The Green Drift Page 18

  ‘It’s getting worse,’ she said.

  He did not answer. A new wave of panic ran through her. She shook his arm as she had shaken Jennifer’s. His breathing was deep. He did not move.

  She was alone in the coming storm, in an empty house with dead people, and outside the whispering of hordes of insects calling in the dark. Her spirit curled up inside her. She shouted.

  ‘Wake up, wake up! For goodness’ sake wake up! ’

  There was no answer. She realised there would be none. They were sleeping dead, these two. Lightning flared in the hall, painting the high stair wall with window shapes.

  She ran out into the hall to the door and stopped there. She clapped her hands over her ears.

  All this he saw, lying still on the sofa, unable to make any physical movement, just staring in the gloom with eyes that registered but roused no feeling. He saw her run towards the door, then back to the stairs, sobbing, hands on her-ears. He saw her crouch in the lightning flashes, then suddenly run out of the house.

  The dry storm flared and died irregularly. He heard a scream, and she came back and knelt by him.

  ‘Wake up, wake up, for God’s sake! There was a man out there. He was running—there was something chasing

  him, like a river or something— Oh God! wake up! He fell in the pond. Wake up! ’ She was laughing and crying, pleading and praying all at once. He stayed there still, his limbs useless, heavy with paralysis, unable even to close his eyes.

  She stood up. In the pause between thunder crashes she heard the whispering outside the house. Then it was louder, some part of it was clearer, nearer. She got up, eyes wide, head cocked, listening. Then like an automaton she crossed the room, jerky, mechanical, pulled on by hypnotic fear. She stopped at the TV, clicked the switch. Nothing happened. There was no current. Inside the wooden set there was a whispering, a rustling, as if something was trying to get out of it. She stood there. He saw her turn away, easier now as if the sounds in the box had satisfied her fear.

  She bent, holding her head, then suddenly fell to her knees as if she would fall asleep praying. She raised her head, then went on her knees to the cupboard door. He could not see her more for the sofa back. He saw the door open and shut. There was silence again. Lightning flared, reflecting in his stupid, haunted eyes. He seemed to see the sky again, the incredible black depths, with the three- dimension fall of the green rain shimmering a million miles up into the vastness.

  They were coming, and he was glad. There was no other way.

  He saw Griswold sitting heavy, silent, staring. The gun lay across his knees as he sat on the table.

  ‘What happened?” Griswold said.

  ‘I remembered yesterday,’ Richard said. ‘You were wrong. It wasn’t jumping a time belt. It was just a confusion of times I had. In hypnosis or in dreams the hard and fast rule of time disappears. I didn’t jump anything. I dreamed, that’s all. I dreamed as I did before in the diary and the story.’

  ‘But you saw what is going to happen,’ Griswold said.

  ‘I didn’t disappear. I fell in the flowers. I passed out.’

  ‘You did first then. Trance. But you went back instead of forward. Useless.’

  ‘I made that call last night,’ Richard said. ‘I went back from the house to the village. I had to do it. In the phone box the things started coming down, but they didn’t live. Most died. There was a power cur. through the storm. No light was on in the box.’

  He drew a deep breath, then went on.

  ‘It was last night they meant to come in force! Last ; night, not now. But something stopped them, and they waited another twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Well?’ Griswold was still.

  ‘There must have been a signal sent to tell them that something was wrong.’

  The silence was heavy, as if the man had stopped breathing.

  ‘There was a signal, wasn’t there?’ Richard said. ‘I guess that the signal warned them that the current was off and therefore they knew they couldn’t survive.’

  At last Griswold shifted his position a little.

  ‘Well?’ he said again.

  ‘What was the signal?’

  Griswold laughed suddenly. Richard stood tense, then suddenly he jumped. He crashed against the fat, heavy body and grabbed for the gun across the man’s knees. Griswold grunted and half rolled over on the table, but lie had a grip on the gun. Richard hit him, his fist sinking into the fat of his chest, but he could not tear the gun free. He jerked and heaved at it. Griswold kicked and tried to twist away. His foot drove into Richard’s stomach and threw him back, winded against the wall.

