Guy Smith - The Lurkers

He found himself crouching, moving forwards on tip-toe, the only sound the thumping of his heart and the racing of his pulses. A brief moment of fear, but he swamped it with anger. Whatever these people were doing, whoever they were, they were in for one helluva shock!

He had just topped the rise when the hillside was lit up again, this time with all the brightness of seaside illuminations. He saw every detail with the clarity of an artist's sketch laid out before him: a stark black and white landscape and the horrific scarred pines seeming to move, to beckon him, the dark mass of the forest above an army on the march, the forces of evil gathering to launch an assault now that the apocalypse was nigh.

Not just one light now; two, three. Criss-crossed beams latticed the pastureland, terrifying in their total silence like a wartime commando manoeuvre. Peter shielded his eyes and tried to pinpoint the source of the lights, but beyond them was a thick curtain of darkness.

He advanced, smelling the rancid odour of dead ash and feeling it crumbling beneath his feet. His brain was working fast, outlining a plan of action. Where there were lights there were men; he must single one out, approach furtively and surprise him. Or should he go back and call the police? No, the phone was dead and if he used the Saab the men would hear it and disappear whence they had come. There was only one course of action open to Peter, except for skulking in the cottage—and he wasn't going to do that. There were a few scores to be settled and right now he was in the mood for doing just that.

He could sense rather than hear somebody moving about, a kind of stirring of the atmosphere that had him glancing around trying to figure out from which direction it came. There was total blackness again, which didn't help. Peter found himself crouching down, trying to hold his breath. Waiting.

Then something else occurred to him, something which he had previously overlooked in his search for for a reason behind these goings-on. A black-magic covern! Of course, it had to be that. The setting was right: a remote druid circle that had seen atrocities in the past. Two animal sacrifices. Now they were up to something else.

His mouth was very dry. Not that he believed in all this occult nonsense, but these people could be very dangerous. They needed to scare off the Foggs so they could continue with their rituals in peace. Mentally Peter found himself apologising to Ruskin, and to Bostock and Peters as well, although not wholly to the Wilsons after what they'd done to Gavin. But they certainly weren't the kind to get mixed up in this kind of hocus-pocus. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.

The coven had done their best to scare Peter tonight. Maybe they knew Janie and Gavin had already left and this was a determined effort to send him in their wake. Cut the telephone wire, shine powerful hand-lamps, the kind that worked off a heavy-duty battery and had a range of several hundred yards, into his bedroom, and if that didn't work . . .

One light came on about two hundred yards beyond the circle, then went off again. Another much nearer replaced it for a few seconds, then it went back to total darkness. Some kind of signalling?

Peter's eyes were flashing again in the dark, a blaze of painful colours. His head was aching with a dull throbbing that had him wincing. Then he heard something, a definite sound this time, maybe a foot crunching on dry stone and ash. Whiding, torch at the ready, thumb on the push-button switch, he hesitated because one flash of light would give him away.

And then the light hit him, a blinding devastating white beam that caught him full in the face, making him stagger back and throw up his arms to cover his face. He heard his own torch fall and was groping on the ground for it when his skull seemed to explode in a myriad of stars.

Lights of ail colours, flashing fluorescent daggers, stabbed into his brain and brought a cry of agony from his lips. The blaze of brightness began to dim, the pain escalated and then numbed. Fading, red blending in to blackness.

Then nothing.

Peter regained consciousness in stages. His first recollection was one of waking and staring up into a darkened room, feeling ill in the same way as when he'd had measles as a boy, with a permanent headache, afraid of the light because it hurt his eyes.

Where the hell was he? This wasn't the bedroom and neither was he lying on a bed. A hard surface gouged his back and had him wriggling about in an attempt to find a more comfortable place. Sharp stones and ash clung to his skin, and made him cough. Then he remembered.

Men with powerful lamps; they'd known he would come, had spotted him all the way, their lights flashing to lure him where they wanted him, right here in this ancient druid circle, their killing ground.

He sat up. God, his head was threatening to split in two. He rubbed the back of his neck gingerly. Apart from the thumping headache and nausea, he was all right. They had not wanted to do any more than rough him up this time. Next time . . .

He groped around and after some time located his fallen torch. He checked it; it worked. Almost certainly his attackers had gone. Nevertheless he swung the beam round in a circle just to make sure.

The descent back to the cottage slow. Waves of dizziness passed over him, and his greatest fear was that he might fall and go rolling right down the slope. In the light of his torch he saw the sharp rocks that protruded out of the ground as though they were waiting to spear a falling body, to batter and crush it to death.

At last he made it to the college, lurched inside and bolted the door behind him. Jesus, the light was painful. He looked at his reflection in the mirror above the kitchen sink: dishevelled, his features coated with grey ash, but no sign of any physical hi jury. He sank down into the big leather armchair. All he needed was rest; he'd be all right then. After that he'd speak with PC Calvert. This business had progressed beyond the slaughter of domestic animals and malicious phone calls. GBH was the official police term for it. The law would have to do something now.

Peter slept the sleep of the exhausted and awoke stiff but refreshed some time after nine o'clock the next morning. He washed, cleaned up and made some coffee. Outside, weak sunlight flooded the hills almost as though it was an apology for the past few days of continual low cloud. Not a breath of wind, so peaceful.

He stood looking out of the window for some minutes, idly wondering where the big herd of deer was; probably over on Ruskin's land. Those lights last night had surely scared the hell out of them. And it was likely to happen again unless . . .

But he couldn't stop here all day wondering about what might and what might not happen. The first thing was a trip down to Woodside, to report that the telephone was out of order and call on the police. He wouldn't get any writing done today but there was always tomorrow.

Peter stepped outside and locked the door behind him. He looked up once more towards the forest; a few sheep grazing—Ruskin's strays, probably—but still no sign of the deer.

The Saab was parked on the wide verge adjoining the entrance to Hodre, a dignified example of the car industry in Sweden. But suddenly it didn't look dignified any more. At first glance it was reminiscent of a sleek racehorse that has gone lame and been put to graze in a sanatorium enclosure. Pitiful, deprived of the power and speed with which its owner has always associated it.

Peter stared in disbelief, the sudden shock of what he saw causing the throbbing pain in his head to start up again. The Saab was a dead thing, almost dovm to its chassis in the long rough grass, all four tyres flat!

Peter did not curse. He had run out of steam, barely had the strength left to muster a curse. Despair, knowing there was no way he was going to drive the car down to Woodside, the futility of it all striking him like the karate chop of the previous night. He closed his eyes, wanting to open them again and discover that he wasn't a writer, after all; that it had all been a pipe-dream and he was back in Perrycroft, a nine-till-five man with no problems, a wife and son who hadn't left home. But it was real enough. He was a writer, a self-styled recluse in a back-of-beyond place known as Hodre, and his only means of transport had four slashed tyres.