The Green Drift Page 14

  He pushed her before him into the kitchen. She tripped on the step, and he hauled her up and carried her in, doubled over his arms.

  ‘I can’t—I can’t—’ she kept saying.

  He dumped her into a chair. She let her face fall forward on to the cool table. He took the back of her neck between his fingers and thumbs.

  ’It’s half-past three!’ he said, close to her car. ‘Keep saying it. It’s half-past three. You know it’s half-past three! You know it’s half-past three!’

  It was almost dark in the room. He heard her trembling, half-sobbing whisper repeating his words. He shut his eyes and forced himself to think, to concentrate. The sweat was frozen on His skin.

  ’Harder, harder! Believe harder! ’ he gasped.

  At what point it happened, he did not know, for there was no Time in that darkening world. The voices from the hall suddenly began again, and the big clock on the wall ticked solemnly, almost quickly, as if glad to be back.

  He released the pressure on her neck. She looked up quickly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Did I faint? I feel odd.’

  Can you remember anything?’ he said urgently.

  I must have blacked out. Heat. This bloody business. Get me an aspirin, darling. I’m all tizzy.’

  He went and got an aspirin bottle and a glass of water.

  ‘The time changed,’ he said. ‘It was night, I think.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  “I can’t remember, but I think it was night.’ He put the glass and bottle beside her. ‘I’d better tell Griswold.’

  ‘Don’t leave me here! ’

  He stopped near the door.

  ‘All right,’ he said. He opened the door and called Griswold, then turned back to Jennifer. He watched her swallow a tablet and drink water.

  Griswold came in.

  ‘So once more you can’t remember a bloody thing! ’ Griswold said. ‘Yet you know it happened.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m getting used to it,’ Richard said.

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ Jennifer said. ‘I’ve got an awful feeling something terrible happened, instead of something going to happen, I feel I know what it is: Yet I don’t.’

  ‘You jerked out of it, though. And you both had it together. At the same time. That’s interesting. It means that it isn’t you alone dreaming things. It means that it is the house that’s doing it. The house or the surrounds, but anyway, the area. You have been living in this contamination for a long time. Perhaps as time goes on we shall all begin having the same experiences.’

  ‘As time goes on,’ Richard said, staring.

  ‘That’s how I think,’ Griswold said, shrugging. ‘But you’re the only one that really knows.’

  ‘If I really know,’ Richard said suddenly, ‘then we’ve got to stay here! ’

  ‘Why?’ Griswold challenged.

  ‘Because I was in the village making the phone call. What I saw I saw from the village. If you’re going to try and alter that, then you’re trying to alter the future. II’ you can do that, then we haven’t anything to fear. Don’t you see?’ He looked wildly at Jennifer. ‘If we can change one detail, we can change it all!”

  Griswold watched him.

  ‘But we don’t know the details,’ he said. ‘How can we change them?’

  ‘We can change them if we stop it beginning,’ Richard said. ‘If I don’t go to the village, what then?’

  ‘You could go mad,’ Griswold said. ‘With the effort of trying not to do something, but not even knowing what. It’s like trying to fight a fog.’

  ‘Isn’t that the position we’re in?’ Richard said. ‘Or will it be easier to fight a mass of falling insects than a fog?’

  The telephone rang. Griswold went out. All talking in the hall stopped. Griswold said almost nothing, then came back into the house.

  ‘What was it?’ Hayles shouted after him.

  ‘Nothing,’ Griswold said. ‘Just a listen-out.’ He went across the kitchen to the open door. ‘The patrol is smack on now, keeping pace with our turn rate.’ He raised his hand and indicated a line across the sky. ‘Dead north- south. We are exactly in the middle of the line.’

  ‘Why are they coming here?’ Jennifer cried suddenly. ‘Why us? What is here?’

  ‘Well, what is here?’ Richard repeated the question. ‘It’s just an expanse of small farms reaching the sea, a village at the sea, a village here. Fifteen miles off, a seaside town, twenty miles off, a small city. Inside that, farmland, forests, downs and then the sea.’

