by Brian Lumley
“Since we were well armed we investigated and found a deserted fly-by-night site. There were small animal bones and lots of other shit—I mean real shit: fly-by-night filth, I suppose—all of it softly alight with that unhealthy glow. And worse, at first sight there were what looked like human bones and a human skull mixed in with it! Or maybe not—no, definitely not human, not any longer—for the bones were horribly misshapen, crumbly as chalk, and as long and thin as Garry here; while the skull was like eggshell but very long in the jaw, with teeth as sharp as knives…!”
“Oh really!” Maxwell muttered. “So accordin’ to these skinny old bones of mine I’m scarcely human, am I? Huh! Well thanks a lot—I don’t think!” His indignation went for nothing, however, for Myers simply ignored him and got on with his story:
“Well, the site didn’t look all that fresh, and not having any burning desire to linger there I hastened my lads back into camp; but I reckon we’ve found the reason why Garry’s dogs have been acting up. Oh, resin and river damp may have played a part in what’s bothering them, but mainly it’s what they’re smelling out there: that glowing fly-by-night nest in the forest! And as for those freakish remains—” Seasoned scav that he was or had been, still Myers paused and shuddered, “—well, I reckon this must have been one very hungry pack, for it now seems to me…”
At which Big Jon cut in, finishing up for him: “It seems to you, and to me, that now in desperation they’ve resorted to eating their own!” And Myers, done with his story, simply nodded.
Then after several long moments—perhaps in order to shake off some of the spiritual gloom, the disquietude that the group as a man could feel descending—their leader shrugged, cleared his throat and finally found his voice: “Well here’s the thing: I called you here for your thoughts on tonight’s security measures, much more important now that we’ve learned of Don’s discovery: that the fly-by-nights have used this place at some time in the past and are not averse to nesting nearby in the forest. So just keep that in mind and tell me—” his gaze fell on Bert Jordan, “—Bert, what do you think? Have you any suggestions?”
Scratching his chin, Jordan said, “Let me give it a little thought.” And after a moment: “We’re not short of watch personnel, and I believe we should use every man-jack of ’em tonight out there on the perimeter that Don’s marked for us. We should allocate at least two men to each station—or at least every other station—and wherever possible with no more than one or two trees between manned locations. And incidentally, but importantly, this will make for a lot of weary lads come morning; so when it’s a question of who rides the trundles, night-watch personnel must take priority. Let’s face it, you can’t use ’em over and over, night after night, and still expect ’em to walk the next day!” He paused, shrugged and went on:
“So, that’s about all from me…except I probably should report something I saw on my way in. See, I was riding in this trundle that got stuck in a deep rut coming down the big slope. By the time we’d dug it out, it was just about the last vehicle in the entire convoy, and I reckon I pretty much was the last man to make it in under the trees on foot. But on my way in, that’s when I saw these flashes of light—or maybe lightning?—and heard the thunder…at least it might have been thunder.”
The leader frowned and said: “Thunder? Well that’s reasonable; the sky was full of rain clouds, that’s for sure. As for lights, or lightning: I suppose that’s perfectly logical, too, for after all, the two do go together! Just exactly where did you see these flashes, Bert?”
“North of us, in the forest,” the other answered. “Maybe a little less than three miles along the river, and half a mile deep in the trees, where they start rising toward the valley’s western rim. It was after I heard the first of these thunder sounds and was looking for the source, that I saw the canopy there lit by this flash of light—a split second sort of thing, you understand, which I only just glimpsed out the corner of my eye. So I stood still a while, watching for it to happen again; but the thunder had died down and nothing happened…at least until I looked away! Hah! But isn’t that just typical? For then I heard more dull rumblings and saw three or four more flashes of light centered on that same area of the canopy; flashes that vanished as quick as they’d come, leaving nothing I could focus on…”
And after a moment: “That’s it?” said the leader.
“That’s it,” Jordan replied.
“Hmm! Sounds like St Elmo’s Fire—electrical discharge—which I’ve seen once before while scavenging down south. Well, we may be passing by that way tomorrow. Do you reckon you can show us the spot then?”
