Nailed by the Heart (37 page)

It
was coming.

Slowly.

He
could feel it.

Like
the old man with a beaky nose and staring eyes from your nightmares,
leaning in through your bedroom window at the dead of night. He was
there. Just outside. But he was beginning that strange lean forward.

Just
a little more.

Then
he would be inside. On this bit of earth, this beach, this crummy old
building Chris dreamed of turning into a hotel.

He
would be coming soon and he would expect something from the people
here.

He
wanted something special. Something valuable. Or the prize would go
to those red man-shaped things on the sands. Then his, David's,
Ruth's, the lives of everyone here would be ended in this world.

If
Mark's escape failed, he knew he would have no alternative.

Sacrifice.

The
word came back like an iron clapper against the body of a bell.

Sacrifice.

He
would have to give up-sacrifice-what meant the most in the world to
him. He wouldn't even let himself think what that might be.

"Eight
o'clock!" shouted Tony.

It
would happen at 8:15 a.m.

Mark
nodded as he sat astride the 500cc Honda, motor idling with a smooth
ticking sound as it warmed through. To stall the thing on the
causeway would spell disaster.

Tony,
shirt-sleeves rolled up his thin forearms, bustled around the two
cannon now strapped to two stacks of timber.

"Chris,
nearly forgot to tell you. When you light the fuse, don't be alarmed
if nothing happens."

"Alarmed?
I'll shit myself."

"After
you've lit the fuse it'll take maybe two seconds to burn through to
the explosive charge in the cannon."

"And
in a situation like this," called Mark from the bike, "two
seconds can seem a hell of a long time. ..."

Once
more (probably for the twentieth time that morning) Tony checked the
arrangements.

The
time: four minutes past eight.

On
the walkway that ran around the top of the walls stood the senior
Hodgsons-John and Tom, their faces looking white against their caps
of ginger hair. They gripped the shotguns in their beefsteak hands.

Chris
had run up earlier to watch the Saf Dar on the causeway.

Five
of them sat in a loose group thirty paces from the gates. Out of
range of the shotguns; but not the cannon. If what Tony had said was
true, the three-hundred-mile-an-hour rush of timber bolts would sweep
them away like autumn leaves before a stiff broom.

Of
course, it wouldn't kill the red bastards. But it would disable them
and give Mark the chance to ride the motorbike out of the seafort;
then off this cursed bit of coast back to civilization where he could
bring help.

He
glanced at his watch. Five minutes past eight.

His
mouth was dry and his heart began to beat like a high-powered pump.

He
glanced around the courtyard. Cleared of villagers, it looked huge,
empty, and slightly unreal. It was as if the laws of space and time
were not laws now but only suggestions, which could be accepted or
ignored. He licked his dry lips. It's the tension... it's only the
tension. ...

But
he couldn't help thinking of Tony's ancient god of this borderland
between dry land and sea. Now approaching.

Suppressing
this line of thought, he pumped new thoughts through his head. Tide
out. Causeway dry. Misty; not too dense. No more Saf Dar to be seen
on the beach.

Might
be some in the dunes. ... No. Don't think that. Mark will do it this
time. Christ, the man was so psyched up he could junk the bike and do
it on will-power alone.

The
time crawled over the ridge of another minute. Six minutes past
eight.

The
Hodgson boys paced restlessly near the gates. At

8:15
they would swing them open-as wide as they could. Like curtains
opening in a theater to reveal what lay beyond. Beach, causeway, and
those five red monsters that looked like pieces of raw meat forced
into the shape of men.

Ruth
would stand at the back with Mark's shotgun. He'd leave this place
armed only with an iron bar. The shotgun, he told them, would be more
use here. Anyway (he insisted) he wouldn't need the thing (big face
breaking into one of those mighty grins); he added that if he made
good time he might call into the Happy Eater first for bacon and
eggs.

"Nearly
ten past!" Tony's voice sounded high with adrenalin. "Places
everyone, please. We go in five minutes."

Christ,
it sounded as if he were making a TV commercial.

Chris
returned to his cannon. He would fire Short & Stumpy while Tony
fired Long John.

A
gap of perhaps five paces separated the two cannon which lay parallel
to one another. Through this gap, Mark would ride the bike after the
blast of shrapnel, out through the seafort gates.

"Now,
Chris ... the fire."

Mark
lightly revved the bike.

Ruth
closed up the shotgun and slipped off the safety catch.

Using
Tony's lighter, Chris touched off the wood shavings and barbecue
firelighters he'd piled on a tin tray. A little distance from that
lay a glass bowl in which rags tied to two six-foot bamboo poles were
soaking in lighter fuel. When the time came he and Tony would take a
cane each, light the fuel-wet rags, then, as the Hodgson boys heaved
the gates wide open, touch the fuses that protruded from the back of
the cannon.

He
noticed the Vicar watching like some damned ghost from the far side
of the courtyard. Nothing he could do would stop this now.

Twelve
past eight.

He
stooped to pick up the long bamboo stick, heavy with dripping rags.

Tony
called out, "Okay, boys. Open the gates."

"Wait!"

Tom
Hodgson. The man leaned over the walkway, looking down into the
courtyard.

"Shit.
..." Mark exploded. "What's wrong? We've got to go. We
can't wait. Open the gates. Get those things open!"

