The Green Drift Page 12

  ‘There’s a goldfish pond out there. At the end of the crazy path,’ Richard said.

  ‘It’s no bloody goldfish,’ Porch said. ‘It looks more like a bloody octopus.’

  ‘There aren’t any in there,’ Richard said. That I—’

  Griswold marched to the door.

  ‘Where’s this pond?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ Richard followed him out.

  Hayles started after them, then stopped. Porch looked at him.

  ‘You’re frightened,’ Porch said.

  ‘Well, aren’t you?’ Hayles shouted.

  ‘No,’ said Porch.

  Griswold strode out into the sun. As they turned round the corner of the house, Richard glanced down the lane. In the distance a crowd still straggled back to the village, but it was thinner than it had been. The fields on either side that he could see were thinly dotted with watchers.

  He showed Griswold the way down the garden under the rose arches. It was all very quiet, humming with good living and beauty.

  The goldfish pond was circular, dotted with lilies. Griswold stopped and looked at it.

  ‘Nothing unusual,’ Richard said. He felt an odd prickling on the skin at the back of his neck, like a series of minute shocks. He brushed it with his hand, as if some insect had been there.

  Griswold stared down into the still pool. No insects skidded on its face, nor climbed about the lillies. He could see no goldfish darting in the sun-flecked shadows of the water. The shadows merged and shimmered as if light and shade moved against each other in a turning kaleidoscope, slowly, softly.

  A bubble suddenly appeared, oily and big on the surface. It burst. The water slupped in rings away from the vanished monster.

  ‘What was that?’ Richard said, starting from nerves.

  ‘Air,’ said Griswold. he looked round and saw a stick lying by a garden seat. He went and picked it up. then came back to the pond.

  ‘Don’t! ’ Richard said, catching his arm.

  ‘Why not?’ Griswold challenged. His face was hot and sweating but it was as hard as ever.

  ‘I don’t know, I—’ Richard let him go.

  . ‘Something in there let off that air,’ Griswold said. ‘And I don’t see any fish. Are there many?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Griswold prodded the stick towards the water.

  ‘I think we ought to stir it up,’ he said. ‘There’s something in there.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ Richard said.

  Griswold touched the water with the stick. His arm went rigid, then his spine jerked backwards, arching, and a fearful grimace struck his face. For a second he remained absolutely still, racked by some unseen force, then his muscles flopped, he fell back, dropped the stick, into the water and collapsed to the ground on all fours, gasping.

  ‘What was that?’ Richard shouted starting towards him.

  He looked at the stick rocking across the criss-cross waves on the water.

  ‘Must be a mains short in there,’ Griswold said, harshly. ‘It’s electric! ’

  ‘The mains don’t come anywhere near here. They’re on the other side and up in the air.’ Richard touched hint as it testing for a shock. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘If I’d fallen the other way I wouldn’t have been,’ Griswold said, clambering up. ‘The pond’s charged like a Leyden jar.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s what’s making the bubbles.’

  Griswold turned away from the pond, stroking his arm.

  ‘It’s a freak charge in the water,’ he said. ‘There were considerable electrical storms last night.’

  ‘There were? I didn’t know.’

  ‘You weren’t conscious,’ Griswold said.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Richard, quickly. ‘Don’t go away.’

  Griswold turned back but did not look at the pond.

  ‘This electrical charge has eaten all the fish,’ Richard said, keeping his voice even.

  ‘Probably stunned them,’ Griswold said impatiently.

  ‘When they’re stunned, they come to the top,’ said Richard, and pointed towards the surface of the pond. ‘There’s something in there.’

  The two men stared at each other as if testing strengths.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Richard asked.

  A bubble swelled on the pond surface and burst in little rainbow drops. Griswold watched them.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to find out more.’

  ‘You’ve changed your bloody mind, haven’t your’

  “This needs discretion.’

  ‘How can you find out if you don’t look?’

  Sweat sparkled on Griswold’s face.

