The Bog (11 page)

Finally, even Ben’s already feverish barking crescendoed into a rapid series of staccato yelps, as if whatever the menace was that he was trying to keep at bay had drawn even closer, and from the sound of his barking David could tell that he had once again broken into a run. And then suddenly his barking was cut short in an abrupt and strangely truncated yelp.

“Ben!” David called again. For several moments he listened carefully, but he heard nothing. No barking. Not even the rattle of the retriever’s collar as he padded across the lawn. “Ben!” he repeated, but still the only response he got was silence.

Behind him Melanie had turned the light on and was sitting up in bed, her face creased with worry. “David, what is it? What’s happened to him?”

For the moment David hushed her with a finger placed to his lips as he continued to listen. He did not know what had happened. He had only heard Ben make a sound like that once before, when they had still lived in the States. Melanie had allowed her clothesline to hang too close to the ground and one evening, not seeing it, Ben had run into it headlong and had had the wind knocked out of him in midbark.

This reminded him of that incident, for as he continued to listen he could still hear absolutely nothing, no sign of growling or a struggle that might indicate that Ben’s silence was due to a confrontation with another animal. Finally he slipped on a robe.

“David, what are you doing?”

“I’m going out to check on him.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Honey, don’t worry. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

She looked at her husband beseechingly. “Please, David, don’t go. I have a terrible feeling about all of this.”

“Melanie, it will be all right,” he repeated as he grabbed a flashlight from the dresser drawer. She too got out of bed and slipped on a robe, but before she could stop him he had gone downstairs.

Outside, he still heard nothing, and as he stood there listening carefully it occurred to him that even the night itself had gone oddly silent. Normally, after darkness had fallen, around the cottage could be heard the cadence of crickets and other night insects, and even the call of an occasional night bird, but as he stood there now it seemed that everything had been enveloped in an unearthly hush. Only the rustle of the wind through the willows gave any indication that he had not entered a tomb. He called Ben again and again, his bare feet clammy in the dewy evening grass, but there was still not a sound, not even a whimper. He shone the beam of the flashlight across the lawn and through the trees, hoping at least to see Ben’s eyes glowing comfortingly in the clear white light, but the retriever was nowhere to be seen.

Melanie appeared at the door behind him and called out. “Please, David, come back in.”

“Go inside,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.” And then, as an afterthought, he yelled back to her. “And lock the door until I get back.”

He heard Melanie let out a little cry of distress as she did as she was bid, and he walked farther into the darkness. He passed through the creaky rusted gate in the stone fence and went out into the lane that ran by the house. He pointed the flashlight down the road in one direction, and then the other, but still saw nothing. He walked a little farther in the direction of the moor, and then suddenly he thought he heard something. He stopped.

“Ben?” he repeated. But still there was only silence. He waited a few moments, and then he heard the sound of a twig snap somewhere in the thicket behind him. He turned and directed the beam into the tangle of wisteria and blackthorn. He still saw nothing, but he suddenly got the distinct and eerie feeling that something was gazing back at him. He continued to move the beam of light around, still seeing nothing, and as he did so it began to flicker and then went out.

He heard another sound, as if whatever was concealed in the underbrush had taken the disappearance of the light as a signal to advance, and had taken another step forward. He shook the flashlight and it flickered weakly once or twice, but it did not come back on. He got a terrible feeling that whatever it was that was watching him from the thicket would be even more encouraged by this, and he heard another twig snap.

And then he got a most peculiar feeling. It started in the back of his jaw, a low, dull throbbing. Something rustled in the brush again, apparently taking another step forward, and the throbbing spread throughout his entire jaw and into his teeth and gums. It was as if someone had embedded little rods of steel in the center of the bones in his mouth, and was moving a powerful electromagnet all around him. Little spasms of pain shot up through his molars and into his skull as the unseen force tingled and tugged at him from all directions.

Suddenly his unseen assailant crashed full force through the brush, and David screamed, turning and tripping headfirst over a fallen log. He quickly clambered to his feet as whatever it was continued to close in on him. Without his flashlight it was too dark for him to see anything. His only thought became to make it to the house before it got him.

He broke into a run, but to his horror he realized that the fall had disoriented him and he was blundering deeper into the thicket. A blackthorn branch gouged him painfully in his face as he turned around madly, trying to get his bearings, and the pain in his jaw intensified. Whatever it was was just a few feet behind him now. Gasping like a marathon runner, he lunged forward, but again he became entangled in the underbrush and fell. He screamed again. Before him branches and twigs snapped as if something was ripping them apart to get at him. Any second now he would feel its teeth and claws.

Suddenly all was silent and a light clicked on. He looked up to see Melanie standing a few yards away, holding a flashlight. She was pale and frightened. “David, what is it? What’s the matter?”

He looked around him in the thicket and, to his astonishment, saw that he was quite alone. The brush around him seemed broken, but there was no sign of any intruder, not even a small animal scurrying away. Whatever it was, if there had been anything at all, had evaporated like a mist into the darkness.

Hovern Bog: 53 B.C.

The Roman vice-prefect, Lucius Divitiacus, gazed out silently over the moors. His expression was impassive, but inwardly he was in torment. He had never faced a problem like this before. Now that the brunt of the fighting was over, and Celtic rage had been broken on Roman discipline, it should have been child’s play to effect political reorganization in this isolated and unimportant tribe of the Britanni. The Romans had long ago established themselves as old masters of the game. They knew just how much of a culture to allow to remain intact, and just how much to change. With the consummate skill of a professional gambler and a keen eye for human weakness, they would seduce a foreign race, gradually acquaint them with the pleasures of public baths and develop in them a taste for colonnades, until they were drunk for want of experience and no longer realized that their growing hunger for Roman splendor was only contributing to their greater subjugation.

