The Fly-By-Nights (12 page)

“But…taken?” Big Jon repeated him. “Are you saying Ned was taken alive?”

Still badly shaken, Peder Halbstein answered with a nod and a shudder. “That’s right, or so I believe. At least, that’s how it appeared; but it all happened so fast that everything is now a blur. I
think
I saw them dragging him away, and Ned was alive and screaming! It must have been so because…well, there’s no sign of him now, is there? Anyway, let me tell it my way…

“Along with Dan Coulter, I was on watch halfway between the church and the car park on the eastern flank. Now, I say ‘with’ Dan but in fact we were separated, though by no more than forty or so paces; which meant that we could clearly see each other’s flashlight signals…”

At which, as Halbstein paused, Zach Slattery said: “You had flashlights, both of you? And whistles, too? Yet Garth here had no such aids to the performance of his duty, which I only found out after going to him when the alarms sounded. Moreover he was on his own, stuck out there on the southern approaches like…like a sore thumb! If anyone deserved a companion and the right gear, surely it was him!”

And Garth said: “Ned Singer said it was pointless me having a flashlight because there were obstructions between me and the men flanking me. I could flash all I liked and no one would see me.”

“And a whistle?” Big Jon queried.

Feeling foolish, gullible, Garth replied: “Ned told me he’d handed them all out, retaining just one for himself. So because of the bad blood between us, and rather than risk a flare-up, I let it go. Anyway I had my rifle; I could always fire off warning shots if that should become necessary.”

“That bastard!” Zach muttered under his breath. “Why it’s a wonder he let you keep your rifle! And it wasn’t only
your
life he was risking!”

Big Jon had heard him and was quick to say: “Easy Zach, old friend. For while you’ve had problems with Ned Singer—you and the lad both—nothing good comes of speaking ill of the dead.”

At which Zach’s eyes narrowed and it seemed for a moment he might reply; but instead he kept his peace, saying nothing. And Big Jon turned again to Peder Halbstein.

“So then, you and Dan Coulter were stationed close together, in sight of each other even in the dark of night?”

“Yes, and later…later we got to be closer still!” Then, as if in a hurry to vindicate that statement, Halbstein held up a hand. “But let me explain:

“About 3:30 my batteries failed—by which time Dan had got used to answering my green flash, for we’d been signaling each other every few minutes. Well, seeing no more flashes, he reckoned maybe I’d fallen asleep and came to give me a shake before Ned’s next patrol. But after Dan found me awake we got to talking—very quietly, you understand—finding something of comfort in each other’s company, which is surely only natural?”

“Coulter had deserted his position!” Big Jon growled.

“Not so!” the other was quick to deny it. “We only meant to stay together for a minute or two—and meanwhile Dan had taken the opportunity to give me his spare battery. I would have done the same for him, gone to him if I’d thought he was in trouble! He was only looking out for me!” Still in shock, Halbstein was now gabbling.

At which the leader gave a grunt of disapproval but at once relented. “Very well—we understand—but do get on with it!”

“Yes, yes,” said Halbstein, gulping a little. “Well, Dan was about to return to his station when the first whistles sounded, and a moment later gunfire. It rooted us both in place, staring out into the night over the lapping ground mist. We were in the lee of a broken wall but the external view was only poor: there was too much heaped rubble, a great many shadows out there. Dan took the right-hand arc, which in large part covered his former station; I took the left-hand arc, which was mine anyway.

“At first there was nothing, just more near-distant sounds of fighting—whistles, gunshots, shouts—the sound of a grenade exploding, even the hissing roar of a flamethrower! But on our perimeter, nothing. Not immediately.

“Dan said maybe we should go help—I told him we couldn’t leave our posts, that from the sound of it this was a swarm and the fly-by-nights could be coming on our front, too—and that was the very moment when they came: eight or nine of them, appearing like columns of mist out of the darkness on the far edge of vision!

