there waiting for her, waiting to kill her or do whatever it was they were trying to do to her before Jack had-

  "Claire, we've got to go," Jack said insistently. "I know that this is horrible and everything but I came to get you because I knew that you were on your own." She shook her head and backed into the corner of the room.

  Jack strode over to her. "Listen Claire! I've risked my life to come and get you! They were going to kill you or turn you into one of them weren't they?"

  She looked at him blankly. He leaned into her face and roared at her: "WEREN'T THEY?"

  She nodded and cringed away from him. Jack visibly softened.

  "I'm sorry for shouting at you," he said softly. "But my brother is out there. Kevin? He's only five, remember? If anything happens to him I'll-" Jack shook his head, unable to finish. "I'm leaving now," he said, "and I want you to come with me. I'm going to get my little brother."

  Finally, Claire understood. "Sorry," she whispered and stepped towards the door. Jack looked out again.

  "It's fine," he said. "Come on."

  Claire stepped out into the hallway and followed Jack to the top of the stairs trying to step over the three corpses that blocked their way without looking at them and avoiding the sight of Ian's broken body as they passed her parents' room. Jack held the shotgun in the crook of his elbow, his left hand on the stock as they crept down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, Jack leaned into the lounge and saw that it was empty. He led Claire through to the kitchen and they looked out of the window furtively. In the light shining down onto the lawn from the upstairs bedrooms it looked as though there was no-one in the garden.

  "Okay. Kevin is hidden under some old sacks in your shed. I'll run out to the shed and get him and, when I give you the all-clear, you come as well- as quick as you can. Okay?"

  Claire shook her head. She didn’t want to go anywhere. "Can't we stay here?" She felt as though she wanted to cry again. Jack shook his head.

  'What if they come back again? I've only got a few shells left. How do you know we'll be safe in here?"

  "I don't want to go out there," Claire said petulantly. "Have you seen what's out there?" Jack sighed.

  "You know I have, Claire," he said. "Do you think I came over to your house with my eyes closed?"

  Jack opened the back door and looked out into the night. "Right," he whispered. "I'm going. When I get Kevin, I'll whistle. If you're not out in twenty seconds, I'm taking Kevin and heading out of this town. Okay?" Before Claire could say anything, Jack ran across her garden into the shadows under the old apple tree. She heard the sound of rusty metal as he unlatched the door to Ian's small shed. A moment later a low whistle came across the garden from the back gate. Claire held onto the door and didn't know what to do. This was home, where she had spent nearly every night of her life in the security provided by her mum and then her mum and Ian when he had come along and- even when they didn't get on- they were a safe family, so much more normal than a lot of the kids at school with at least two sets of parents and all of the emotional turmoil that went with messy home wrecking. Jack stood in the unknown, in the cold and dark of the night. Where would they go? What would they do? What if they ran into more of those crazy people?

  The whispering from behind decided her; she looked back in to the house and saw her mother in the doorway between the lounge and the kitchen- her mouth wide as the voices whispered from across the room towards Claire. Claire saw the blood on her mother's hands and bolted out of the door toward the sound of the whistle.

  Jack was there with his little brother. Kevin was wrapped up in a thick parka, the hood zipped all the way so that only his eyes were visible. He also wore thick gloves. Like Jack, Claire was jacketless. She shivered involuntarily. Jack opened the gate and peered down either way of the alley way that ran behind the houses on Cornhill.

  "Hold his hand," he whispered to Claire and stepped in
to the darkness, shotgun before him. Claire took Kevin's mittened hand and the little boy dutifully followed her through the gate. The three of them crept through the alleyway avoiding muddy, rain-filled craters as they went.

  "Where did you get that gun?" Claire whispered at Jack's back.

  "It was my daddy's," Kevin's babyish voice said.

  "Oh," Claire said and fell silent, her heartbeat increasing as they passed every opening along the alleyway.

  "Jack said mummy's gone away so daddy's really angry," the little boy whispered. "When do you think-"

  Jack turned to them and held a hand to his mouth. "Shhh, Kevin. Not now, okay?"

  "'Kay," the little boy replied and Claire felt her heart break.

  They passed along the backstreet in silence.

  *

  8

  Three policemen loitered under the trees that spilled over the wall of St. Martin's and into the street.

  Abbey Museum lay in darkness. It stood in the courtyard on the edge of St. Thomas'- the town's oldest surviving church- but the museum building was older still having stood since the abbey had been built by the Norman's in the eleventh century, one of the few surviving features of the construction along with the bell tower. Monks had occupied the abbey until its eventual destruction in the early 1540s.