"No.
..." Tony ran in front of the bike, holding up his hands. "Give
me a minute." He labored up the stone steps.

Tom
Hodgson talked earnestly, pointing at something over the wall. The
two men talked for almost five minutes before Tony returned.

"Problems.
... We can't do it."

"Shit
we can't." Mark Faust sat defiantly astride the bike, his hands
on his hips.

"I
don't know if the Saf Dar can ... see in here somehow. We know they
stare at the seafort as if they can. But two more have come up from
nowhere. One is this far from the gates." Tony held his hand at
arm's length from his face. "And it's just standing there,
staring at the gate. The other is on the beach about twenty yards
from the seafort and a dozen yards from the causeway." Tony
looked from Mark to Chris. "It's beyond the angle of fire. The
cannon shot won't hit it."

"Fine,"
said Mark. "Blast the one on the beach with shotguns, then open
the gates and blast the rest with the cannon. The one nearest the
gate gets more than his fair share of hot iron-but I'm not
complaining."

"Mark.
... You know as well as I do that the one on the beach is out of
range of the shotguns. You might wing it, give it a bit of a slap,
but that's all. And the one outside the gate is too near. Tom can't
get a clean shot at it from the top of the wall. And remember what I
said about the cannon. It might take a good two seconds for the fuses
to burn through to the charge. In that time the thing could be inside
the seafort. It's strong, it'll move fast. It could kill us all
before we even get a shot at it."

Mark
studied Tony's face, then he said: "So the odds are getting
shittier by the minute. But we still go through with it. Stay here."
Mark climbed off the bike, leaving it, motor still ticking, huffing
soft balls of blue smoke from the exhaust; then he ran up the steps
to the waiting Hodgsons.

Twenty-four
minutes past eight. Time wasn't just running out, time was
hemorrhaging from them. Chris knew it. There was a sense of a
tremendous weight shifting somewhere beyond the fabric of the walls.
Its balance was shifting in favor of the Saf Dar. If the living
people here in the seafort did not act soon, then the Saf Dar would
be masters of this place. And very soon they would be masters of much
more. They wanted the world.

Twenty-five
minutes past eight.

Up
on the walls Mark was explaining something to the Hodgsons, pointing
beyond the walls and gesturing vigorously.

Chris
waited, his muscles so tense he felt as if something was holding him
tight in an enormous fist. He wanted to shout, fight, run-anything.
Do something. Just to get rid of this build-up of energy inside his
body.

At
last Mark ran down the steps.

He
looked like a man with his own internal motor set in gear. Nothing
would get in his way now.

"We
can do it." Mark climbed astride the bike. "Chris ... Ruth
... Tony. The plan stays the same. ... more or less. Only we're going
to have to do it fast." He punched a fist into his palm. "Gates
open. Bang. Fire cannon." Fist into palm again. "Then I'm
on my way. I've talked to John and Tom. We reckon that if that thing
on the beach comes after me they can at least knock some wind out of
it with the shotguns. That will give me enough space to get clear.
Then I'll be traveling so fast it'll never catch up with me."

Tony
shook his head. "You're insane. ... What about the one directly
outside the gates?"

"That's
where I need Ruth. If she stands a little to the front of Chris she
can blast it with both barrels-if it begins to move."

But-but
Ruth has-"

"But
Ruth nothing," broke in Ruth. "I can fire one of these."
She pulled the shotgun up across her breasts. "And you know as
well as I do you don't have to aim. You just point and shoot."

"Too
risky. We can't be sure-"

Chris
spoke. "Tony ... Tony, listen to me. Time's running out. Those
things don't even have to break in here, and you know it. They only
have to wait and grab that power as it comes through. Like Mark says,
it'll be just like catching a ball. They will be the
winners-absolutely. We'll be the losers-absolutely. Okay, so this is
a risk, a bloody enormous risk, we've got to take it." He
paused, watching for the little Londoner's reaction. None. "Look
... Tony. I don't want to see my sixyear-old son like Wainwright.
That's what we'll become. The Saf Dar's foot soldiers; marched across
country to the next village. To kill everyone we can lay our hands
on. Then to the next town. We'll be like a virus, infecting the next
person, then the next."

Tony
shrugged. "Okay. We do it." He called out to the waiting
Hodgsons on the wall and the two youths by the gates. "In your
positions, please."

Ruth
moved past Chris until she was almost level with the muzzle of the
cannon he would fire.

"Ruth.
..." he called. "Back here against me. You're too close."

Reluctantly
she stepped back to his side and gave a tiny smile. "Get ready
to duck, love."

Mark
revved the motor, slipped the bike into first gear; it moved forward
an inch, then he held it back, waiting, his eyes bulging as he nailed
his attention to the gates ahead.

"Now,
Tony! Now!"

Tony
nodded. "Chris ... Light the torches."

Chris
picked up the bamboo sticks and held them over the yellow flames.
Instantly the fuel-soaked rags caught with an ooomph sound.

He
passed one to Tony, then held the other out in front of him away from
Ruth and the cannon. It burned with a brilliant blue flame, looking
like a fiery chrysanthemum head, a perfect globe of blue that spat
red sparks of flame with a faint crackling sound.

Tony
called to the Hodgson boys. "Open the gates. ... Now!"