“At first they came to a halt there—standing stock still—just looking at us! Which was also when Ned Singer came! Ned came at a run, shouting instructions:

“‘Get out from behind that wall!’ he ordered us. ‘They have no weapons, the fly-by-nights, so we don’t need cover that only gets in the way of our targeting. Anyway, by now they can
smell
you! And spread out—Dan to the right, me in the middle, Peder on my left. And
don’t
let them get behind us! Aim with care and make each shot count!’ These were good, sensible orders, and we scrambled to obey.

“But the trouble came not only from the front but also from the right, Dan’s original position. There were three of them on that flank, closing with us fast, their approach half-hidden by all the heaped rubble. Dan got the first shots off; I saw a fly-by-night crumple to the ground. By then the roar of Ned’s machine gun was deafening, unnerving as I tried to pick out a target of my own in the swirling, thickening ground mist in front.

“I got one and saw it go down, almost seeming to fold up on itself! Then I heard Dan yelling, ‘Oh shit! Oh shit! Bad ammunition!’ He had stopped firing…but damn it, hadn’t we always known how a lot of that old ammo couldn’t be trusted?

“And then…oh God!…and then…Dan’s yelling turned to screaming! He’d started to run, stumbling toward me, but…

“Out the corner of my eye I saw them hit him, knocking him down. Just two of them, and Dan a big lad and strong. But despite that they look thin and wispy as smoke, these creatures have this amazing, terrible strength! They held him down, their jaws extended, going at him where he kicked and jerked in the deepening mist. I wanted desperately to divert my fire from the front, to strike at these things that were sucking on Dan; but Ned and me, we already had all we could handle. And anyway, I knew that Dan was done for. Between howling bursts of fire from Ned’s big gun and the crack of single shots from my rifle, I even fancied I could hear the sound of
siphoning
as they sucked him dry!

“And so I kept on firing—kept missing, too, the way those monsters wove and warped—but it seemed Ned was doing okay: I saw two, maybe three fly-by-nights shredded, blown apart in his sleeting fire! And Ned was stamping his feet, shouting at them, mouthing senseless rubbish and cursing them to every hell where they were weaving, closing in on us!

“Then I saw that my original count had been wrong, or maybe more of the things had been following on close behind the first batch. Despite that we’d taken a few of them out there were now at least nine or ten, plus the two that were feeding on Dan—

“—Except they’d finished with Dan and were now coming for me!

“I prayed God my ammo stayed good, reloaded, turned my fire on Dan’s murderers. I was protecting myself, yes, but these two were the closest, the most dangerous, and surely Ned’s machine gun would take care of the rest. All he need do was stand there and let rip as they got even closer.

“Fuelled by Dan’s blood, but full of lust, too, the eyes of my two flared like lamps as they came on; and it was their eyes I aimed at. These creatures are crazed, maniacal at the best of times, and maybe their bloodlust—their success with poor Dan—had made them even more so. It seemed they just didn’t give a damn, the way they flew at me! Which was all to my benefit.

“No more than ten feet away, the head of the first fly-by-night flew apart, and the other simply shouldered the crumpling corpse aside as it came on. Its jaws gaped wide, dripping Dan’s blood, and its claw hands reached for me as I triggered off one last shot to take its head off. My
last
shot, yes, because that was when my rifle jammed! That bloody ammo! Dan Coulter and me, we’d both loaded up with ammo from the same batch!

“There was nothing more I could do—but I didn’t just run. Anyway, I don’t think my legs would have
let
me run! So instead I looked to Ned Singer to see how he was doing. And he had been doing just fine: there were a lot of heaped shapes sprawled out in the ground mist that hadn’t been there before. But even as I watched him Ned’s weapon stopped its deafening howling, and for all that he shook it this way and that—clawing at the working parts which
weren’t
working, cursing and yanking desperately on the trigger—still that treacherous gun stayed silent!

“Bad ammunition again? Maybe, though his was of a different caliber to mine. Or perhaps Ned’s gun had overheated, or simply jammed? Any and all such failures weren’t at all unlikely—but in his situation each of them was deadly!

