Adam Nevill - Banquet for the Damned

'Don't be melodramatic, Dante. Before we take any firm action, we need to know more.'

'About what? Eliot has lost the plot. He couldn't do anything if he tried. Don't you see? Beth is running things. Beth and the other thing we've all seen.'

'Think we've seen. What we've actually seen and what we think we've seen are two entirely different matters.'

Dante stands up, turns around and removes his shirt. 'They're fading, but these marks are for real.'

'Good God,' Arthur says.

Harry swallows, unable to break his stare from Dante's back. 'She's a fanatic now. We told you. They have such strength. Lunatics, you know,' he says, but his lips hardly move.

'And you're a lunatic for wasting time, mate. We have to get out there and get Tom. He's in serious trouble. They've got him out there. This goes way beyond Eliot now. Tonight, we make a move. We go out there.'

'Out of the question,' Harry says, shaking his head.

Arthur smiles weakly in an attempt to calm him down. 'It's late, Dante.'

'I don't care.'

Shuffling forward on the couch, Arthur attempts to touch Dante, who paces up and down, pulling his shirt back on. His face is set. 'Please, Dante. Listen to me,' Arthur implores. 'I'm willing to help. With your friend. I'll come with you. We'll confront them together. And it won't be the first time I've taken someone from Eliot by force. But not tonight. We have the new postgraduate body to meet tomorrow, and my speech still needs work.' His voice starts to drift along with his attention. 'With everything else, I've fallen behind with so many things.'

Dante stops moving. He has to keep this one sweet. He is willing to help. 'All right, Arthur. I appreciate what you've told me. I mean that. I've been going out of my mind trying to cope with all this on my own. It's good to know I have an ally.' He begins to pace again. 'I've got to get out there. Tom's coming back with me. No bother there.' But his attempts at boosting his own morale fail. How far gone is Tom? He's been out there for two days now while he searched, and sat around, and listened to this pair. He should get the police now. Go to them with the incredible story and take them out to the cottage. Don't take no for an answer. Tell them it is a kidnap or something. If it blows the town wide open — what Eliot has been doing, what he's done to Beth — then so be it. These two will have to look out for themselves. If they'd done more in the beginning everything would be all right now. Arthur is a good sort, but he can't trust old long-jaw. He'll sell them out to save his name. Refuse to co-operate. And he has too much influence over Arthur. And what can Arthur do anyway? He is old and going to pieces. He is scared. They are all scared, but someone has to go and get Tom. If he goes now, out to the cottage, tonight, with or without the police, Tom can be saved. He'll get Tom and then they'll split. Leave right away. Their stuff is packed.

But what about the other thing? His fragile plans fall apart when he thinks of the sounds and the movements in the silence and the dark of St Mary's Court. What is it? What makes it come? Will it be there, waiting?

Harry collects his jacket from the arm of the chair. He looks ill. 'Thank you for the drink, Dante. But I must get off now. My wife is expecting me.'

'Sure, just take off. Let's waste another night.'

'I promise to be in touch. Tomorrow. But until then, I'd advise you to do nothing rash. It would be a mistake going to the police. What could you say? They'd laugh at you. When it's light, tomorrow, after our engagement with the postgrads, I suggest we all go out there and confront Beth. Get your friend. It'll be light. Things are different during the day. Let the whisky and emotion wear off first.'

Arthur looks at Harry with surprise and then admiration. Dante scowls. But the thought of going out to the cottage, alone and at night, fills him with dread. 'You'll call here, tomorrow?' he says, his voice heavy with disappointment.

Harry offers his hand. 'I promise. We're all involved, Dante. I know your friend is there, but he's young. He's strong. It's unlikely he'd do anything… Let himself… There is a lot at stake for all of us.'

'He is right, Dante,' Arthur says. He puts his hand on Dante's shoulder. 'Let's think of the best for all of us, eh? We'll all go tomorrow.'

Dante can't speak. This is the kind of thing his parents said when they worked out a compromise. Harry is out the door without another word.

'Tomorrow, then,' Arthur says, looking pleased with himself after his confession, as if he can think of nothing else now. On the doorstep, he pulls his collar up against the cold. He nods at Dante and then walks, wearily, away from the flat where Ben Carter once lived.

'Well, it's done. I feel better for it,' Arthur says. He buttons his coat right up to his chin and folds the lapels over to further protect his fleshy neck. Behind him, Dante closes the front door of that flat, Ben Carter's flat. There was no need to have told him that. He is right on that account; the lad has enough to deal with.

'You do?' Harry says over his shoulder, his body taut with irritation, as he strides to the car: the older brother defied by the younger for the first time. 'We'll see, Arthur. I can't see any good coming from it. He's ready for the police.' Impatiently, Harry swings his long body into the Rover, sweeping his overcoat under his buttocks.

'It'll be fine. Tomorrow. It'll be fine,' Arthur says, at the curb. The door of Harry's car slams and shakes raindrops onto his shoes. Harry removes the steering lock and, from a guilty afterthought, winds the window down. 'Lift?'

'No. I'll make my own way from here.'

'Sure?' Harry asks, half-heartedly, pleased they will not have to be awkward in the car together.

'Yes, thanks. I'm going back to the office. Something to finish off.'

Harry nods. 'Right you are. Until tomorrow.' His voice has turned sarcastic.

Let him stew, Arthur thinks. Even if it means going back out there to Eliot's cottage, they must take their share of the burden. The missing students and Dante's friend have to be found. No, there won't be a connection between the missing people and the cottage; he cannot allow thoughts like that. Think positively, a tired little voice says inside his head. A voice that once made a good suggestion or two, but now only irritates him, but he can't switch it off. But stepping out of Harry's shadow tonight makes him feel good. Not even the rain can dull that feeling, churlish as it is. The engine of Harry's car starts — a squeak, a rumble, a purr. There is a final glance from Harry's hard eyes, and then he is gone to the end of the Scores, fast and sliding past a black car idling at the curb, its lights on half-beam. Same model as Marcia's, Arthur thinks, distractedly. It too reverses away from his sight.

Rain is sweeping across the town again, like an intolerant authority trying to clear the streets. At the open mouth of the Scores, before it narrows to a long funnel under the overhanging limbs of ancient trees, a group of excited students darts in and out of cars and doorways, glancing at the bitter sky, their faces and voices begging for a ceasefire, to be without a care for the weather.

A sense of what tomorrow will bring makes him clench his fists inside his pockets. His fingers crush around coins and Polo mints. How he can assist Dante has yet to be established, and what exactly they are facing is still a mystery. Can their opponent be something not of this world? 'Not again,' he mutters: the endless circling and questioning, the doubts and then the belief, beginning again inside his head, and stomach, where he can feel it writhe. He's performed his part, and he was right to have done so; he's spoken his lines after a good whisky, but now the rain seems too cold, and the pavement too wet and dull, for that kind of thing, for apparitions. The town reassembles around him in real and hard shapes. Cars fill the road, late dinners are being eaten, there is a smell of cooling chip fat from Salvator's dormitory, and against the horizon a ship is seen to be still, although it moves slowly to the west.