Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (46 page)

“We aren’t.” Veitch motioned for Shavi to pull up a rough side lane which led behind a thick copse. “We’re going to keep well off the roads. All roads.” Aghast, Laura dreaded what was coming. “We’ve got plenty of supplies, tents, we can live rough. If we lose ourselves out there, with all the shit that’s going down they’re not going to have the time or equipment to find us.”

Church nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a good plan.”

“It’s a plan,” Laura said in disgust. “So’s lying in the middle of the road until something runs us over! Listen, I’m not a camping kind of girl. What we’ve done so far, fine. At least there was, you know, civilisation nearby.” She looked back out the windows. “All I can see are blisters, no bathrooms, cold wind and rain.”

“You’ll live,” Veitch said dismissively. He grabbed the books of maps. “We’ll have to use this to navigate. The way I see it, we can pick a good route south from here to the Pennines. They’d have to really want us to come after us.”

“They really want us,” Church said.

They removed all their rucksacks, tents and provisions, shared them out, then drove the van as deep into the copse as it would go. The leaf cover was thick enough to ensure it would take a while for it to be discovered. Sirens wailed across the open landscape as they moved hurriedly south away from the road. They crested a ridge where the wind gusted mercilessly, and then they were in open countryside.

The going was slow. Although Ruth was much recovered, she flagged easily and had to take many long rests, even over the first five miles. The A66, the main east-west route across the north country, appeared in the late afternoon. They waited in the thick vegetation by the roadside for nearly ten minutes until they were sure there was no traffic nearby, and then scurried across, ploughing straight into the fields beyond.

According to the map there were only four villages between them and the next main road ten miles away. The rest of the area was eerily deserted: just fields and trees and the occasional scattered farm. Although they needed to be away from the main thoroughfares, the isolation unnerved them. They knew the old gods were not the only things that had returned with the change that had come over the world; other things best consigned to the realms of myth were loose on the land; some of them frightening, if harmless, others sharp of tooth and claw, with a wild alien intelligence. None of them relished a night in the open countryside. That thought stayed with them as they marched in silence, trying to enjoy the pleasant Birdsong that rang out from the hedgerows and the aroma of wild flowers gently swaying in the field boundaries.

As twilight began to fall they neared the first of the villages marked on the map. Ruth suggested they pitch camp somewhere within the village boundaries, for safety. If they were going to risk a night in the wild, there were plenty of opportunities ahead. She looked ghostly white in the fading light and she had twice headed over to the hedgerow to be sick; the whole journey was taking its toll.

Her voice sounded so exhausted they all agreed instantly, whatever their private doubts.

Darkness had fallen completely by the time they reached the village and the golden lights were gleaming welcomingly across the night-sea of the fields. They hurried down from the high ground with an exuberance born of the potent desolation that emanated from the deep gloom shrouding the rest of the landscape; sounds which they could not explain by bird or foraging mammal pressed heavy against their backs; movements of shadows against the deeper shadow seemed to be tracking them in adjoining fields.

Laura cried out at one point when a figure loomed out of the night. It was only a scarecrow; even so, there was something about it that was profoundly unnerving. The clothes seemed too new, the shape of the limbs beneath oddly realistic; as she passed she had the strangest sensation it was turning to watch her. She could sense its disturbing presence behind her as she continued down the field and suddenly she was thinking of the man on the train turned into a figure of straw. When she felt a safe distance from the scarecrow she glanced behind her, and instantly wished she hadn’t. Although it could have been her troubled imagination, she was sure there were two red pinpricks staring out of the shadows beneath the pulled-down hat. Watching her.

The village was an odd mix of country money and rural decline: a handful of run-down sixties council houses cheek-by-jowl with sprawling ancient dwellings, overlooked by an Elizabethan manor house. There was only one main street, not blessed by street lights, and a couple of brief offshoots. Somehow a small pub and a tiny shop had survived the decline that had afflicted many similarly sized villages. There warm night air was thick with the aroma of clematis and roses which festooned the houses on both sides of the road. Everywhere was still and silent; although lights shone from the occasional undrawn curtains or crept out from slivers between drapes, there was no movement anywhere.

