Hungry Moon (41 page)

^{'He's trying to make out we're just part of him, Mr Gloom.'}

^{'Wonder which part of him he thinks we look like, Mr Despondency.'}

^{'You're even less than that, the way you are,' Eustace said furiously. 'No wonder I kept tripping myself over if you were cluttering up my head without an eye between you.'}

^{Diana took a breath to stop whatever was rising in her throat, but it was uncontrollable. The next moment she was laughing wildly, painfully. She wasn't sure there was anything funny to laugh at, but perhaps there was a point in the accumulation of horror when you had to laugh if you weren't to go mad. She laughed until she could barely see, had to keep wiping her eyes so as not to run the car off the road. Beside her Nick was whooping too, slapping his thighs, throwing his head back to let out his mirth, and then Eustace joined in, stamping until the car shook.}

^{Their laughter faltered when the things next to Eustace began to laugh. 'Let 'em have their fun,' one said in a cruel parody of Diana's voice, and the other responded in a distortion of Nick's: 'Let's leave them to it. We don't want to be around when they get to where they're going.' A moment later both back doors slammed, and two shapes scuttled into the ditch.}

^{'I wouldn't trust anything they said,' Nick declared unevenly. Diana smiled at him, more gratefully than humorously, but she was wondering if the voice that wasn't his had meant the missile base or where she was driving now, under the glaring moon. Soon it would be overhead, above the long cold slopes that were growing flatter, showing her that there was nothing as far as the horizon except the domain of the moon. She couldn't even distinguish grass and heather and trees on the slopes now: the vegetation looked more like shapes of rock and stone, a lifeless crystallizing of the landscape, glowing luridly. As the car reached the crest of yet another slope, she had to force herself to look at what might lie ahead.}

^{It was only another gradual slope, disconcertingly like the one she'd just driven up. It might have been a photograph of itself, it was so still, so robbed of perspective by the moonlight. She couldn't shake off an unnerving impression that she'd come in sight of the landscape ahead a moment after it had stopped moving, the road settling into place, the intricate unearthly efflorescence of the slopes freezing into immobility. The entire landscape seemed to threaten movement - movement so vast, or so concerted, that the thought of it almost stopped her breath.}

^{Suddenly Eustace began to talk. Perhaps he was trying to help her through the landscape, though he wasn't doing one of his routines: he was remembering his childhood aloud - how his father had laughed at his clumsiness and told him to laugh at himself, how he would hear his mother recounting his latest pratfall until he'd begun to court disasters deliberately because he thought it would amuse them. 'Maybe falling down is my way of honouring their memory,' he said, with a wist-fulness that sustained her as far as the top of the slope.}

^{He fell silent then, and Diana couldn't speak or even think. They had reached a plateau, a stretch of moor through which the road led flatly to the horizon, between two shallow slopes. Apart from the skeletal growths that covered the slopes, growths that looked not at all like vegetation now, the landscape was featureless and still beneath the moon. Its stillness was so full of dreadful imminence that her foot flinched from the gas pedal.}

^{There was no point in turning back. The thought of doing so unnerved her too - she was beginning to feel that the last few slopes hadn't just been similar, they had been exactly alike. Surely it couldn't be far to the main road, and whatever she encountered on the way was meant to hinder her, which had to imply that she still had a chance. She shoved her foot down, and as the car surged forward, Nick began to talk.}

^{She scarcely heard him. She reached for his hand, for the touch seemed worth more than talk just now, made her feel closer to him. He was chatting about the problems of being a reporter, how you could never tell the whole truth and even if you did some of your readers would think you were lying, but his voice couldn't keep back the threat of the moor. Though the white slopes were veinous with streams, no water moved in the corky trenches. Rocks rested on the edges of the trenches and among the intricate luminous growths, though perhaps not all of them were rocks: some appeared to have teeth, and holes where there had once been eyes and noses; some just had mouths. Sometimes when she came abreast of streams or ditches where they'd been perched above the edges, they were no longer to be seen.}

^{The movements were beginning stealthily, then. Now that she was aware of them, she saw evidence everywhere - shapes that might have been rubble but that weren't there when she looked again. How long would it be before they closed in on the car? Perhaps they were waiting until the moon was directly overhead. She drove faster while the road was straight, and tried to listen to Nick's voice, offering to introduce Eustace to a venue in Manchester where he could expect a sympathetic audience. Once she saw a policeman's head at the top of a slope above the road, but she resisted the temptation to stop: the helmeted head wasn't moving, didn't turn to watch the car. She still had a few minutes' driving before the moon reached its zenith, and mightn't that be enough? Or would the flat unnatural landscape never end? It had to slope down toward the main road, but showed no sign of doing so. The gas pedal was flush with the floor now; the landscape raced by; the moon seemed to brighten like a searchlight, shrinking the shadows. Whatever else was moving on the slopes, she mustn't let it make her falter. But the sight ahead of her did so, the object which, as she sped closer, she saw wasn't a large rock at all, nor was it beside the road. It was on the tarmac, and it was another vehicle.}

