Майкл Смит - The Lonely Dead

'They're coming,' he said.

He didn't seem pleased. Patrice wasn't even sure who he was talking about. He stood there a moment, as if smelling the wind, and then disappeared like the moon passing behind cloud.

Patrice thought about running, but her legs had gone dead and she knew there was nowhere to go. Instead she curled up small, closed her eyes, and thought of Verona.

29

This time we all heard it.

A brittle snapping sound, not close. It was sharp enough to cut through the swelling wind and the hot, ragged sound of breathing in my head. Connolly turned quickly.

'Get down.'

Nina put her hand on my back and pushed. The two of us broke sideways, bent over. Tried to run, but ended up in a fast stumbling shamble through foot-deep snow. We split behind two trees, close by a six-foot outcrop of rock, guns now in our hands.

We watched as Connolly and his deputy backed towards us, rifles in shooting position. Phil's voice was low and cracked a little, but his backward steps were measured and tight. 'You see him?'

Connolly shook his head; kept his gun moving in a smooth, thirty-degree arc.

They made it round to our side of the outcrop. When they were in place I glanced behind us — it's not always easy to divine sound direction in the woods, and I've seen all those movies. I couldn't make out much. The land rose darkly, more trees, rocks, bushes, snow. The contrasts turned everything into one of those Escher drawings where different interpretations flip back and forth before your eyes, and then coalesce into muddy I-don't-know. Nothing was moving that I could see.

I looked ahead again. Nothing was moving there either, except for falling snow. All of us turned our heads, slowly, nothing but eyes and ears. Seconds came and went.

The moment burst. The tension in my legs began to slacken off. My right hand, ungloved, felt cold and useless. I swapped the gun to the left and rubbed my right under my armpit, wincing as the shoulder took the strain of the abrupt movement. I felt better when I had the gun in the right hand again, even though it felt like the heavy metal might just freeze right to it.

'It's not John out there,' I said. 'Surely.'

'No. We're close now. It's the Upright Man.'

'So what now?' Phil whispered.

'We keep going,' Connolly said. He revealed a small device hidden in the palm of his hand. I'd wondered how he was keeping track of where we were in the dark. He thumbed a button and a tiny screen lit up for a moment, then went off. 'Can only be three, four hundred yards ahead.'

'He must have heard us coming.'

'There's four of us and one of him,' Nina said. 'He's not going to come right at us. He's going to wait until we split up, or move without thinking. Then he'll take us one at a time.'

Connolly nodded. 'So how do you want to do it?'

'Stay tight. You think it's directly ahead?'

'Pretty much.'

'So let's move up around this side, come up left, go at it from the side. What are we headed for exactly?'

'It's a gully. We've come at it from the top. The land's gentler to the north, where we are, steeper the other side. Banks flatten out to the right, get a lot higher out to the east.'

Nina looked at me. 'What do you think: pull round right, try and come up the course?'

'Sounds good to me.'

'Let's do it.'

— «» — «» — «»—

We moved more slowly now, and took our breaths quietly. Suddenly I was seeing every piece of wood sticking up out of the snow, making sure I went nowhere near it. We moved tightly together, in a rough square, six feet apart, each keeping watchful eyes on our own quadrant.

Connolly kept us bearing left. The ground started to rise sharply into a craggy ridge and I had to use my hand to steady myself against the rocks as we climbed. I felt dog tired, brain wiped, my head fuzzy. My foot slipped on wet rock and I cracked my knee but barely noticed. Most of me hurt in one way or another. When I made the top I turned at the waist and reached down; Nina grabbed my hand and pulled herself up.

The forest floor curved down away on both sides, as if we were making our way along some huge animal's spine. We slipped amongst the trees, crouched low, barely breathing now.

Suddenly a howling wind whipped in, swirling up at us from the miles of forest below. It came with a cold that was like a nail hammered into both ears, and it shook the branches all around us.

'Jesus,' Nina whispered.

The sound went on and on, a vast shivering wrapped around a frigid shriek. It felt like an object, hard to push against, and perhaps one of us straightened up a little, maybe even more than one. Just enough.

There was a flat crack and a grunt and I saw Connolly turn with a jerk and fall over on his back.

I was dimly aware of Nina and Phil moving fast around me, taking cover behind trees. I threw myself forward on the ground and pulled myself up level with the sheriff.

Connolly's face was tight. 'I'm okay,' he said.

I pulled the front of his coat and saw a dark blotch swelling over the lower left side of his chest. I put his hand over the wound, pressed it down tight. He was breathing deep and steady. He was tough.

I looked down and saw Nina crouched three yards away, arms locked, pointing her gun back down the way we'd come. The deputy squatted with his back to a tree. The wind was fading to a tidal roar.

'Phil, come up here,' I said. He stood. There were two more flat cracking sounds. 'Keep DOWN!'

He dropped flat on his stomach and crawled quickly up to me, combat-style. Nina fired two rounds in the direction of the noise.

'Shit, Chief,' Phil said, when he saw the blood.

'Stay with him,' I said.

I scooted along to Nina. 'You see him?'

She shook her head. 'Too dark. He could have been tracking us for a half-hour, waiting until it got like this.'

'From the direction Connolly was hit, the shot had to come from somewhere over there,' I said, pointing down and right. 'He's trying to come around us.' I glanced up at the rock face behind. 'I'm going to head up that crest there, loop back down, try and do the same to him. You see anything move, shoot at it. Knock yourself out.'

'Be careful,' she said.

'I'll try.' I started to move but she grabbed my arm. I looked at her cold, white face. 'Okay,' I said. 'I'll do better than that.'

I waved at Phil, indicated what I was going to do. He nodded, and turned so his rifle was pointing the same way as Nina's gun.

Then I clambered quickly up the rocks. As I reached the top there was another cracking sound from below, followed quickly by two more shots from Nina. I heard her swear, then start to reload.

I crawled ten yards and then lay flat on my stomach, looked down. The mountainside cut away sharply here, cold and empty. There was nothing to lock onto below, no pattern to recognize. The shapes of trunk and branch and rock were endless and random and as soon as you moved your eyes you lost track of where you were. All you could do was take it steadily, move your head slowly…

I saw him.

The glimpse was so faint it could have been just a shadow, a fleeting artefact imagined out of the darkness and the drifting snow. But then I saw it again, and I knew I'd seen him move.

He was about thirty yards away, just where we'd thought he'd be.

I crawled a few feet further along the ridge until I was masked by a small stand of trees. Got up onto my knee and one foot. Looked ahead, and judged it. If he hadn't seen me get into this position, I could probably make it. I could sprint from behind this stand, head quickly out right and down, making for a pair of big, thick trees I could see ahead. Reckon on emptying my gun on the way. Assuming I made it there without being cut down, reload in the cover of the trees, ready for stage two. Then it would be him and me, close quarters, and I would just have to make sure it was me who remained upright.