Graham Joyce - The Silent Land

He looked at her and smiled. Then he cupped her cheek with his hand, a tender mirroring of the mighty slap she’d given him. He turned and went out, and she followed at his heels. Outside, the mist was still so thick that visibility was back down to a few metres. He took the corner of the tarpaulin loaded with logs and began to drag it back to the hotel.

‘Leave it. We don’t need it.’

‘We have to keep you warm,’ said Jake, almost distracted. ‘We have to.’

‘We can go in by the back way. The kitchen door. If we can get across the road without them seeing us then we’ll be fine.’

The mist was thick, and Zoe prayed they could get back to the rear of the hotel without being spotted. The tarpaulin dragged noisily against the snow in a way that she thought the men must surely be able to hear. She grabbed two corners and made Jake lift it at the other two corners so that they could carry it silently.

When they came to the exposed position, the mist was thick enough to give cover, and though she couldn’t see if the men were still in position, she sensed that they were close. The tarpaulin was heavy with its load of logs and they made ungainly progress; but the distance was a short one and within a couple of minutes they were at the rear entrance of the hotel, carrying the load into the kitchen. Once inside Zoe banged the door shut and locked the security bar into place.

‘Where are they?’ Jake said.

‘Watching the front. There are three of them and they’re watching for movement.’

‘I have to go and speak with them.’

‘Please don’t do that! Please don’t!’

‘I have to.’

‘You don’t have to, Jake! We can stay here! We’re safe here! We can stay warm! We have enough food! We don’t have to do anything. Please don’t go out to them.’

He ignored her and set off through the kitchen, paced through the restaurant and out into the lobby area, all of the time with Zoe trying to pull him back by his sleeve. He went over to the fireplace and picked up the axe from where he’d been chopping wood. Then he made for the door. Zoe ran after him and flung herself between him and the thick glass doors of the lobby, crying, begging him not to go outside.

‘Don’t you see why I have to go and find out what they want? Don’t you see that? Now listen. It will be fine. You can stay here, or you can come with me. But I think you should stay here and in a minute or two I will come back and tell you what they want.’

With her hand pressed to her mouth she watched him go out, walking into the mist that had become a fog, the axe gripped in his hand and swinging at his side. He stepped into the fog and was swallowed up.

Zoe stood behind the glass doors, her eyes fixed on the point of invisibility, counting the seconds. She waited a minute, two minutes perhaps, but then she couldn’t bear it, she couldn’t bear to watch and wait. She ran out of the doors and after him, calling his name, running through the fog, until at last she saw him, standing immobile, the axe held still at his side.

She ran to him, flinging herself at him.

‘Where?’ he said. ‘Where were they?’

‘They were right here. I swear it. Right here. One was leaning against that boulder. Another had his foot up on that rock. Look! Here’s one of their cigarettes! It’s still smoking. They’re here, Jake, they’re here!’

She picked up the smoking cigarette end and showed him. The residual tobacco sparked dimly in the freezing, swirling air.

‘Well, maybe they were here, but they’re not here now.’

Jake put the axe under his arm and cupped his hands again like a megaphone. ‘Show yourselves!’ he bellowed into the fog. ‘Show yourselves!’ But his cry had no carriage, no timbre in the freezing mist, and it crashed back to earth. He weighed the handle of his axe again in his hand and took a few steps forwards. The glacial breeze flicked at his hair and the mist went billowing.

‘Don’t step out of sight!’ Zoe shouted to him.

But he moved a few metres forwards and to the left, scanning the smoky mist, finding nothing, moving across and almost out of her range of vision, mist coiling around him. Zoe turned to look back at the hotel. A face loomed at her, centimetres from her cheek. The mouth was partially covered by a scarf. Eyes peered from deep sockets. The breath from the gash-like mouth above the scarf congealed on her cheek.

She screamed.

She came round in front of the fire in the hotel lobby. Jake supported her neck and was trying to get her to drink the water that was spilling down her chin. She sat up, looked to right and left, still in the grip of her fear, ready to bolt.

‘You passed out,’ said Jake.

‘I saw one of them.’

‘You screamed and you passed out.’

‘Did you see him?’

‘No.’

‘He was close enough to touch me. I could have reached out and touched him.’

‘There was no one there, my love.’

‘I saw him.’

‘I don’t know what you saw. You were certainly frightened. When you’re frightened you can see or hear anything. There’s no one there. I had a good look around. There’s no one.’

She shivered. Her teeth chattered again.

‘You’re cold. I’m going to build up the fire again for you.’

She pulled the duvet around her and he drew a second one over her knees. She was shivering violently. Jake went to work straight away, splitting miraculously thin kindling with the axe, all of which he grouped amid the ashes of the fire. He lit the thin spills and expertly assembled a pyramid of larger splints around the burning wood. It all burned fast. Soon the fire was roaring and throwing out welcome heat.

‘Aren’t you cold, Jake?’

He didn’t answer. He continued to build up the fire.

After a while her shivering subsided. She told Jake she needed the toilet but in fact she had an overwhelming desire to check her pregnancy status again. She was terrified that the shock to her system might make her lose her baby. She had hidden her supply of tester kits in places all round the hotel. There were some behind the reception desk, so, wrapped in her duvet, she went and collected one and took it into the toilet, locking the door behind her.

She unwrapped the stick, took down her pants and held the stick under her and urinated on it. She waited. Two thin but clear blue lines appeared. She knew it was too early to tell if the shock of fainting and falling had made her lose the baby, and that she would have to test again and again, but for now she was reassured.

This baby will be fine , she told herself. This baby will be fine.

She disposed of the stick, pulled up her pants and her jeans and went to wash her hands in the sink. The tap made a dyspeptic wheeze, but no water flowed. She tried another sink, turning on both taps, but without result. The water supply had stopped, or frozen. She could hear the airlock singing in the pipes from the opened tap. She put her ear to the mouth of the tap. The air in the pipe sounded so much like music, she had to strain her powers of listening to convince herself that it wasn’t music she could hear coming out of the taps. And then after all she became certain that it was not an airlock she could hear but music after all, faint music being carried through the pipes. The music was orchestral, rising and falling; and then it was just the sound of an airlock again.

She opened the door of the bathroom and walked straight into Jake.

‘Oh?’

‘You okay? You were gone a long time.’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘Everything okay?’

‘Yes. Everything.’

He eyed her strangely. ‘Let’s get you back by the fire.’

Jake put his arm around her and tried to stroke some warmth into her as he led her back to the fireplace. He made a bed for her there and banked up the fire, complaining about how rapidly the logs burned before they had to be replenished. Zoe huddled as near to the fire as she could without actually setting her duvet aflame.