by Tim Lebbon
Then Sammi saw some objects that definitely were bones. Through the lowered rear windows, she could make out a shape nestled on the back seat.
“Something’s in there,” she said. She approached the car, stepping carefully past the fallen walls, and leaned in closer.
Sediment had settled inside the car as well, but the skull protruded above its level on the back seat, empty eyes staring back at her. Its curved spine arched up and down again, and stretched up behind it was a twisted, broken leg.
“Dog,” Angela said behind her. “Big one. Me and Vince wanted one, but our place was too small. We were going to wait ’til we got somewhere bigger.”
They walked through the remains of the old town, and it began to take shape in Sammi’s mind. They saw more homes, a line of larger buildings that might have been shops on a main street. The simple two-road layout provided four distinct districts of ruined buildings. The northern corner was on higher ground, and there were more old trees protruding from the mud, the house outlines larger and more opulent. There stood the largest ruin they had found, and Lilou led them that way.
It was a church, stone walls supporting the bare remains of a tumbled structure that had once been the spire. Maybe there’s still a bell in there, Sammi thought, and she imagined its lonesome ring echoing unheard through the depths of the reservoir for four decades. The spread of silt around the church was wide and flat, spiked here and there with the tops of what could only have been headstones. They were walking across a hundred bodies.
Then she looked past the church and saw the footprints.
“Someone’s been here,” she said, pointing.
“Security?” Angela asked.
“Maybe,” Lilou said. “They’re going the way we’re going.”
“Out of the town?” Sammi asked. She looked uphill past the church, towards where the line of green began several hundred feet higher.
“Not that far,” Lilou said. “There are caves.”
“Is that where your friend Mohserran would have been?” Angela asked.
“Maybe.”
They passed the church, and this time it was Lilou who saw the skeleton. And this time, it was not a dog.
Somehow the body had become entangled with a tree. The trunk was short and stunted, but it retained the stumps of several low branches, pale and bleached by water. Sammi found it difficult to make out where bone began and wood ended, but it was obvious that this was the remains of a human. Or at least, a humanoid.
“They didn’t even remove the bodies,” Angela said.
“Been just hanging there,” Sammi said. She was the first to approach the body, and Lilou called her back, just as she’d expected. Hidden things, she thought, because she was more certain than ever that Lilou wasn’t telling them everything.
“Sammi!” Angela said, and Sammi turned around.
“What? You think it’s going to bite me?” She spoke to her aunt, but looked at Lilou. The nymph said nothing.
Closer to the skeleton, it was easier to see what had happened. The tree was close to crumbling, the skeleton fragmented and with parts missing, but the chain that bound the two together was still obvious.
As was the hole in the skeleton’s skull.
“One of yours?” Sammi asked Lilou.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s more to this than you’ve told us. They never even tried to evacuate the town.”
“Of course they did,” Angela said, and she looked at Lilou, waiting for her to confirm it.
Lilou opened her mouth.
“No lies,” Sammi said, “only the truth,” and she forced herself when she spoke, shoving herself forward, gathering all the change she felt inside—the ache in her bones, the bright sparks of potential blooming and expanding like stars being born—and making it her own. She shocked herself with how different she felt, and the surprise on Lilou’s face was a manifestation of her own feelings. She’d never seen the nymph looking so defenceless and open. Sammi was shocked and a little disgusted to feel a sliver of wicked delight at Lilou’s discomfort. She didn’t enjoy feeling like that. Sickness rose in her throat and she swallowed it down, and Lilou cringed as if she was tasting the same.
“The truth...” Lilou said. “They infected the town. Some sort of nerve agent or biological warfare that went wrong. People went mad, the government tried to solve it and cover it up. They put it down to a contagion, closed off the town from the outside world. Then they went about systematically tracking down and killing everyone in the town. After that they flooded the valley and erased Longford from history forever.”
“Or until the dam broke,” Sammi said.
“Right. Thing is, there were three Kin living in the town and integrating with the community. One of them was Mohserran.”
“Your selkie friend,” Angela said.
“Such a gentle soul. I’m not sure what he was doing this far inland, but it could be he used the river to swim back and forth to the sea when he was in his seal form. Or it could be he found love.”
“They’d have been killed too though, right?” Sammi asked.
“That’s what we’re here to find out.”
“It’s what you’re here to find out,” Angela said. “We’re just here because you dragged us. And I don’t like anything about this place, or what it might be doing to Sammi.”
“You always knew there was something,” Sammi said.
“I knew you were different,” Angela said, tears in her eyes. “I guess I’ve been trying to ignore it. Hope it went away.”
There was silence for a while, awkward and loaded.
“I didn’t mean to lie,” Lilou said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Sammi said. “You did it for a reason, right?”
“A good reason,” Lilou said. She was quieter than usual, and wouldn’t catch Sammi’s gaze.
“What reason?” Angela asked.
“To make sure they’re dead,” Lilou said. “The three Kin who were here when the town was gassed and then flooded. Including Mohserran, who really is an old friend. I have to make sure they’re all dead.”
“Why?” Sammi asked, but she thought she knew.