  ‘I wish to phone back. I have to keep them informed of every new development.’

  Richard stood where he was as Griswold turned to go. ‘You’ve changed,’ he said.

  Griswold stopped and looked back.

  ‘Everybody’s changing,’ he said.

  ‘Electrical storms?’ Richard said.

  ’In this area,’ Griswold said. ’Travelling eastward later. Considerable activity expected east of here later today.’ “There is a theory,’ Richard said. ‘Meteoric bombardment from space causes storms, and storms cause mental instability in humans.’

  ‘I know it.’ Griswold stared, and the sweat ran down his jaw.

  ‘These things could have the same effect, coming in from outside.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Notice how hard you have to strain to keep thinking your own way and not theirs?” Griswold licked his dry lips.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s why you won’t look in the pool.’

  ‘It will do no good!’ Griswold shouted in sudden anger. ‘There is nothing you and I can do. It must wait.’ He turned and walked heavily back towards the house. Richard looked at the pool, felt a wave of fear run through him that left his skin iced, then followed the big man.

  ‘You can’t leave it there! ’ he shouted suddenly.

  Griswold walked on. Richard began to run after him. ‘You can’t leave it there! ’ he said, catching up.

  ‘There is nothing else to do.’ Griswold walked on.

  Richard caught his shoulder and swung him round.

  ‘You can’t leave it there! ’

  Griswold stared.

  ‘What do you think we can do?’ He pointed down the lane, to the silent, staring crowds. They seemed to have gained in numbers again. ‘Where are they coming from? The little town on the coast. What happened there last night? Not what happened here, but storms, storms all over this area. The bombardment on the upper atmosphere. Are those people normal down there? Have you watched them closely? Are they normal gawpers? Are they? Isn’t there something different? What are you going to do if there is?’

  The man’s light eyes reflected a curious colour, making Richard afraid again.

  ‘Normal?’ he said. ‘But none of it’s normal! The whole day is abnormal—’

  Griswold walked on to the house. Richard stayed looking away beyond the high flowers and the hedges to the waiting hordes. They had a new horror then; something that seemed to fit with the strange and hideous X-ray vision he had had of them.

  Porch stood by the corner of the house, arms hanging like an ape’s, watching Richard. Richard saw him suddenly, almost with a sense of shock at finding himself watched.

  ‘See it?’ Porch said.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ Richard replied. ‘But there’s a mains short into the water. Don’t touch it.’

  ‘Mains short?’ Porch was crudely suspicious. ‘What sort of mains short? No mains down there! ’

  ‘There’s a garden light,’ Richard lied, and went by into the house. He felt Porch watching him as he went.

  As he went in someone dropped something in the kitchen. It clanked faintly in the humming heat of the summer day. For an instant, things felt normal, then he heard Griswold’s voice and the clamp was on again.

  He saw Jennifer come out of the ki
tchen doorway.

  ”What are we going to do about Johnny?’ she said.

  He stared. ‘What can we do?’

  ‘We ought to let somebody know at the school.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Well, in case—-in case something happens.’

  It brought the face of horror swelling into a close-up as he had never seen it before.

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, darling. Nothing’s going to happen.’

  ‘But you know it is.’ She was very quiet.

  ‘You sound like a woman who knows she’s ill or something,’ he said angrily. ‘Why does anything have to happen? That’s what the man’s here for, to stop anything happening.’

  She watched him, and he felt guilty and stupid.

  ‘For God’s sake, Jen, if you think like that why don’t we get out of here?’

  ‘It’s ours,’ she said. ‘Everything here is us. I wouldn’t leave it, not like that.’

  ‘Women are mad,’ he said, turning away. ‘Look if you feel omens, the thing to do is get out. I’ll come with you—-’

  ‘And come back later.’

  He turned back slowly.

  ‘It might be missing the experience of a lifetime,’ he said. ‘But you “must think of Johnny.’