  ‘Bloody fool!’ Griswold panted. ‘You can’t stop anything! ’

  ‘They stopped last night!’ Richard gasped. ‘You stopped them! Nobody else would have known the signal! ’

  ‘Well, supposing so,’ said Griswold. ‘What good can it do? Look!’ he turned the gun and offered the stock to Richard. Make me tell, then! he began to laugh, his fat body shaking.

  Richard stood still.

  ‘You’re mad,’ he said. ‘You can’t get on with these things. As soon as they know from you what they want they’ll kill you. Insects don’t carry travellers.’

  ‘I take my stand on knowing them. A man is cleverer, anyway. Why don’t you have the sense to see that? There’s me and you. The others don’t count. Except the. women will keep our way of life for the time being, but politically, they don’t count. But you will. You and me. They have to have bargainers. We shall have the full powers to do it. We can play an invading horde against a frightened population, and our prize will be anything we ask for.’

  ‘You certainly have the courage of your greed.’

  ‘You have to play with these things,’ Griswold said. ‘They could swamp us, but these are part landings.’

  ‘But if they land as many as last night, and they all survived—Great God! ’

  ‘You want to get used to the idea.’ He put the rifle on the table. ‘Don’t forget, I have to. The one in your room and the one in the pond—they were way out from what I expected, but I think in each case it was the water that made giants of them.’

  ‘We’re wasting time,’ Richard said.

  ‘You don’t seem to understand. There’s no time to waste. Time begins when they come.’

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Richard said. ‘You can stop them, and you won’t! ’

  ‘But if anything did go wrong, there’s only death to fear,’ said Griswold. ‘You have been watching it today, the hollow husks of our bodies. Strange how this electrical atmosphere can have that effect on our senses. You get it in pools where there is a heavy charge of current, perhaps in a stone layer—’

  ‘Where they have survived.’

  “Yes.’

  “I remember a spot in the lane, and at the window by the TV—and now.’

  “Yes. And now.’ Griswold laughed and shook again. ’Hundreds right by. It’s not so bad, is it?’

  ‘It was billions I was thinking of. The ground moving with them, seething with movement, coming at you like a tide, consuming, killing—’

  ‘But you will stop them. There is the signal.’

  ‘You think you’ll stop them with a signal once they’re safely here?’

  “I think we will.’

  Through the window the green dots wavered and darted in the night. The cottages stood silent, moulded in greenish glass, reflecting the shimmering colours of the dark.

  Griswold looked at his watch. It glowed the same colour as the spiders. Suddenly the phone rang. Richard started. The noise was deafening in the silence. Griswold picked up the gun, aimed it with one hand and lifted the receiver with the other.

  ‘Griswold,’ he said.

  There were a few brief, metallic words.

  “Cut off the electricity! ’ Richard shouted. ‘Cut—’ Griswold slammed the phone down.

  ‘The head of the cloud has turned over into the vertical,’ he said. Directly overhead, dead on track. T
hey’re coming.’

  He did not even mention the shout. He knew it would have had no effect.

  ‘How long?’ Richard’s throat was so dry his voice hurt. ‘It’s a long way up,’ Griswold said. ‘But there is a spray effect which you saw last night.’

  ‘Why did nobody else see it?’

  “They were—asleep. It didn’t matter so much about you. You had seen it before. It just wasn’t expected you would ring that newspaper.’

  ‘Give the signal, Griswold. For God’s sake give the signal! You can’t win this. You can’t destroy everybody else and still win. Give the signal. Stop them! ’

  Griswold laid the gun on the table. Richard started and shut his eyes as a match flared. He turned away. Griswold lit a cigar, breathing thickly.

  ‘I’m not mad.’ he said. ‘I have counted the risks, the opportunities and the cost. I am being very sane. If one wants to control the world, one must have a weapon. I am the one man on earth who can stop them. I can hold them as I wish though they want to swamp the continents following this first proof of their ability to do it.’

