Hungry Moon (38 page)

^{'We've done nothing to him. If you want to hear what really happened,' Jeremy said, and glared at his captors as they gripped his arms more tightly, 'maybe you can let me speak.'}

^{'Jeremy,' Geraldine pleaded, watching Jonathan's face draw in on itself: the child was even more afraid of what Jeremy might say than she was. He reached out one pale hand toward his father as if that might hush him, but Jeremy didn't notice. 'If you're going to come clean,' Mrs Scragg said ominously, 'we're listening.'}

^{'That isn't our son,' Jeremy said. 'We never had a child.'}

^{'No, Jeremy,' Geraldine cried, and the child pressed against the wall like a trapped animal, his long hands clutching at the blankets. 'That boy came looking for shelter and we let him in,' Jeremy said quickly. 'He said his name was Jonathan, which is what we were going to call the child we lost. We've looked after him for a few hours, but he isn't our child, even if he wants to think he is.'}

^{'Well, that seems honest enough,' Mr Scragg said, speaking for the first time, and stepped toward the bed. 'Now perhaps you'll speak up for yourself,' he said rather sharply to the child. But he choked on the last word, and held up his hands as if to push away from him what he was seeing.}

^{For as long as she was able to believe it, Geraldine told herself desperately that the batteries in the flashlights were failing. But it wasn't the light that was growing fainter, it was Jonathan's face. The features were fading, sinking into the head. In the shuddering glow, which Mrs Scragg was struggling to turn away from the sight, the head made Geraldine think of a pale balloon that was deflating - think of anything that might blur the reality of what she was seeing. The eyes went last, glaring in panic, the sockets wrinkling like withered lips as they closed up. Then the face was blank except for the mouth, which might have been grinning or crying out silently. The crouching figure turned its head back and forth blindly, then it shoved itself forward with its elongated arms and leaped between Geraldine and Mrs Scragg. It ran on all fours into the dark, down the stairs, out of the open door.}

^{As its scuttling faded into the darkness, Geraldine felt as if it were taking her soul with it, leaving her empty and worthless and betrayed. Nothing could touch her now or make her situation worse. She hardly noticed Mrs Scragg, who flew at her and spat in her face.}

^{'So you're in league with the devil, are you,' Mrs Scragg said in a voice heavy with loathing. 'Benedict Eddings saw you at your witchcraft in the graveyard, and still none of us realized what you were up to. We'll see if Godwin knows what to do with you,' she said, and thrust her large face into Geraldine's. 'And if he doesn't, there's a few of us who still remember how to deal with witches.'}

^{SIXTY ONE}

^{As soon as Diana felt herself drifting, she began to chew the inside of her cheek. It was raw by now; it stung like fire, but she didn't know how else to stay awake. She mustn't sleep, in case she did so noisily. She couldn't risk a recurrence of her vision, despite her impression that somewhere in it lay the key to what she had to do. Surely the dark would lift soon - she felt as stiff as though she'd been sitting on the pew in the lightlesss church for days. Once there was even a hint of light in the sky, they would head for her car.}

^{And then what? Did she really expect to be able to drive to the missile base without being headed off? Even if she got there, how did she propose to enter? What could she tell them at the base that they would even stand still for? At least her doubts were keeping her awake. Whatever was sent to stop her, she told herself, she could run it down with the car. Brian Bevan, or rather what Brian had become, had proved to be capable of dying, after all. And the thing from the cave must have fed on his death, on every soul who died within its influence, however far that reached.}

^{She drew back from the memory of Brian's face disfigured by the grin, the eyes reaching out for her. There were ways to keep awake that didn't make the darkness seem quite so threatening. She hugged Nick and Eustace lightly. At least while they were asleep, they wouldn't be tempted to talk. Nick stirred, and she patted his side to quiet him. Eustace gave a snore that was cut off at once as he jerked upright from lolling. Ought they to have agreed beforehand to take turns at staying awake? But they had no means of judging the passage of time while it was dark, and in any case she was afraid that sleep might lead her back into her vision. She couldn't help fearing that her vision might make the moon thing aware of her, and then she wondered if it already had.}

^{Apprehension tingled through her like electricity. That was good, she told herself - anything was that helped her not to sleep. She tried to regain her awareness of the church around her, beyond the muffling dark. The almost imperceptibly faint lines to her right must be the edges of two of the windows, touched by the glow from the square. They gave her some sense of the dimensions of the church. The sensations of the place came back to her - the chill of the stone, the creaking of pews, the smells of earth and mould, the way the dark not far ahead of her was walled off, the impression of the altar as a bulk between her and that wall. She was so intent of grasping these details as aids to wakefulness that at first she didn't wonder why any pew except that on which the three of them were sitting should creak.}

