Phil Rickman - Crybbe aka Curfew

Around the square, tiny jewels of light appeared, people striking matches. But almost as soon as a match was struck it seemed to go out, as if there was a fierce wind. Which there wasn't. Not any kind of wind.

There weren't even any lamps alight in the windows of the town houses tonight.

'OK, listen,' Col shouted. 'We need some lights. Anybody with a house near here, would they please go home and bring whatever torches or lamps or even candles they can find. I also need a telephone. Who lives closest?'

'We have a flat,' Hilary Ivory said. 'Over the Crybbe Pottery.'

Hereward Newsome said, 'There's a phone in the gallery, that'd probably be quickest.'

Good. I'll come with you. Stay where you are and keep talking, so I can find you. Mrs Ivory, if you could find your way to your flat and bring out any torches et cetera.'

'I don't think we have torches, as such. When the electricity goes out we use this rather interesting reproduction Etruscan oil lamp. Would that do?'

I'm sure it looks most attractive, but one of those heavy duty motoring lanterns with a light each end might be a little more practical.'

We haven't got a car.'

Col whistled tunelessly through his teeth.

'Colin, I'm over here.'

'Yes, OK, got you, Hereward. Now listen everybody. I don't know any more than you do what the hell's going on tonight. What I do know is that none of us should attempt to leave the scene until after the police arrive. I'm going with Hereward to his gallery to ring headquarters and acquaint them fully with the situation. Any questions?'

'Oh lots,' Graham Jarrett said dreamily. 'And I may spend the rest of my life trying to find the answers.'

'Just hurry it up,' a woman said. 'There's an awful smell.'

'I can't smell anything.'

Actually he could, but didn't want to draw attention to it. It rather smelled as if a couple of people had lost control their bowels, and, frankly, that wouldn't be too surprising under the circumstances.

'God, yes. It's vile.' Sounded like the woman who ran the craft shop. Magenta something.

'Well, obnoxious as it might be, try not to move too far away. Lead on, Hereward. Keep talking.'

'Strange,' Hereward said, 'how when anyone asks you to keep talking you can never think of anything to say… Good grief, Colin, she was right about that smell. It's dreadful.'

In certain periods of his SAS career, Col had been exposed long hours to various deeply unpleasant bodily odours, but he had to admit – if only to himself – this was the most sickening. It was more than simply faeces, though there was certainly that. There was also a dustbin kind of pungency and all manner of meaty smells – newly killed to faintly putrid.

'No power, and now the drains are blocked. You'll probably turn on the tap, when you get home, Hereward, and find the bloody water's off, too. I really do think it's about time I put a bomb under my esteemed colleagues on the council. Not that they can actually do anything except talk about it.'

'You can certainly count on my support. For as long as I'm here, anyway. Look, I'm sorry about what happened in there, I overreacted, I suppose.'

'Wouldn't any of us, old chap? Some of these TV types do tend to think they have a kind of droit de seigneur wherever they happen to be hanging up their… Is it far, Hereward?'

'No, that is… I'm sorry, one gets disoriented in the dark, especially as dark as this. I've never known it this dark, I… it really should be about here, Colin. Can you feel the wall?'

'I can feel some kind of surface. Is there a timber-framed bit next to your place?'

'Actually, there is, and it goes straight from that to the large window, but…'

'Maybe we're on the wrong side of the square. Pretty easy to do, even when you're on what you think of as familiar ground.'

'No, I don't think… Oh hell, I seem to be way out.'

'Isn't there a pavement in front of your gallery? Because we're still on the cobbles, you know.'

'I thought there was a pavement all around the square, actually. Shows how you…'

A few yards away Col heard a woman scream. 'It's gone. It's gone, I tell you, Hilary', the whole bloody front… All I can feel is this… urrrgh, it's filthy.'

'Colonel Croston, can you help us, please. It sounds terribly stupid, but Celia's lost her Pottery.'

'Look.' Col took a step back. 'Let's calm down and get this in proportion. Funny, how you live in a place for years but never quite notice what order the shops are in. Right. Between the Crybbe Pottery and The Gallery we've got the Lamb, OK, and that… what's it called?'

'Middle Marches Crafts,' Hereward said.

'Right. And then, after the Pottery, the road starts sloping down to the bridge and across from there, we've got the Cock. Hereward…' He paused, confused. 'The Cock's got its generator, hasn't it?'

'Yes, it has.'

'So why isn't it on?'

'Colin…' A brittle panic crumbling from Hereward's voice. 'Something's horribly wrong, don't you feel that?'

'It's all wrong…' Hilary's companion wailed. 'Nothing is the same.'

'If we only had light,' Col said. 'I know – cars. If someone has a car parked on the square, they can open it up and switch on the headlights, then we can see where we're at.'

'Look…' Hereward breathing rapidly. 'I don't want to start a panic, but there were cars parked on three sides of the square when I went into the meeting. We haven't bumped into a single one, have we?'

'Well, they can't all have been nicked. Just spread the word. We're looking for anybody with a car parked on the square. Just… do it, Hereward, please.'

Col walked to the side of the building, felt wood and some type of chalky plaster. And the cobbles, under his feet.

Knowing full well that the pavement around the square had been replaced two years ago, and there'd already been one there for years before that. And now there were cobbles. Again.

He steadied his breathing.

Face facts. It was true; everything was different. Road surface, buildings… even the atmosphere itself. What would it look like… What would it look like if they could actually see any of it?

Mass hallucination. Col decided logically. Some kind of gas, perhaps. Why had the townsfolk refused to come out of the town hall and, indeed, locked themselves in? Because they knew what was happening, they knew it was too dangerous to go into the square.

Were the bells some form of alarm? Had somebody actually hung all the ropes for this occasion?

And why didn't the locals warn everybody else? Because they only suspected what it might be and were afraid of being laughed at?

Or because they wanted the newcomers to be exposed to it? It was insane. Any way you looked at it, it was all utterly insane.

Concentrate . Col dug the nails of his left hand into the back of his right. Just for a few moments there, completely forgot this was not, so far, the night's most appalling development, Max Goff savagely killed in front of all of them, and that was no hallucination.

Something touched his arm and, such was the state of his nerves, he almost swung round and struck out with the side of his hand.

'Colonel Croston.'

'Who's that?'

'It's Fay Morrison. Keep your voice down.'

'Mrs Morrison!'

'Christ, Colonel…'

'I'm sorry,' he whispered. 'Where the hell's Jim? You left with him, the Mayor…'

'He's… he's in the church. Listen… I've been following you around for the last ten minutes. I couldn't approach you until you knew. At least…'

'I don't know anything, Mrs Morrison. I've never been more in the dark. Excuse the humour. It isn't felt.'

'But you know everything's changed. I heard you talking to Hereward. You realize this is not, in any sense, the Crybbe we know and love.'