“Because after what was done to them, they’re too dangerous to live.”
“How do you know all this?” Sammi asked. “If they came and killed everyone, how do you know what happened?”
“A human escaped,” Lilou said. “I’ve never met him, but he became something of a friend to the Kin. He protects them, hides them, helps them flee if that’s what’s required. He told the story to an uldra, a sort of fairy, way north of here, in Alaska. That story spread. We don’t trust anything a human tells us, of course, but together with everything we know about this place, it makes some sort of sick sense.” She swept her hand around, indicating their surroundings. “And no one has seen Mohserran or the other two in forty years.”
Lilou finally telling the truth made the tension between them darker. The weight of her lie could not be diluted by its revelation. That would take more time, and a rebuilding of whatever trust had been there to begin with.
They headed out of town, all of them silent. Sammi was simmering with the remnants of the power, exhausted, as if she’d just run a marathon. She was also scared of what was happening to her. She knew it was a good thing, something she could use to help people if she used it in the right way. But she didn’t want it.
Many little girls grew up dreaming of becoming fairies, but she knew that fairies weren’t always good.
They left the strange ruins of Longford, and all the way Sammi was looking for more remains that showed how the town’s residents had been murdered. She felt sick to the soul at the events of several decades before, and also at Lilou’s lie. She didn’t believe the nymph had brought them into danger—after so long, nothing could remain alive under the water and buried in mud—but she had lied to them, probably because she’d known that Angela would have said no.
As they passed the out
ermost remains, Lilou stopped and shielded her eyes to look up at the hillside. “There. See those rocks? The caves are there.”
Sammi looked, and she saw a man hauling himself over a pile of boulders, dropping to the ground, rolling, and then standing and running downhill. When he caught sight of Sammi, Angela and Lilou he changed direction until he was aiming right at them.
“One of the Kin?” Angela asked, and there was a trace of fear in her voice.
“No,” Sammi said, although she thought, There is something about him... the way he runs... the way he looks.
“Run,” the man shouted as he drew closer. He waved at them, eyes wide, not slowing down. “Run!”
14
And there I was almost trusting Lilou for a moment, Angela thought. It was a sad betrayal, but one that hadn’t surprised her. She’d always believed that the nymph was out for herself, and this only went to prove it.
And now her lie had put them all in peril.
Angela’s first thought was for Sammi. Most of what she worried about lately was to do with her niece, apart from those long lonely moments she spent thinking of Vince, and now more than ever she wanted to do everything she could to look after her dead sister’s girl.
Even though Sammi was changing, she still needed protecting.
“Who’s that?” she asked as the man ran towards them, waving and shouting.
“No idea,” Lilou said, “but he’s been in the caves.”
As the man approached, Angela saw movement past him in the ridge of large rocks from where he’d emerged. A grey shape was coming up into the sunlight, moving slowly and with a strange, staccato gait. It was like watching a film with one in every five frames removed.
“What the hell is that?” Angela asked as the shape emerged fully into sunlight. “Does it have wings?” It was pale grey and fragmented like a statue cracked in the heat. She thought of Mallian with the scars where his wings had been ripped off, and the fairy Grace who, if she even had wings, never appeared to use them.
“Can’t see,” Lilou said.
“Mohserran?” Sammi asked.
It was the man who answered. He stopped a few steps from them, looking back and forth and panting hard. Older than her, he was fit, and otherwise nondescript. He looked startled, worried, but not outright terrified.
“Mohserran’s still down there,” he said. “This is one of the others.”
“Who the hell are you?” Lilou demanded.
The man focused on her, and in that unguarded moment he saw her for what she was. “Who are you?” he replied. Angela suspected that just for a second, any thought of danger and fear was purged from his mind.
“We can do this when we’re somewhere safer,” Sammi said. “We should run?”
“We should run,” the man said, glancing back at the figure. It was standing still by the pile of rocks, swaying back and forth as it looked around with one hand raised to shield the sun from its face.
When it turned towards them, Angela felt the full weight of its glare. She had been stared at with strange, alien eyes before, but this felt different. She felt the mass of its intelligence, and the burn of its madness.
They hurried back towards Longford. Angela ran close to Sammi, resisting the temptation to grasp her hand, and made sure that Lilou was between them and the man. Whatever had happened here was mixed up in her mind, and the appearance of the man, and the creature he was fleeing, made it even more confused.
“Holy fuck!” the man said. He was looking behind them, and Angela and the others skidded to a stop to follow his gaze.
Another figure had emerged close to the first. It was down on all fours and shaking its head as if something inside was loose. It was snorting, and dust seemed to be spurting from its nose every time it did so.
“Come on!” Lilou said. “We have to hurry.”
“Hurry where?” Angela asked.
“Anywhere but here.”
When they reached the half-buried remains of the first building Sammi glanced behind them and said, “They’re coming.”
The words chilled Angela. To see Lilou’s fear scared her more, and she found it was Sammi she turned to, the poor girl who had lost her parents, been kidnapped by a spirit and then hauled into an alternate world by a mad fairy. Sammi, who she knew had been changing since that moment.
