Darkest hour

Chapter Eleven

Their dreams were filled with spires of silver and gold, of giants who cupped spinning suns in their palms, of wonders so bright and startling they could not bring them back to the world of waking. When they did finally emerge from their tents, dry-mouthed and thick-headed, the day seemed more vital than even the blazing sun and clear blue sky promised. They bathed in the cool, rushing river, ate a lazy lunch of beans on toast and drank tea while gently reminding each other of the stories they had been told, like old friends remembering favoured times.

By 1 p.m., Veitch was starting to get anxious. He scanned the trees continuously, and while the others laughingly told him to unwind, he refused to rest. "We've been here too long," he said, packing his bag. Using belts and rope and a few other items they'd picked up in town the previous day, he made a makeshift harness to hold his sword and crossbow. His jacket hung over it awkwardly-he looked like a hunchback, Laura gibed from afar-but he could reach the weapons easily.

Eventually he'd dampened the mood enough that everyone reluctantly packed up and returned to the van. "I liked it here," Ruth said with irritation. "There was some peace and quiet for a change. And lots of nature."

"There'll be other places." Veitch spoke without looking at her directly, but he'd been watching her all day, surreptitiously. Her health seemed to have improved immeasurably, thanks to Tom's potions. She'd still vomited among the trees on emerging from the tent, but she was sure that was the alcohol she'd downed. He felt good to see her so well, especially knowing he'd contributed to it. He still wished she'd look at him sometimes, talk to him in the close, confiding way she'd done when they first emerged from the castle. But there was time. And he actually felt like there was hope.

They picked up the A68 heading south. Traffic normally streamed along the route, but vehicles were sparse; fewer and fewer people seemed to be travelling any great distance from their homes. The landscape was green and rolling, with a fresh breeze blowing in from the coast. Yet despite the wind, Tyneside was obscured by unnaturally dark clouds which looked suspiciously like smoke.

Veitch had studied the maps intently before they set off, weighing strategies, discarding options. He eventually decided they should head to the Peak District, where they could find enough of a wilderness to lose themselves but would be close enough to several major conurbations if they needed the security of people.

With Shavi driving they sped past Consett, which was still reeling from the terrible deprivations of the eighties, and through the open countryside west of Durham. As they passed the branch road to Bishop Auckland the traffic began to back up.

"Probably an accident," Church mumbled, leaning forward in his seat so he could peer over the roofs of the cars ahead. A few hundred yards away a blue light flashed relentlessly. The van crept forward a few feet. Shavi wound down the window; exhaust fumes and the stink of petrol wafted in. Above the sound of idling engines, voices carried. "Is it an accident?" Church asked.

Shavi strained to hear, then shook his head. "I cannot make out what they are saying."

The van moved forward again, jerked to a halt as Shavi pulled on the handbrake. Church could see blue uniforms moving around; a few standing in a huddle. There didn't seem any sense of urgency.

"No ambulances. No fire engine." He wound down his window and hung right out for a moment. "Can't see any wreckage," he called back.

Eventually the van had crept forward enough for him to get a clear view. He slammed into his seat, his face concerned. "It's a police roadblock."

"They're not going to be doing a traffic census with the country falling apart around them." Ruth leaned over from the back to see. They were only a few cars away from the checkpoint now.

"I've got a bad feeling about this." Church glanced in the side mirror. There was a solid queue of cars behind them.

"Why should it be anything to do with us?" Laura said. "No one even knows we're coming this way."

"For all we know, there could be blocks on every road south." Church turned to Shavi. "When they wave the next car through, don't pull up any further. We'll play it by ear."

Everyone's attention was focused on two policemen with clipboards who were peering into the cars to check the passengers. Church watched them for a moment; a skittering at the back of his head told him his subconscious had glimpsed something else more important. Slowly he surveyed the scene. At first he saw nothing, but a second sweep picked out a subtle detail that sent ice water running down his spine.

Three policemen stood in a tight group away from the others, watching the proceedings carefully. There seemed nothing untoward about them at first glance until one became aware of the odd way the bright sunlight was striking their skin. It created an odd sheen on the flesh that made it appear like a wax mask.

"Fomorii!" Church hissed. Without drawing attention to himself he carefully indicated the bogus police. "They've arranged this for us, like the trap they set at Heston services. They're using the report from the Callander cop as a pretence to pull us over."

One of the policemen with the clipboards was marching towards them, irritated that they hadn't pulled the van forward. He started to gesticulate angrily, then paused as his gaze flickered across the faces framed in the windscreen. He glanced down briefly at his clipboard, then spoke hurriedly in the radio pinned to his breast pocket.

"Shit," Church muttered.