“We ought to ask if it would be all right for us to pitch our tents within the village boundaries,” Shavi said with his usual thoughtfulness. He selected a house at random and wandered up the front path among the lupins and sunflowers. His rap on the door was shocking in the stillness. A second later the curtains at the nearest window were snatched back with what seemed undue ferocity to reveal the face of a middle-aged woman. She bore an expression not of surprise or irritation at being disturbed, but of unadulterated fright. When her searching gaze fell on Shavi she waved him away furiously and drew the curtains with a similar, and very final, force. He returned to the others, looking puzzled.

“I told you,” Laura said, “Deliverance country. Don’t bend over to tie your shoe laces. You’ll be squealing like a little piggy.”

“There’s always one miserable battleaxe in every village,” Ruth said. “Knock somebody else up.”

“You don’t have a trace of innuendo in your body, do you?” Laura noted.

Shavi tried the next house, then one a few doors up the street and one across the road; the response was the same in all of those that deigned to peek through the curtains: fear.

“Look, this is bleedin’ crazy,” Veitch said with irritation. “Let’s try the boozer. I could do with a pint. At least they won’t turn us away.”

As they moved down the main street towards the creaking sign and bright lights of the pub, Church slipped in next to Tom. “Looks like they’ve been having some trouble here.”

“Hardly surprising, an isolated place like this. They should count themselves lucky they’re still hanging on. Remember Builth Wells?”

Church recalled the deserted town, the preying things lurking in the shadows waiting for new blood. “From their reactions I don’t think it’s the kind of place we should be out sleeping under canvas.”

“I think you’re right. Let’s hope the inn has some rooms.”

The pub was The Green Man, echoing the name of the tavern on Dartmoor devastated by the Wild Hunt; another strange, disturbing connection in a world now filled with them.

Church led the way in to the smoky bar; flagged floor, stone fireplace with cold ashes in the grate, dark wood tables, chairs and bar, an old drinking den, a hint of establishment. Small wall lamps provided focused pools of light which threw the rest of the place into comforting shadow.

Drinkers, mainly men, were scattered at tables and along the bar, a surprising number for a small village pub at that time of night. They heard the hubbub of hushed voice as they swung the door open, but the moment they were all inside every conversation stopped and the drinkers, as one, turned and stared, their expression shifting through the same emotions: fear, relief, suspicion, surprise.

“Deliverance,” Laura repeated in a singsong voice as she marched over to the bar.

Veitch leaned over to whisper to Church. “Nah, it’s like that other film. American Werewolf. The Slaughtered Lamb. Rik Mayall. And that bloke who did the tea adverts.”

“Brian Glover.”

“Yeah, him.”

Church glanced round, not sure whether to smile at the ludicrousness of the response or feel disturbed at whatever lay behind it.

“You know,” Ruth broke into the conversation, “sooner or later someone’s going to say Folk don’t come round here much in a hick accent.”

Laura fixed a cold stare on the barman, who appeared to have frozen midway through pouring a pint of bitter. “You see these scars?” she said pointing to her face. “The last landlord who didn’t get me a drink quick came off much worse.”

“Sorry.” The barman was a side of beef in his fifties with curly ginger hair and rock ‘n’ roll sideburns. “We don’t get many new faces in here these days.”

Ruth exchanged a secret smile with Church.

The barman checked his watch. “Just stopping off for a quick one on your way to … ?” He waited for her to finish off his enquiry.

She ignored him, glanced along the optics. “Better get me a big vodka. Ice, no mixer. Make it a treble. I’ve had a day of hard labour and I’m a wilting flower who’s not used to that kind of treatment. Oh, and whatever this lot want.”

The barman didn’t make any other attempt at conversation; he seemed thrown by Laura’s demeanour, as if she were speaking to him in a foreign language. They took their drinks to a gloomy corner and the only two free tables, which they pulled together.

“It certainly has character,” Shavi noted as he scanned the room while sipping on his mineral water.

“If you like wall-to-wall crazy and forties horror movie cliche.” Laura swigged her drink gloomily. “I don’t know why we couldn’t have stayed in the city.”

“What do you think’s going on?” Church asked.

Tom wiped the cider from his drooping, grey moustache. “Just a local problem. Otherworld was filled with the detritus of a million nightmares, little ones and big ones, and I presume most of them have found their way back here.”

