by Simon Clark
Bolter had reached a cluster of outbuildings in a flooded yard. These lay on the other side of the wall from the monster. Spray from its thrashing limbs drenched him as it closed in. Another second and it would drag him from the wall. After that, it would hold him down underwater where it could really start to work on him.
When Bolter glimpsed a domestic garage through the spray, he did not hesitate. He leapt from the wall. Seconds later, he crashed through its brittle roof.
And he really did hope, with all his amphetamine-driven heart, that the monster wouldn’t find him there.
FIFTY-ONE
Tom Westonby parked the car in an area of high ground. The last bit of daylight was dying. Darkness swept down the valley: a second flood that slowly began to hide what remained of the village.
For a moment, he sat there beside Nicola’s mother in the car. She calmly watched the village that she both feared and despised lying there in the grip of the River Lepping. Houses had become little individual islands. Probably, at least half the homes in the village were up to their roofs in those dark waters. The river had done a thorough job of invading the place. Streets resembled canals. Even in this gloom, he could make out the oblong shapes of cars that floated on the current like the bodies of dead whales.
Mrs Bekk spoke with a clear sense of purpose: ‘We’ll split up to look for Nicola. You head down there by the water’s edge while I search the high ground. Nicola was worried about you. She knows how dangerous the floods can be, so she’ll be determined to make sure that you’re safe. Nicola won’t give up until she finds you.’
‘That thug, Bolter, will be looking for her, too.’
‘You can take care of him, can’t you?’
‘He doesn’t scare me. But what happens if you meet him? The power’s out. There are no street lights working.’
‘That young man doesn’t frighten me, Tom. I’m only frightened of what he might do to my daughter.’
‘I’ve got a flashlight. You best take that.’
The white-haired woman shook her head. ‘I’ve lived out there in the forest since I was born. Starlight’s ample for me. You take it.’
So, that’s how it went. Tom pulled the flashlight from the back of the car as they prepared to go their separate ways.
Mrs Bekk had something to tell Tom first. The note of warning in her voice made his blood run cold.
‘Tom,’ she began, ‘I’ve told you that you must break off this relationship with my daughter.’
‘And I’ve told you I will never do that.’
‘Then I’m going to give you a warning.’ Her voice was calm; she obviously wanted him to understand some important facts. ‘Even though you deny that you’ve seen Nicola’s brothers and sisters that doesn’t alter the truth. They did go into the outside world, Tom. They thought they could turn their backs on their family’s heritage.’
‘Somehow you hypnotized me. There’s no such thing as vampires.’
‘You might not believe the evidence of your own eyes. But it’s Nicola’s fate to become a vampire if you don’t stop seeing her.’
‘You’ll have to do better than that to stop us getting married.’
‘We both want to find Nicola as soon as possible. She’s in danger out there.’ The woman nodded towards the drowned village. ‘So I’m not going to waste time trying to persuade you to believe in my family’s gods or the curse that’s made us prisoners of this valley. However, you need to watch my daughter for signs of the change.’
‘What signs?’ He tried to sound contemptuous of her suggestion that Nicola would transform in some way. Even so, shivers cascaded down his back. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Watch her closely for symptoms. What you’ll notice first is that Nicola’s personality will gradually change. Then the colour will go from her skin. Keep watching her eyes. The blue will fade from them. As her skin turns completely white . . . as white as milk . . . her veins will become black, especially on the neck. They’ll look like black tattoos.’
Her pale blue eyes fixed on his. There was sadness there and a certainty of the tragedy to come. She could have been telling him that someone he loved had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness . . . and – hush – the village was so silent: he could hear the morbid thud . . . thud . . . thud of his own heart.
Being in the presence of this eerie woman had the power to separate him from the real world. Once again he felt that he had entered a realm where not only the impossible might just happen but also that it would become inevitable.
He took a deep breath. Was it some form of hypnosis, or had his brain suffered actual damage when he was attacked by Bolter and his crew? Tom’s unease grew as he found himself starting to believe Mrs Bekk’s strange story. He tried to find a flaw in what she’d told him. ‘Your other sons and daughters . . . Why hasn’t Nicola mentioned them to me?’
‘She doesn’t even know they exist. They transformed before she was born. I keep their existence a secret from her. As with Helsvir, she only encounters them when she’s in a state of trance.’
‘So why don’t they harm her?’
‘They understand that she is of the same blood. Her brothers and sisters wouldn’t hurt her.’ All of a sudden she fiercely gripped his arm and jutted her face forward to within six inches of his. ‘Remember what I told you,’ she hissed. ‘Watch for the symptoms. The colour will leave Nicola’s skin. Her eyes will turn white . . . completely white, apart from the pupils. I’m warning you, Tom. It will be terrible to watch the change taking place. There’ll be nothing you can do to stop it happening. It’s like watching a death.’ With that, she quickly walked away into the dark.
After taking a dozen steps or so, he realized that they’d not arranged any way of signalling to each other. How would they communicate if they did find Nicola? Maybe, however, Mrs Bekk had already reached a conclusion in that delusional mind of hers: that Nicola faced the grim transformation whatever the outcome of the search.
