Max Gilbert

by Simon Clark

  Chris walked across to the twin sea-fort gates and watched Tony rise then stagger further up the beach. He was pointing wildly at the surf.

  Slowly, Chris closed the massive timber doors, then drew the steel bolts.

  Feeling calm, in that detached alien way, he crossed the courtyard and took David by the hand. David relinquished his hold on his mother.

  "Chris ..." Ruth's voice was low. "That man Fox ... I didn't see anything, but... I didn't see him on the beach."

  He looked at her without emotion.

  "Chris, I don't know if he made it to the other side."

  "Come on, Ruth. It's time we had lunch."

  Then, holding David's hand, he walked back to the caravan.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  At first Brinley Fox thought he had tripped.

  The man waving the axe-handle in the sea-fort had terrified him. Brinley was going to hide in one of the rooms-all those rooms squeezed tight full of shadows!- but then he thought of all the petrol he'd gone splash! splash! splash! all over the place and he felt even more frightened.

  And those rooms packed full of shadows-not nice, Brinley, not nice ...

  So he'd run out of the sea-fort (seems like the best thing, Brinley); he'd got halfway across the causeway, big boots splashing in the water, and now, oh, silly Brinley, he'd fallen. He was all wet, and cold.

  And now he remembered.

  The memory had been there all along. Like a frightened puppy waiting to come indoors from the cold.

  Now it scampered in.

  For the first time in ten years he thought of his brother.

  Brinley Fox remembered watching as his brother- Jim, yes, Jim-as his brother ran across this very causeway in his bare feet, the water as deep as this as the tide came rolling in. He remembered.

  The arm, dark and strange-looking, flashing up out of the surf, grabbing hold of Jim, then pulling him into the water.

  I remember everything now, he thought, the shock driving him sane after ten years wandering in a mental fog full of dreams with a rambling voice that he thought was a ghost. Now at last he realized, the voice had been his own.

  Brinley Fox wanted to scream out to Tony Gateman in the sea-fort to help him, but a wave mottled green with mossy pieces of seaweed rushed at his face, filling his gaping mouth.

  He tried to climb to his feet.

  His foot was stuck hard.

  Got stuck in a crevice, or tangled in seaweed.

  Half kneeling, he looked down at his foot. No.

  A hand held it there. A hand with a wrist that disappeared into the water.

  Then a wave hid it.

  I've got to get out... I've got to get out, he thought, turning back to face the beach. If I can put my head down and just crawl on my hands and knees, just a few inches at a time, I'll make it to dry land. Then he'd be home and safe within five minutes. The door of his caravan locked and bolted. After ten years of insanity he wanted to relish the sensation of being sane again. He did not want his life to end here in the cold North Sea as his brother's had.

  He dragged himself forward, jaw clenched, muscles straining.

  Again he tried to shout. Again, before he could make even a grunt, he felt a savage tug that brought him whipping face down into the water. No ...

  Suddenly, he felt himself being dragged backwards with tremendous power toward the edge of the causeway. Pain blistered like fire along his legs as his knees were bent against the joint.

  He tried to grip the cobbles. There was nothing to cling on to. His nails popped from his fingers as he tried to hook them into the cracks between the stones.

  Waves broke over his head as he was dragged further over the edge.

  Now his head was under the water more than out of it. Breathing became near impossible; a rising scream in his throat ended in a gurgle.

  A hand gripped the waistband of his trousers. The next wrench took him to the edge of the causeway. His legs kicked frantically in deep water, like someone practising the crawl leg-kick while holding onto the edge of a swimming pool.

  Panicking, twisting round, he felt his mind slipping back into the dreamworld it had inhabited for the last ten years. No. He wanted to hang on; he wanted to live like a man once more, sane, intelligent, clean, with a mind of his own.

  No,

  it began

  sliding

  out of control

  again ... again ...

  ... Want home. Want to sit... eat chocolate, drink cider, smoke cigarettes ... watch television ...

  Not this ... Not to be pulled underwater by hands with fingers that looked like raw sausages. Not this ... don't like it... hurting ... frightened.

  He felt another set of fingers gripping his face. A finger and thumb found his eye. Quickly they forced their way into his eye socket.