  ‘You can hold them as you hold us?’

  . ‘Of course. I wouldn’t have risked it otherwise. I have studied them for so many years. I understand them. They don’t reason as we do. They go ahead until there is a stop, then they retreat. If they find death en masse, they retreat. It’s all very, very simple.’

  ‘But can’t you see that if they come, pouring down in millions, they’ll overrun us, choke us. We’ll never stand a chance once they come—’

  ‘You don’t understand!’ Griswold suddenly shouted as if in rage.

  The shout was obscene. Richard stopped protesting suddenly, sickened by it. He watched Griswold’s fantastic face, the transparent flesh working on the bones, the twitching of uncertainty and fear fighting the wish for power, all revealing the truth of his madness.

  The very knowledge that he alone knew the signal that could stop them coming stiffened his soul against doing it.

  | ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Griswold said suddenly. ‘All right. Try it. Take the phone. You can’t get anything done without my personal word. My personal word. That’s the thing that counts. Griswold approves, or there is nothing. Do you understand that? If you don’t, try! There is the phone. Try.’

  ‘Why are you staying in the dark?’ Richard said suddenly. ‘Are you getting afraid of light, like the others?’

  ‘I am afraid of nothing,’ Griswold said. ‘Fear is for you and the others.’

  ‘You’re just plain bloody barmy,’ Richard said bitterly. ‘That’s the only thing I can do nothing about. Your grand illusions, your false hopes, your distorted sight—all these things are incurable. You’ll take them in your madness to your death, they’ll be like maggots on your wretched body, consuming until there is nothing left but bones. That’s how the spiders see you, and that’s what you’ll be.’

  ‘You can’t understand,’ Griswold said. ‘It’s useless to talk.’

  There was a sound in the air, strange and soft, so strange that Richard did not recognise it. Griswold seemed to lean forward in sudden alarm, and lie took up the rifle again.

  A flare of light showed against the cottages across the street. It grew brightly, and a car went by, quickly, a blue light flashing on its roof. It looked unreal.

  ‘Police! ’ Richard said.

  ‘By God—! ’ Griswold rushed to the window. Richard charged him against the wall. He grunted and the rifle fell thudding to the floor. Richard ran out of the room and into the darkness of the garden. He vaulted the wall into the street and ran down towards the post office, his feet a strange, solitary sound in the night.

  Ahead of him he saw the fan of light from the car racing between the hedges of the lane to the house. The sound of it was soft and distant on the air.

  He looked up. In the arch of the sky he saw a bright red weal, as if the sky had been lanced. One end of it glowed a brilliant gold. It was the end beginning the vertical dive.

  His blood froze and his feet stumbled with fear.

  ‘Jenny! Jenny!’ His voice answered from the stone walls.

  Somebody was running behind him. He turned and saw the dark figure. It fell into his arms, gasping.

  ‘There was a car. For God’s sake let us get out of it! ’ Barbara’s voice was panic-stricken.

  ‘It was a police car. Gone to the house. It’ll come back. I must.’

  She stood away from him. They started on down the dark street.

  ‘Where are the others? Ellen, Porch?’ Richard looked up at the tear in the sky.

  ‘She went to her house. I don’t know about him.’

  He felt sick.

  ‘Was Porch here at all? Did he come here?’ he croaked. ‘Yes, he came here.’

  ‘There was a man by the pond,’ he said. ‘I thought— We must keep together.’

  Frightened, she followed as he turned off the road. ‘Where are you going?’ she hissed. ‘He—’

  ‘Ellen’s cottage. Just over there. You know.’

  ‘That newspaper man was here. I saw him. He was hiding. Keeping behind things and—darting. Why mustn’t we see him?’

  ‘If you startle a spider it shoots under the skirting,’ he said. ‘You’ll get to know.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the post office. It’s all right.’

  They went into the cottage garden of still flowers, staring in the darkness. He stopped suddenly. She bumped into him.