It’s like watching a death. The woman’s phrase echoed in his ears as he headed towards the flooded village. He’d never felt so alone in his life.
Tom didn’t switch on the flashlight. If Bolter saw the light, it would warn him that someone else had entered an otherwise deserted village. Right now, Tom’s survival instinct whispered danger . . . danger. His safety might depend on Bolter not knowing his whereabouts.
A village engulfed by a river that had broken through its levee was a threatening place to begin with. Right now, he sensed more dangers lurking down there. Bolter for sure. And maybe something from his nightmares – something monstrous with those strange dead-alive faces. Even though he could rationally disbelieve in the existence of monsters, a far less rational aspect of his mind whispered just the opposite: when you’re alone in the dark, ghosts and primordial creatures of the night start to seem utterly real.
The smell of wetness filled his nostrils. A cold breeze played on his face – the breath from dead lungs . . . or lungs that should have died long ago.
Already, the very fact of being here alone at night, in a village that had its heart drowned by the river, started to act on his imagination. So easy now to picture a rotting hand bursting out of the pavement to grab hold of his ankle, or ghostly figures gliding out from the alleyways.
Tom glanced up at the sky. Black. An oppressive black. Dense cloud had come rolling in to block out the stars. His thumb found the raised switch of the flashlight. No, don’t use it yet. Conserve the batteries. And, more importantly, don’t let anyone . . . or anything . . . know that you’re here. He walked down a steeply sloping lane with cottages at either side. They appeared as blocks of shadow in the darkness. Of course, there were no lights behind the windows. The electricity supply had failed when the river gushed into the substation. What added to the sense of abandonment was that residents on the higher ground had been evacuated, too. Perhaps the authorities feared that the flood would creep even higher?
Tom soon reached the edge of the flood
. Small waves lapped just inches from his toes as he looked along a street. The liquid acted like a mirror, catching phantom reflections of the fronts of houses. That was the moment it struck him how difficult his search for Nicola would be. How am I going to find her in this maze of flooded roads? What if Bolter found her and is holding her somewhere? After all, he locked Chester and me in the storeroom.
‘Nicola?’ he called gently into the dark, yawning mouth of an alleyway. ‘Nicola?’
The only reply, the faint lapping of floodwaters. Strangely, a sound like someone blowing kisses.
Tom took a deep breath. Come on. Use your head. Plan this like a diving expedition. Figure out what you’re going to do. Then do it! After all, he couldn’t simply wander aimlessly in the hope of bumping into her.
Nicola had striking blonde hair. He remembered how it resembled a flame in the gloom. So he should be able to see her even in this small amount of light. Above him, a glow filtered through the cloud.
Good. At least the moon was there, even if it was partly obscured. That meant some light would be falling on to his surroundings. His eyes would soon adapt, allowing him to see more. Now for that plan of action. He decided to make for the centre of the village. At first glance this seemed an impossible undertaking, because the floodwaters rendered the streets unusable. Then he noticed the ancient walls that divided the garden plots. Each wall stood around ten feet high. They formed a well-ordered criss-cross pattern. As far as he could tell, most of the walls were slightly higher than the flood waters. He could walk along them as if he walked along a causeway.
Or like walking the pirate’s plank. His imagination was quick to conjure scenarios of the wall collapsing under his feet, dropping him into deep water.
Panic is the killer, if you let it take control . . . so stay focused on finding Nicola. Keep thinking about Nicola . . .
He sucked in another lungful of that cold air that smelt so strongly of the river. Then he quickly hauled himself up one of the ivy covered walls. Once he was on the flat coping stone he felt more confident. The height gave him a sense of safety: a sense that nobody, and no THING, could creep up behind.
He set out along the line of ten-foot-high walls. The brickwork had been capped with white stone blocks, so he followed a gleaming, white path set against black waters. At first, the water swilled along the base of the wall, but the further he walked, the nearer it rose to the top. If the water did come over the top, though, he realized he could climb up on to the roofs of the houses. They were so densely packed together he could probably work his way from roof to roof, as if they were the stepping stones of the gods.
Tom Westonby moved deeper towards the heart of the village. In turn, the water grew deeper. He saw furniture jumbled up with tree branches float by. He glimpsed the upturned belly of a car. Then came a heart-stopping, terrifying sight as the water churned beside the wall.
He expected a vast object to rise up and sweep him away to his death. He couldn’t take his eyes from the bubbles fizzing up to the surface: a patch of gleaming white in the blackness of the flood. A moment later came a wonderful sense of relief as he realized what was causing the churning and the fizzing. A gas main must have fractured under the road, probably due to hundreds of tons of floodwater exerting a crushing downward force. The area of bubbling water here must be a result of gas furiously blasting from the ruptured pipe. Now he caught the stink of inflammable gas.
What that spectacular churning had done was divert his attention from what else was happening around him: mainly that the water now lay just a few inches below the top of the ten foot high wall. Flood levels were rising fast. If Nicola was in Danby-Mask, he needed to find her quickly. Or there was a real danger he never would.
