The Green Drift Page 16

  “We always have done” he said.

  ‘Not with these things.’

  She went to the door and out into the garden. He followed. She stopped and looked up at the sky.

  ‘Are they up there?’

  “I don’t know. We’ve got to find the others!

  They stared at each other.

  ‘That happened before!’ she said, her voice hissing. ‘You said that, standing here. It’s getting dark, you said. Look! There it is! Night coming…’

  Her hand trembled as she pointed to the eastern sky.

  ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Yes! And we went to find the others. We ran through the garden—like this—’

  He took her hand. They began to run through the garden like children, until they could see the pond. They stopped.

  ‘There he is!’ he said, his voice quiet. ‘Look. A skeleton with boots on, and strips of rag all round. You see! You remember now!’

  She turned back, a hand covering her eyes.

  “My God, no! We must find the others! ’ She called out desperately for the two women. Her voice echoed in the still evening.

  She broke hands with him and ran towards the kitchen. He ran after, followed her into the house and to the hall. She clung to the newel post of the stairs, panting.

  ‘I want to go!’ she gasped. ‘I want to go! I want to go!”

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘No, you said we must stay because otherwise—’

  He stopped, knowing he was losing, knowing that no matter what he did he would be forced into doing what he had got to do. One by one the others had gone. There was now nothing to keep them in the house, except the fear of letting the inevitable happen. But it was inevitable. Nothing would change it. The events to come that night were as unalterable as the past. It was insane to try and alter anything.

  In the silence she held her breath, as if scared ‘to breathe any more. He turned his head suddenly.

  ‘What’s that?’

  What?’

  ‘That sort of rustling noise?’ He went to the study door and looked in, head cocked, listening.

  ‘Don’t go in there! ’ she cried out.

  ‘Shut up! Listen! ‘

  She ran to him and grabbed his arm against her bosom. He could feel her trembling against him.

  ‘It’s over there,’ he said, pointing across the room.

  ‘Don’t go in there! Don’t go in! ’

  ‘There’s something there—I remember—’ He tried to go forward. She clung on desperately. ‘Let go!’ He pushed her aside and went across to the television.

  The rustling and scratching was clear there.

  It’s inside the box,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t—’ She leant back against the door jamb.

  He turned the television sideways from the wall. The scrambling sound hesitated, then went on. Sweat burnt on his face. He felt sick and ill. The smell of musty ozone, plastic, copper, and hot dust was suddenly nauseating.

  She held her breath again, watching. He stood quite still. Then he dug into his pocket and brought out a penny.

  ‘Don’t!” she said again.

  He undid the big screws holding the back at the top. He waited a moment, then cased it outwards. The dusky light crept into the dusty colours of the circuit rafts. He pushed the back to again and stepped back in sudden revulsion. The back sagged open again. He saw them struggling through the widening cracks at the edges of the box.

  He swallowed, wiped sweat running into his eyes, then crossed the room back to her.

  ‘Full of them,’ he said. ‘Big as mice. I remember now! I remember! ’

  He took her arm and pulled her out into the hall.

  ‘We’ve got to go down there,’ he said. ‘Got to now! ’

  ‘Why? We can’t leave them crawling over—’

  ‘We can’t do anything,’ he said. ‘I think the ones in the water died. They couldn’t go on growing at that rate. Thousands of magnifications an hour. They couldn’t do it. In the set they were smaller, you see—’

  They hurried down the path. He held her hand again. The purple was coming up the eastern sky, and the sea shimmered gold between the breasts of the western hills.

  ‘I remember, you see. I remember now,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to stop it. Now I remember, we might stop it. It’s a chance.’

  She was running, dragged to keep up with him. Suddenly she pulled back on his hand but without slowing down.

  ‘Was it a man?’ she gasped, horror coming out at last. ‘Was it a man there by the pond? Was it?’

  ‘No,’ he said, and hurried on. She stopped dragging and ran again.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. A trick. Like the skeletons. I don’t know.’

  She kept looking up at the sky, the vast, still fading dome of light.

  ‘I’m glad we went!’ she said, desperately. ‘I’m glad! Let them have it.’

  They’ll eat it all, he thought. They’ll eat it and the whole thing will collapse in dust and there won’t be anything left of us any more.

  He stopped in the dusty lane, his shoes dragging dirt and dead spiders.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she said, shivering.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘We can’t do anything. They’ve got to come.’

  He looked at her. The flesh dissolved, the eyes were lost, the grinning skull shook on top of the hosepipe neck.

  ‘Oh Christ! ’ he said, and turned away.

  ‘You’ve got to go on,’ she said. ‘You remember now! ’

  “Run!’ he shouted suddenly, and dragged her off towards the village.

  She stumbled and almost fell. A hundred yards on he stopped, panting, and looked at her. She was normal again to look at.

  “You frighten me! ’ she sobbed.

  ‘I can’t help it. I keep having the feeling I’m with them, on their side. It keeps coming. It won’t go.’

  ‘Try, try! ’ she said. ‘Come on. We must find the others.’ ‘Yes,’ he said dully. ‘Yes.’