“Pretty close to it,” said Jordan. “Sure thing.”
“Very well, since there’s nothing we can do about it right now, we’ll leave it till then…”
Big Jon grunted, nodded, and turned to Garth. “Young Slattery I see from your expression that there’s something you want to say. So out with it, speak up. There’s only an hour or so to dusk, by which time you’ll need to be out on the perimeter.”
“And not just the perimeter,” said Garth. “At least, not in my opinion.” And then, aware of a sudden tension and the frowns that were appearing on both Bert Jordan’s and Don Myers’ faces, he quickly followed up with: “Not that I disagree or find fault with the work that Don’s already done, or Bert’s suggestion. Of course I don’t, but I think there may be something more.”
“Go on,” the leader prompted him.
“It’s something that Garry said about those collapsed bridges over the river,” Garth went on. “The fact that his sniffers baulked when Garry brought them in that way, and that they seem very uneasy and at odds with things even now. I mean, from what I saw of those bridges, they’re half submerged but still pretty much passable. And on the far bank there are those large industrial-looking buildings, more or less intact. Just the sort of places where—”
“—Where fly-by-nights like to hole up,” said Big Jon, indulging his habit of preempting the thoughts and suggestions of others. And again he said, “Go on.”
“Well,” said Garth, “we all of us know that a fairly large party of fly-by-nights, perhaps a swarm, has been moving apace with us heading north, and that recently—with all the breakdowns and other problems—they’ve even moved ahead of us. But the fact that they haven’t attempted to attack us is…well, it’s unusual to say the least. And I’ll risk repeating myself, but as I’ve stated before, I think it’s because they’re biding their time, looking for the perfect opportunity and…and in every regard being instructed or at least advised!”
Big Jon nodded and growled, “Softly softly catchee monkey!”
“Exactly,” said Garth. “And here we are, bottled up in this unexplored forest, unable to move on in a hurry—or even move on at all at night—and there could be dozens, hundreds of the monsters less than three hundred yards away through the trees and across the river, just waiting for darkness! So by all means we must man Don’s perimeter, but we should also have heavily armed men down on the approaches to those twin bridges; and here and now I volunteer myself and my squad to those tasks…”
As Garth finished speaking, a steeply slanting ray of weak sunlight found a way in through what must have been the smallest possible gap in the canopy’s outermost western fringe, and very briefly a myriad dust motes were seen swirling like miniature galaxies in its ephemeral beam. Then:
“Those rain clouds seem to be moving on,” said Myers, his normally strong voice suddenly small and shivery.
“Good,” said Big Jon, “but so is the time.” And turning to Maxwell he continued: “Garry, it’s time you went and organized the rest of the camp’s dogs. And tonight I want you out on the perimeter with your sniffers. Oh, and as of now we won’t worry too much about noise: if they want to make a fuss let ’em bark till they’re hoarse, just as long as they do their job! As for you three—” his keen gaze swept the faces of the night-watch bosses, “—you can get on and do what you’ve always done best,
and may the good Lord watch over each and every one of us until morning…”
XII
For a little less than two hours Garth busied himself positioning his men on what remained of the tangled, almost obliterated road east of the forest, at junctions a quarter-mile apart from which a pair of lesser roads—in much the same degraded condition—had once serviced the bridges. He made sure that the men had superior, unobscured arcs of fire from the best possible cover, checked their weapons, ammunition and all other items of their equipment; and with evening turning to dusk and shades of night creeping from the east, he returned briefly to the camp a little less than two hundred yards away, where not far from Big Jon’s command trundle Layla had lit a tiny oil lamp in the entrance to their canvas shelter. For despite that beyond the canopy darkness was yet to fall, beneath it the gloom was already deepening.
