Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters (15 page)

In the village those who had glimpsed so much as a fragment of the events in the dip were already elaborating on their stories: and the evidence of the naked eye lent credence to the most fantastic inventions. The chaos in the churchyard, the smashed door of the Vestry: the cordoned-off car on the north road, Whatever had happened that Saturday night it was going to take a long time to forget.

There was no harvest festival service, which came as no surprise to anyone.

Maggie was insistent: “I want us all to go back to London.”

“A day ago you wanted us to stay here. Got to be part of the community.”

“That was on Friday, before all this . . . this . . . There’s a maniac loose, Ron.”

“If we go now, we won’t come back.”

“What are you talking about; of course we’ll come back.”

“If we leave once the place is threatened, we give up on it altogether.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You were the one who was so keen on us being visible, being seen to join in village life. Well, we’ll have to join in the deaths too. And I’m going to stay—see it through. You can go back to London. Take the kids.”

“No.”

He sighed, heavily.

“I want to see him caught: whoever he is. I want to know it’s all been cleared up, see it with my own eyes. That’s the only way we’ll ever feel safe here.”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

“At least let’s get out of the hotel for a while. Mrs. Blatter’s going loopy. Can’t we go for a drive? Get some air—”

“Yes, why not?”

It was a balmy September day: the countryside, always willing to spring a surprise, was gleaming with life. Late flowers shone in the roadside hedges, birds dipped over the road as they drove. The sky was azure, the clouds a fantasia in cream. A few miles outside the village all the horrors of the previous night began to evaporate and the sheer exuberance of the day began to raise the family’s spirits. With every mile they drove out of Zeal Ron’s fears diminished. Soon, he was singing.

On the back seat Debbie was being difficult. One moment “I’m hot Daddy”, the next: “I want an orange juice, Daddy;” the next: “I have to pee.”

Ron stopped the car on an empty stretch of road, and played the indulgent father. The kids had been through a lot; today they could be spoiled.

“All right, darling, you can have a pee here, then we’ll go and find an ice cream for you.”

“Where’s the la la?” she said. Damn stupid phrase; mother-in-law’s euphemism.

Maggie chipped in. She was better with Debbie in these moods than Ron. “You can go behind the hedge,” she said.

Debbie looked horrified. Ron exchanged a half-smile with Ian.

The boy had a put-upon look on his face. Grimacing, he went back to his dog-eared comic.

“Hurry up, can’t you?” he muttered. “Then we can go somewhere proper.”

Somewhere proper, thought Ron. He means a town. He’s a city kid: its going to take a while to convince him that a hill with a view
is
somewhere proper. Debbie was still being difficult.

“I can’t go here, Mummy—”

“Why not?”

“Somebody might see me.”

“Nobody’s going to see you, darling,” Ron reassured her. “Now do as your Mummy says.” He turned to Maggie. “Go with her, love.”

Maggie wasn’t budging. “She’s OK.”

“She can’t climb over the gate on her own.”

“Well, you go, then.”

Ron was determined not to argue; he forced a smile. “Come on,” he said.

Debbie got out of the car and Ron helped her over the iron gate into the field beyond. It was already harvested. It smelt . . . earthy.

“Don’t look,” she admonished him, wide eyed, “you
mustn’t
look.”

She was already a manipulator, at the ripe old age of nine. She could play him better than the piano she was taking lessons on. He knew it, and so did she. He smiled at her and closed his eyes.

“All right. See? I’ve got my eyes closed. Now hurry up, Debbie. Please.”

“Promise you won’t peek.”

“I won’t peek.” My God, he thought, she’s certainly making a production number out of this. “Hurry up.”

He glanced back towards the car. Ian was sitting in the back, still reading, engrossed in some cheap heroics, his face set as he stared into the adventure. The boy was so serious: the occasional half-smile was all Ron could ever win from him. It wasn’t a put-on, it wasn’t a fake air of mystery. He seemed content to leave all the performing to his sister.

Behind the hedge Debbie pulled down her Sunday knickers and squatted, but after all the fuss her pee wouldn’t come. She concentrated but that just made it worse.

