‘I don’t understand,’ said Danny.
‘Shh. They’ll hear you.’
He lowered his voice and whispered to his sister, ‘I’ve got to find out what’s going on.’
‘No,’ she hissed. ‘We must go home. Think what a state –’
‘It’ll only take a few seconds. If I don’t find out now – I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering.’
Mary knew he was right. So would she.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Open one of these doors.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘No? Watch me.’ Before Danny had a chance to change his mind, he went up to one of the doors and gently, very gently, began to open it, chink by chink.
Mary had joined him now, and she suppressed a gasp as she saw the woman lying on her back on the bed. A handbag and a shopping basket were on the floor beside her.
‘Well?’ whispered Mary. ‘Are you any the wiser?’
‘No.’ Danny reluctantly closed the door. It was a pity that he bumped into his sister as he turned round and an even greater pity that she lost her balance and fell sprawling on to the floor. The noise seemed even louder than the relentless ticking of the clock downstairs.
Mary leapt quickly to her feet and they both froze; something – someone – was moving in one of the adjoining cubicles. A door flew open and a man in a pinstriped suit came out.
Before he could challenge them, Danny and Mary ran for the stairs and hurtled down them towards the front door. As they rattled at it in vain, footsteps began to rap out sharply on the stairs.
‘It’s locked,’ Mary yelled.
The clock began to strike the hour, and the noise once again pounded their ears as if it were a count-down to their eventual capture by the inhabitants of the cubicle-like rooms. Mary shuddered, her imagination running riot.
Danny was rattling and pulling now but the door remained obstinately shut. ‘It is locked,’ he shouted, his voice shrill with panic.
‘Wait a minute!’ Mary was struggling to keep calm. ‘Let me try again.’
At last the front door opened, just as a voice shouted, ‘Stop! Stop now!’
But Danny and Mary were on their way out.
The booking hall of the Underground was empty – and there was no one at the barrier.
‘We haven’t got a ticket,’ Mary gasped.
‘Too bad,’ panted Danny. ‘We’ll get them at the other end.’
‘Are the trains still running?’ she demanded.
‘Should be. It’s not that late.’ But the emptiness of their surroundings was ominous. Then Danny vaguely remembered something he had heard on the television. A strike? A go-slow? He was just about to tell his sister when he saw a group of people standing by the entrance. The woman with the shopping bag, the tall man in the pinstripe suit, an older man leaning on a stick, a couple of young women in tracksuits, a girl in her late teens, and several others crowding behind them. Their eyes were menacing, full of anger and loathing, as they gazed at Danny and Mary with an intensity that terrified them.
For a moment both groups just stood there, staring at each other, the tepid neon lights flickering sporadically. Then, as one body, the members of the Society of Lycanthropy slowly advanced.
Mary and Danny ran down the silent, unmoving escalator.
‘I think there’s a strike on,’ yelled Danny. ‘There won’t be any trains. What are we going to do?’
‘Now you tell me!’
‘We couldn’t have got past them. We’ll have to hide somewhere down here.’
They ran on until they reached the bottom, where all they could hear was the humming of electricity. Gazing fearfully up at the escalator, they saw the members of the Society purposefully walking down towards them. Then one of the tracksuited young women began to run, lightly, easily, the anger shining in her eyes.
*
Danny and Mary ran down a long concrete passage to the platforms below, praying for the sound of a train but knowing they were going to be unlucky. Where could they hide, they both wondered? Danny tried a door that said STAFF ONLY, but it was locked; Mary rattled at another with no success. Now they were on a platform, panting, trapped, the panic surging inside them.
‘We can’t go up the tunnel,’ gasped Mary. ‘The electricity might still be on.’
‘Let’s move down the other end. Keep as far away from them as we can.’ But he knew their pursuers were close behind.
They ran on, then paused at the bottom of the next flight of steps.
‘I can hear something,’ said Danny. ‘Listen.’
There was a distant vibration and a blast of hot wind.
‘Could it be a train?’ whispered Mary.
‘Maybe.’
The vibration slowly began to increase until there was a distant hum on the rails.
‘It is a train,’ said Danny with relief.
They stared down the platform. No one was there. Where were the members? Could they just have wanted to give them a fright and then gone away?
The hum turned into a roar, and as the tube train emerged from the tunnel at tremendous speed their sense of relief was overwhelming.
The carriages flashed past, the lights on inside, the empty seats safely inviting – but within seconds the tube train had gone, leaving a trail of sparks on the line.
Danny and Mary stood on the empty platform in the gathering silence, which was beginning to cling like a suffocating blanket around them.
‘Shall we double back?’ Mary said.
Danny shook his head. ‘They’ll be there. Waiting.’
‘There must be another train,’ said Mary desperately. ‘They wouldn’t have kept the station open if there wasn’t.’
‘Maybe someone’s forgotten to lock up,’ said Danny. ‘Or it’s been left open for the cleaners. Or something.’
‘I can’t see anyone.’
There wasn’t a sound anywhere either.
‘OK,’ said Mary at last. ‘We won’t double back. Let’s try up this way.’