Shavi didn't wait for instructions. He pounded his foot on the accelerator and thrust the van into gear. There was a screech of tires and the stink of burning rubber as he threw the wheel to one side. The van squealed out of its starting position and hurtled forward. Church braced himself on the dashboard, but everyone in the back was thrown across the floor amidst yells and curses.

Bollards went flying in all directions as the van rattled from side to side. Church had a glimpse of the fake policemen's curiously dispassionate faces as the van whirled by. Voices rose up above the whine of the engine.

"Don't hang about, Shav. Put your foot down," Laura called out sourly from a heap somewhere in the back.

They sped down the road at ninety, but the sirens which had risen up in the background were growing louder.

"We're not going to outrun them," Veitch said, glancing over his shoulder.

"I know." Shavi took one look in his side mirror, then threw the van across the opposite lane in the path of a lorry. Its horn blared. Church and Veitch both swore as they instinctively threw their heads down.

The van missed the lorry by a few inches, bounced over a curb and careened down a B road leading into the heart of the fells. Shavi gunned the engine along the deserted road and didn't let up until they had put a few miles between them and the main road. A village called Eggleston flashed by and the road branched in several directions. Shavi chose the southern route; the police would have to be lucky to follow them immediately. By then the others had just about recovered from the chase.

"You mad fucking bastard!" Veitch looked angry, but there was a note of respect in his voice.

The others in the back were fine, if bruised, but they were all aware their predicament had taken a turn for the worst.

"We're going to have to abandon the van," Veitch said. "After that stunt they're going to be looking out for it on every road."

Laura peered through the rear windows at the landscape, a windswept smudge of greens and browns, patches of firs, areas of dark scrub beyond the fields that lined the road, leading up to the high country in the north. "Great. We're back in Deliverance country. Where are we going to find another van round here?"

"We aren't." Veitch motioned for Shavi to pull up a rough side lane which led behind a thick copse. "We're going to keep well off the roads. All roads." Aghast, Laura dreaded what was coming. "We've got plenty of supplies, tents, we can live rough. If we lose ourselves out there, with all the shit that's going down they're not going to have the time or equipment to find us."

Church nodded thoughtfully. "It's a good plan."

"It's a plan," Laura said in disgust. "So's lying in the middle of the road until something runs us over! Listen, I'm not a camping kind of girl. What we've done so far, fine. At least there was, you know, civilisation nearby." She looked back out the windows. "All I can see are blisters, no bathrooms, cold wind and rain."

"You'll live," Veitch said dismissively. He grabbed the books of maps. "We'll have to use this to navigate. The way I see it, we can pick a good route south from here to the Pennines. They'd have to really want us to come after us."

"They really want us," Church said.

They removed all their rucksacks, tents and provisions, shared them out, then drove the van as deep into the copse as it would go. The leaf cover was thick enough to ensure it would take a while for it to be discovered. Sirens wailed across the open landscape as they moved hurriedly south away from the road. They crested a ridge where the wind gusted mercilessly, and then they were in open countryside.

The going was slow. Although Ruth was much recovered, she flagged easily and had to take many long rests, even over the first five miles. The A66, the main east-west route across the north country, appeared in the late afternoon. They waited in the thick vegetation by the roadside for nearly ten minutes until they were sure there was no traffic nearby, and then scurried across, ploughing straight into the fields beyond.

According to the map there were only four villages between them and the next main road ten miles away. The rest of the area was eerily deserted: just fields and trees and the occasional scattered farm. Although they needed to be away from the main thoroughfares, the isolation unnerved them. They knew the old gods were not the only things that had returned with the change that had come over the world; other things best consigned to the realms of myth were loose on the land; some of them frightening, if harmless, others sharp of tooth and claw, with a wild alien intelligence. None of them relished a night in the open countryside. That thought stayed with them as they marched in silence, trying to enjoy the pleasant Birdsong that rang out from the hedgerows and the aroma of wild flowers gently swaying in the field boundaries.

As twilight began to fall they neared the first of the villages marked on the map. Ruth suggested they pitch camp somewhere within the village boundaries, for safety. If they were going to risk a night in the wild, there were plenty of opportunities ahead. She looked ghostly white in the fading light and she had twice headed over to the hedgerow to be sick; the whole journey was taking its toll.

Her voice sounded so exhausted they all agreed instantly, whatever their private doubts.

Darkness had fallen completely by the time they reached the village and the golden lights were gleaming welcomingly across the night-sea of the fields. They hurried down from the high ground with an exuberance born of the potent desolation that emanated from the deep gloom shrouding the rest of the landscape; sounds which they could not explain by bird or foraging mammal pressed heavy against their backs; movements of shadows against the deeper shadow seemed to be tracking them in adjoining fields.