  ‘But if they wanted the sea they wouldn’t have come here!’ Jennifer said angrily. ‘There’s masses of sea. You couldn’t miss, could you?’

  ‘What is it, then?’ Richard said.

  ‘We don’t know the conditions under which these things normally live,’ said Griswold. ‘If we knew that, we might see what they’re after.’

  ‘Spiders cat insects,’ said Richard. ‘Big ones eat birds.’ ‘They could come from a world where man had been eaten up by them,’ Griswold said. ‘If that’s so, this is part conquest for them. Assume their world is dying or dead. There could be no other reason for a mass space Sight like that. They’re looking for a world, like a mass of ants migrating.’

  ‘Which means we needn’t look for a reason,’ said Richard. ‘But I think we ought to. If they’re invading, they could have gone anywhere. They could have chosen spaces where there aren’t any men. Instead they chose a rim of country with the heaviest concentrated population. There must be a reason for that! ’

  Jennifer got up.

  “Better get something,’ she said. Subconsciously she rubbed tile palms of her hands on her thighs. Richard saw it with a sense of shock.

  “Don’t do that!” he said. ‘Ellen does that I ’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t—’ Richard began.

  ‘What’s above here?’ Griswold shouted. ‘Look! ’

  There was a spreading wet stain on the ceiling plaster, gathering in drops underneath.

  “Johnny’s room,’ Jennifer said. ‘But there’s no water, except in the basin—’

  ‘That wasn’t running when I got the microscope,’ Richard said.

  ‘The aquarium tank! ’ said Jennifer suddenly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Richard said. ‘It couldn’t be that! ’ ‘Better go and see,’ said Griswold.

  ‘The back stairs are quicker,’ Richard said.

  He went ahead out of the kitchen and up the wooden stairs. The door of Johnny’s room was open. They could see in as they came into the passage. Richard stopped dead. Griswold charged into him.

  ‘Look! ’ Richard gasped. ‘In the door there! ’

  “Christ!” Griswold stopped panting a moment, then let it go. ‘Shut that bloody door! Quick! Before it gets out! ’ Richard ran, reached in and grabbed the handle. The two great eyes watched him, but registered nothing. The thing did not move except for a gulping movement of its jaws, a kind of beak under its unwinking eyes. Richard slammed the door, locked it.

  He felt panic rising. He stared at Griswold. The fat man was sweating. He wiped his brow with a flat hand to stop the sweat running into his eyes.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Richard said. His heart beat fast, his skin froze with the sweat of heat and fear. His head was hot, being pressed as if smothering hands squashed it between them.

  ‘What can we do?’ Griswold’s voice was so hoarse it grated painfully. He listened for a moment. ‘You can hear it—moving.’ He came across to Richard, who leant his back against the door. ‘What’s the matter with you? What are you staring at? Here! Look at me! ’

  He shook Richard’s arm, but the host’s eyes stared past him at nothing. Sweat was pouring down his face, as if his body racked with some awful suffering.

  ‘It wants me to—open the door!’ he whispered. ‘It keeps on. Open the door. Open the door! ’

  Griswold pulled him heavily to one side. Richard sta
ggered and fell against the stair-rail. He stayed there, hanging on, breathing hard.

  ‘Can you hear it?’ he gasped.

  Griswold wiped his hand round his face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Come on down out of here. We’ve got to think—fast, hard. Come on! ’

  He grabbed Richard’s arm and forced him to the stairhead. The resistance broke and Richard went on down with Griswold behind him.

  ‘Is there a gun or anything like that?’ Griswold gasped. ‘I’ve got a two-two.’

  ‘Get it. Let’s get out the back without the others knowing.’

  Jennifer was waiting in the kitchen door, staring oddly.

  ‘There was something up there?’ she said. ‘I knew. I knew all the time! That’s why I didn’t look.’

  Griswold stopped.

  “You felt something was there?’ he said.

  “Yes. I can’t explain. I was just frightened to look.’

  ‘Is there anywhere else you’re frightened to look?’ Griswold’s head stuck forward on his thick neck.

  She swallowed. ‘I don’t know.’