They hurried up the steps, along the concrete passageways, the normality of the posters for films and theatres and galleries and fast food outlets and products of all kinds radiating security. How could the members of the Lycanthropy Society be threatening them when there were posters advertising Horlicks and fish fingers? The mundane normality soothed them, made Danny and Mary more and more certain that everything was going to be – must be – all right. They reverted to worrying about their parents and condemning themselves for upsetting them.
A sign read EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY, and they climbed an iron staircase, hurrying now and beginning to run, the cold sweat clammy on their skin and a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs. There were no comforting advertisements here, only damp green tiles that had blackened in places. There was a shut-in smell, and a little draughty wind blew down on them.
Danny was the first to see the fur-covered hand, but almost immediately Mary caught a glimpse of the coarse dark hair that now covered the face of the woman with the shopping bag. The members of the Society were waiting for them on the steps.
‘But what happened?’ asked Terry feverishly. ‘Did they escape?’
‘They got home eventually,’ replied Alice. ‘But they were never the same again.’
‘What does lycanthropy mean?’ Terry knew now but he still wanted it spelt out.
‘The power to change oneself into a wolf,’ replied Colin quietly.
There was a long silence, as the storytellers stared into the crackling flames.
‘I think I might turn in soon,’ said Alice.
‘Yes,’ agreed Terry. ‘I might do that too.’
‘Wait a minute,’ interrupted Andros. ‘I’ve got a story to tell. Please listen to it.’
Out of respect for the refugee who had recently joined the club, the others listened.
4
Meat
Before we came to England, my sister and I were living in a refugee camp in
Eastern Europe where conditions were deteriorating rapidly each day. Winter was closing in and the war around us was getting worse. Supplies were dwindling, and we were so hungry that we thought about food all the time. We used to have these fantasy conversations where we each planned our favourite meal and then described it to the others. It was a kind of torture really, but it was a torture that we just couldn’t avoid inflicting on each other.
Then, one day, Father took me aside. Our mother had died the year before and none of our relatives was in the camp. Father was the only one Ela and I had left.
‘Andros,’ he said. ‘Something has happened.’
‘We’re going to be freed?’ I asked. ‘Allowed to go back home?’ That was the one thought and prayer we all had. But Father shook his head.
‘I’m afraid we’re stuck here – and could be for some time.’
‘We’re starving.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Why?’ I demanded urgently. Short-term, food was everything; it even masked the thought of returning home.
‘A man has arrived – a man I used to know. His name is Fidov Levant. He’s a sort of hermit and has lived in the forest for years – and he’s bought in some supplies.’
‘What kind of supplies?’ I gasped eagerly. ‘Nuts? Fruit?’
‘Meat,’ replied Father slowly.
‘Meat?’ I stared at him, almost salivating at the mention of the word.
‘Yes. But it’s a limited supply. The adults will get a few morsels but we’ve decided to give most of it to the children.’
‘You can’t do that. You’ll die,’ I protested. In spite of the constant pangs of terrible hunger I knew I couldn’t let my father starve – and neither would Ela. ‘We’ve got to share alike.’
‘No, Andros. There isn’t enough.’
Father was adamant that the plan would go ahead, and no amount of arguing on my part could do anything to dissuade him.
‘Where did you get the meat?’ I asked Fidov. He was old, with a gaunt, leather-skinned face, but perhaps because of his height and lean figure he looked fit despite his age.
‘International Red Cross,’ he said. ‘There was a surplus requirement on the border and I managed to persuade them to bring it back here. They agreed – because there’s so little. I’m sorry – it’s all I could do.’
That night, fires were lit in the compound, and the smoke drifted up towards the high, snow-covered mountains that surrounded the camp. We had often heard what we thought was the howling of wolves out there, and although we knew they had all died now, I had the feeling that these ghostly animals were our real gaolers, far more so than the protective guards and the wired-in compound.
That night the unaccustomed activity, the bustle of stoking the fires and cutting up the meat, made me feel anxious and unsettled. Somehow, the more I thought about it, I couldn’t help suspecting Fidov. Was he really telling the truth? Would the Red Cross entrust precious food, however small the consignment, to this wild-looking hermit? And would a hermit be on negotiating terms with the Red Cross, or anyone else for that matter? It did seem unlikely. Nevertheless, the thought of eating meat gradually obscured not only my father’s self-sacrifice but also the source of supply. I didn’t really care whether he had stolen it or not. Greed had me in its grip.
The meat was cooked on the fires and smelt utterly delicious. Once it was ready and cut up with a little bread that we had made from the last of the flour, the aroma was so amazing that Ela and I could hardly wait for our turn, and I knew that if I had been denied my portion I would have fought to the death for it. I was repelled at my thoughts, but could still hardly wait to bite into the succulent flesh.
But when the meat came, it wasn’t succulent. It was dry and tough; some of us thought it was venison but it had a much ranker taste. However hungry I was, I could barely swallow it and I could see that Ela felt exactly the same. I chewed a small piece and then spat it out, feeling as if I was going to be sick.
‘It’s horrible,’ said Ela.