But these tricks had not worked here. The people of this valley tribe were peculiarly apathetic to Roman ways. It was not that they were hostile or combative. On the contrary, they had not even put up a struggle when the first phalanx of Roman troops had entered the valley. They had simply stood and scowled, but there had been something in their glower that had troubled him, even then. It was as if deep in those submissive eyes there was a smugness, even a sort of pity. It had puzzled him for a long time. Now he agonized because he was beginning to understand.

Behind him in the tent he heard something stir, and he turned to see that his wife, Valeria, had come up behind him. She put her arms around him and rested her face against his back.

“Why don’t we just leave, Lucius?” she asked.

He laughed, a short, bitter laugh. How could she ask such a question? He had been educated for war since childhood, and had spent most of his life in field or camp. The major element of his existence was discipline, and that meant cowardice was an unforgivable sin. He himself was empowered to behead any soldier or officer who strayed in any way from orders, however favorable the result. If he pulled up and left the valley before completing his assignment, the very least he could hope for was death by flogging.

“You know that I cannot do that,” he said.

“But you saw the body of the girl before they tossed her into the bog. You saw what happened to her. How can we consider staying?”

Lucius turned and faced his wife. “I also saw that you attended their abominable ceremony.”

Her gaze fell to her husband’s feet.

“And I’ve noticed that your most expensive comb is missing. The one that I bought for you in Campania.” She grew even more penitent.

“May the gods preserve us, Valeria, why did you do it? You know that Caesar himself has ordered us to eschew their rites. I could have your hand cut off for such a deed. I just hope none of the soldiers saw you.” He paused a moment in thought. “Do you know what has become of the comb?”

“They buried it with her... in the bog.”

Lucius was somewhat relieved. “We may at least be grateful for that. But my question still remains. Why did you do it?”

She looked away, feeling too wretched to suffer the sharp scrutiny any longer, and he noticed something in her expression that alarmed him.

“Valeria, is there something else that you’re not telling me?”

She looked at him entreatingly, her eyes filled with pain. “No, it’s nothing.”

“What’s nothing?”

“I’m just upset. I’m frightened by what’s happened, and I’m terribly sorry that I’ve offended you. Can you ever forgive me, my husband?”

He looked at her harshly for but a moment longer and then his expression softened. “Of course I can forgive you this time. But you must never let it happen again.”

She nodded submissively as she collapsed into his arms. She was pleased that he forgave her, but inside she was still in turmoil. She wanted desperately to tell him, but how could she? She knew that her husband was obdurate in his adherence to rules and a Roman to his soul. If he had threatened to cut off her hand for her infraction when it came to the comb, what would he say or do if she told him her most terrible
secret?
And yet she was bursting to tell him. A part of her knew that she had to tell him, regardless of the consequences, for if she did not reveal to him what she knew, had witnessed, and now suspected, she had an awful feeling that they would never leave this valley alive.

David spent the better part of the morning looking for any sign of Ben. In the clear light of day the almost existential fear that had gripped him the night before had dissipated, and although he was still deeply troubled by everything that had happened, it was easier for him to accept that there had to be some rational explanation.

When he found no trace of the retriever, he procured a long stick and carefully poked away at virtually every square foot of land within several hundred feet of the house. Although he had done this before they had moved in, he thought that perhaps there was an undiscovered sink or an abandoned well somewhere in the yard that he had missed. At least, if Ben had been running and had fallen into some sort of pit, that would explain the suddenness with which his barking had been cut short. It would not explain the strange experience he had had in the thicket, or the pain in his jaw, but if he were to find a simple explanation for Ben’s disappearance he knew he could more comfortably chalk those events up to over-active imagination.

When he still found nothing, he reluctantly went back into the house. When he entered he found Melanie waiting for him in the living room.

“Did you find him?” she asked.

“Not a trace.”

She dropped down into one of the living room chairs. “My God, what do you think has happened to him?” Although David’s own alarm was growing, he knew that if he expressed his honest feelings it would send Melanie into a blind panic. He tried to look unconcerned. “I think he probably just caught wind of something and ran off chasing it. You know, when I was a kid we had a cat that would stray off and it wouldn’t come back for days.”

“But you heard the way his barking ended. It was as if a giant hand just reached down and plucked him right off the face of the earth.”

“Maybe it was just a trick the wind played on our ears. Or maybe it was his last yelp before he went off chasing something. Dogs can make funny sounds sometimes. Remember how Ben used to make that funny wa-wa sound and we used to think it was Katy crying?”

“Oh, David, if that were the case, wouldn’t we have heard him barking in the distance as he continued to chase the animal? I mean, dogs bark when they chase things. They don’t just stop barking abruptly and then chase them in silence.”

“Maybe he kept barking and the sound was just swallowed up by the trees.”

Melanie grew cross. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

David found his own patience growing short. Basically he agreed with her, but because he had opted for the adversarial position he found himself growing annoyed at her persistence in shooting down everything that he said. “Okay, then what do you suggest? There was no blood. No body. What could have possibly happened to him if he didn’t just run off?”

“I don’t know,” she returned. “That’s what scares me.

He gulped down one last swallow of his coffee and then turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” she asked unbelievingly. “I’m going to the digs. After all, that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

Melanie lost her temper. “You mean you’re going to go traipsing off to be with your dead bodies and just leave me and the kids here alone?”

He looked at her incredulously. “What am I supposed to do, sit out in front and stand guard with a gun?” He looked at his wife angrily and then stormed toward the front door. Melanie jumped up from her chair and followed him.

“I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed. “I just can’t believe that after last night you can take this thing so lightly.” David’s own temper had now reached boiling point. “So what am I supposed to do?” he demanded again. “What would make you happy?”