  ‘No,’ he said, slowly. ‘I think we ought to go, get out of this place. Something’s going to happen. It might be as bad as Griswold says. I don’t know. Nobody does. But it’s foolish to hang around here till it does! ’

  ‘You’ve changed all of a sudden,’ she said quickly.

  He wiped his hot face with his hands then blinked.

  ‘I can’t make up my mind,’ he said. ‘Fact is. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve got a mind at all. One thing one minute, the other the next— But I think we ought to go. All of us. Get out of it. Where’s Ellen?’

  Jennifer started.

  ‘I don’t know. She went outside.’

  ‘I thought she was scared to go outside.’ He strode towards the yard door. He had forgotten even minutes before.

  ‘So she was, then she got bloody-minded and went.’

  She came up behind him as he stood in the open doorway, looking towards the garage wall.

  ‘Ellen!‘ he called out.

  The bees hummed. There were some birds fighting over something beyond the threadwood fence. Far off a car hooted, but there was no sound of the watchers thrown in a scattered ring around the waiting house.

  ‘Perhaps she ran off,’ Richard said.

  ‘She wouldn’t have done that,’ Jennifer said. ‘She was deep down frightened of them.’ She stepped out into the hot sun. ‘Ellen 1 ’

  No answer. Richard caught her arm.

  ‘She’s hiding! ’ he said.

  ‘Hiding?’ Jennifer stared. ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘So that we won’t see her,’ he said.

  ‘Richard, you—you’re barmy, dear! Barmy!’ She was alarmed for him all of a sudden, and Ellen slipped away to the back of her mind.

  ‘Let’s look, then,’ he said, pulling her across the yard. ‘Look in the garage. The wood shed. The coal bunker. She’s hiding somewhere! ’

  She went with him. but hugging his hand against her side with her arm, as if fearful that his body would follow his mind and slip away from her.

  The car was in the garage, and the garden tools and the rest of the things that would, perhaps, be used some day, were all untidily about.

  Ellen was sitting in the dark wood shed. Sitting on a stack of cut logs with her arms cuddling her knees, staring at them as they came in.

  ‘Come out of there! ’ Richard said. He shook Jennifer’s hold off him, reached in and caught Ellen’s hands. He heaved and she came out head first and crashed against him. His fury showed his sudden fear of her.

  For a moment she stood there, breathing very hard, looking as if she would kill him. Then she changed and looked startled, shocked and ashamed.

  ‘Oh dear!’ she cried, and covered her face with her hands. ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! ’

  Jennifer put her arms round the woman’s quaking shoulders and led her out into the sun. Richard stared into the gloomy shed and rubbed an open hand over his face. Then he turned and stared at Ellen’s back as she and Jennifer went to the kitchen door.

  The shadow came to the tiles by his feet, a blodge. He looked round into Porch’s sweating face.

  ‘It’s a big tiling—in the pond,’ Porch said, staring. ‘You can see it sometimes. Blue. Like glass. Haven’t you got a gun? We could shoot it. See what it is.’ He licked his lips.

  ‘I’ve got a rook rifle,’ Richard said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Porch, with a curious relish. ‘There might be more than one in there. Could be lots. Might be dangerous to kill one.’

  Richard looked at the policeman. The man was grinning.

  ‘Great God!’ Richard whispered, then cleared his throat and said. ‘We’ve got to get out of this place. Now! ’

  Porch watched him stride, almost run, back to the open door. Jennifer and Ellen turned to watch him as he crossed the kitchen.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ he said urgently. ‘We can’t stay any longer! ’

  He came into the hall. Griswold slammed the telephone down and turned, his fat, heavy face pale and wet.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said gruffly.

  Barbara came in from the front door, alarm clearly showing at something she had seen outside.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here! ’ Richard shouted.

  Hayles came out of the study and stopped, staring from one to the other. Somewhere in the distance a mechanical

  voice was calling, rasping, unreal.

