Dark Ages. John Pritchard
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it at exhilarating speed. The murk out here was dense and overwhelming: trapped beneath the starlight like a layer of London smog. Fran straightened up, and peered through her window, still searching for the string of phantom lights.
Then Paul yelled: ‘Jesus, SHIT!’
She swung around, and saw it in the headlights: a figure in the middle of the road. A featureless, inhuman face, with gaping holes for eyes.
Paul wrenched the wheel, and lost control.
The car went slewing off the road and plunged into a ditch. The bonnet crumpled up, the windscreen shattered. Fran was thrown against her belt: the impact mashed the breath from her lungs. Her head struck something hard and bounded off. Stunned, she felt herself flop back.
The world had just stopped dead.
She lolled there for a moment, sick and winded. Her whole head had gone numb – as if a piece of it was missing. Cold night air blew softly on her face.
Something started fizzing by her knees. Sparks, she thought, oh Jesus, we’ll catch fire. Galvanized, she struggled with her belt – and glanced at Paul. He was slumped against the wheel, head down. ‘Paul … ?’ she quavered, reaching out to take hold of his shoulder. She shook him, hard. He made no sound.
The muffled sizzling came again. She cringed away – then realized it was just the CB set: skew-whiff on its rack, but still lit up. She peered at it stupidly. Someone whimpered softly from behind her.
‘… convoy coming into Tilshead now …’
Help, she thought, and groped round for the handset. She found it dangling; scooped it up.
The radio hissed at her.
Fran recoiled again, as if she’d just picked up a snake. The hiss broke into eerie gibberish: almost like another voice, but mangled and tormented. Fear lanced through her. She dropped the handset, fought against her door and felt it give. She slithered out, and rolled onto the grass.
The headlamps were still on: staring and blind, like a dead thing’s eyes. The tail-lights left a bloody trail that almost reached the road.
They tinged the silhouette that waited there.
Someone in the car was weeping quietly. Ignoring them, she peered towards the road. Her mind flashed up the face she’d glimpsed. She thought its horrid gauntness had been muffled by a hood.
A soldier. In a gas mask?
But then the figure started coming forward. Something about its shambling gait made her struggle to her feet. Then the scarlet glow lit up the face beneath the cowl.
Oh Jesus Christ.
A metal mask stared back at her: brow and cheekbones setting off the tar-pits of the eyes. The lower face remained scarfed up in shadow. The sight was almost toad-like – and revolting. She stumbled back – then swung around and fled. Clear of the car, and out into the darkness of the range.
The shadow thing came striding in pursuit.
Beautiful city! … Whispering from its towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age … Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs.
MATTHEW ARNOLD, ON OXFORD
1
Lynette caught sight of her from over the road, and gave a little wave. The gesture, like her smile, was almost shy; but her pretty face was bright with expectation.
Fran almost turned and walked away right then.
It had taken her so long to get this far. She hadn’t even answered that first letter. But Lynette had patiently persisted: so gentle, so committed, that all at once, one afternoon, Fran’s brittle shell had cracked. She’d wept a year’s worth of tears that day; her mum had told her later what a blessed sound it was – drifting downstairs from the bedroom through the silent, sunlit hall. After all those months of torpor and withdrawal, her daughter sobbing like a little girl.
More letters; then a phone call. We have to meet, Lynette had said. And Fran was feeling better, but still delicate and drained – as if she’d just brought up the poison of the world’s worst tummy ache. She’d hesitated; hummed and hawed. The soft voice on the phone was a voice from the past. And the past was forbidden ground.
Yet here she was, right now, in sunny Oxford, nervously waiting while Lynette crossed the street. As ever, Lyn looked gorgeous – a picture of elegance in her smart black trouser suit and snowy blouse. Fran suddenly felt dowdy in her cardigan and leggings.
Lyn hesitated for a moment, then gently touched her shoulders – kissed her cheek. When she drew back, her smile looked stretched; her eyes were bright and wet.
Fran felt her own eyes prickling behind the shades she wore. Her throat had tightened up, she couldn’t speak. That smile was from the Old Days: from Before. She’d almost forgotten what the sunshine looked like – the nuclear winter in her head had blotted it all out. But now, at last, the cold, black smoke was lifting. A glimpse of light again. A breath of spring.
And more than that: her friend was here, and beaming her delight. It made Fran warm inside, to see her pleasure. It made her feel so happy she could cry.
Lyn had worked so hard for this. She’d earned it. Fran wanted just to hug her, and hold tight.
‘Oh, God … Sorry …’ Lyn blinked and sniffed, still smiling. People kept on passing, heedless of the reunion in their midst. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said simply.
Fran swallowed. ‘Thanks for waiting.’ An even bigger under-statement, but she couldn’t find a better way to say it. And had it only been four years? She felt like Rip van Winkle (Sleeping Beauty was too flattering a parallel): waking up to find the world had changed, and all her friends were dust …
Except for one. And who’d have guessed it, back when they were freshers?
‘Come on,’ Lyn said, and took her elbow. ‘Remember Heroes? It’s still there. Let’s have coffee.’
2
She’d been down for her interview, and seen its winter colours; but it had taken that golden first weekend to really bring her under Oxford’s spell.
Michaelmas Term: even the name was strange and rich somehow. The city in the autumn sunlight had seemed part of a whole new world. After the rugged countryside of home, it might have been a magical realm. She could feel the age of things down here: the buildings, and the books. And though she’d grown up close to ancient places, they’d never had a hold on her like this.
The place was beautiful enough; she had watched the stone-work glowing in the amber setting sun. But for her, the fascination was its treasury of thought. That was why she’d worked to come to Oxford: to study there, and somehow soak it up. Those hoards of books; those centuries of learning. It wasn’t the prestige: that didn’t matter.
Well, not much.
She’d signed herself in at Christ Church, unable to stop smiling. The college had entranced her from the start: a citadel of honey-coloured stone. Exploring, she’d found shady cloisters, quiet little nooks. A maze of spires and ivy. It was like an old-world castle in some fantasy she’d read. But this time it was real, and she was here. Little