Laura cried out at one point when a figure loomed out of the night. It was only a scarecrow; even so, there was something about it that was profoundly unnerving. The clothes seemed too new, the shape of the limbs beneath oddly realistic; as she passed she had the strangest sensation it was turning to watch her. She could sense its disturbing presence behind her as she continued down the field and suddenly she was thinking of the man on the train turned into a figure of straw. When she felt a safe distance from the scarecrow she glanced behind her, and instantly wished she hadn't. Although it could have been her troubled imagination, she was sure there were two red pinpricks staring out of the shadows beneath the pulled-down hat. Watching her.

The village was an odd mix of country money and rural decline: a handful of run-down sixties council houses cheek-by-jowl with sprawling ancient dwellings, overlooked by an Elizabethan manor house. There was only one main street, not blessed by street lights, and a couple of brief offshoots. Somehow a small pub and a tiny shop had survived the decline that had afflicted many similarly sized villages. There warm night air was thick with the aroma of clematis and roses which festooned the houses on both sides of the road. Everywhere was still and silent; although lights shone from the occasional undrawn curtains or crept out from slivers between drapes, there was no movement anywhere.

"We ought to ask if it would be all right for us to pitch our tents within the village boundaries," Shavi said with his usual thoughtfulness. He selected a house at random and wandered up the front path among the lupins and sunflowers. His rap on the door was shocking in the stillness. A second later the curtains at the nearest window were snatched back with what seemed undue ferocity to reveal the face of a middle-aged woman. She bore an expression not of surprise or irritation at being disturbed, but of unadulterated fright. When her searching gaze fell on Shavi she waved him away furiously and drew the curtains with a similar, and very final, force. He returned to the others, looking puzzled.

"I told you," Laura said, "Deliverance country. Don't bend over to tie your shoe laces. You'll be squealing like a little piggy."

"There's always one miserable battleaxe in every village," Ruth said. "Knock somebody else up."

"You don't have a trace of innuendo in your body, do you?" Laura noted.

Shavi tried the next house, then one a few doors up the street and one across the road; the response was the same in all of those that deigned to peek through the curtains: fear.

"Look, this is bleedin' crazy," Veitch said with irritation. "Let's try the boozer. I could do with a pint. At least they won't turn us away."

As they moved down the main street towards the creaking sign and bright lights of the pub, Church slipped in next to Tom. "Looks like they've been having some trouble here."

"Hardly surprising, an isolated place like this. They should count themselves lucky they're still hanging on. Remember Builth Wells?"

Church recalled the deserted town, the preying things lurking in the shadows waiting for new blood. "From their reactions I don't think it's the kind of place we should be out sleeping under canvas."

"I think you're right. Let's hope the inn has some rooms."

The pub was The Green Man, echoing the name of the tavern on Dartmoor devastated by the Wild Hunt; another strange, disturbing connection in a world now filled with them.

Church led the way in to the smoky bar; flagged floor, stone fireplace with cold ashes in the grate, dark wood tables, chairs and bar, an old drinking den, a hint of establishment. Small wall lamps provided focused pools of light which threw the rest of the place into comforting shadow.

Drinkers, mainly men, were scattered at tables and along the bar, a surprising number for a small village pub at that time of night. They heard the hubbub of hushed voice as they swung the door open, but the moment they were all inside every conversation stopped and the drinkers, as one, turned and stared, their expression shifting through the same emotions: fear, relief, suspicion, surprise.

"Deliverance," Laura repeated in a singsong voice as she marched over to the bar.

Veitch leaned over to whisper to Church. "Nah, it's like that other film. American Werewolf. The Slaughtered Lamb. Rik Mayall. And that bloke who did the tea adverts."

"Brian Glover."

"Yeah, him."

Church glanced round, not sure whether to smile at the ludicrousness of the response or feel disturbed at whatever lay behind it.

"You know," Ruth broke into the conversation, "sooner or later someone's going to say Folk don't come round here much in a hick accent."

Laura fixed a cold stare on the barman, who appeared to have frozen midway through pouring a pint of bitter. "You see these scars?" she said pointing to her face. "The last landlord who didn't get me a drink quick came off much worse."

"Sorry." The barman was a side of beef in his fifties with curly ginger hair and rock 'n' roll sideburns. "We don't get many new faces in here these days."

Ruth exchanged a secret smile with Church.

The barman checked his watch. "Just stopping off for a quick one on your way to…?" He waited for her to finish off his enquiry.

She ignored him, glanced along the optics. "Better get me a big vodka. Ice, no mixer. Make it a treble. I've had a day of hard labour and I'm a wilting flower who's not used to that kind of treatment. Oh, and whatever this lot want."

The barman didn't make any other attempt at conversation; he seemed thrown by Laura's demeanour, as if she were speaking to him in a foreign language. They took their drinks to a gloomy corner and the only two free tables, which they pulled together.