  They came into the silent village. Involuntarily, both halted. The stillness, the growing darkness, the creeping the shadows were all frightening, as if the world had stopped in its turning and all life hesitated in the instant before final disaster.

  Richard drew a single frightened breath.

  ‘Griswold! ’ he shouted.

  Every empty house repeated the call, the echoing cries ding into a distant whisper.

  She shivered again.

  ‘It’s getting dark,’ she whispered.

  They began to walk through the silent street, shadowed by their own footfalls. He saw the telephone box on the right.

  “The light’s gone,’ he said. ‘It should be on by now. That was right. The light was gone in the dream. I couldn’t see to find a number. The only one I remembered was the one Hayles gave. That was it. You see, it’s all coming true, now we’ve come back. I knew it was no good. You can’t alter it. These things are happening all the times continuously, past, present, future all running like three wheels all alongside—’

  He stopped suddenly and looked back. The stone cottages seemed to lean over the road, like curious watchers of the lonely pair.

  ‘The pub,’ he said. ‘That’s the most likely.’

  She stopped suddenly, dragging him to a halt.

  ‘Fireflies,’ she said. ‘Look! ’

  There were tiny spots of greenish light moving in the dusky shadows beyond the railings of the transformer.

  ‘Come on! ’ he said urgently. ‘We’ve got to stop it! ’

  He stared at the phone box again and half-turned towards it.

  ‘Do you know the number Griswold was calling all day? Do you know what Lab it was?’ He looked at her.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then we’ve got to find him,’ he said. He looked up and down the street. ‘Did the women get here? There aren’t any lights on.’

  He pushed the inn door. It gave, and they went cautiously into the gloomy bar. Th
ere was an intermittent rattling, familiar to Richard. He turned and looked at an electric clock on the wall.

  ‘The juice is still on,’ he said.

  ‘There’s nobody here,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t like it. Let’s go out.’ She tried to pull him to the door.

  He resisted and broke free. He went through the counter gap and called up the stairs behind.

  ‘Barbara! Are you up there?’

  Somewhere a tap dripped. That was all beyond the faint rattling of the old clock.

  ‘Where did they go, then?’ he said. He wiped his sweating forehead on his bare forearm.

  He went out of the door and looked up and down the dead street. He took a deep breath, then crossed the road and went into the phone box. She ran after him, scared of being alone. The receiver clicked when he lifted it, but nobody answered the call. He banged the crutch, but the listening post was dead.

  He burst out of the box.

  ‘We can’t get out! There’s nobody at the switchboard!’

  ‘Annie’s gone with the others,’ Jennifer said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘We’d better get there,’ he said.

  The police house was dark, the doors and windows

  wide, yawning in vacancy, and yet somehow expectant.

  ‘There’s no one in there,’ Jennifer said. “Don’t go in! ‘

  With black yawning doors and windows the place suddenly looked like an animal, crouching. Both stood still staring at it.

  ‘He’s in there,’ said Richard. ‘He’s watching.’

  ‘Who? I can’t see anybody.’

  ‘Griswold. I’ll go—’

  The shot missed. As Richard grabbed her arm and ran her down the street behind the phone box, a big window in the pub was drilled clean through.

  ‘My God! What’s happening?’ she gasped. ‘He fired at us!’

  ‘He’s gone mad, or else he believes something about me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Could be he knows I’m on their side now,’ Richard said gruffly.

  ‘What’s happened to the others? You don’t think he K- killed them?’

  ‘Don’t shake, so. I don’t know what he’s done. But I’ve got to contact him and tell him I know now.’

  ‘He’ll kill you! ’

  ‘He’s guarding the police phone” Richard said. ‘I can ring him.’

  They stood in the silence watching the gathering shadows in the empty place. She looked at the sky, then shuddered and dropped her eyes again.

  ‘There’s no one to put the calls through” she said.

  They turned and walked silently through the nightmare dusk to the little store and post office. He put his foot through the upper glass panel of the door, then opened the lock from the inside.

  They went into the dark place of stacked goods, once so familiar with its smells and bursting riches, now so strange and musty smelling.

  ‘Why don’t you put a light on?’ she said, as he pulled her behind him.

  ‘Leave the lights,’ he said huskily.

  They went through into the little room of the exchange panel. There was a slot marked Police. He shoved a jack into it and held the headset to his ear.

  ‘Griswold.’ the voice said.

  ‘I’ve remembered,’ Richard said. ‘I’ve remembered it all now.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Did you hear me? There isn’t much time.’

  ‘Talk, then.’

  Richard felt a terrible strain in his body, as if some physical force tried to push him back from the switchboard. Sweat formed ice on his face.

  ‘Get the juice turned off—over the whole area!’ he shouted, as if sheer fury would overcome the forces trying to dumb him. ‘It’s their life. Without it, they die. Remember the cut-out last night. They died in millions. They’ve only survived where there has been a supply all through—the steel battery in the pond, and the one in the aquarium tank, and where there is still a charge held in block condensers, in the TV—’ His throat contracted, and he could not speak.

  He could hear Griswold breathing heavily, but the man did not speak.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  No answer, but the breathing was there.

