The Coming of The Strangers Page 9

  “You need a doctor,” she said definitely. In the little while that she had worked in a hospital she had learnt that some kinds of people who were badly ill protested to the end that they felt well because they were afraid of what was wrong with them. “Let me ring up, please.”

  He became still and watched as she dropped her hand to the telephone. She took his silence for acquiescence and lifted the receiver. After a few seconds she said. “It’s quite dead. Did you know?”

  Action returned to him, and he swung away.

  “Of course I didn’t know,” he said angrily. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m all right. There’s nothing wrong with me!”

  “Shall I go to the phone box and report it?” she said. “I won’t call a doctor if you don’t want me to.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “There’s been a lot of trouble with them recently. Hooligans cutting the lines up towards the town. There’s been a lot of teenage trouble.”

  He wiped his face again.

  “Will you take some aspirins and go to bed?” she said, impulsively. “I’ll stay. I don’t mind, but really, you can’t go on like that. Surely you must feel you’re—well, you can’t be well, like that.” .

  He looked at her anxious young face and the anger drained out of him.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” he said, looking away. Perhaps it will pass off.” .

  There was a look of such hopelessness, his whole attitude one of such despair that the girl’s heart melted.

  “Please let me do something,” she pleaded.

  “Let me take you home,” he said. “That’s the best thing.”

  “I couldn’t leave you alone, like this,” she said.

  “This is just nerves,” he said. “I’m not ill”

  He turned with a violent start to the windows as he heard a sound there. The woman stood in the opening, looking at him.

  “Laura! ” he gasped. “Laura! My darling!

  She ran into his arms and he held her, and in that moment all the fears and terrors of his mind vanished in the warmth of knowing she was there.

  The girl stood watching, her bare toes screwed up under her feet almost, betraying the emotion she felt. She turned as a young man came in at the window where Laura had come.

  “Could I – ?” Dickie Harris began.

  He saw John Sebastian and Laura and it was clear they did not see, nor hear, nor sense his coming at all. He looked towards the girl, gave a quick, helpless grin and then looked back through the open windows.

  But then Sebastian recovered his senses, and held her away from him.

  “You must not come here!” he said desperately. “I told you.

  You promised–” He was breathless, stricken with fear for her.

  “I had to come back,” she whispered. “Surely you knew I couldn’t keep a promise that would hold me away from you. Not now John….”

  He looked away.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “Nobody–”

  Suddenly he saw the young man by the windows, remembered the girl and looked at her before he spoke to Harris

  “What do you want?”

  Harris saw his face shining wet; he had heard and felt the emotion of the reunion, and he could not bring his tongue to mention what had suddenly become a trivial matter. As if these people were bigger and far more important than any invisible menace on the sands.

  “Why have you come?” Sebastian cried. “Why is everybody here? What’s happening? For God’s sake, why do you come here?” He strode to the end of the great room, pacing with rage. “1 told you to go. You can’t stay here. This is mine, mine! No one can share this! I told you to go. I told you to go.”

  He sat down suddenly on the sofa, head dropping and covered his face with trembling hands. Laura went and sat beside him. He was sobbing very quietly.

  Jill went to the reporter, whom she knew in the town.

  “We ought to go,” she said softly.

  He looked at her sharply.

  “No,” he said in a husky whisper. “No. There’s something on here. Something big.”

  “But you can’t pry on people— ”

  “Listen,” he said, quietly still, “not long ago a man was killed out on the beach there. Killed and thrown into the sea.”

  She caught her breath.

  “When?” … .,

  “Maybe an hour ago. I met a man who saw it and he said there was nothing there to kill him. I came to see Sebastian to find what his story was – Well, look at him. He doesn’t look like a man who’s just seen a suicide. He’s a man being driven mad by something—something he’s seen, or something he knows is there”

  She did not hear him clearly, for her mind had gone back to the previous night, and the strange little pools of water fading away, and the splashing when nothing was there …

  “Killed—out on the beach?” she said, a slow horror gripping her. She looked towards the broken man on the sofa, and the woman comforting him, whispering, and suddenly she remembered how he had tried to stop her going along the beach, tried to stop her walking out there, and hadn’t been able to think of a proper reason for stopping her. She drew breath in with a little gasp.

  “Best to wait until he can tell us something,” Dickie Harris said.

  5

  Denning was scared when Jill did not return. His wife was in bed, believing the girl had not come home that evening. Denning could not now go back on the lie he had told, that she had not been back at all. Jill had been in a state, and that state and her prolonged absence worried Denning more than he cared to admit. There was anxiety for her, anxiety for his own guilt, and the dread feeling that he had done something which now he could not undo. These fears bored into him until he felt he must get out of the confines of the house, as if solution lay in the open air.

  He went quietly out, so as not to let his wife hear him, and went very carefully down the garden path. Brown’s radio was playing now the television broadcast had ended.

  He crossed the road and Brown appeared at his door.

  “Haven’t seen the dog, have you?” he called. “He hasn’t been back.”

  “He went: into the wood a long time back,” said Denning and went on to the Common and stopped out of Brown’s sight.