  Richard got the gun from the locked cupboard under the stairs. Griswold was in the way and Jennifer did not see the gun being taken out into the garden. Griswold followed him out.

  ‘A ladder,’ he said.

  ‘The garage,’ Richard answered.

  They took an extending ladder from the garage wall and put it up against the house below Johnny’s window. Richard picked up the gun. Griswold stood between him and the ladder, his heavy face shining in the afternoon sun.

  ‘Better let me,’ he said, and held out his hands for the rifle.

  Richard’s jaw went tight. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Griswold watched intently, his pouched eyes mere slits.

  ‘All right,’ he said, drawing aside.

  Richard began to mount the ladder, the gun under his right arm. Griswold stood below, holding the ladder as its feet dug into the grass. He watched as the climbing man went slower and slower, then stopped, his head level with the sill. Griswold said nothing, but kept still, staring up.

  He saw Richard turn and look down at him. ‘The window!’ Griswold said huskily. ‘The window, man! ’ 1

  Richard raised the gun, lying half-sideways against the ladder rungs.

  ‘Not me, you fool! Not me! ’ Griswold backed off, then ran for the garage.

  Richard took aim slowly, then someone else came into the sights. It was Porch. The policeman stopped, saw Griswold, then looked up at the man with the rifle. He grinned suddenly.

  Richard became quite still. The sweat ran into his eyes and he lowered the gun against his side. He lay against the rungs, breathing hard, his eyes shut, trying to light the whispering in his brain.

  ‘Get him off the ladder!’ Griswold said, hailing.

  ‘What’s he doing up there?’ Porch asked.

  Richard let the gun go. It slid down a few rungs, twisted, somersaulted and fell outwards to the grass. Griswold jumped back, but the gun lay still and silent. Richard stayed up there wiping his face with one hand. He started to come down, slipped on a rung, twisted and jumped down to the grass. He landed on all fours and stayed there a moment. Griswold came up to him.

  ‘You’re no good,’ he said. ‘You know that now, do you? You’ve got to leave it to us! ’

  Richard got up.

  ‘What’s the use?’ he said. ‘You don’t understand.’

  Griswold picked up the gun.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘Porch, see he stays still.’

  ‘If you want,’ Porch said, curiously.

  Griswold went to the ladder and began to climb, cumberously, clumsy with nervousness. Twice he stopped and looked back to Richard, but both watchers stood still.

  Griswold went up until his head was above the sill. He peered in. The sunshine was strong on the glass. He shielded his brow with a hand, his fat belly pressed against the rungs.

  Slowly he lifted the rifle and rested it on the top rung just above the sill. It pointed at the glass. The Thing inside could see him but did not seem to know what he was doing.

  Griswold took aim at one unwinking eye. You must kill if you hit the eye, no matter where the beast came from. The boring of the glass made most noise. It snowed round the hole and Griswold could not see through the opaque glass. He looked through the next pane. He could see nothing of the creature. It seemed to have vanished. His fat body froze to the ladder, then suddenly he looked

  down.

  Richard was standing at the bottom.

  “You killed it,’ he shouted. ‘It’s all right! It’s all right now.’

  Griswold stayed up the ladder holding the rifle to his side.

  “You’re not playing another trick?’

  Richard backed from the ladder.

  No. Come down.’

  The climber watched a moment, then turned and peered in at the window again. Now he saw’ wet stains growing darkly on the wallpaper of the room, as if something had burst.

  ‘I think you’re right! ’ he said. ‘Stand back! ’ He tossed the little gun down to the grass, and gave a last look at the sound window-pane.

  The unwinking eyes stared back at him.

  ‘Good God! ’

  He slipped and almost fell off the ladder.

  “Look out! ’ Richard yelled. He ran forward to grip the rocking ladder, and Porch joined him. Griswold fumbled for a footing, his gasps of anguish at the position grunting like an injured beast. They got him down to their reach and then let the whole struggling mass over sideways to the lawn. Griswold lay on his back, gasping.

  ‘It’s still there!’ he panted. ‘Something burst, but it’s still there! I aimed for the eye! I couldn’t miss. Jesus, what are they, then?’