“Four fly-by-nights remained, for a moment coming to a halt and as before standing stock still. But then, as Ned turned to run, they seemed to merge, flowing over him like so much vile, evil filth! Except…they weren’t going at him as the others had gone at Dan; they didn’t appear to be sucking on him, siphoning off his blood. No, they were lifting him up, one creature to each of his limbs. And big man that Ned is—that he was—they carried him away, drifting off with him into the darkness. But you know, he didn’t go easily, not Ned Singer.

“Minutes later—when my legs came back to life and I could finally stumble out of there—I could still hear him screaming however faintly, distantly. By then too most of the gunfire and other sounds of battle had ceased, and armed wild-eyed men were beginning to arrive on the scene with breathless questions that I didn’t have the strength to answer, not just then…”

As Halbstein came to the end of his report, so another man stepped forward: the sly, unpopular, scar-faced Arthur Robeson, attending the meeting only by reason of the weapon he was bearing: Ned Singer’s machine gun. “I was one of the men who went to help on the perimeter when things had quietened down a bit,” he said.

“When it was all over, you mean!” Peder Halbstein spat the words out. “I remember that, all right: that you were among the last—that in fact you
were
the last—of the men who showed up! You didn’t seem concerned about poor Dan Coulter, or me for that matter; you only asked after your old friend Ned. And when a handful of the men ventured forward to see if they could find any sign of him you followed them—at least far enough to pick up his fallen weapon!”

“Are you accusing me of something?” Robeson snapped, driven back a pace.

“Nothing!” said Halbstein. “Which is all I’ve ever seen you do—nothing—except maybe grease around Ned Singer, and run his errands!”

“
Huh!
” the other exclaimed, and: “Man, you’re babbling! And anyway, I didn’t come here to be insulted. Only to explain what killed Ned. A bullet was stuck in the loading mechanism, and it appears he never had a chance to clear it. Perhaps if he’d had some decent back-up…”

“Why you—!” Halbstein moved to face him at close quarters, but Big Jon got in his way.

“Now hold!” the leader roared. “Enough of that! Everybody’s nerves are frazzled, including mine, shot to pieces by the worst fly-by-night attack we’ve yet experienced—but not necessarily the last. We lost seven men last night, and Ned Singer was just one of them. Well, from all I’ve heard he accounted well for himself and for the clan. He wasn’t everyone’s favourite personality, but by God he knew how to fight fly-by-nights! And in that respect we’ll surely miss him. Let nothing detract from that.”

“Ned was one of the strongest, one of the best!” said Robeson. At which Garth’s father rounded on him as quick as Peder Halbstein had done only moments earlier:

“Oh really, one of the best was he? And just how would you know that, Arthur Robeson? Did you ever scav with him—or with anybody else for that matter? Have you ever ventured out in the night with a gun in your hand and a lump in your throat to face and perhaps kill a fly-by-night or two? No?
Huh!
I didn’t think so!”

“No, I never scavenged!” the other protested. “But I had a job, back in the Southern Refuge. I…I sorted precious salvage, and I…I helped out in the farms!”

“Aye,” Big Jon nodded wisely. “And always found good reason to stay close to home, as I recall. Well, no shame in that, not when there was work to be done down in the guts of the old labyrinth. Ah, but that was then and this is now; and there’s nothing of salvage now, and no farms along the way of the trek! But we
are
going to be in need of seven new outriders and watchmen; which means I’ll be looking for volunteers. So maybe you’d best hang on to Ned’s big weapon, Arthur, and get it in good working order. And I’ll thank you now for being the first to offer your services!”

“What?”
Robeson barely whispered the word, but he knew well enough Big Jon’s meaning, and his scar stood out like a gash on his suddenly pale face. The leader had already turned away from him, however, and was addressing the rest of the group:

“So then, is there any more business? No? But there is work to be done and plenty of it, for we must be out of here well in advance of nightfall. One night like the last was one too many, and if we stay on here those monsters are sure to be back…”