"It certainly has character," Shavi noted as he scanned the room while sipping on his mineral water.

"If you like wall-to-wall crazy and forties horror movie cliche." Laura swigged her drink gloomily. "I don't know why we couldn't have stayed in the city."

"What do you think's going on?" Church asked.

Tom wiped the cider from his drooping, grey moustache. "Just a local problem. Otherworld was filled with the detritus of a million nightmares, little ones and big ones, and I presume most of them have found their way back here."

There was something comforting about the age-old atmosphere of the pub after the fearful atmosphere out in the night. They settled back in their chairs to enjoy their drinks, appreciating the half-light which gave them a measure of cover from the suspicious glances. While Laura amused herself by staring out the few locals who dared to look their way, the others discussed their apparent success in evading the Fomorii. "They're obviously determined to catch us," Church noted. "But it was interesting they used subterfuge. We must have set them back so much in Edinburgh they're afraid of taking an over-the-top approach."

"When have you known them not to be over-the-top?" Veitch noted.

"He's right," Ruth said. "There was something about this that reeked of desperation, not revenge. You'd think they'd have gone for the nuclear option."

Tom pressed his glasses back against the bridge of his nose. "I think their true motivations will become apparent very quickly."

"So in the meantime let's make the most of this lull and enjoy ourselves," Laura said sharply. "You lot, you're like, Let's look for some big, heavy stuff to depress us. You know, fun is an option."

Church smiled, gave her leg a squeeze under the table. He was surprised to see the palpable relief on her face.

Before they could say any more a man sauntered over, holding a half-drunk pint. He was in his late twenties, with a soft, rounded face and a conventional, side-parted haircut. Unlike many of the others in the bar, he seemed relaxed and easy-going. "Hello," he said, "I'm the official welcome wagon. Max Michaels. My parents had a thing about alliteration," he added half-apologetically. "You probably think it's all a bit strange in here. Which it is, make no mistake. Mind if I sit down?" Once they'd agreed he pulled up a chair; there was an old-fashioned politeness about him.

"Look, can I be blunt?" he said. "You all look like intelligent people. You obviously know there are some very strange things going on all over." He warmed when he saw the recognition in their faces, then asked them further questions until he was sure they understood the change that had come over the world. "That's a relief. There's nothing worse than having to tell some unbelieving idiot the world has become a fairybook. So I can talk plainly, that's good. Now I haven't quite figured out what's happening, but the way I see it, for some reason reality has skewed away from science to the supernatural. The way appliances, cars, everything, fails suddenly for no apparent reason. The sudden rise in coincidences, premonitions, prophetic dreams. Do you get where I'm coming from?"

Church nodded. "We've experienced all that. And more."

"Good, good. If that was the end of it, it would have been bearable." A shadow crossed Max's face. "A few weeks ago a local farmer came in here raving about this strange sighting he'd had in one of his fields. It was a great laugh for everybody. We all thought he'd been inhaling too many organophosphates. Then some of the other farmers claimed they'd seen something. So then we decided we'd got our very own Beast of Bodmin. You know, some escaped panther living in the wild. Only it didn't really fit with the descriptions…" He chewed on a knuckle briefly, his thoughts wandering. "And then things just went crazy. People went crazy. You can't just adapt overnight to having the whole world turned upside down. There were… a lot of casualties. Psychologically speaking. Depression, wouldn't leave their houses-"

"We saw that on our way here," Veitch said.

"No, that's because it's dark. You don't move round much after dark, not if you can help it. A few of us meet up here mob-handed, to plan. I suppose, really, just to keep some kind of normality ticking over. We see each other home." He took a deep draught of his beer, then grew animated. "The problem's been the isolation. When all the phone systems went off-line and the postal system was suspended, and all the media, we were just left to stew in our own juices. It would have helped if we could have found out if other people were suffering too. Misery isn't so bad if you know it's been spread around." He laughed humourlessly.

"Believe me, it's been spread around," Ruth said. There was something about Max that she was warming to; a geniality, perhaps, or a lack of cynicism.

"Yeah, so I gather. I'm a reporter by trade, a stringer for the nationals. 'Course, when the phone lines went down, that put paid to that career. Thank God for the food-sharing system we've got going. Anyway, journalism, you know, it's in your blood. I wanted to know what was happening, and I wanted to let everybody else know. So we set up a jungle drums news service, passing information to the next village along, and they would pass it along to the next, and so on." He shrugged in embarrassment. "It was the best we could do. We had to know."

"I admire your ingenuity," Ruth said. "Getting it set up so quickly. Most people wouldn't have bothered."