Ron looked up the field towards the horizon. There were gulls up there, squabbling over a tit-bit. He watched them awhile, impatience growing.

“Come on, love,” he said.

He looked back at the car, and Ian was watching him now, his face slack with boredom; or something like it. Was there something else there: a deep resignation? Ron thought. The boy looked back to his comic book “Utopia” without acknowledging his father’s gaze.

Then Debbie screamed: an ear-piercing shriek.

“Christ!” Ron was clambering over the gate in an instant, and Maggie wasn’t far behind him.

“Debbie!”

Ron found her standing against the hedge, staring at the ground, blubbering, face red. “What’s wrong, for God’s sake?”

She was yabbering incoherently. Ron followed her eye.

“What’s happened?” Maggie was having difficulty getting over the gate.

“It’s all right . . . it’s all right.”

There was a dead mole almost buried in the tangle at the edge of the field, its eyes pecked out, its rotting hide crawling with flies.

“Oh God, Ron.” Maggie looked at him accusingly, as though he’d put the damn thing there with malice aforethought.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” she said, elbowing past her husband and wrapping Debbie up in her arms.

Her sobs quietened a bit. City kids, thought Ron. They’re going to have to get used to that sort of thing if they’re going to live in the country. No road sweepers here to brush up the run over cats every morning. Maggie was rocking her, and the worst of the tears were apparently over.

“She’ll be all right,” Ron said.

“Of course she will, won’t you, darling?” Maggie helped her pull up her knickers. She was still snivelling, her need for privacy forgotten in her unhappiness.

In the back of the car Ian listened to his sister’s caterwauling and tried to concentrate on his comic. Anything for attention, he thought. Well, she’s welcome.

Suddenly, it went dark.

He looked up from the page, his heart loud. At his shoulder, six inches away from him, something stooped to peer into the car, its face like Hell. He couldn’t scream, his tongue refused to move. All he could do was flood the seat and kick uselessly as the long, scarred arms reached through the window towards him. The nails of the beast gouged his ankles, tore his sock. One of his new shoes fell off in the struggle. Now it had his foot and he was being dragged across the wet seat towards the window. He found his voice. Not quite
his
voice, it was a pathetic, a silly-sounding voice, not the equal of the mortal terror he felt. And all too late anyway; it was dragging his legs through the window, and his bottom was almost through now. He looked through the back window as it hauled his torso into the open air and in a dream he saw Daddy at the gate, his face looking so, so ridiculous. He was climbing the gate, coming to help, coming to save him but he was far too slow. Ian knew he was beyond salvation from the beginning, because he’d died this way in his sleep on a hundred occasions and Daddy never got there in time. The mouth was wider even than he’d dreamed it, a hole which he was being delivered into, head first. It smelt like the dustbins at the back of the school canteen, times a million. He was sick down its throat, as it bit the top of his head off.

Ron had never screamed in his life. The scream had always belonged to the other sex, until that instant. Then, watching the monster stand up and close its jaws around his son’s head, there was no sound appropriate but a scream.

Rawhead heard the cry, and turned, without a trace of fear on his face, to look at the source. Their eyes met. The King’s glance penetrated Milton like a spike, freezing him to the road and to the marrow. It was Maggie who broke its hold, her voice a dirge.

“Oh . . . please . . . no.”

Ron shook Rawhead’s look from his head, and started towards the car, towards his son. But the hesitation had given Rawhead a moment’s grace he scarcely needed anyway, and he was already away, his catch clamped between his jaws, spilling out to right and left. The breeze carried motes of Ian’s blood back down the road towards Ron; he felt them spot his face in a gentle shower.

Declan stood in the chancel of St Peter’s and listened for the hum. It was still there. Sooner or later he’d have to go to the source of that sound and destroy it, even if it meant, as it well might, his own death. His new master would demand it. But that was par for the course; and the thought of death didn’t distress him; far from it. In the last few days he’d realised ambitions that he’d nurtured (unspoken, even unthought) for years.

Looking up at the black bulk of the monster as it rained piss on him he’d found the purest joy. If that experience, which would once have disgusted him, could be so consummate, what might death be like? rarer still. And if he could contrive to die by Rawhead’s hand, by that wide hand that smelt so rank, wouldn’t that be the rarest of the rare?

