Дэвид Уоллес - Island of Fog and Death

The ferry stopped moving, and the troops disembarked.

The disembarking troops fanned out to clear the area. Peri noticed that there was not much left of the boatman, Bill. The body had mostly been picked clean, his feet incongruously still in his shoes.

The men quickly and quietly separated themselves out into four-man patrols. One remained at the ferry to secure the route back to the mainland, while four other patrols set off. A pair of patrols took each direction, one of them along The Circle, and the other a little way inland.

Steve quickly organised his patrol, in a loose diamond with himself in the lead, Troy bringing up the rear, Peri and Gus to the left and right, and Amanda and Tash in the centre. They moved off up Harbour Way as quickly and quietly as they could. The fog was, if anything, even thicker than before and both Steve and Troy wore monocular night vision devices on head harnesses.

“Where are they?” wondered Peri aloud. “There’s the dead goat, the policeman’s body must be over there to our left, and this area was crawling when we passed through earlier.”

“Be grateful that there’s no sign of them,” suggested Troy.

“Nah,” said Steve. “If they’re not here, it means they’re somewhere else, and I’d prefer to know where.” He touched the push-to-talk button on his personal radio headset, and called in a progress update to the command tent. He listened to the response, then looked round to say, “Nobody else reports activity either.” He glanced at Peri. “Are you, er, getting any, er…”

“Vibes?” she suggested.

“Yeah, any vibes?”

“No,” she said shortly. “Don’t worry, if I do, I won’t keep it to myself.”

Peri wondered about her earlier premonitions. They simply came to her, it wasn’t as if she was aware of having done anything consciously to seek out a vision of danger. Maybe she could? Was there a way to send out of sort of ‘visioning ping’? She continued walking, almost on auto-pilot, and at the same time she kept trying different combinations of thoughts – like ‘show me!’ or ‘warn me!’ – to see if anything triggered. But nothing did.

She pulled up short when she realised the others had stopped and Steve was glaring at her.

“Peri!” he hissed. “For fuck’s sake pay attention!”

Off to the left there was a light.

Old Innes sat on his sofa, looking at the ceiling and frowning. Since shooting the thing that had once been John Willems, nobody had come calling to see why shots had been fired. He had pondered that for a short time before concluding that nobody had come by because there was nobody to come by. From the various windows of his cottage he had seen more of the snake things crossing the road or slithering through fields. He had seen a couple of Willems’ goats wander by, caked in blood and walking in the uncoordinated way that Willems had. But he had seen absolutely no people.

He had seen the snake-like creatures emerge to feed on Willems’ body, and had noted that some of them were carrying away chunks of flesh. He deduced that there was something nearby that needed to be fed. A nest or a hive, or something, no doubt. It was possible – even probable – that the island was infested with these things, killing people and livestock, either eating them or animating their corpses, and taking away carrion to feed something. He wondered how widespread they were. Had they reached the mainland?

There had been thumps on his front and back doors as they tried to force their way through. His doors were solid timber, with stout locks, and no damned invertebrate was going to break them down. He had cautiously looked out, only to find snake beasts near the doors, watching him.

He knew that they knew he was in here.

There was a bang on the window, and he realised that one of them had thrown itself against the glass. There were more bangs, from more windows. No way would they get through the doors, but the windows were another matter. He had no idea how strong the glass was. He busied himself blocking up the windows, just to be on the safe side.

Innes took stock of the essential supplies on hand. He had enough food to keep himself going for a week or two. Water and power would not be a problem if the national utilities continued to operate. He had a box and a half of shotgun ammunition – about thirty-five rounds. He was confident that he could hold out here as long as he had food, so call that two weeks. After that, well, he’d work on that problem later.

He flopped down into a comfy chair in the kitchen, and promptly dozed off.

He awoke with a start some time later – he had no idea how much time had passed, thanks to the fog outside. It took a minute or two for him to come to himself, remind himself of the nightmare outside, and to wonder what had disturbed him. There was a thud from the sitting room.

His eyes went wide.

Something was inside.

He moved slowly, cautiously, until he could peer through the crack of the sitting room door. Something long and black wiggled out of the old wood burning stove that heated the room, and landed on the floor with a thud. At least two other snake things were already exploring the corners of the room.

He closed his eyes and slumped despairingly as he visualised what must have happened. That big old wood burner was fuelled by logs, and the logs were stacked up behind the cottage, almost reaching the flue in back wall. The snakes could leap, he had seen that already. Apparently, they were smart enough to spot the flue. And find that the catch on the door of the stove was broken.

Shotgun in hand, and with a pocket full of shells, he softly slipped around the edge of the door, and sighted on the closest snake. He squeezed the trigger and the shotgun blasted the snake a couple feet back across the room. Got you, he thought. The thing screeched and slipped into the shadows under the sofa where it hissed and squawked. Okay, he corrected himself, wounded you. There were other movements in the shadows, and elsewhere in the room creatures were turning and focusing on the door. He quickly snapped another shot, hitting another beast, but again, not killing it. He broke the shotgun and reloaded while retreating into the kitchen. He closed the door.

Okay, he thought, at least a dozen of them, and more coming in through the wood burner. He heard bangs as some of the beasts threw themselves at the door. Then there was silence. They would not be breaking through that way. He smiled, but only for a minute. Then he heard scratching and rasping from the door, and closed his eyes in despair. Evidently, they could chew their way through the wood. He had enough ammo to account for maybe a dozen, perhaps even more if he was lucky and accurate. How many could there be? He guessed that the answer was, too many. Once all his ammo was gone, he would be left helpless.

He had always reckoned that no bad situation could possibly be made any worse by a cup of tea. He filled the kettle and sat it on the gas cooker. As he turned on the burner under the kettle, he thought about his situation. He had turned ninety. He still had all his faculties. He had never imagined living this long, especially in the black days of the Falaise campaign when there had seemed to be a German eighty-eight behind every hedge while he and his mates were stuck in a Sherman Firefly waiting to be burned to death. This would be as good a time to go as he could think of.

He poured himself a cup of tea. Bending towards the cooker, he turned on all its burners, including the ones in the grill and oven, and made sure none of the pilot lights were burning. He had a vintage Ronson lighter – he and his crew had bought some from Americans right at the end of the war as mementoes of serving in the tanks they nicknamed ‘Ronsons’ – as the advertising put it, ‘one flick and it’s lit’.