"Information is power. I've had that drummed into me ever since I started on a local rag." He seemed warmed by the praise. "We've managed to stretch from Appleby to Durham so far. And you wouldn't believe how much trouble we had setting that up. Some bloody civil servant or council twat stumbled across it at some point and tried to stop it. Can you believe it? He was ranting on about D Notices and not causing a panic. Then he set out to the next village in his car at twilight and we never heard from him again." There was a long pause while he sipped his beer. "You've got to adapt, haven't you? Nothing makes sense, but if you don't get your head round it you're just…" He searched for the right words. "Driving in a car to the next village, thinking it's a normal trip."

"You've done a good job here," Ruth said. He seemed to need the comfort; when he relaxed the strain was evident on his face.

"So tell me what you know," he said, suddenly excited. "Anything will help. Any little thing."

"Any little thing," Church repeated with an amused expression.

They didn't see anything wrong with filling Max in on many of the things they'd experienced since they'd got together. A hour and a half had passed before they'd finished and Max looked shellshocked. "That's amazing. Stupendous." He eyed them suspiciously for a moment, but it was obvious from their expressions that they weren't spinning him a yarn. "So you're some kind of heroes. Basic, day-to-day people standing up against unimaginable odds. This is just what people have been waiting to hear!"

"You've got it all wrong," Church said with a dismissive laugh. "From our perspective it looks very different."

"You're right there," Laura added grumpily.

"No, don't you see! This is something I can do! Tell the world about what you're doing-or at least the world as far as I can reach. Give people hope. You know, war reporting. Because that's what it is."

Veitch shook his head with irritation. "We don't need that. A bloody spotlight shining on us all the time! No way. Anyway, we wouldn't even recognise ourselves once you've finished. I know what bleedin' reporters are like."

"You owe this to the people. It's part of your job-"

"We don't owe anybody anything." There was an unpleasant harshness to Witch's voice.

"We were thinking about camping in the village somewhere," Ruth said to change the subject.

"You can't do that."

"No, you're probably right there. How about getting some rooms here?"

Max glanced over at the barman. "I'll have to ask Geordie. I don't know… In the current climate I'm not sure how keen he'll be to have strangers in the place." He sighed. "But we can't send you out into the night either, so he'll have to."

Tom leaned across the table to catch his attention. "You haven't told us what's going on here."

"Yes, of course." He scrubbed the hair at the nape of his neck, suddenly uneasy. "Well, it's not like we really know. We've all glimpsed things out there in the fields, but what they truly are-"

"What do they look like?" Ruth asked.

"We've only seen flashes, but we pieced things together from different accounts. When they move they're like sheets blowing in the wind. They seem to change and twist all the time, so they look, you know, not really solid, like they're not quite there. But they are." He took another swig of beer to moisten his drying mouth. "They've got teeth. One of the farmers saw them go through a sheep like it was a threshing machine. Turned the poor beast into chunks. That was the start of it."

"But not the end," Church said.

Max shook his head. "While they were out in the fields they were terrifying, but we could deal with it. They weren't here, you know? We were safe in our castles."

"But once they'd found their footing they began to come into the village." Tom nodded at the familiar pattern. "More prey, and easier to catch."

"They came into town one night like a storm blowing in, sweeping up the High Street, swirling around all the houses. Everyone knew what was out there in the fields, so they didn't really venture out that much at night. Anyway, they found their victim. Mrs. Ransom. She lived on her own in the big house at the top of the High Street. Quite well-to-do, but everyone got on with her, I suppose. There was a lot of blood, and…" His words dried up. As he stared blankly into the dregs of his pint, the awful strain was apparent on his face. "After that the place just shut down. It was hard to go anywhere during the day. A farm hand, Eric Rogers, went missing in the fields. They found him. Part of him. Some people thought they'd try to drive away to the city… some did, but most were afraid even to go anywhere in their cars. We were virtually prisoners in our houses. Every night we barricaded ourselves in, and every morning we'd run out to meet here."

"It's a wonder you managed to carry on living your lives," Veitch said.

"We didn't, at first. But we began to get an idea of their patterns. They'd be in the village every night after dark, but we didn't actually see them in the environs during the day. Just on the outskirts, in the fields and the roads. Then we realised something. After Mrs. Ransom, they hadn't taken anybody else from their house, even though a lot of the barricades were pretty flimsy things. But one night Jimmy Oldfield, who was this old lush from Recton Close, he got a bit funny in the head from all the pressure. He'd been in here drinking all day, telling everybody he'd had enough, that he was going to make a stand. Everybody thought it was just the booze talking." A guilty expression crossed his face.

"Anyway, that night they seemed to know Jimmy had the least defences because they hovered all around his door for ages, but they couldn't get in, didn't even try, really. That's what the people holed up across the road said. But Jimmy…" Max shook his head slowly. "I reckon he'd pickled his brain with all the whisky he'd drunk. He came to the door with his shotgun. All those awful things were gathered on his front garden, poised, like. Ready to attack. Jimmy opened the door just a crack to shove the shotgun out and that was it. They were in. There wasn't anything left of him the next day." He sighed, finished his beer. "So the upshot is, they only come into the village at night, and however dangerous they are, they can't get into your place if the door's shut tight."