  “They’re going! ’ Barbara gasped. ‘They’re all going away! Running, some of them!’

  ‘Looks as if they’re being chased,’ Hayles said. ‘Bui there’s nobody chasing them! ’

  Richard shoved him aside and stood in the doorway, staring through the big window.

  The metallic voice barked on, but words were lost in the scramble of the summer heat. The crowd in the lane was pushing and shoving, stumbling in retreat. The scattered people in the fields were quite frankly running. Some women, holding back to gather children’s hands and rush them on back to the village.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Richard said.

  ‘They are being chased off by fear,’ Griswold said, standing beside Richard.

  ‘That’s a police loudspeaker,’ Hayles said. ‘See it on the van there? Right up by the main street.’

  ‘But what’s making them go like that?’ Richard demanded.

  ‘They are being warned that there is a risk of alien infection in the area of this house,’ said Griswold, showing his teeth.

  ‘What kind of alien infection?’ Richard said.

  ‘We have to find out,’ Griswold said.

  ‘Find out? What the hell do you mean, find out?’ Hayles shouted.

  ‘I mean the police have hit upon this ruse to get rid of that mob of ball-eyed dolls,’ said Griswold. ‘Mr Chance, I would like to talk to you urgently.’

  He walked heavily into the study, wiping round his neck with a handkerchief. Richard went in and closed the door. Griswold looked at the vanishing crowd. It was somehow like seeing a film running backwards.

  ‘I have the feeling I can rely on you,’ he said.

  “Is that a compliment or an order?’ Richard said.

  ‘Choose” Griswold said.

  Look. We ought to follow those people out of here.

  There is no sense in staying and trying to guess what will happen.’

  Griswold lit one of his small cigars and made an elaborate gesture of shaking the match out.

  ‘I have been talking to The Top,’ Griswold said. ‘They have come to a decision after a minute study of the specimen I sent up for inspection. The people being driven off like cattle now is part of their decision. The whole of this house and village up to
the sea is being evacuated.’

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘Don’t interrupt. The road blocks are up all round. Those people out there and the villagers will be driven as far as the blocks, and then each one tested before he is allowed to go on through.’

  ‘Tested? With what?’

  ‘A development of the Geiger counter,’ Griswold said. ‘There has been a keen study of alien infection for some time past. Crude forms of it can now be detected.’

  ‘But supposing somebody doesn’t get through? Suppose he’s infected?’

  ‘They don’t think many people will be affected—yet,’ Griswold said. ‘Not as far out as the village, anyway.’

  ‘You’re going a long way round to something unpleasant, aren’t you?’ Richard said.

  ‘See that voltmeter-looking thing in my case? Pick it up.’

  Richard picked it up. The needle kicked over into the red sector.

  ‘Seventy per cent,’ Griswold said. ‘Very bad, you see. I’m only forty-five so far. Look.’ He took the instrument and the needle fell back, but remained half deep in the red sector. ‘But I haven’t been here as long as you.’

  Richard started to talk but his voice dried up. He drank some forgotten beer.

  ‘What’s the message?’ he said.

  ‘The message is everybody still fit will be evacuated from the village,’ said Griswold. ‘The rest stay behind.’ Richard felt his body freeze, muscle by muscle, holding him still.

  ‘We think the trouble may be infectious,’ Griswold went on. ‘Which means that sufferers must be isolated.’

  ‘But surely they can send doctors—’

  ‘It isn’t something that can be treated by medicine at present. To send doctors woidd merely mean to lose them, as far as we know now.’

  Richard came to life. He wiped his eyes with his hand as if that might take the dreamlike feeling from him. He laughed.

  ‘Can’t be. Can’t be!’ he said. ‘You mean that we’ve been just isolated and left here to die, in the middle of a civilised country?’

  ‘It is the civilised thing to do, surely?’ Griswold said. Sweat gathered at his temple and ran suddenly down his jaw, a silver streak of fear. ‘Better to lose the few than spread the thing across the world?’