FIFTY-TWO
The journey into the drowned village of Danby-Mask required sticking to the top of the walls. Even in this meagre light, Tom Westonby could see that the walls, which enclosed the backyards, formed a white grid pattern. The stone slabs, laid end-to-end on top of the brickwork, possessed the same creamy hues as the locally produced cheese.
As he walked, with the floodwater at either side of his narrow causeway, he constantly scanned the buildings for Nicola. Surely, she had to be here somewhere. By now, his eyes had adjusted well enough to the gloom. Yet he still kept a tight grip on the flashlight. He’d need it if he entered one of the flooded houses.
‘Nicola?’ From time to time he called her name. ‘Nicola?’
Each time he listened carefully, hoping to hear her reply. The only sound, however, was the liquid sucking noises coming from the buildings. By now, the Lepping had reached the upper stories. Small waves lapped at bedroom windows. Everywhere, armchairs, wheelie bins, oil drums, dog kennels, you name it, floated in the yards.
Tom knew these walls were around ten feet high. They were a distinctive feature of the village, and they’d been built two hundred years ago when the community became so prosperous from the wool trade that they’d had to build defences to keep out the thieves and vagabonds. Now those walls were the only dry highway into Danby-Mask.
‘Nicola?’ He so desperately wanted to see her face that his heart ached. Where is she? Has she been trapped in one of the houses? Or swept away? A sudden mental image came so sharply that he felt sick. In his mind’s eye, he saw Nicola drifting through that black water, her blonde hair rippling outwards, her eyes staring.
‘Nicola!’ His voice echoed back from those drowned houses. The silence, the lack of electric lights – they all contributed to the sense that this had become a graveyard for peoples’ homes.
Nothing less than a burning anxiety gripped him now. He decided to speed up his search. Already, he’d convinced himself that she was in danger. Either trapped in a flooded cottage, or held prisoner by Bolter. What’s more, Bolter had proved he would commit criminal acts. He’d burnt down Nicola’s house. So hurting Nicola wouldn’t be too extreme for him.
‘Nicola . . . it’s Tom.’ The words died out there on this new monster of a lake. ‘Nicola!’
Where is she? I just want to hold on to her. Keep her safe. I want her with me.
He turned a sharp right, following that precise white line of stonework. Water that was nigh on ten feet deep lay at either side of the wall.
‘Nicola!’
Then came the sound of water being disturbed. He paused, thinking that another gas main had given way under the colossal weight of this inundation. True, there was a white mass of churning foam. Yet this time it was different.
The swirling storm of bubbles didn’t stay in one place. Instead, a blaze of white sped along the flooded street. A second later, the bubbles vanished. Even so, he could still see a black wave racing towards him. Years of diving experience told him that wave was produced by a large, fast-moving object just beneath the surface.
Tom held his breath. Whatever headed so purposefully towards him remained invisible. But he had to see it.
Had to.
Not being able to see what raced ever closer, with the speed of a torpedo, became unbearable.
Quickly, he raised the flashlight, hit the switch, then shielded his eyes against the glare of the powerful bulb. He saw a black mass of water being pushed upward into a rounded bulge.
A pale shape raced towards him. He could just make out a huge, bulky body. The water wasn’t clear enough to identify much in the way of detail. But he knew what this thing was.
Helsvir.
FIFTY-THREE
The creature sliced through the water. This thing called Helsvir radiated a brutal life-force; the essence of savage power.
There he was, balanced precariously on top of a wall. At either side of him, deep water. And here comes the instrument of my death.
Tom Westonby kept the light on the creature, desperately hoping its dazzling brilliance would keep it at bay. The light did no such thing. The creature rose to the surface as it hammered through the water, tearing it apart in foaming sheets.
That barrier of disbelief that
Tom had built inside his mind to protect his sanity was blasted into oblivion. He could no longer insist to himself that Mrs Bekk had induced some hypnotic state, or that he suffered hallucinations due to concussion. No. Absolutely and totally no! Tom could not play the role of Doubting Thomas any more.
Helsvir was real.
Dear God. Helsvir was MORE than real somehow. The creature was a powerful example of brutally vivid actuality. When it surged towards him, with its hissing once-human faces, the thing seemed more substantial than the brickwork he stood upon. Whatever had created the monster had embedded it so deeply into this world that it had become the essence of solidity. The Bekk family’s protector exuded a presence that wouldn’t allow you to dismiss it as a dream.
He thought: Helsvir is real. Helsvir is here to stay. Helsvir will be solid muscle when I’m dead and gone.
The enormity of this revelation stunned him. All he could do was stand and stare at the brute as it powered through the flood. Fear exerted a paralysis – he couldn’t move.
Forty paces away . . . thirty . . . twenty . . .
Tom sensed its eagerness. Helsvir wanted him. Helsvir knew its prey was vulnerable. Helsvir would sweep him from the wall.
Ten paces away.
A shout that combined anger and sheer dismay at being torn from this life exploded from his lips: ‘No!’
‘Helsvir. Come.’ The female voice had such clarity. What’s more, there was a silvery quality in the way it rang out through the darkness. ‘Helsvir. Come.’
The creature swung away at the last moment; the flurry of bubbles vanished. Helsvir had submerged itself into deeper waters.