“Here,” the man said, looking around. “We can defend ourselves here.”
“Against them?” Lilou asked. The two of them swapped confused glances, as if sizing each other up.
“And with what?” Angela asked. “You got weapons?”
“Nothing that’ll be effective,” he said. “They’ve just woken up. They’ll be confused.”
“And hungry,” Lilou said.
Angela could see the two shapes now, coming down the hillside after them. The first was staggering from left to right, its wings hanging loose behind it as if heavy and broken. An old tree trunk crumbled beneath its impact, tipping slowly to the left and smashing across the hardening ground. A haze of dust rose around it and the figure stopped, staring at the spreading cloud as if searching for something within its expanse.
The second shape remained on all fours, zig-zagging down the hillside towards the town with its nose to the ground. It continued snorting and sneezing dust. Its front limbs were bent, elbows arching almost above its back and tipped with pale white points like bare bone. Its rear limbs were thicker, and stronger. It was gaunt, and she was amazed it had any strength at all.
“They’ve been down there all this time?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lilou said.
“But why aren’t they dead?”
“We don’t have long,” the man said.
“Just who the fuck are you?” Angela asked him. His arrival angered her. If he wasn’t here, if he hadn’t gone down into the caves and perhaps woken them, maybe they would still be asleep down there. Or in hibernation. Or whatever it was insane Kin infected by human fucking biological warfare fucking shit did.
“He’s Bone,” Lilou said. “You’re him, aren’t you? The one who escaped.”
His eyes went wide and he blinked at the nymph.
“You can help us,” Lilou said. “We need to find somewhere to trap them and barricade them in. One of these old buildings, maybe a basement, or we could see if there’s somewhere more solid beneath the church where we can—”
“We can’t ever let them leave here,” Sammi said, staring past Angela. The Kin were advancing, but slowly. The dog-creature sniffed at the ground, drifting left and right and picking up their trail. The winged Kin looked at its feet as it walked, glancing up occasionally to look for them, shielding its eyes against the midday sun. Now that they were closer, they frightened Angela even more. Even the cruellest Kin she had seen displayed a level of intelligence in its features, signs of consciousness and self-awareness that often belied its appearance. These two Kin were skeletal and denuded, slavering and grunting, like rabid animals resurrected to seek a fresh kill.
“What do you mean?” Angela asked.
“Look at them. If they get out into the valley or beyond, what do you think will happen?”
“She’s right,” Bone said. “They might still be infectious.”
“After all this time submerged in water and muck?” Angela asked.
“In their bodies,” he said. “Blood, saliva, piss, other fluids.”
“Oh, great,” Angela said. “Thanks for this, Lilou.”
“So we have to trap them,” Sammi said. She nudged Lilou. “You’re bait.”
“Me?” Lilou said, but she smiled at Sammi, as if proud.
“Trust me.” It was obvious from Sammi’s voice that she did not trust herself.
“They’re closer,” Bone said. “They know we’re here.”
Angela felt a rush of emotions. Sorrow for what Sammi had been through, losing her parents so young and plunged into a strange, dangerous world. Sadness at her own predicament, her comfortable life torn apart forever, the love o
f her life a universe away. Most of all fear for this young girl who was changing in ways none of them yet understood.
And fear of her.
“I trust you to try,” Angela said.
“What about Mohserran?” Lilou asked.
“Still down there,” Bone said. “He... I think he let me pass.”
“Let you? Why?”
“Later,” Bone said, nodding past her. “Look.”
The dog-Kin had reached the first ruined building and was sniffing at it, digging its nose hard into the dried, cracked surface and emerging with damp mud on its tip. It looked something like a dog, but no dog Angela had ever seen.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Werewolf,” Bone said, sounding sad. “Stuck in its change. Francine only ever used to hunt rabbits.”
“Back this way,” Sammi said. “We need to lure them into Longford and find somewhere to trap them.”
“You’re sure you can do that?” Lilou asked, but Sammi did not reply.
They followed Bone back between the grey mounds of fallen buildings. The landscape of the old town offered more places to hide, and they moved quickly and quietly.
Behind them, one of the Kin howled. It was a broken, gargled scream, the first noise from the throat and mouth of something that had been put down almost four decades before. But it was not a feeble sound. It sang of fury.
“Oh fucking hell,” Angela said. When Lilou glanced at her she felt a surge of anger towards her for bringing them into this. She’d taken them from the safe, boring cabin in the woods and put them in danger once again. If they got out of this, she would make her pay.
Bone led them as if he knew the layout of the drowned town, glancing around as he ran, moving confidently left and right until he signalled them to stop.
“There,” he said, pointing at a low mass from which a brick wall protruded.
“What’s that?”
“Convenience store. It had a big walk-in fridge out back.”
“There’s no way that’ll still be in one piece,” Lilou said.
“We can see.”
They slipped past the wall and into what had once been a large store. Like all the remains in the town it was open to the elements now—roof gone, walls fallen, nothing recognisable inside. The uneven surface of cracked, dried mud hid anything that might have survived, but Bone led them towards a higher mound near the back, to one side of which a tall thick wall still stood solid.