  Agony... It felt like a cold chisel being forced through to the back of his skull. Sick, feel sick ... His trousers filled with shit.

  As the fingers tore out his eye.

  Briefly he broke the surface. With his good eye screwed shut he saw a world crazy once more through his unsocketed eye. It swung wildly, pendulum-like, blurred images flicking against the twisting retina: ripples on the sea, spray from his flaying arms; a strange red hand gripping; the lady and the boy in the sea-fort; a seagull gliding through the sky. ...

  Another hand came up from behind him and gripped his wild bush of hair. It pulled mercilessly.

  He managed to stand. Feet braced against an underwater boulder, he held onto a rock in front of him. Two pairs of wetly red hands tried to pull him into the sea but he would not come. He was strong. Probably stronger than any sane man.

  The hand gripping his hair tightened its grip then pulled harder. It pulled until with a splitting crack his scalp gave way. The skin split at the hairline across his forehead. It came away in a solid piece like a wig; hair and skin peeling away in a slow, agonizing rip.

  The hand released the scalp to leave it dangling by a thin piece of skin from the back of his neck. The skull, denuded of hair and skin, shone like a smooth pink egg in the sunlight.

  A hand came up and caught the swinging eye. It parted from the socket with a crack.

  Catatonic from shock, Brinley Fox opened his remaining eye. Water swirled around his face. Now, even though his body had become rigid, he did not resist as one of the red hands pulled him back by his shirt collar into the sea.

  Above him, he saw the water swirling like a liquid puddle of light. Then the water turned pale green.

  His one eye saw little silver bubbles, rising to the surface.

  Now he no longer felt or heard, he only saw the sea above him turn from pale green, to green, to dark green.

  To black.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  In the caravan's galley kitchen, Chris scraped two platefuls of burger and salad into the pedal bin. The third, smaller plate had been cleaned of all but streaks of ketchup.

  They had not talked much since the incident with Fox and Gateman that morning. Despite Gateman's denials, Chris believed he had been involved in some plot to drive them out of the sea-fort. Why? Jealousy? Did he want the place for himself? Or didn't the villagers want holidaymakers ruining their seclusion?

  He squirted washing-up liquid into hot running water. "Dad, why were you so angry with Tony Gateman?" David sat at the table coloring in a picture with a fat crayon.

  "Mr Gateman had done something wrong. He tried to stop us living here."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know, David. It's up to the police to sort it out."

  David looked up, interested. "The police? Are they going to take Tony to prison?"

  "We'll have to wait and see. I'm going to drive over to the police station in Munby this afternoon."

  "Where's Mum?"

  "She's been hosing the courtyard and the car down."

  "Would that petrol have blown us up?"

  "No, of course not. Now you color in some pictures for me, I'm just going to see your
mum."

  He stepped out into the courtyard. It was still wet from the dousing Ruth had given it. The sea-fort's massive gates were shut and locked.

  He looked around. No real damage done. But he felt lousy. Tired, and somehow dirty. He just wanted to shower with scalding water. This building, with its high stone walls, had become part of him. It had been violated. Gateman would pay for this.

  "Chris."

  Ruth's voice, flat and unemotional, came from above. He looked up. She stood on the walkway that ran around the top of the wall. From the way she stared fixedly out it was obvious she had seen something that held her attention.

  Stomach muscles tightening, he ran quickly up the steps.

  "What's wrong?"

  She nodded down toward the sea. "Who are they?"

  He looked sharply downward. The tide, fully in, swirled waves that sucked at the base of the sea-fort. For a moment he couldn't see what she had noticed. He searched the troughs of the waves. Only dark rocks showed among the surf.

  But there should be no rocks where he saw them now.

  Leaning forward, gripping the wall's coping stones with both hands, he stared down at the dark shapes in the water.

  "People ... There are people in the water."

  Shivering, he looked at his wife.

  "I've been watching them ten minutes. They've not moved. They're just standing there." She shrugged. "Waiting."

  He turned and looked down again. There, twenty feet below, shoulder-deep in the rolling sea, waves sometimes breaking over their heads, were six dark shapes.

  They looked alike, their dark heads emaciated and hairless.