He looked up at the altar, and at the remains of the fire the police had extinguished. They’d searched for him after Coot’s death, but he had a dozen hiding places they would never find, and they’d soon given up. Bigger fish to fry. He collected a fresh armful of
Songs of Praise
and threw them down amongst the damp ashes. The candlesticks were warped, but still recognisable. The cross had disappeared, either shrivelled away or removed by some light-fingered officer of the law. He tore a few handfuls of hymns from the books, and lit a match. The old songs caught easily.

Ron Milton was tasting tears, and it was a taste he’d forgotten. It was many years since he’d wept, especially in front of other males. But he didn’t care any longer: these bastard policemen weren’t human anyway. They just looked at him while he poured out his story, and nodded like idiots.

“We’ve drafted men in from every division within fifty miles, Mr. Milton,” said the bland face with the understanding eyes. “The hills are being scoured. We’ll have it, whatever it is.”

“It took my child, you understand me? It killed him, in front of me—”

They didn’t seem to appreciate the horror of it all.

“We’re doing what we can.”

“It’s not enough. This thing . . . it’s not human.”

Ivanhoe, with the understanding eyes, knew bloody well how unhuman it was.

“There’s people coming from the Ministry of Defence: we can’t do much more ’til they’ve had a look at the evidence,” he said. Then added, as a sop: “It’s all public money, sir.”

“You fucking idiot! What does it matter what it costs to kill it? It’s not human. It’s out of Hell.”

Ivanhoe’s look lost compassion.

“If it came out of Hell, sir,” he said, “I don’t think it would have found the Reverend Coot such easy pickings.”

Coot: that was his man. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Coot.

Ron had never been much of a man of God. But he was prepared to be open minded, and now that he’d seen the opposition, or one of its troops, he was ready to reform his opinions. He’d believe anything, anything at all, if it gave him a weapon against the Devil.

He must get to Coot.

“What about your wife?” the officer called after him. Maggie was sitting in one of the side offices, dumb with sedation, Debbie asleep beside her. There was nothing he could do for them. They were as safe here as anywhere.

He must get to Coot, before he died.

He’d know, whatever Reverends know; and he’d understand the pain better than these monkeys. Dead sons were the crux of the Church after all.

As he got into the car it seemed for a moment he smelt his son: the boy who would have carried his name (Ian Ronald Milton he’d been christened), the boy who was his sperm made flesh, who he’d had circumcised like himself. The quiet child who’d looked out of the car at him with such resignation in his eyes.

This time the tears didn’t begin. This time there was just an anger that was almost wonderful.

It was half past eleven at night. Rawhead Rex lay under the moon in one of the harvested fields to the southwest of the Nicholson Farm. The stubble was darkening now, and there was a tantalising smell of rotting vegetable matter off the earth. Beside him lay his dinner, Ian Ronald Milton, face up on the field, his midriff torn open. Occasionally the beast would lean up on one elbow and paddle its fingers in the cooling soup of the boy-child’s body, fishing for a delicacy.

Here, under the full moon, bathing in silver, stretching his limbs and eating the flesh of human kind, he felt irresistible. His fingers drew a kidney off the plate beside him and he swallowed it whole.

Sweet.

Coot was awake, despite the sedation. He knew he was dying, and the time was too precious to doze through. He didn’t know the name of the face that was interrogating him in the yellow gloom of his room, but the voice was so politely insistent he had to listen, even though it interrupted his peacemaking with God. Besides, they had questions in common: and they all circled, those questions, on the beast that had reduced him to this pulp.

“It took my son,” the man said. “What do you know about the thing? Please tell me. I’ll believe whatever you tell me—” Now
there
was desperation— “Just explain—”

Time and again, as he’d lain on that hot pillow, confused thoughts had raced through Coot’s mind. Declan’s baptism; the embrace of the beast; the altar; his hair rising and his flesh too. Maybe there was something he could tell the father at his bedside.

“ . . . in the church . . . ”

Ron leaned closer to Coot; he smelt of earth already.