^{She turned her head unwillingly and gazed down the church. It was darker still back there, not even the edge of a window. Perhaps it wasn't a pew, just a floorboard creaking, as boards will. As for the mouldering smell, that must be the smell of earth seeping in, no matter that it seemed stronger. She stared at the dark until it seemed to lurch at her, but there was no further sound. She turned away then, and Eustace stirred, mumbling.}

^{She kneaded his shoulders to calm him. She didn't know how seriously he and Nick took the need for total silence. She could hardly blame them if they were less convinced than she, even after all they'd been through; she couldn't blame them if the dark made them want to do something, anything, rather than wait interminably. Eustace was settling down again, and she suppressed a sigh of relief.}

^{Now that she was fully awake, her fears were waking up too. The church seemed colder and more spacious, the silence somehow growing vaster, more like the silence of a cave than of a church. She hoped the increasing chill wouldn't rouse Nick or Eustace. Or was the chill coming from them rather than from the church? Their body temperatures were dropping because they were alseep, that was what she meant, not that they felt cold as reptiles, cold as things which had looked like Nick and Eustace in the glow from the square but which were reverting to their true nature in the dark. If the moon thing had been able to change Brian Bevan into something utterly inhuman, could it do the opposite? She mustn't imagine that, mustn't let the dark get into her head. All the same, she had to struggle with an urge to wake them, just enough to hear them speak. When Eustace began to mutter, the sound of his voice was so welcome that she didn't try immediately to quiet him.}

^{Only it wasn't quite his voice. It was a voice he might have put on for one of his comedy routines, but odder. It was arguing with another voice, until Eustace's intervened, saying that they must be joking. She made to shake him gently, and then she realized she must be hearing what she wanted to hear. Loud as the voices were, they didn't echo in the church.}

^{They seemed so real that they made her draw into herself. She could almost see Eustace on a stage between two vague, capering shapes, Eustace playing straight man and using everything he knew to keep up the patter, keep the act going so that he wouldn't have to leave the stage and go with his fellow performers into the wings, to whatever might be waiting in the dark. You're in the church, she thought as hard as she could, massaging the back of his neck, scarcely knowing why. At last the shouting faded, and she hoped he'd sunk into dreamless sleep.}

^{There were still voices - distant voices, singing hymns and chanting. She'd heard them earlier, ranging about the far side of Moonwell, drifting in and out of audibility. At least they made the silence less complete, especially now that they were coming closer. When she began to distinguish the chanting, she tried to hope she was being paranoid. The searchers were nearly at the church before their shouts became unmistakable.}

^{'Eustace Gift,' they were calling. 'Diana Kramer.' They didn't know where to look, Diana told herself fiercely, and surely that meant the moon thing didn't either. 'And your friend, whatever his name is,' someone else shouted. 'Come out if you know what's good for you. We found Brian Bevan where you hid him.'}

^{They'd never think of looking in the church, Diana told herself. She tried to hush the two men as they moved restlessly. Stay quiet now, she thought at them, they won't come in here, they're on the pavement, they'll pass the church by. Then light spilled through the windows and found her and her companions.}

^{The flashlight beams swayed over the wall to her left, dragging distorted shapes of windows over the rough stone, and then bobbed away along the church, wakening more thin shapes in the stained glass, turning their bunches of three heads. The searchers weren't approaching, for she hadn't heard the gate. They'd given the church a token look, and now they were heading back toward the square, singing to keep off the dark. They hadn't even wakened Nick or Eustace. A last beam of whitish light groped through the church as whoever was wielding it surveyed the churchyard, and as the light found the far end of the aisle, Diana heard wood creak.}

^{She craned her head round, her neck trembling and aching with the effort of keeping her body still. Surely nothing had moved near the porch, surely it was just another of the noises an old building makes. But as the flashlight beam angled through the last window, a dark shape rose to its feet beyond the pews.}

^{Diana's head jerked, wrenching her neck. She forced herself to keep watching as the shape lurched forward, one hand grabbing the last pew. She saw the black cloth of the sleeve, the gleam of the collar, and dreamy relief spread through her. Who had more right than a priest to be in the church? Then she remembered that there had been only one priest in Moonwell, and as she strained her eyes, she saw that there was nothing above the stained, glimmering celluloid collar but an outrageous absence. The roving flashlight beam swung away, abandoning her in the dark.}