  All six faced out to sea, heads held in the same position, chins slightly up, their eyes shut in a relaxed way that made them look asleep.

  Or dead, thought Chris, feeling a tide of cold seep through his body. He recalled the Easter Island statues; they had the same angular heads and impenetrable expressions, all facing in the same direction. And for all that these things moved, they might have been cut from rock.

  But they weren't. They were something awful that shouldn't be there.

  He felt his wife's hand on his.

  "Look. There's another one."

  She was right. He'd not seen it appear, but there it was just like the others. The head above the waves, eyes shut, facing seaward like one of those Easter Island statues.

  Chris and Ruth stood transfixed, their attention focused utterly on the heads.

  And as they watched, the figures began to move.

  Smoothly and slowly. Very, very slowly the heads lifted as they turned their faces up to Chris and Ruth standing on the battlements.

  Chris, unable to do anything else, stared back at the upturned faces. Their eyes were still closed in that relaxed sleeper's way. But now their mouths were partly open. Just black holes occasionally catching gobs of white surf.

  He turned to his wife. Pulling his gaze from them was like breaking a spell. He guided Ruth gently away from the wall. "Don't look at them, love," he said. "Come on. We're going downstairs."

  Halfway down the stone steps that led to the courtyard, she stopped sharply. "Who are they, Chris?"

  "I don't know, love. And I don't think I want to know."

  She looked at him, her dark eyes frightened. "I wish they'd connected the telephone, Chris. I want someone to come for us."

  "Don't worry. If they haven't gone by tonight, we'll go to the police."

  "No, Chris. We've got to get away as soon as we can."

  The thought of leaving the sea-fort appalled him. Come what may, he wanted to stay. He lived here. This was his home and his life-everything rolled into one.

  "But we can't just leave. What about the sea-fort?"

  Her eyes widened.

  "Bugger the sea-fort. Look... I think Tony knew something. He was trying to tell us when you forced him out. Chris ..." She clutched his hand tightly. "Let's just go. It'll probably be just for a few days, but I want to get away from here. ... Tell me we can go, Chris?"

  Chapter Twenty-five

  "David!" His mum's voice was urgent. "Quick, get in the car. Wind that window up. Are the doors locked? Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  He watched unhappily from the back seat of the car. His mum stood, tapping her fingers rapidly on top of the door. The engine was running.

  David looked out of the rear window. His dad was running very fast. He was on the battlements on top of the walls, running then stopping to look out over the wall, down at the beach below.

  Maybe he was looking for Tony Gateman? Or that man with the loud voice and lots of hair.

  Today, his parents' behavior had puzzled him. His dad had seemed quiet this morning after his fall off the dunes the night before.

  Then there was the trouble that morning with Tony Gateman and the funny man, and that petrol all over the place. All that shouting and seeing his dad so angry had scared David. It had made him realize his dad wasn't always the nice person he seemed.

  Then after lunch his parents had packed suitcases full of clothes and loaded them into the car. They'd made him stay in the caravan all the time so he couldn't tell what they were saying to one another. But they looked worried.

  "Mum?"

  "Just a minute, David. We're waiting for Dad."

  "Where we going, Mum?"

  "Ah ... We're just going to your Nan and Grandad's for a few days ..." She forced a smile. "That'll be nice, won't it?"

  He swallowed a lump in his throat. He didn't like this at all.

  His dad had finished looking out over the walls. He now came running down the stone steps into the courtyard, jumping down the last four.

  "Okay! It's clear."

  His mum swung herself fast into the driving seat and revved the engine until it deafened David.

  His dad opened the sea-fort's twin wooden gates. He leaned cautiously out to look left then right. As David would if there were hungry tigers out there on the beach.

  His dad waved. "Come on!"

  The car accelerated savagely out of the sea-fort, front wheels sliding around with a crunching sound. She stopped sharply, throwing David forward against his seatbelt.

  His dad ran around to the driving side and shouted, "I'm locking the gates."

  "Chris ... Leave it!"

  "No. I'm not throwing it all away." As he talked he kept looking up and down the beach. "This thing will pass-in a few days. Everything's going to be all right."

  "All right ... For Christsakes be quick."