^{Both Nick and Eustace sat forward, as if it was the first of the sights out there that they dared to acknowledge. Diana pressed the pedal, more gently now that they weren't alone on the road. Soon she distinguished that it was a van ahead, pointing in the direction they were following. By the time she was able to read Benedict Eddings' name on the rear doors, she had realized that it was half off the road, one wheel in the ditch.}

^{There were two people in the front seats of the van. Their heads were very still. She slowed the car as it came alongside the van, her breath catching in her throat. The driver's window was smashed, hundreds of fragments of glass glittering in the moonlight on the tarmac. The car inched forward, and she saw the two figures in the van. They must be Benedict and Hazel Eddings, but they no longer had faces. In the moment before she managed to drag her gaze away, she saw they had been pecked to death.}

^{She sent the car lurching onward, her hands shaking on the wheel. Neither Nick nor Eustace protested. They'd come a long way since they had at least shown Brian Bevan's corpse some respect, she realized in dismay. But the moon was still rising, brightening, and the road had begun to slope down before it climbed again. Mightn't the main road be beyond the next ridge? All she could do was drive, pray, hope, and notice nothing that might weaken her on the unearthly slopes.}

^{But there was one sight she couldn't avoid noticing: a figure crouched beside the road ahead, just beneath the ridge. He looked as if he were staring at whatever lay beyond, but then she realized, recognizing him, that he couldn't be. He was Nathaniel Needham, and he was blind.}

^{He didn't turn or move as the car approached. When they came abreast of him, Diana halted the car, despite all her fears. She rolled her window down and called his name. Was he too intent on whatever was beyond the ridge to spare a glance in her direction? Perhaps he was listening to sounds she couldn't hear. His face was averted just enough from the road that she wouldn't be able to see it without getting out of the car.}

^{She called to him again, though she was nervous of attracting attention other than his, and then she opened her door. 'I have to, Nick,' she said when he grabbed her arm. 'He's blind. We can't leave him alone out here.' She left the engine running and stepped onto the tarmac. She hadn't reached the ditch that bordered the road when Nick and Eustace were beside her.}

^{She stepped over the ditch, which was so dark it looked bottomless, and onto the moor. As her foot touched it, she was afraid that would make the vast movement she dreaded, but all was still. Needham hadn't stirred. She trod gingerly on the undergrowth that looked like a schizophrenic's carving of heather, meaninglessly intricate and luridly intense, that blackened when she trod on it and collapsed with a sluggish squelch, not like rock at all. Shuddering, she made her way to Needham.}

^{She hadn't reached him when she realized that the old man couldn't quite see over the ridge. Indeed, he was crouching down as if he couldn't bear the sight of whatever was beyond. She mustn't keep thinking in terms of sight, she reminded herself, her mind shrinking from her sense of standing vulnerable on the unearthly moor, under the black void and the watchful moon. 'Mr Needham,' she said, and touched his shoulder. Thank God, he was still warm. But when she shook him gently, he fell toward her.}

^{She saw his face then, and clapped a hand over her mouth. Perhaps she hadn't been entirely wrong to think in terms of sight after all. Either he'd been given the power to see or he'd thought the power had returned to him, for he'd jammed his thumbs deep into his eyes. That shock could have killed him, or it might have been the shock of what lay beyond the ridge.}

^{Two steps would take Diana high enough to see what was there, but a very long time seemed to pass before she was able to move. Nick and Eustace moved with her, but that made it no easier. As they gained the top, the men recoiled, almost taking her with them. Both of them cursed. Diana found the sight beyond words. The vast movement she'd dreaded had taken place, then, and here was the result at the end of their desperate flight. In itself the sight beneath the smiling moon wasn't horrible, yet it withered her soul. It was Moonwell.}

^{SIXTY FIVE}

^{Andrew hadn't reached the second floor of the hotel when he had to sit down on the stairs. He turned his head to look at the flight that led straight up to the second floor. The corridor above him was faintly luminous, but where he was sitting was dark. He felt safe, unlikely to be noticed. He was afraid to go up to see Mr Mann.}

^{He mustn't be. He had to ask for help. He only needed to confess how he hadn't honoured his father, how he'd been disloyal just when his father had needed him most, and then surely Mr Mann would do the rest. He had to believe in Mr Mann. The last time he hadn't shown enough faith, he'd caused what had happened to his father.}

^{Mr Mann was only like a priest, he tried to tell himself. You were supposed to be able to say anything to priests, all your deepest secrets - you had to, or you'd be damned. But Mr Mann was more like a saint, the way he shone and fed them all. That must be why Andrew was afraid, worse than waiting outside Mr Scragg's office or having Mrs Scragg single you out from the crowd in the schoolyard. You weren't supposed to be afraid of saints, not unless you were such a sinner that you wanted to hide yourself from God. Surely Andrew wasn't that bad yet, despite what he'd done to his father and how he'd upset his mother. You couldn't hide from God, He already knew all you'd done. All you had to do was ask Him to forgive you - ask Mr Mann, who God had sent to save them.}

