Stephen Jones - Dark Terrors 5 - The Gollancz Book of Horror

Jerry said, ‘I guess what we’d do — will do, it happens — is lock ‘em up in the cell. Keep ‘em at gunpoint and explain that we’re sorry but can’t take any chances and get ‘em in the cell. If they’re still all right after… oh, say five hours, to be on the safe side… then we can let them out.’

Mary nodded. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘There is a flaw, Jerry,’ I said, shaking my head. When they both looked at me, I said, ‘It’s a good plan if only one person comes, but suppose two or three show up here? If they come separately — locking them up… would be like locking a man up with a time bomb, which might or might not explode… or a tiger, which might or might not be hungry. It would be torture.’

‘Hell,’ he said.

‘Elston told me they had tested the ferocity of the subjects by locking them up together,’ I added. ‘It was not a pretty sight, although, no doubt, of great scientific interest,’ I said, bitterly.

‘Well… if one of us kept a constant watch… the moment one of them showed any signs of going berserk, we could kill him before the other was attacked…’

‘Could we?’ I asked.

Jerry dropped his head. He had not been able to kill Doctor Winston and I had not even aimed my rifle at Mendoza and Mary… yet, who knows what one can do? ‘We might manage that,’ I said.

‘What else can we do?’

‘There’s one thing.’ I hesitated, wishing that Mary had been sleeping; not wanting to disturb her even more. But she was listening carefully; she had an interest in the matter, after all. I said, ‘We might need the cell for ourselves.’

‘How do you mean?’ Jerry asked.

‘They’re inhumanly strong. They could break in here, if they wanted to… no, not wanted to, they’re too mindless for that… but if the urge takes them. I thought… well, if they do try to break in, we can lock ourselves in the cell.’

Jerry grimaced. He said, ‘I don’t like that idea at all… locked in there, cowering back from the bars… with things maybe reaching in, trying to get at us…’ His great torso rippled; he shuddered like an earth tremor. ‘I’d rather be mobile… run… shoot if we have to… Yeah, I can shoot them… and hell, we don’t know how long we have to stay here.’

I hadn’t relished the thought myself; it was an option I thought I should mention. I said, ‘It may be a moot point. Maybe no one, normal or otherwise, will come. Let’s wait and see.’

And maybe it was a moot point.

But I was to be reminded, in a terrible way, of our agonising dilemma… the problem was not unique to us…

We spoke no more, with nothing to say. Time moved ponderously. And very slowly the light changed at the window.

The long night had begun…

We sat in the lighted cube of our sanctuary and things moved in the darkness without. The sounds they made were soft, as if they caressed the walls lovingly, longingly, yearning to enter. They sensed we were within; they gently stroked the walls around us. We knew we should turn the light out… that it was drawing them to the jail like a beacon… but knowing is one thing; we could not cherish darkness — by dawn we would have been inhuman.

Like a prisoner marking his passing sentence, Jerry drove his fist into his palm, not hard but as regular as a metronome; he winced with each soft blow, as if stung. Beside him, Mary sat with her face buried in her hands. From time to time she would shudder and look up, tearing her face from its shelter by main force… from the hooks of her hands came her tormented countenance, haggard, white, ghastly, the flesh drawn from her fingers. I looked past them, at the bars and, beyond, the shadow of the bars on the wall of the cell. My backbone was like a bar, riveting me to my chair… multiple bars, split by currents of fear and spreading like splintered bamboo through my torso — casting shadows on my soul. I was breathing heavily. We all were. And then something else was breathing heavily, at the door. Jerry looked up. His gun was on the table, but he did not touch it. The breath from without seemed to billow into the door; the door was solid, yet I felt as if it were fluttering like a sail, about to float open. A hand stroked the contours of the door, seeking, testing. Then it moved away; moving on, it drew with it shreds of my sanity…

Suddenly, I was back in Mendoza’s.

My mind out of time, I had just broken the glass case and the sound shattered in my ears. Mary’s face was writhing; Jerry was vibrating; my mind snapped back and I knew I had heard glass break behind me. There was glass in the window. I remembered seeing Mary at the window, through the pane… drawn against my will, I turned…

Sally the salad girl was reaching in…

Her face was framed in the window and her arm groped towards me, dripping blood where the glass had cut her. She was far more terrible than the men — somehow, she was still feminine and sensual, her painted lips drawn back as if smiling with lewd desire, her eyes rolling as if with passion, a mockery of what she had been; reaching out, it seemed she wished to fold me lovingly to her breast. I could not look away. Then she yielded, like a prostitute rejected; I did not go to her — she drifted away.

On the floor, shards of broken glass glinted in the light.

Within my body, my senses were shattered like the glass, cold splinters piercing my heart, sharp edges filing at the rim of my mind, jagged pieces rasping at my soul. I could almost hear fear grinding away at my guts. It was too much. The grinding horror wore away my humanity and polished my awareness to a smooth lump; I slipped into obfuscation. I did not move, I scarcely blinked. Things groped at the window and fondled the walls. And then the bars had double shadows. Dawn was at the window.

Mary shivered into reality, as if coming into focus from distortion or changing dimensions by some time warp. Jerry stood up, stiffly. I found I could move. I could think once more. The night had ended.

From the window, we saw a destroyer standing off beyond the harbour. My first thought, such was my state of mind, was that the navy intended to shell the town. But that was foolish and I smiled — although grimly — at myself. I did wonder what they planned, however. A destroyer was hardly necessary to quarantine fishing boats and motor cruisers. Some decision had probably been reached — been forced upon them once the first member of the patrols had been infected. Maybe it was only the one — the one we had seen — but we had no way of knowing, nor, I suppose, did they. It had taken that option from them. The search-and-destroy mission had automatically failed the moment a single member of the patrols became one of the enemy… to continue the patrols was to risk spreading the horror into the compound itself. They weren’t likely to chance that. And it explained why the patrols had been withdrawn. But not what they intended to do.

Sometime later a helicopter came in.

It was a big one and it passed over us, heading towards the compound. It didn’t stay long. It vanished towards the west and then, half an hour later, a second ‘copter came in — or the first one returned. It followed the same pattern, landing within the compound and flying off a short time afterwards. I wondered if reinforcements were being brought in, or if the compound was evacuating? Jerry, wondering the same thing, tried to phone through to the compound, but even the switchboard failed to answer now. The phone rang hollow and dead, a forlorn sound, as if the telephone itself knew it was not to be answered and sounded its despair.