Garth was only there to kiss and reassure her—and in turn to be hugged and reassured—but there was something different about tonight: a certain imminence that held him there with her a minute or two longer than he had intended. And all across the camp’s roughly circular area, though more especially around its outer edges, small oil lamps glowed like fireflies, casting fitful shadows where the people had erected their shelters. But as the camp settled down, and the murmuring of near-distant voices gradually faded—and the only movement was that of silent men and dogs on standby duty, when even the muttering of chief mech Ian Clement ended abruptly in a soft curse as he threw down his tools and gave up working on a broken generator—so the gloom deepened more yet and the sudden silence seemed other than natural…perhaps supernatural?
“What is it?” Layla asked, her voice hushed where she stood in Garth’s arms beside their makeshift lean-to. “I mean, why is it so quiet? Earlier—I don’t know if you noticed—but there were no birds calling in the trees, no small creatures rustling in the leaf-mould; only worms and beetles. It’s too still and I don’t like it. And just look at those dogs there, tails between their legs and starting at shadows! I think they’re feeling the strangeness. And all the clan folk, with nothing of energy left in them, apparently! But there have been times in the past when they’d be up, if only to huddle around a fire for company.”
“Fires are out,” Garth answered. “These huge trees are full of resin and the ground underfoot is a carpet that would smoulder and burn all too easily. Big Jon wouldn’t even have allowed oil lamps, but what few electrical batteries remain were needed by the men on duty on the perimeters. As for the people: they’re worn to the bone, and since there’s nothing else for them to do the best possible thing for them is sleep…and that includes you! And speaking of the night-watch: that’s where I should be, and without delay. But before I go…I only wanted to tell you how much I love you.”
“Oh, Garth—I love you, too!” She held him tighter still. “But I’ll ask it yet again—why does it feel so important that we tell each other that, especially tonight?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s like Big Jon says: feeling close to journey’s end we’re hopeful, but because we’re still not there we’re afraid we’ll fail. Which means that the closer we get, the more our fears will mount! It’s called a paradox, I think. Take my advice and at least try to sleep. And when you do, accept only the sweetest of dreams.”
With which they slowly drew apart, and Garth went out into the deepening dusk, where the valley’s western ridge was rimmed with fading gold and the first stars were winking into being in the east. But as he made his way toward the closest of the pair of positions manned by his squad, Garth too pondered the apparent lethargy of the clan as a whole.
Was it simply because they were “worn to the bone,” as he’d suggested to Layla? Or could it be that something else—something from outside, not so much physical as mental—was insinuating itself into their minds; something stultifying, that was making their minds unreliable and even more acquiescent?
With these questions and a pair of ancient adages repeating in his head, Garth hurried as best possible through low shrubbery and gathering darkness towards the river.
As for these sayings he was repeating to himself: “Familiarity breeds contempt” was the one, while “Slowly slowly catchee monkey” was the other…
It began something less than two hours later. Garth had visited the northern junction, where three of his men looked down along the short access road and out over the slumping, half-submerged structure of the bridge toward the now darkly ominous buildings on the far bank. The clouds had drifted away south, leaving the black river water to shine in the light of a half-moon. Despite that this was wont to fade occasionally behind the wispy, trailing revenants of the departed cloud mass, still the pale-yellow light vas a mercy; as was the fact that only the faintest trace of mist was finding its way ashore from the river.
Now, having satisfied himself that the team watching the northern bridge was well situated, alert to a man, and that all was in order, Garth had returned along the crumbling old road’s barely traceable track and through its shrouding foliage to the southern manned location—that closest to the camp in the forest—and mere moments ago had accepted and was sipping from a welcome mug of herbal tea, when a friend of several adventures, Billy Martin, gave him a nudge him and said:
“Garth, did you ever see anything like that before? I mean, what on earth…?” But his words tapered off as, peering uncertainly, wonderingly, he let his mouth gape and pointed a finger out across the bridge and over the river.
Along with the other members of the team—Eric Davis, and the recently recruited Gavin Carter, who seemed much calmer and more at ease now than previously—Garth’s gaze traced Billy’s to the ugly square facades of the partly ruined buildings on the far bank. Silhouetted against night’s faintly luminous backdrop, they looked gauntly eerie.