  ‘What’s the matter? You’re shivering! What is it?’ She hissed, afraid to speak aloud.

  He looked up at the high sky.

  Across it, there was the trail of red fire like a savage weal. Even as he stood he could see it moving slowly towards the north.

  ‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘My God, what is it?’

  ‘They’re coming,’ he said. He went to the cottage door. ‘Ellen! Ellen!’

  He heard a cry, a breathy, frightened cry, a confused sound of movement, and then silence.

  ‘Ellen! It’s me. Come out! We’ve got to be together. Come out! ’

  He heard a whimper, then another movement. She came out of the gloom, holding her blouse together, her hair across her face.

  ’Down to the post office,’ Richard said. ‘Keep together.’

  Porch lumbered into the black passage behind Ellen. Richard began to see the lines of his skull appearing, and turned away. He pushed past Barbara out into the night again. He looked up at the sky trail, and the great rush of fear through him made him feel better.

  ‘Come on! ’ he shouted.

  The three followed him without speaking, their eyes fixed dully on his moving back. The very air was tight with a new sense of another life, a taut, strangling urgency but without direction. Richard felt a sensation on his skin, faint electric waves where the air moved against it.

  ‘What to run away for?’ Porch bawled. ‘We can’t run away. ’Tis better to wait!’

  Outside the little shop Richard stopped and looked up. The line was turning, a bright worm in the heavens, circling round, slowly, surely, heading back to cross its own track directly above where they stood watching. The bright gold spot had detached from the red line.

  “Tis them, the spiders, you know,’ Porch said. ‘When they come, we shall be all right. We shall be all right, then! ’

  ‘I don’t want to go in there! ’ Ellen cried out suddenly. ‘I won’t go in there! I want to go home! ’ She turned to go, but Porch grabbed her arm and Hung her back against the shop wall.

  ‘You stay along with me,’ he said. ‘You’re with me. You don’t get away. You’re with me! ’

  Barbara gave a little sob. Richard looked round at her. He saw fireflies darting, little green fish in the shadows behind her. The tension in the air was increasing, a gathering, musty heat. He stood by the open shop door

  and looked up again to the scar of fire heading slowly back to its overhead position.

  He heard Haylcs’ vo
ice raised inside the shop.

  ‘You laughed at me! I never had a woman! I was afraid, and—’ His voice ended with a bump and a crash.

  Richard stepped in. A high, ghostly pile of cardboard boxes toppled and cascaded down towards the door, Hayles scrambling confusedly in the middle of it. Behind the toppling debris. Richard saw Jennifer’s pale face, just showing in the gloom.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Richard said. ‘They’re overhead. ‘There was a police car. It’s down at the house. Looking for us perhaps.’

  ‘I saw a light go by,’ Jennifer said, trembling. ‘I didn’t dare look out! ’

  Jennifer came forward as Hayles got to his knees.

  ‘What shall we do, then?’ she said, terrified. She came out and stared at the moving weal of red light.

  ‘They’re not very high, you see,’ Richard said. ‘Perhaps a hundred miles up.’

  ‘It’s no good panicking,’ Porch said, savagely. ‘It’ll be all right when they come. All right, I tell you! ’

  Richard stared towards the distant house.

  ‘I can’t see the car any more,” he said.

  ‘Was it real?’ Jennifer said.

  ‘No! There’s nothing real now!’ Hayles bellowed. ‘It’s all illusion—nightmare. It was a mirage! There’s no car there! ’

  ‘There must be hundreds of the things around us now. We can’t stay here!’ Richard shouted suddenly.

  ‘How can we get out, then?’ Jennifer said. ‘We couldn’t get to the boundary—we don’t even know where it is! It might be miles out! ’

  ‘Get a car, then,’ Barbara said. ‘A real one.’

  ‘They’d push you back when you got there,’ said Porch, roughly. ‘It’s an order, see. Stay here. When there’s an order, that’s what you do. When I give you an order, that’s what you do. You stay-here. That’s tile order.