Guy Smith - The Lurkers

The room seemed to tilt and spin. Peter clutched at the table, saw Janie's horror through a blur, heard her yell, 'Well, you did collect him, didn't you? Didn't you?

'Ruskin gave him a lift home. So Hughes said.'

'Why?' She came towards him, fists clenched, and for one moment he thought she was going to hit him. 'Why didn't you pick him up, Peter? Where've you been?'

'I . . . ' It would take too long to explain; maybe later when . . . 'Look, I'll phone Ruskin and find out what's going on.'

She followed him into the hall, clinging to his arm with fingernails that dug into his flesh as he thumbed through the dog-eared telephone directory. The pages stuck together and he had to dampen his shaking forefinger to free them. Jesus Christ, he felt like throwing up. Don't panic. He found it, started to dial and wished that Janie would let go of him.

Ringing out, that same groaning btr-brr-brr, as though the bell the other end was going to slow to a halt any second. Then it stopped, and he knew he was through.

'Ruskin's farm.' A woman's voice. It sounded young; probably a teenage daughter.

'I want to speak to Mr Ruskin please.'

'I'm sorry, he's out.' No offer of a message to be delivered or a 'can I help you'. Just a plain statement of fact, take it or leave it.

'I—this is Peter Fogg of Hodre speaking. Mr Ruskin gave my son a lift home from school . . . '

A silence; embarrassing because he could not see the girl's reaction. Maybe she'd put the phone down and gone away, or maybe she just hadn't heard. Or didn't want to hear.

'I don't know anything about that.' A kind of what-are-you-telling-me-for tone.

'My son isn't here,' Peter said sharply. 'I'd like to know where he was dropped off.'

'I'll leave a message for Dad.' He could visualise her expression of annoyance, the receiver on its way back to its resting place.

'Look, my son is missing and—'

The line went dead. Peter felt his hand tightening over the handset. He suddenly wanted to crush it, to throw the broken instrument on to the floor, stamp on it, crush it into a powder. Instead, he dropped it back on its cradle and tried not to look at Janie.

'Ruskin must have dropped him off.' She was fighting to kindle a ray of hope, striving for optimism. 'He'd have no reason to—to—' To what?

'In that case'—Peter knew he had to do something positive, something active—'we'd better go and look for him. Come on, let's try the granary first, Maybe he's up there playing with his new rabbit.

If he was, then he hadn't taken the torch; Peter's optimism wavered when he found the rubber-cased torch in its usual place in the porch. Janie wasn't letting him out of her sight, didn't even bother to put on a coat as they went outside. It was fully dark now, the atmosphere damp and cold, threatening rain before morning.

Peter lifted the latch of the heavy granary door, creaked it open and swung the beam inside. The place smelled musty, a typical outhouse that hadn't been cleaned out for years, with rusting broken outdated farm implements, a mouldy bale of hay and the make-shift hen coop on a discarded table. 'Look' Janie caught her breath. 'The rabbit's gone' The small wire-mesh door hung wide open, revealing some shavings and a half-eaten swede inside. Nothing else.

'It can't have gone!' Janie stared at the empty hutch as though trying to will the small animal suddenly to rise up out of the shavings, to materialise from anywhere. As if to taunt her, the small door swung gently in the draught.

'Well it has gone,' Peter snapped, 'and in all probability Gavin's taken it with him.'

'But why? Where to?'

There were no answers to those questions. Yet. He turned away, not wanting to put his thoughts into words. It was last Saturday morning all over again; they'd have to go out, search by torchlight, shout until they were hoarse. Go up to the forest again . . .

They went back down the steps in silence. Both of them knew what they had to do, there was no point in discussing it.

They climbed the steep slope behind the house, the mist throwing back the torch beam, a murky gloom that could have hidden—anything.

Peter paused. Janie was out of breath, leaning hard on him. He opened his mouth to say something, anything; they couldn't stand the silence any longer, but in the second before his vocal chords had time to function, the stillness was broken by a piercing scream, a yell of sheer terror which was suddenly all too familiar.

'Gavinl' Janie was pushing Peter aside, finding the strength to run, to stumble blindly up the hillside ahead of them. 'Gavin! Ga—vin—where are you?'

Peter knew where the boy was even before he caught her up, knew without any doubt that that terrible screaming came from the stone circle1.

As they topped the brow they saw a small light coming from amidst the scarred and blackened firs, a tiny will-o'-the-wisp that moved back and forth. Peter knew what it was: the cheap foreign pencil torch that Gavin had won in the tombola at last summer's Perrycroft fete. Oh God, if only they could all go back to Perrycroft right now.

Peter reached Gavin first, grabbed the screaming boy and pulled him to him, Janie was talking incoherently. Her emotions were strained, rising to a crescendo, and could only end in hysteria if they weren't stopped.

'Shut upV Peter yelled, and shook them both. 'Shut up the pair of you!'

Sudden silence, except for Gavin's sobbing. And then Peter's torchbeam alighted on the cause of the boy's terror, a bloodied scene that made him want to drag them both away, to run heedlessly back downhill to the cottage, to push them inside and bar the doors and windows against whatever inhuman thing had done this awful deed!

It was the rabbit, scarcely recognisable as the pet which Janie had brought home on Monday. It was stretched out across the large flat stone which dominated the centre of the circle, its four limbs putted out of their sockets by the taut baler twine which had been wound round the rock several times before being secured by a clumsy knot. The creature was dead, of course; no way could it have survived the gashed throat and slit underside. Its fresh blood was still dripping steadily on to the layer of ashes beneath.

'We'd better go home.' Peter started to pull them away. Neither Janie nor Gavin resisted.

'Who—who could have done that? Janie muttered. 'It's abominable . . . senseless.'

Who? Peter would have given anything to know the answer to that one. In his mind he saw the Land Rover again: the silhouette in the smoky glow of the fire; Ruskin bulldozing his way past them on the sharp bend.

They reached the house. Peter pushed the other two indoors ahead of him, found himself shooting the bolt home as he followed them inside.

'Gavin and I are going back to my parents,' Janie blurted out. 'It's all arranged. We'll be near enough for him to go back to Perrycroft school.'

Peter sighed. He knew he couldn't change her mind. The rabbit's death was not the deciding factor; these plans had been made before then. It was just a kind of final push that would ensure that she did not change her mind, as though whoever was responsible had known she would leave in the end.

'All right,' he said. 'If that's the way you want it. But I'll be staying. I'm not running, not for anybody.1

'You must be mad.' She switched the kettle on.

'No.' He spoke slowly. Two reasons I'm staying—I've got a book to write. I've also got a score to settle.'

'With whom?' There was contempt in her voice. 'Do you think you're ever going to find out who they are?'

I'll do my best.' He turned to Gavin, who had seated himself by the Rayburn; a white-faced schoolboy who was struggling with grief and terror, bravely trying to shake off the sobs that shook his body. 'Gavin, how did you get home?'