  He stood for a moment looking out over the mound of the Warren and felt suddenly foolish. After all, where could he go? Which way might she have gone, three hours before and more?

  He looked at the car, standing as ever uncovered on the side path. He remembered there was little petrol in it; enough for him to get to work in the morning. He went out of the gate and on to the Warren, flushed with the confusion of a man in the wrong, and arguing with himself to prove he is right.

  At the peak of the mound he stopped and looked hopelessly in each direction. A late moon was tingeing the sea to the cast. From where he stood the soft lapping of the wavelets could not be heard. There was nothing here for him; the world was empty.

  I Ic half turned and then he heard the sounds of movement somewhere near and turned with a start. He saw nothing moving. There was only the still night, and yet faintly he heard the shifting of some movement across the grass.

  The glow of the rising moon sent slanting rays on to the grass, and now, suddenly he saw a change in the reflection of the blades, as if feet were pressing down little areas of grass, then letting them rise again. The silver prints came like magic m the night, two, three, four sets, going towards the cliff edge

  He stood mesmerised, unable to think, watching the queer silver magic of the prints. They went to the cliff edge, and then started to come back.

  It was then he saw a set of three or four feet approaching the spot where he stood. A wild shout bubbled into his throat and stopped there, choked with fear. He turned and started to run. Something hard and heavy, like a chopper, hit his right shoulder and there was a clash that could have been steel shears. He felt his coat jerked back, and then there was a tearing sound and the strong cloth ga
ve and ripped all the way down. The sheer weight of his body gave him the force to get away.

  He ran, stumbling and tripping amongst the gorse bushes, not knowing which direction he took. He fell finally into a sandy bowl amongst the bushes and stayed there, panting and sobbing. He gibbered before he could pray, and then from amongst the fingers covering his face he spouted the Lord’s Prayer with the meaning of an idiot child.

  6

  “You’re a crazy old woman! ” said Robert angrily. “Leave it! Don’t go chasing it now ! Come back! ”

  But Kissen was out, her collar slipped—just like the night before—and more scared than she had been then, for she fled into the broad road, a startled wraith under the moon, and began to zigzag, screeching as she went.

  “Kissen! Kissen!” Elfrida cried, and picking up her skirts, ran in pursuit.

  The cat stopped then, concertinaed as if her fur was electric, and shot off down the road towards Beach End.

  “Oh dear! ” Elfrida gasped and went on again.

  “Come back! ” said Robert, struggling to get his shoes on, for he had been preparing to snatch an hour’s sleep on the sofa and the cries of “Kissen’” had called him up. “Come back here! Don’t go Oh, blimey. Silly old cow!”

  Kissen jumped over the edge of the promenade on to the sands, and with a wild screech, reappeared farther down the pavement.

  “Goodness!” panted Elfrida, moving on with desperate strength. “You bad puss. Oh dear! Come back! Oh!” She stopped and tried to get her breath. The cat fled on down the road towards the white house, zigzagging sometimes as if avoiding something.

  Behind Elfrida, Robert yelled again. He could not undo a knot in his shoelace and could not force his foot in without, so he cursed and called together, each without effect. Finally he got die shoe partly on by treading down the heel and started off after the distant: figure of the old lady. But he was hobbled by the shoe. It cramped his toes in the effort to keep it on, and it fell off twice.

  “Bloody hell! ” he grumbled. “Bodyguard second class, me! ”

  By then the cat was darting in all directions, but keeping a general heading towards the big bungalow. She finally reached the garden wall, leapt to the top and vanished over the other side. Undaunted, Elfrida hurried on. The limping Robert came far behind, watching as if every second the old lady went farther into some unknown danger. At last he managed to keep the shoe on while he made long strides towards her, the shoe slapping hard on the road and finally falling off again. By then she had gone in at the gate of Beach End.

  “Oh well,” he panted, picking the shoe up again. “There’s somebody there, anyway.”

  He held the shoe now, and walked on in his sock. As he went by to the gate, he saw a man sitting on the beach. At first he thought it was a rock, then he saw it was a man’s shadow, sitting there on the sand, clasping his knee and looking out over the sea.

  Robert went into the garden, and finding no one there assumed the cat and Elfrida had somehow got inside, and he went towards the lights shining on the balcony, his idea being to escort Elfrida back to the bungalow.

  He heard voices from the open windows aud went there. He looked in, then stepped in. Elfrida was holding the cat. The newspaperman and a girl were standing near the other end of the windows. The beautiful Laura Benson was sitting on a sofa, looking up at Sebastian. Sebastian’s brown skin was wet and shiny, his shirt open at the neck, as if he had just walked out of a steam bath, Robert thought. Sebastian looked to the windows as Robert stepped in.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to bust in,” said Robert. “I just wondered if Mrs. Bontrer-Gosse was all right.”

  “Oh dear, it was a terrible chase,” said Elfrida, breathing hard.

  John Sebastian looked towards Robert, then to Elfrida.

  “It’s stacking up, you see,” he said. “It’s stacking up. It’s out of hand now. One thing after another, piling up and up.” He went towards the windows, his arms outstretched at his sides. “I’ll tell you something. I don’t know you all, but you’re all here. What bad luck brought you, God knows, but I tell you this: the only thing for you to do now is to stay. It’s just happened this way, and you’ve got to take it”

  “I’ll take madam home,” said Robert, uneasily.