Veitch shrugged. "It's a bit of a bastard not to be able to go out at night, but it shouldn't be too much trouble to keep everyone safe."

"You'd think, wouldn't you?" Max waved his glass for the barman to pour him another pint. "Anyway, after somebody got killed they never bothered us for a while so we could pretty much go about our lives as normal. We used the time to tell everybody in the village what we knew and to make sure all the old folk had good defences. They all got the rule: nobody opens their door after sunset."

They could all see what was coming. "But somebody else died," Church said.

"Not just one, three people. It doesn't make any sense! The things can't get inside if the house is shut up. And everybody knows they have to keep their doors locked at all times. So tell me how people are dying?" He took his drink from the barman and drained half of it too quickly.

"People do silly, dangerous things even when they know they shouldn't," Ruth suggested.

Max shook his head. "One of them, Dave Garson, I was only speaking to him the afternoon he died. He was terrified. There was no way he was going to open his door. But he was gone the next day. His wife and kids were hysterical. They said the things came bursting in after they'd gone to bed and Dave was finishing off his beer in the kitchen-"

"Maybe you're wrong about them getting into locked houses," Church began.

Max shook his head furiously. "That's not it. We're as sure as sure about that. We've been watching them. They can't get in." He turned around to call over an aristocratic-looking man who was drinking a short at the bar. He was tall and thin, probably in his late sixties, with white hair and a handlebar moustache. He reminded Church of an ex-army type.

"This is Sir Richard," Max said as he made the introductions. "He lives in the Manor House on the green. We decided to form an action group to gather information on these things."

"Surveillance is one thing I am very good at," Sir Richard stressed. "We set up a good team around the village, keeping watch all night long. We tracked the movements of these things. Took a few pot-shots at them to see if we could do them any damage. No luck, unfortunately. Like shooting fog."

"And they definitely can't get into shut-up houses, right, Sir Richard?" Max said.

"Absolutely. They'll gather at the door, but never go inside. The most damnable thing. We honestly have no idea what to do next."

Having made his point, he retreated to the bar. Max leaned forward and whispered, "Ex-Tory MP for his sins, but he's a pillar of the community, great at organising things and getting people involved. In fact, I'm surprised how much this nightmare has brought everyone together. I used to think this was a right stuffy place, but since all this started I've seen a different side of all sorts of people. It seems to have brought out the best in everyone. Ironic, isn't it?"

For the rest of the evening they mulled over this point. They had all seen the good that had come out of hardship and suffering, but however much they argued, they couldn't agree if what they had lost was a fair price for what they had gained.

Geordie the barman had some spare rooms he used to let out to foreign tourists touring the area, but he agreed to give them up reluctantly. He was a little warmer when they promised to pay handsomely if he could arrange some food. He disappeared into the kitchen and forty-five minutes later came back with some cold ham, mashed potatoes and peas. Laura moaned about the meat "infecting" her vegetables, but after their hard day's walking the others polished off their dinner and washed it down with more beer.

Max left them alone while they ate, returning to the other drinkers to pass on what he had learned. Church watched their expressions move through disbelief to a dumbfounded acceptance and then something approaching awe. It made him feel uncomfortable.

At 11 p.m., all the drinkers gathered together at the door. Church could see the apprehension jumping from one to the other like electric sparks, lighting their faces for just a fleeting moment. Max maintained his cheeriness somehow and threw a bright wave before wrenching open the door and peering out into the oppressive darkness of the street. They all hovered for a moment, and then some kind of circuit was thrown in their minds and they surged out. Church could almost hear the unified exhalation of fear. Then, with a rustle and a bang, they were gone and the door was shut.

"Will they be all right?" Ruth asked.

Geordie leaned his heavy frame across the bar. "With a prayer. They've done it enough times, got it down to a fine art. They don't take any risks."

"It would be easier to stay at home." Church was surprised how concerned Ruth appeared.

"That'd be a bit like giving up, now wouldn't it?"

"I suppose so."

After he'd finished wiping up, Geordie led them through the back and up a twisting staircase to a roomy first floor. Several bedrooms lay off a dog-leg corridor. They were all Spartan-a double bed, chair, dresser, wash basin-but they were clean and the beds were all made up with crisp linen.

"What time's breakfast?" Veitch asked.

"You're paying, you decide," Geordie said grumpily. "Gi' me a knock when you're ready."

Church and Laura took the first room. Veitch angled to share with Ruth, but she opted for Shavi.