^{He could save Andrew's father if anyone could. Andrew stopped his thoughts at that before they could go round again, and stood up. His hands were prickling so much that when he grabbed the banister, it felt as if the wood were thrusting splinters in. The stairs weren't quite level, and his raw senses made him feel as if he were staggering because of it. He hung on to the banister all the way up the ten stairs to the second floor.}

^{The empty corridor stretched away to a moonlit window at each end. At least there was nobody up here to keep him away from Mr Mann. The boy stepped onto the carpet that felt thickened by shadow, and dodged past the lift doors to the next flight of stairs. He faltered then, staring up at the dark. Above him, Mr Mann's floor was creaking.}

^{There couldn't just be Mr Mann up there, not with all that creaking. The people he'd called to his room before he'd fed everyone must still be with him, praying or holding a silent vigil, and Andrew would never be able to get close. For a moment Andrew felt cravenly relieved -but he mustn't give up now, not when he'd come so far. Surely when Mr Mann saw him, he would take him aside, somewhere Andrew could be open with him.}

^{Andrew hoisted himself up by the banister and tried not to think about where he was going. Count the stairs, he thought, remembering how his father had shouted at him when he couldn't count to ten; he'd let his father down that way too. Ten stairs up to the bend, like the Ten Commandments. He stepped quickly over the fourth, as if he hadn't the right to tread on it. He hadn't reached the top of the flight when he halted again. Someone was walking along Mr Mann's corridor.}

^{Andrew clung to the banister and listened until his ears began to pound. It didn't sound quite like someone walking. It reminded him of the sound you made when you walked your fingers up and down a table: too many limbs. Maybe it was someone with a crutch who wanted Mr Mann to work them a miracle. The sounds retreated along the corridor to Mr Mann's room, and then there was silence except for the creaking of floorboards. Andrew grabbed the banister with both his slippery hands, and hauled himself up to the bend.}

^{Seven stairs took him round - seven like the deadly sins, and he wondered how many he'd committed - and then he could see Mr Mann's floor. It was the brightest in the hotel; that must be because it was holy. He could see no shadows up there, no sign of anyone, and he hoped there wouldn't be; he'd remembered that Mr Mann wouldn't let you be alone with him to confess. He ran on tiptoe to the top of the bright stairs.}

^{The corridor was empty. All the doors were closed except for Mr Mann's. There was no need for moonlight up here, not with the light that streamed out of Mr Mann's room. As soon as Andrew's eyes were used to it, he tiptoed toward the dazzling room. If anyone had stayed up here, they must be in the other rooms. Surely Mr Mann would let them stay in there; surely he wouldn't make Andrew confess in front of them. Andrew said a silent prayer that he would be alone with Mr Mann, and then he missed a step and caught hold of a doorknob to steady himself. At the end of a corridor a soft voice had said, 'You are.'}

^{'Mr Mann?' Surely even he couldn't hear what Andrew was thinking, unless God had told him. There was silence except for the creaking of wood and a movement in Mr Mann's room. Again Andrew thought of fingers drumming restlessly, but the sound was far too large. 'It's Andrew Bevan, Mr Mann,' he said, more loudly than he meant to. 'I go to the school. I wanted to see you because - ' Then his voice became a lump that filled his throat, for something had squeezed out of Mr Mann's room.}

^{He hadn't been so wrong about the sounds after all. It was a hand, a bright whitish hand patched with bruises like the moon made flesh, and it was as broad as the corridor. Whatever owned the hand was in Mr Mann's room, filling the room by the sound of it, the sounds of a swollen body brushing against the walls and making the boards creak. Andrew stood there clinging to the doorknob, trying to scream with his mouth that had stiffened shut. Then the hand rose, scraping both walls of the corridor, and one enormous finger curled like a maggot. It was beckoning to him.}

^{Andrew choked on a scream and twisted the doorknob, dragged at it, shook it frantically. The room was locked, and he couldn't let go of the doorknob. He could only watch, mindless with panic, as the hand squeezed along the corridor toward him like a flood of bruised tripe from which huge grubs were crawling. His bladder let go, urine stung his thigh, and the shame of it brought him back to himself. He flung himself away from the door, staggered backward, swung around wildly, fled as far as he could go. He didn't realize that he'd run past the stairs until he almost collided with the far end of the corridor.}

^{He still couldn't scream, not even when he heard the hand fumble across the doors of the lift shaft, the swollen, nail-less fingers groping over the walls of the corridor in which he'd trapped himself. He glanced desperately about, sobbing, and saw a door opposite him, marked Staff Only above a metal bar. He threw himself at the bar, and the door opened, so quickly that he almost fell on his knees.}