‘Disgusting,’ I replied in deep disappointment. Our anticipation had been so great – yet the result was nauseating. And we were starving! I tried again and so did Ela, but we simply couldn’t mange to eat the smallest piece.
But this was not the case with the other kids. They wolfed the meat down with enormous, almost painful, pleasure, and when they saw we weren’t eating they fought to get our portions and were eventually, and only with difficulty, separated by the adults.
I lay in bed that night feeling bitterly frustrated. What was more, having smelt the cooking and anticipated the feast I was now hungrier than ever, and eventually I fell asleep dreaming that I was eating Fidov’s meat – and that miraculously I could swallow it.
‘What’s that?’ Ela was in my part of the corrugated iron hut that we called home and which was freezing cold at night and baking hot by day. Father, who usually slept beside me, was out, no doubt still talking around the smouldering embers of one of the fires.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ I replied.
‘Listen!’
Straining my ears, I could just catch a faint sound – and then silence.
‘They’ve gone,’ she said at last.
‘What are gone?’ I asked impatiently, exhausted and still ravenously hungry.
‘The wolves. I heard them. They were round the fence.’ Ela was only ten and easily frightened. She also had a vivid imagination.
‘They can’t have been. There aren’t any wolves in this area now, Ela. They all died out years ago. I suppose there might be the odd one or two that –’
‘They were round the fence,’ she insisted. ‘I saw them. They were waiting.’
*
Next morning there was a noticeable absence of children, and I asked my father where they had all gone.
‘They’re sick,’ he replied. ‘Nothing serious.’
‘Food poisoning?’ I asked. ‘I thought that meat tasted rank.’
‘They’ll be fine,’ he snapped. ‘At least they had some nourishment.’
‘I don’t call that nourishment,’ I replied and he stamped away, looking angry.
Then Ela came up to me. ‘Have you looked in the hospital?’
She meant a large and dilapidated ex-army tent which was now a damp and draughty makeshift hospital. ‘No. Why?’
‘It’s full of kids.’
‘So Father says. Apparently they’re sick – after eating all that meat.’
‘They’re running a fever,’ she said. ‘And I think they’re going to die.’
I was sure that Ela was over-reacting, but directly I walked inside the tent I knew that she was right. It was dreadful to see all my friends – and even some kids I disliked – lying on dirty mattresses, running in sweat and turning this way and that, their faces contorted with pain.
I was just about to retreat when Divik, one of my closest friends, called out to me and I knew I couldn’t be cowardly enough not to go over to him. ‘Andros,’ he whispered. ‘Andros.’
I knelt down by his mattress. ‘You’re going to get well,’ I said, staring down at him as he writhed.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘They’re waiting for me. They’re waiting for all of us.’
‘What do you mean? Who’s waiting?’ I asked.
But he turned away from me and I knew poor Divik was delirious. He began to mutter, but I couldn’t catch anything he was saying at all and eventually I left him, his two lucid sentences beating in my mind. ‘They’re waiting for me. They’re waiting for all of us.’ Who were they?
When I got back to Ela I told her what I had seen and what Divik had said and she was as puzzled as I was.
‘They ate the meat,’ she said. ‘That’s all they’ve got in common. Maybe he means the guards – or the hospital. Do you think they might get sent to a proper hospital, Andros?’ she said excitedly. ‘They’d be out of here at last if that happened.’
‘The hospital’s too far away.’ I shrugged, trying for her
sake not to appear too worried. ‘Maybe the fever will burn itself out. They’ve got food poisoning, but it depends on how bad it is.’
‘It’s the meat that was bad,’ snapped Ela angrily. ‘That old fool Fidov should be punished.’
But when I asked Father about him, he brusquely told me that Fidov had moved on.
That night, Ela and I were woken again by the howling of wolves at the perimeter fence. This time I could see them, but Ela said there were many more than on the previous night. I tried not to feel afraid, grateful now for the hated wire enclosure. The nights were bitterly cold, and if the wolves were as hungry as we were they would be at their most dangerous. They bounded again and again at the fence, their eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
A man came running from the makeshift hospital, at first shouting something neither Ela nor I could hear above the howling of the wolves. Then slowly and chillingly I began to make out what he was saying. ‘The children are gone.’
As he spoke, I saw something hanging on the top of the fence. It looked as if it were part of the ripped sleeve of a small shirt. Then I saw another segment of cloth. And another. I stared round, panic-stricken, and could suddenly see ripped pieces of clothing everywhere. But how could forty desperately sick children climb over the high fence? And why?
‘Come in.’ Father grabbed Ela and me in a tight grip. ‘Come in now.’
‘But the children – they’ve all gone from the hospital tent,’ I yelled.
‘I know,’ he replied flatly.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ demanded Ela.
‘Nothing.’
‘Why? Why nothing?’ She was beside herself with fearful, frustrated rage.
‘They went of their own free will,’ he muttered. ‘There’s nothing we can do for them now.’
Father dragged us into one of the huts and he and some other men and women began to board up the windows and doors, leaving only a small gap to see through.
They had barely finished when the howling of the wolves intensified.
Werewolf Stories to Tell in the Dark Page 3