  ‘I remember when I was in the phone box. They were coming down, and all the power lines were alive with them, ropes of light, they were. It’s electricity. They breed on it. That’s the secret. They breed on it after the trip. Get the bloody stuff switched off over this area! ’

  No answer.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Desperately he searched the switchboard, but the other slots were coded. Police was the only marking that he could understand, and Griswold blocked the line.

  ‘You’re one of them,’ Griswold said. ‘I don’t believe you”

  Richard felt a weird relief, but he fought it down and started shouting again.

  ‘It’s true I Get the juice cut off—! “

  Griswold rang off. Richard held the headset against his wet face and stared at Jennifer.

  ‘They’ve got him,’ he muttered. ‘That’s what it is! They’ve got him! That’s why he tried to shoot us! He’s got a line out from the station—the police line and he’s I just blocking it. He won’t do anything! They’ve got him, and us too I can’t hold out much longer, Jen. I can feel them in my brain everything I try to do against them is almost suffocated. I can’t fight on mush longer!”.

  Darling! Darling! she cried. ‘You must keep on. If they come they’ll kill us!.”

  “No, you don’t understand” he said. ‘They won’t kill us. They need us we’re to be the translators. We understand them. They need somebody to communicate with the rest of the world. That’s us Griswold’s with them already. Iv’e felt myself with them a hundred times today. Whenever they are near. They’re here—behind this board. They must be. Wherever there was a live line they lived and grew —.

  As he spoke he drew back from the board. In the sudden silence he heard the whispering of the insects, like a faint rustling of paper. They were waiting for the others.

  There was a gasp from the doorway behind them, Richard turned and saw Hayles leaning against the door.

  “So you couldn’t get away,’ Richard said.

  ‘No good,’ said Hayles. He ran his finger round inside his unfastened collar. ‘We can’t get away from it now. Just got to hang on, that’s all.’ He swallowed and when he spoke again his voice sounded like breaking bark.

  ‘They might not come.’

  ‘Where are the women?’ Jennifer said. ‘Ellen and the other girl?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Richard touched Jennifer’s arm.

  ‘Look after my wife,’ he said.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Her voice was a little scream.

  ‘There’s something I’ve got to do,’ Richard said. ‘The phone box might work.’

  ‘But you said it wouldn’t! ’

  ‘Stay with Hayles,’ he said. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  ‘No—! ’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Hayles said, and caught hold of her as she went out to follow Richard. ‘There’s nobody here but us.’

  Richard went out into the street. The two remained behind in amongst the shadowy piles of paper-packed goods, touching the low ceiling. A clock ticked with the easy lethargy of another century. Hayles’ grip tightened on her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, breathlessly.

  She stiffened. By his touch, his closeness, his tension and a slight quivering, she knew he was on the edge of breaking up. But it was not a crumbling away. She felt the nearing of a menace in his madness. As if it was gathering strength.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, shrinking a little. ‘Let me go, then.’

  He held her tightly, but did not answer.

  Richard went out into the darkening street. Still no lights showed. It was as if the seven human beings in that place had become frightened of light.

  Seven? Richard’s feet faltered as he remembered the skeleton by the pon
d. He felt hot with a sweep of shame at his cowardice in turning his back on the sight. He should have stayed, found out who it was, done something as a gesture towards the meaning of human association: something to show they were still of one kind.

  To walk away, uncaring, was an alien way, an insect‘s way.

  The growing night was still. No air moved and it felt that the heat was closing in. Here and there stray little balls of green light moved in the velvet dusk. He tried not to see them but kept his mind centred on Griswold sitting silent in the police house, the rifle slanted across his fat body.

  Was it Porch lying there? Had the things killed him or Griswold shot him? But Porch’s will had disintegrated before his body. If it had been Porch lying by the pond there.

  He stopped by the phone box and peered round it. The darkness was becoming almost black, yet still no lights showed anywhere, except in the black glass of windows where stars reflected.

  He went beside the box into the footpath, dividing a house wall from the police garden.

  He heard two sharp cracks and saw a brief flash of fire in the darkness of the police house window. He ducked behind the garden fencing and ran towards the back of the house.

  His heart beat very fast. Griswold had seen him, knew which way he was going, which side of the house he would approach.

  It was hardly worth while going on. He stopped, listening to his own hard breathing. His will shrank within him like a physical thing. Instinctively he began to draw back down the way he had come. The darkness was close, and yet he could see objects standing plainly. There seemed to be a fringe of mist very high up, dimming the stars, in the velvet pockets around the garden he saw the fireflies drifting.

  They seemed the only friendly things in the darkness.

  He stayed still, watching the police house. Griswold came out, the gun ready in his hands, his thick neck stuck forward, the suspicious bulldog. The bones of his skull glowed like luminous glass. Richard could see the glassy j bulls rotating in the sockets, scanning.

  ‘This is how they see,’ Richard breathed. ‘Death is rotting humanity. Death. Only the bones endure. Man has no meaning for them. It is an animated frame. He is going to kill me and it won’t matter. It won’t matter at all.