But there was something else of luminosity there, and by no means static: a glittering stream composed of myriad pinpoints, that flowed from the base of the building directly opposite the bridge’s far end and down toward…toward the bridge itself!
Then for just a moment Garth asked himself—even as Billy had asked him—Now what on earth…? But only for a moment—
—Because then he knew!
That the countless pinpoints were an effect of the sulphurous rottenness in the eyes of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of fly-by-nights! And that even as he watched they were beginning to cross the bridge at a pace that was ever quickening!
A rampaging swarm—the biggest swarm ever seen, ever imagined—with the sweet scent of blood in their fretted nostrils, its taste in their yawning mouths, and the longing and the lust for it in eyes that glowed pale as the silvery moonlight!
Garth’s three heard his gasp, saw him stiffen, and knew the worst: just three of them, or four including Garth himself, and a horde of monsters on its way across the bridge!
“We shouldn’t be here,” said Gavin Carter, quite calmly. “I should not be here! And he put down his self-loading rifle and began to lift a bandolier from around his neck—at which Garth was released from his momentary paralysis.
“You can run and die, Gavin,” he said, his voice straining however slightly, but somehow managing to stay in control. “For if we can’t stop them here they’re going to get you anyway. And not just you but everyone—you, us—the whole clan!” Even my Layla! he thought.
“But you will definitely die first!” Billy Martin growled. “For I swear I’ll shoot you myself, and you’ll thank me for it in heaven or in hell, whichever!”
And Eric Davis pinioned Carter and held him still, saying: “It’s why we’re here, Gavin. And it’s why you’re armed; unlike the majority of our people, those poor bastards in the forest, who won’t even know what hit them! But if we’re going down, the least we can do is take a bloody great swathe of these buggers with us! So what do you say to that?” Then releasing the other, and grimacing as if Carter’s proximity made him feel ill, Davis shoved him forcefully away.
“Do I
have…have any choice?” Trembling, stumbling, and almost falling, Carter choked the words out; but he didn’t run.
“You can stand, fight and probably die,” said Garth again. “Or you can just give in and die anyway, as a coward! Not that anyone will ever know.” And suddenly disgusted at his own fear, he spat into the night as if to rid himself of the taste of it, spat as hard as he could, as so often he’d seen his Old Man do. “Those are your only choices, Gavin, and the same goes for all of us. So what’ll it be?”
“But whatever you choose—” Billy added, loading shells into a sawn-off shotgun’s breach, then laying it aside and taking a fragmentation grenade from his pocket, arming it and thumbing down on the sprung safety lever while gauging the distance, “—you’d better make it quick, ’cause here they come!”
“I’m no…no coward,” said Carter, shaking his head. “I’m just… It’s just that I’m scared!”
“So, welcome to our world!” said Eric Davis. But even as he spoke Carter was gritting his teeth, taking up his weapon again and saying:
“When my ammo is done so am I, I guess. But until then I’ll go out fighting.” And to his boss: “Garth, where should I aim?”
“Aim at their heads,” Garth answered gratefully. “At their burning eyes. But before you start—” (he had heard the metallic ch-ching as Billy released the safety lever and knew that he was about to hurl the first of his grenades) “—just wait until the smoke clears!”
“Fire in the hole!” yelled Billy, as his throwing arm swung forward and he released his deadly egg. And his timing was near perfect. The head of the snaking fly-by-night column had advanced off the bridge onto the access road where it was now little more than one hundred feet away. And far more than the phosphorescent corruption of their eyes, the individual creatures themselves were now plainly visible.
They came like a wall of mist: drifting, swirling, reaching with hands and taloned fingers on incredibly long spindly arms. Solid in their weird, insubstantial way—yet seeming at times to merge with each other, only to separate again like grotesque manlike amoebas—they didn’t appear to have seen Garth and his team behind the tumbled, creeper-clad wall of a centuried brick dwelling; nor did they take note of the metal missile that fell among their forward ranks…until a moment later.