There was something comforting about the age-old atmosphere of the pub after the fearful atmosphere out in the night. They settled back in their chairs to enjoy their drinks, appreciating the half-light which gave them a measure of cover from the suspicious glances. While Laura amused herself by staring out the few locals who dared to look their way, the others discussed their apparent success in evading the Fomorii. “They’re obviously determined to catch us,” Church noted. “But it was interesting they used subterfuge. We must have set them back so much in Edinburgh they’re afraid of taking an over-the-top approach.”

“When have you known them not to be over-the-top?” Veitch noted.

“He’s right,” Ruth said. “There was something about this that reeked of desperation, not revenge. You’d think they’d have gone for the nuclear option.”

Tom pressed his glasses back against the bridge of his nose. “I think their true motivations will become apparent very quickly.”

“So in the meantime let’s make the most of this lull and enjoy ourselves,” Laura said sharply. “You lot, you’re like, Let’s look for some big, heavy stuff to depress us. You know, fun is an option.”

Church smiled, gave her leg a squeeze under the table. He was surprised to see the palpable relief on her face.

Before they could say any more a man sauntered over, holding a half-drunk pint. He was in his late twenties, with a soft, rounded face and a conventional, side-parted haircut. Unlike many of the others in the bar, he seemed relaxed and easy-going. “Hello,” he said, “I’m the official welcome wagon. Max Michaels. My parents had a thing about alliteration,” he added half-apologetically. “You probably think it’s all a bit strange in here. Which it is, make no mistake. Mind if I sit down?” Once they’d agreed he pulled up a chair; there was an old-fashioned politeness about him.

“Look, can I be blunt?” he said. “You all look like intelligent people. You obviously know there are some very strange things going on all over.” He warmed when he saw the recognition in their faces, then asked them further questions until he was sure they understood the change that had come over the world. “That’s a relief. There’s nothing worse than having to tell some unbelieving idiot the world has become a fairybook. So I can talk plainly, that’s good. Now I haven’t quite figured out what’s happening, but the way I see it, for some reason reality has skewed away from science to the supernatural. The way appliances, cars, everything, fails suddenly for no apparent reason. The sudden rise in coincidences, premonitions, prophetic dreams. Do you get where I’m coming from?”

Church nodded. “We’ve experienced all that. And more.”

“Good, good. If that was the end of it, it would have been bearable.” A shadow crossed Max’s face. “A few weeks ago a local farmer came in here raving about this strange sighting he’d had in one of his fields. It was a great laugh for everybody. We all thought he’d been inhaling too many organophosphates. Then some of the other farmers claimed they’d seen something. So then we decided we’d got our very own Beast of Bodmin. You know, some escaped panther living in the wild. Only it didn’t really fit with the descriptions …” He chewed on a knuckle briefly, his thoughts wandering. “And then things just went crazy. People went crazy. You can’t just adapt overnight to having the whole world turned upside down. There were … a lot of casualties. Psychologically speaking. Depression, wouldn’t leave their houses-“

“We saw that on our way here,” Veitch said.

“No, that’s because it’s dark. You don’t move round much after dark, not if you can help it. A few of us meet up here mob-handed, to plan. I suppose, really, just to keep some kind of normality ticking over. We see each other home.” He took a deep draught of his beer, then grew animated. “The problem’s been the isolation. When all the phone systems went off-line and the postal system was suspended, and all the media, we were just left to stew in our own juices. It would have helped if we could have found out if other people were suffering too. Misery isn’t so bad if you know it’s been spread around.” He laughed humourlessly.

“Believe me, it’s been spread around,” Ruth said. There was something about Max that she was warming to; a geniality, perhaps, or a lack of cynicism.

“Yeah, so I gather. I’m a reporter by trade, a stringer for the nationals. ‘Course, when the phone lines went down, that put paid to that career. Thank God for the food-sharing system we’ve got going. Anyway, journalism, you know, it’s in your blood. I wanted to know what was happening, and I wanted to let everybody else know. So we set up a jungle drums news service, passing information to the next village along, and they would pass it along to the next, and so on.” He shrugged in embarrassment. “It was the best we could do. We had to know.”