^{Diana held her breath until the pounding of blood in her throat seemed about to choke her. She felt as though the dark were pressed against her head, forcing it over her shoulder. She managed to take shallow breaths, all she could bear now that she realized the mouldering smell wasn't just the smell of earth. Her ears ached with the silence, with the hope that there would be nothing more to hear. Then the floorboards of the aisle began to creak slowly, closer and closer.}

^{She made herself stay still, though her innards were trembling. She mustn't risk waking Nick and Eustace. Long before she would be able to warn them or even before they were awake enough to understand, the incomplete thing that was stumbling up the aisle might reach them. She didn't want to imagine their trying to grope their way out of its reach. Surely it wouldn't notice them if they kept absolutely still.}

^{Or did it already know they were there? Had the moon thing sent it for them because they hadn't managed to hide after all? "Tis tha friend come a-calling with nowt in his collar,' Diana heard the blind man sing in the dark that was inside and outside her, and felt her body yearning to jump up, scream that here they were, get it over with. She mustn't panic, Father O'Connell had always been friendly with her, surely even what was left of him could mean her no harm. But in a way the idea of being shown any kind of benevolence by that thing was even worse.}

^{The slow footsteps shuffled closer down the aisle, and then a pew creaked. The thing must be supporting itself by grabbing the ends of pews. Suppose a hand missed the end of their pew and touched Nick, or her hand on Nick's shoulder? She pulled him against her as gently as she could, her skin crawling, her heart fluttering as he seemed about to waken. She put her hand lightly over his mouth just as the shuffling footsteps and the worst of the stench reached their pew.}

^{Diana pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth to keep out the smell, her head pounding. Perhaps the thing in the aisle wasn't really hesitating at their pew, but she felt as if it would never move on. Eventually it did. She heard it stumble to the altar, where it began to throw objects about; metal clinked and thumped the table. She wondered, with a sudden hysteria that threatened to make her burst into wild laughter, if it was trying to say mass. Not much chance without a head, she thought, and almost couldn't swallow the laughter on which she was choking.}

^{She never knew how long she sat there, quieting Nick and Eustace whenever they stirred. When she began to see movement ahead of her, it was quite some time before she realized that it was anything more than an effect of the dark on her eyes. But yes, she could glimpse a vague shape stumbling back and forth along the glimmering rectangle that was the altar, and when she glanced aside, she could just see the thin crowded windows. The moon was rising.}

^{Diana flexed her arms, which were in agony from hours of stretching, and then she put her hands over Nick's mouth and Eustace's before shaking their heads gently. 'Keep your eyes shut,' she murmured. 'Just feel your way to the end of the pew and rum left.' She was hoping they wouldn't see what was at the altar, hoping she wouldn't have to see it more clearly herself as the church grew lighter. But Nick woke suddenly, and snatched her hand away before she could stop him. 'What's that?' he stammered, glaring toward the altar.}

^{'My God, where are we?'}

^{'It won't harm us, Nick. We're going to my car now. Come on, Eustace.' She gave Nick a shove toward the aisle, pulled Eustace after her as he awoke, blinking. Nick had just stepped heavily into the aisle when the remains of the priest swung round from the chaos it had made of the altar and lurched toward them.}

^{What appalled Diana even more than the sight of it, its hands held out ready to seize whoever was there, its body stooping forward so that she could see the raw bony place where the head should have been, was how fast it moved now that it was aware of them. Its lurch toward Nick had paralyzed him. She dragged him back into the pew as the blackened dead hands grabbed for him. Stepping backward, she collided with Eustace. 'Side aisle,' she hissed urgently over her shoulder.}

^{The headless thing floundered toward them as they retreated along the pew. As they fell into the side aisle, Eustace almost tripping her up, what was left of Father O'Connell rushed at them along the pew, neck gaping. Nick dodged into the aisle and threw all his weight against the pew.}

^{It was heavier than it looked. It teetered and then, just as the priest's hands with their overgrown clawlike nails lunged at him, it overbalanced, taking the priest's remains with it. As the dead thing flailed its limbs like a pinned insect, struggling to heave the weight off its back, the three of them flung two more pews on top of it, then fled toward the porch.}

^{At first Diana didn't understand why it wasn't more of a relief to be out of the building. The streets were deserted as far as she could see, the cloudy sky was glowing. Then she realized she was afraid to see the naked face of the moon. They needed its light, but what power might it send after them? A whitish blur crept behind the clouds, seeking a way through. She had a nightmare impression of a vast grinning mask that was waiting to peer out at her with its dead eyes.}