  “You’ll stay where you are,” Sebastian said between his teeth. “You’ll stay right here in this house.” He went to the windows and pulled one pair shut. “And you, for one, can go round and start locking every door and window you can see. Hurry. Do as I say. The fact that you’ve all come in one after the other might be a chain accident”—he closed the next window, “—but They won’t understand that. They’ll think that you came for a reason. They won’t know why you came”—he closed the next one, and Robert went to the door of the room—“They will merely see that people are gathering here. The very thing that was never to happen! ”

  He strode across the room to follow Robert.

  At the door he hesitated a moment.

  “Stay in here no matter what happens,” he said, looking round at them. “You’ll be safe for a while. And if for a moment you think I may not be serious—look at me. Just look at me! ”

  He stood for an instant there. Laura turned away with a little sob.

  “Gracious! “ Elfrida said. “The poor man! ”

  Dickie Harris wiped his face with a handkerchief. “It’s catching,” he murmured. Jill stood quite still, very stiff, her bare toes trying to clench like fists.

  Robert went with Sebastian, closing the windows.

  “What’s the panic?” Robert said. “Thought you said that man committed suicide?”

  “Maybe he didn’t,” Sebastian said, as they came into the kitchen. The windows there were shut; mostly the windows had been shut, it was the fastening that they did. “They’ll know,” Sebastian said, almost to himself. “Closing up, They’ll know …”

  “Just what’ll They know, and who’s They?” Robert said, angrily curious.

  Sebastian did not answer but stood looking out over the moonlit beach and the dunes.

  “What’s up now?” Robert said.

  Then he looked through the window. A young man, his hands in his pockets, was wandering aimlessly along the sands away from the house. Once he stopped, picked up a stone and skidded it on the sea. Then he shrugged and went on again, his shadow long and black on the shining sands. Then he stopped, his body stiff, his arms crooked, hands half pulled from his pockets.

  Ahead of him footprints were appearing in the wet, like little pools of quicksilver forming from nothing. The young man took a step towards it.

  “For God’s sake—no! ” Sebastian gasped.

  “There’s more behind him, look! ” Robert said. “Coming up behind him! ”

  The young man advanced more quickly on the prints moving before him, but did not see those behind.

  Sebastian jumped at the door and hauled it open.

  “Keep everything shut. Don’t let anybody out I” he said, and slammed the door behind him.

  Robert saw him jump the wall, stumble, fall to his knees, then pick himself up and begin to run heavily towards the young man. Robert heard his faint shout.

  The young man turned and then, it seemed as if he struck out at something, struck out, again and again, and kicked, like a man fighting nothing.

  He saw Sebastian stop in his tracks and stand there, helpless. The young man went down, rolling over and over on the sand, pieces of his tom clothes flying like streamers, and black liquid like ink, streaking the wet sand. He seemed to jerk and convulse several times and then lay still….

  Sebastian began to move on again, half crouching now, like a wrestler, going towards the fallen man and the confusion of tracks filling in the wet sand.

  Laura came behind Robert.

  “What is it?” she breathed.

  “It’s something out there,” Robert said hoarsely. “They just killed that feller—killed him.” .

  “John! ” Her voice was like a littl
e shriek, and she stopped it with a horrified hand.

  “Stay here,” Robert said, his voice dry as rustling Ixay. fic said stay here—everybody.”

  “But look—he’s going—he’s going there! You can see— the prints there! They’re moving, look! ”

  Harris came in at the door.

  “Who screamed?” he said.

  Jill was behind him.

  “Turn the light out! ” Robert said.

  Harris snapped the switch. The eerie scene on the moonlit sand became suddenly clear and sharp, as darkness brought it nearer, sharper, more horrifying.

  Laura stood there, both hands over her mouth, staring, praying, not daring to breathe in case the things should hear.

  “He said everybody stay here! ” Robert said. “He knows what he’s doing. Nobody else does. He said stay.”

  “He’s trying to get that man,” said Jill, in a scared little voice. “Who is it?”

  “Don’t know,” said Robert. “We just saw him walking along the sand.”

  Sebastian stopped, his whole body showing wariness, apprehensive and yet a kind of determination.

  “Oh no! ” Laura whispered. “No, don’t! Come back! ”

  “He knows what’s there” said Robert again. “Nobody else does. He knows what he’s doing.”

  7

  Upon the sands Sebastian moved forward. The fallen man, a bundle of torn and bloody clothes, lay tumbled on the beach, the wet sand blushing dry around him from the pressure of his still body.

  The footprints had not followed him to where he had rolled, the little dragged marks of his rolling stayed clear of the crescent, claw shapes in the sand.

  Sebastian went forward a few paces. He saw three sets of prints, forming an arc, one to his right, one behind the body, and the other on the cliff side a few yards nearer the dry sand. The prints changed, slowly, moving betraying the movements of the invisible.

  “I can see how you move,” Sebastian said, and went forward nearer to the man. “You can’t surprise me. I know you.”