"Looks like it's you and me, son," Tom said wryly.

"Whoop de doo." Veitch kicked the door shut. "He's definitely a queen, right?"

Laura made love to Church voraciously, pinning him to the mattress and riding him so roughly the clatter of the bedframe against the wall left no one in the building in any doubt what was happening. After ten minutes, Veitch hammered on the wall and shouted something indecipherable but obviously angry and obscene.

"Just 'cause you aren't getting any!" Laura yelled back. "One-hand boy!"

Her passion brought Church to an early climax, but she didn't seem to want anything in return. She collapsed next to him, flushed and laughing at her exertion. "Just call me Rodeo Girl."

Their breathing subsided slowly as they stared at the ceiling until all they could hear were the creaks of the old house settling in the night. During the sex, Church's doubts had drifted to the back of his head, but there in the silence they returned in force. More than anything he didn't want to hurt Laura. He knew her better than all the others, her well of insecurity, her secret fears and lack of confidence, the kind of things she would be horrified if he said he recognised in her. Yet he seemed incapable of getting any handle on his emotions as far as she was concerned.

She seemed to sense what he was thinking, for she smiled and put a hand firmly across his mouth. "Less is more. Don't ruin things with intellect."

He took her hand away gently. "I just want to be honest with you. You know… no false pretences. I-"

She clamped the hand down even more firmly. "Churchill, this is me you're talking to. Do you think I'm going to be led up the garden path like some dreamy-eyed girlie? I'm a mature adult. Without wishing to define mature. I'm able to make choices. I know what I'm getting into. I know the inside of your head looks like something out of Saving Private Ryan. Back in Edinburgh I let the pathetic… yes, even desperate… side get out of control. But if it happens again, I'm going to put my own eyes out."

She took her hand away. He went to speak and she clamped it down again, laughing in enjoyment at the small power.

"So the bottom line is, don't worry. No strings. If things work out, that's fine. If not, well, at least we tried. So let's just enjoy the moment."

He wriggled free and buried his face half in the pillow so she couldn't get at him again. Laughing, he said, "You're sure."

"Sure as shit, big boy."

They play-fought briefly, unable to represent their feelings any other way, before falling back side by side, giggling. Once they'd quietened again, Laura said thoughtfully, "You know what, I don't take anything for granted any more."

"What do you mean?"

"I used to drift through life accepting everything that came my way. Didn't get too excited because that was the way it was. It was just… nice. You know that tingly feeling you get in the pit of the stomach? I get that all the time these days. Sometimes just looking at shit, like the way the sun hits the fields. Like the smell of really good food. Or woodsmoke? Have you noticed how good that smells? I get excited when we all have a good conversation, you know how it is when the ideas are bouncing around and I'm bitching like hell and people are batting it back at me. The world's falling apart and people are dying out there, and I'm sitting thinking these are the best days of my life. What does that say about me?"

"It's not just you."

"What?"

"I feel it too. I think we all do. What does it say? Something about the way life should be lived, I guess."

"Urrp. Heaviness alarm. Why can't you just say it means I'm fucked in the head and leave it at that?"

"Because you're not." He felt a sudden wave of affection for her. "You don't do yourself any favours, you know. Why do you keep acting out this, shall we say, difficult persona?"

"It's a natural selection process. I know anybody who fights their way through that crap has got to be all right. Anybody who gets turned away by it isn't worth the time or effort."

"There are easier ways-"

"No, there aren't. You can't trust anybody at face value. They might be smiling and pleasant and say nice things, but what's going on inside? It's a life lesson, idiot-brain. I'd have thought you would have learned that by now. This is the only way I can work out who's all right."

The thought stayed with him as he floated in the warm peace of the room. The complexities of her character intrigued him, but there was something deep in her words that kept nagging at him, hinting at something important. He wrestled with it for a while, but it was stubbornly resistant and before he knew it he was drifting off into sleep.

Veitch relaxed once the sound of Church and Laura's love-making faded, but it had obviously left him with a surfeit of irritation. He prowled the room like an animal, stripped to the waist, the brilliant colours of his tattoos rippling with the movement of his muscles.

"Will you sit down! You're making me feel uncomfortable," Tom snapped.

Veitch glared at him, said nothing at first. He slumped in the chair and removed the crossbow from the harness hanging on the end of the bed. From a little leather bag he took an oily rag and proceeded to carry out his nightly ritual of cleaning the weapon and ensuring it was in full working order. The routine seemed to give him some comfort.

"Your skills as a fighter seem to be coming on apace," Tom noted. "Do you think you're up to it?"

Veitch grunted, but didn't rise to the obvious bait. "You're supposed to be the hero of a country-or so the stories say. Why don't you do something fucking heroic?"

