Dark Ages. John Pritchard
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helped. I’m getting it all back into perspective now. And I know I can face up to the Plain. If I don’t, then those flashbacks, those whatever, will just keep coming.’
There was a pause. Fran drew determinedly on her cigarette. Craig tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the table, watching her from under his brows.
‘Would it help,’ Lyn ventured slowly, ‘if you told us what you thought you saw, that night?’
Fran focused again on the shrivelling ash, and felt her skin becoming cold and tight. A vacuum seemed to form inside her belly.
‘It might be an idea … Lyn faltered on. ‘You talked about … these things you thought were coming after you.’
Fran breathed slowly in; then out. She shook her head.
‘Oh, Frannie,’ whispered Lyn. ‘Please let us help.’
For a moment more she wavered. The memory was there at the back of her mind: a dense, amorphous shadow. To speak of it would give it shape – in all its ghastly detail. But the prospect before her was more frightening still: that her friends would take her at her word, and leave her to resist the thing alone.
Fran crushed her cigarette against the saucer, and looked up. Her expression made Craig reach across and take hold of her hand. Lyn followed suit: grasped Fran’s left hand in both her own and squeezed.
Just like a séance, Fran thought dimly. And that’s what they were doing, in the end. Summoning spirits. Raising ghosts.
She opened her mouth, and realized she was on the verge of tears. She sniffed, and swallowed thickly. Then looked from Craig’s set face to Lyn’s – and started talking.
2
She’d got as far as Greenlands camp before she paused for breath.
Her limbs were numb with shock, but they’d kept moving. Adrenaline sang madly through her veins. Her three friends were forgotten; the crash was like the fragment of a dream. The only thing that mattered was the shadow at her heels.
Glancing back, she’d glimpsed it moving – indistinct and blurred. It had left the road already, and was following her trail onto the range. She’d lost it for a moment, and looked round in utter panic. But then it passed in front of the car headlamps, quenching them like a cloud across the moon.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
The unseen ground was rough and treacherous. Brambles vied with thatchy tufts of grass to bring her down. A tank trail almost tripped her up: as lumpy as a ploughed field in the dark. Whimpering, she picked her way along it – then looked again, and found him gaining ground. Lurching but relentless, like a scarecrow in the starlight. She flailed back onto grass, and kept on running.
A red light glowed above the nearest trees – a warning beacon, mounted on a flagpole. She’d made for it instinctively, and stumbled on a narrow, northbound lane. Gasping, she had followed that, uphill and round a bend. And Greenlands had been waiting there: as silent as a village of the dead.
The old camp was disused, its buildings derelict and empty. The road led through the middle, and on up towards East Down. The night was brighter up ahead: the stars like waiting gems above the black lip of the earth. But safety seemed as far away as they did.
Breathless now, she came up short and forced herself to listen. There was no sound of her pursuer. She could just hear the range flagpole in the distance: its cable striking metal in the cool night breeze. Clink … clink … clink …
The ground rose up to left and right, and murk had settled thickly in the fold. The way she’d come was as black as the mouth of a tunnel.
She tried to fill her aching lungs; fighting back the sobs that would have emptied them again. Now that she’d stopped moving, a dozen cuts and bruises were competing for attention – engulfing her in pain and nausea. Her head had started throbbing; it felt like a drill-bit slowly grinding on the bone.
Her face was warm and sticky. Reaching up, she touched her cheek, and felt the slime of blood.
She wavered, shivering with shock – and heard the whine of engines. Something moving slowly through the night. Distance and direction were impossible to judge. She looked ahead, along the road: hoping for the blessed flash of headlights. But the darkness of the skyline didn’t change.
Then she heard the scuff of footfalls, coming up the lane.
For a moment she stood petrified; then dodged towards the nearest gutted building. The way ahead was too exposed, wide open – he would catch her. She had to hide, and wait for him to pass.
Despite its gaping window holes, the hulk was dank and smelly. Animals had pissed in here – and maybe died, as well. She ducked into the doorway, and put her back against the crumbled bricks. Litter rustled underfoot. The grainy dimness clung to her like glue.
She froze, and strained her ears. The camp was silent.
Then she heard a scraping noise that made her hairs stand up.
A rusty and abrasive sound, from somewhere very close; perhaps the nearest empty house but one. She visualized an iron bar, being drawn along the brickwork. A hunter trying to winkle out his prey.
Oh God, help meeeeee! Oh God!
The silence settled down again. She swallowed, like a spasm. The pause went on for minutes. He must have gone inside the house, to search its filthy shadows. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to move: across the darkened shell, towards the window. Reaching it, she peered carefully out.
Nothing for a moment; then she glimpsed him – a blob of deeper darkness, moving back into the road. His shadow flickered on the barracks block – then peeled away, and struck off on its own.
It took another moment just to realize what she’d seen. A power-surge of fright blazed through her nerves. Two of them were searching for her now.
The first one started up the road. She recognized his shabby, muffled outline. The cowled head turned from side to side; the starlight winked off metal. It glinted on the bar or implement that he was holding. Fran just stared – then clasped her mouth, and slowly backed away. Oh Jesus, he was carrying a sword.
He struck the blade against the road: it rasped, and scattered sparks. The other shape was rooting through the long grass by the barracks. The stars reflected dully off a helmet of some kind. Fran was seized with disbelieving horror. They might have been two phantoms, from the ancient earthworks all around this place.
Except that they were real, and closing in. She dragged her gaze away, and tiptoed back towards the doorway.
Something furtive shifted in the corner.
It might have been a rat, but she just bolted anyway. Or tried to – but her joints had stiffened up. The minutes she’d spent standing still had almost crippled her. She pitched out through the doorway – then caught herself, and fled across the road. Trying to get clear of them, before they could react – but then another shape emerged, from one of the outbuildings. Squealing now, she veered around it, ducking as it aimed some kind of club. She heard it snarl behind her – and then her ears were full of her own heartbeat, as she struggled up the slope towards the crest.
She felt them scrambling after her, and whimpered with despair. The night ahead had neither depth nor distance. She staggered on, and seemed to make no progress.
Then she saw the vehicles – three moving sets of lights. They looked to be heading for Half-Moon Copse. She put on a spurt. All three were towing trailers, and their sidelights were bright orange. Cruise support – an ADVON unit, maybe. She never thought she’d look on them as saviours.
As she panted to catch up, they seemed to sink into the ground and vanish. Within moments she had lost her way – the darkness looked the same in all directions. But there was the Plough, rising clear of the gloom – so that way must be north …
Even as she wavered,