  ‘Spiders.’ Richard said. ‘I thought it was dead. I felt it was dead!’

  ‘It made you think that,’ Griswold said, and began to get up.

  ‘ There’s one in the pond, then,’ Porch said, licking his lips. ‘I keep telling you! ’ He knelt on the grass, challenging Griswold.

  They heard Hayles shouting round the corner of the house.

  ‘Griswold! Phone for you! ’

  Griswold went, heavily, big shoulders rounded as if bearing a weight too great for him. Porch came close to Richard.

  “Nothing’s happening, is it?’ he said, anxiously. ‘Nothing’s happening. It’s him. It’s him pretending. Him.’

  Richard looked at his hot, frightening face.

  ‘No. Nothing’s happening.’ he said.

  He looked past Porch to the pond. It was still, a blotched mirror, but as he watched, there was an oily bubble forming. It came between two flat lily leaves, stayed and then burst.

  “Where are the others?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Sitting around. Listless,’ said Porch. ‘It’s this heat.’ He looked around him. ‘That Barbara—’ He stopped and grinned.

  ‘What?’ Richard said.

  ‘Hot,’ Porch said. ‘I fancy her. You notice how she walks? I bet she’s good. You can tell, the way they walk.’

  Richard went to say something, but Hayles came across the grass from the corner of the house. Porch drew back, almost as if to hide.

  ‘Chance,’ Hayles said. ‘I want to speak to you.’

  He was hot, and his make-up was streaking here and there. His eyes looked very blue and wild, reflecting the brightness of the sun on the grass.

  ‘What is it?’ Richard said.

  Porch walked away.

  ‘I’m going to get out of here,’ Hayles said, quietly and quickly. ‘I want you to stop the others getting on my tracks. You see why, do you? It’s because we stand no chance as we are. We’ve just put ourselves into the hands of that moron, letting him do everything, having to take what he says as truth. We can’t go on like that. Do you realise what it means already? We’ve taken his word. We don’t know if it’s fact or not. He could be keeping us here for the purpose.’

  ‘For the purpose of what?’ Richard said.

>   ‘He’s on the side of these things,’ Hayles said earnestly.

  “You realise that, do you? He’s an agent. He isn’t a Government man at all. He’s a fake!”

  He searched Richard’s lace desperately. Richard turned away, unable to watch.

  “What are you going to do, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Get away. Get in touch with the authorities—the paper. They’ll soon deal with it.’

  ; ‘But you can ring them now! ’

  ‘No! ’ Hayles leaned close so lie could whisper. ‘He’s got that line permanently hooked to whoever he talks to. Nobody else can ring. It’s blocked all the time! ’ Hayles’s Banner was of an urgent conspirator. ‘He’s fooling us all. That’s the point, Chance! ’

  “Why should he?’

  ‘Because he’s an agent, an agent, don’t you understand? He’s their fifth column! ’

  Richard nodded to try and keep the man’s enthusiasm bubbling. Hayles had gone mad, right off the beam. The “Acts might be strange, but this was a grand illusion of persecution, a vision of knightly glory to come that was to Richard. Every movement, the gesture of the hands, the eyes, the curl of the mouth, the looks over the shoulder, everything was being acted out as if some film was catching it.

  “If you’re right,’ Richard said, ‘surely the best thing is to hang around and watch him. You haven’t got much to get anyone down from London.’

  Hayles stared at him, intently at first, then the focus of his gaze drifted until clearly he was seeing nothing at all of his companion.

  The sense of unreality was almost complete. Hayles, the garden, the very air of summer seemed as untouchable as a dream. Horror in the room above did not come into his mind, but stayed a shadow that must go before it grew.

  It isn’t important to get anyone down,’ Hayles said. ‘The important thing is to get out. Break the ring.’

  ‘No. It would be much better to stay. The more of us, the easier it will be to handle Griswold.’

  ‘Quiet,’ hissed the journalist, leaning away. ‘He comes.’ Griswold came back across the grass wiping his face with a grubby handkerchief. Hayles wandered off, spectacularly careless. Griswold watched him go, then picked the gun off the grass.