Now it was Tom's turn to grow cold. "You don't believe stories. They're there to make heroes so weak people have something to look up to. Try the real world some time. You'll see people making difficult choices, compromises, trying to do the best they can, despite everything."

"So you're not a hero? You've got a rep based on a pack of lies."

"Don't stick your ignorance on a flag. You'll regret it. Believe me."

"You're dead weight, if you ask me."

Tom took out the tin in which he kept his drugs and began to roll himself a joint. "You have too much anger."

"Life makes me angry."

"You make yourself angry."

Veitch focused on the crossbow.

"You wish you were something else," Tom continued. "You're angry with yourself that you're not."

"You sound like a fucking social worker."

Tom lit the joint and inhaled. "You know that old story about the scorpion being given a ride across a rushing river by some other animal… I can't remember which one now."

"Yeah, I know it. The scorpion promises not to sting, but halfway across he does because he can't help himself so they both die."

"People always reel out these trite little stories as if they're supposed to be some great, unshakeable wisdom. There is no great, unshakeable wisdom, not that anyone on this planet can see, anyway. Everything is open to debate. That story was supposed to show people are prisoners of their nature. It's a sad story really. It says there is no hope for redemption. You will keep repeating your mistakes until you die. Don't you think that's sad?"

Veitch said nothing.

"I happen to believe people can change. That they can grow wise with the years, slough off the skin they were presented with as children. If they really want to."

Veitch continued working on the crossbow as if he hadn't heard Tom at all. The room slowly filled with the fragrant hash smoke. When he did finally speak, Veitch's voice was miraculously drained of all the rage that had fractured it before. "I think that Laura tart is the one who's trying to sell us down the river."

"Why do you say that?"

"It's obvious, innit?" A pause. "Don't you reckon?"

"I don't know. I think it might be you."

Veitch looked up in shock. "What are you talking about?"

Tom shrugged. "Just an instinct."

Veitch searched his face for a moment to see if it was another wind-up, but as usual couldn't tell a thing from Tom's impassive features. "Listen, I'm doing the right thing here." His voice trembled again from the repressed emotion. "I know everybody thinks it must be me because I never played it straight before. These people mean more to me than anything. What we're doing… for the country, you know… for everybody… I'd give up my life for that." His stare challenged Tom to argue.

"I stand corrected," Tom replied in such a way that Veitch couldn't tell whether he meant it or not. "But it's not wise to go pointing the finger without evidence."

"Aren't you worried about the fact that one of us might be fucking everybody up?"

"I'm aware of it, certainly. But you can't take everything the dead say at face value. You've seen evidence of that. Be patient. As long as we remain on our guard then we will be better placed to protect ourselves. But a constant and high level of suspicion for those we are relying on is not helpful."

"Is this some kind of pep talk?"

"See it how you want."

Veitch finished the crossbow and returned it to the harness. "I'll take your advice. Fair enough?"

Pain, terrible pain. Torture instruments that flared in the dark with the glow of heat. The animal stink, and those voices that were not voices, like the jungle at twilight. And Ruth thinking, I can't take any more hurt. It would be easier to be dead.

But they wouldn't relent. Another cruel blade, another corkscrew attachment, and hammers. Tears burning her eyes, throat constricting so tightly there was no air for her lungs. And then the scream, raw and bloody.

The scream.

"It is okay. You are having a bad dream."

Thrashing wildly, still screaming, still torn between the hell of the torture chamber and the darkness of the room. And then, gradually, reality intruding, Shavi's face forming out of the pale shape that appeared before her eyes.

"It is okay," he repeated. Gently, he pulled her towards him. Her tense muscles slowly relented and she laid her head against his chest, her mind spinning, her heart thundering, the tears still rolling down her cheek.

"I'll never forget," she whispered. "Never."

It might have been Ruth's scream that woke them all, but within minutes in their separate rooms they all became aware of something going on in the street beneath their windows. At first it was hard to see anything in the deep dark, but they could pick out movement swirling up and down the street in shallow gusts. It took a second or two to realise what they were seeing until Max's description came back to them: like sheets blowing in the wind.

The motion itself was eerie in its unworldliness, but occasionally they picked out tiny sparks of red light they all knew must be eyes. Laura felt the frisson most acutely when she remembered the scarecrow they had passed on the way in.

Whatever the creatures were, they were like a force of nature in the way they howled along the streets, sending gates crashing open and shut. But Sir Richard had been right: they did not enter any houses.

That was almost enough to calm the group's jangling nerves, until ten minutes later they all heard an unmistakable sound, high pitched and insistent like the wind in the trees, yet somehow strangely unnatural; it made them all feel queasy. A second later the creatures began to sweep back towards the fields. But as they passed the pub, another noise rose up, briefly, along with a flash of something pale caught among the flurry of movement. It sounded very much like a child crying.