The Nightmare Man: (Child of the Vodyanoi)

by David Wiltshire

  “I can understand. In my case I thought I was going mad. And what frightened me more was the realization that the others thought so too.”

  They reached the steps to the flat. The black windows looked even darker against the starry sky. Down in the pharmacy the ‘prescriptions’ sign still struggled feebly, its weak light adding to the bleakness rather than helping.

  Dunlop took her arm from his.

  “Give me the keys.”

  Fiona pulled her shoulder bag off and rummaged inside. It seemed ages before she found them. Dunlop’s teeth began to chatter.

  “Sorry, Ian, here they are.”

  He climbed the stairs, Fiona behind.

  Whether it was her fear that transferred to him, the strain of the last few days, or both, he didn’t know, but as he got the key into the lock and felt the door give, the hair on the back of his neck actually bristled.

  He told himself not to be bloody stupid and stepped into the black void. The light flooded on, turning the monsters in his mind into the familiar, everyday things of her hallway. After the enforced absence it looked marvellous.

  He turned, dangling the keys.

  “Well, there we are then.”

  Fiona looked sheepish. “Could you check the other rooms?”

  “Sure.”

  He went from room to room, putting on the lights.

  When he turned on the last one he came back to her in the kitchen.

  “There, everything’s okay.”

  She was filling a kettle.

  “Thanks, Ian.” She tried to appear nonchalant. “Care for a cup of something? Tea-coffee?”

  “Tea—that would be great.”

  He tensed as he put out the feeler. “It’ll save me when I get home.”

  She didn’t say anything to begin with, busying herself with cups and saucers, spoons, the tea caddy, never looking at him.

  Despondently, he sat down at the kitchen table and waited. Finally Fiona turned around.

  “Ian. .

  “Yes?”

  She gave a sigh of resignation—of defeat.

  “Stay the night?”

  Dunlop nodded dumbly.

  There were several things he wanted to say, had ready to say, but now at the crunch he was nearly speechless. All that came out was, “I haven’t any pyjamas.”

  She turned her back again and pretended to do something. There seemed to be a lot of chopping and changing of teaspoons.

  “Don’t be daft; that never worried you before.”

  But there was something he had to know straight away. It was better to get it out immediately than let it drag on for ten minutes into an embarrassment for them both.

  “I wasn’t going to sleep in the spare room before.”

  She didn’t reply immediately, carefully pouring the hot water into the teapot. She stirred the contents for a moment before she replaced the china lid, turned and set it down on the table. Her face was very slightly flushed, her voice small.

  “You don’t have to tonight.”

  It took a second or two for him to reply.

  “Are you sure you know what you are saying, knowing the way I feel about you? Nothing’s changed.”

  She pursed her lips.

  “I know that.”

  “Then to ask me to sleep next to you is ...” He faltered, and then found the courage to continue. “... either cruel or stupidly insensitive, and the latter you are not.”

  Her breasts rose and fell as she found difficulty in breathing. “Cruel? Why am I cruel?”

  Dunlop finally snorted.

  “Oh, come on girl. I love you. Lying next to you in bed, you’re mine. When it happened I wouldn’t want any guilty feelings—from either of us.”

  Still frowning she digested his words as she poured the tea. She placed the steaming mug before him.

  “Would there have to be guilty feelings then?”

  “Yes. You say you are going back to your husband—he needs you. Then if you’re his you can't be mine. I’m here tonight as a friend.”

  He lapsed into a miserable silence.

  Finally she nodded.

  “Yes of course. You’re right. I thought it could be just the same as usual. I can see now it’s impossible.”

  Shattered, he could only manage a disgruntled, “Of course.”

  When he took another sip, the old now familiar difficulty in swallowing made a terrible noise.

  They said nothing for nearly a minute.

  Fiona held her head, hand sheltering her eyes from the overhead light.

  “I’ve got a terrible headache. Do you mind then, bunking on the couch? I’ll get you blankets.”

  He shook his head silently. She got up and went to the airing cupboard. He followed her into the lounge as she set the blankets down.

  “I’ve found a pair of pyjamas after all.”

  He grunted, not caring much now.

  Silently he helped her spread a blanket as an undercover. When she started on the top one he stopped her.

  “It’s all right, I can manage. You go and get your head down.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She stood hesitantly before him.

  “Well, goodnight then—and bless you.”

  He gave a weak smile. “Any time. Knights for hire for damsels in distress.”

  She still stood. Dunlop wasn’t sure what was required of him. He carried on tucking in the blanket.

  She touched her head again over her right eye, and shuffled slowly to the door.

  “What time would you like a call in the morning?”

  He straightened up.

  “Inskip wants me down at the police station at eight. Half past seven will do.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll give you a good breakfast. It’s the least I can do.”

  His smile was perfunctory.

  “Goodnight.”

  When she was gone, the door closed, he sagged on to the couch and buried his face in his hands.

  McGrath was just about to play a queen of diamonds when he heard it. He stopped, card arrested in mid air.

  “Did you hear that?”

  Frazer and Campbell looked up more at the sudden change in the tone of his voice than what he said.

  Campbell stretched his neck to get a view of the card McGrath was still holding.

  “What?”

  McGrath still remained transfixed.

  “I thought I heard a noise.”

  “There’s plenty of them around here,” muttered Frazer. “I mind the time when they said they’d replace this old building with a new one, and that was back in sixty-six.”

  McGrath slowly lowered the card to the table, Campbell following its path hungrily all the way down. His eyes lit up when he saw it and with a whoop of triumph he immediately followed with his king.

  Distracted, McGrath failed to sustain his interest in the sound he thought he had heard. The play continued. Twenty minutes later, as they finished yet another round, McGrath pulled his winnings towards him and began counting and stacking the plastic counters borrowed from a bingo game that they habitually used for stakes.

  Arms crossed, Frazer rubbed the tops of his shoulders vigorously.

  “Is it my imagination, or is it getting colder in here?”

  McGrath looked up from his piles of gaily coloured discs.

  “Ay, I was wondering that myself. Check the thermometer, Bill.”

  Campbell, who had been disconsolately watching his chief amass his winnings, got up and left the room.

  In the long passage that led down the entire side of the building at the back, he stopped by the round ship’s-type thermometer.

  He frowned. The needle was registering 59°. He put his hand on the pipes as he tapped the glass. The needle didn’t move and the pipe was cold. The man walked down the corridor and opened a door set in the inner wall. Inside a recess was an oil fired boiler.

  The temperature gauge was registering nearly thr
ee quarters down. Bill Campbell sank on to his haunches and looked through the perspex observation window. There was no flame. Puzzled he checked the stop valve. It was in the ‘on’ position.

  “Damn.” He swore out loud to nobody but himself. The No. 1 tank must have run out, and the reserve had failed to cut in. It had happened before, the pipes were always fouling up.

  Grumbling, he grabbed his coat from the wall, and picked up the tool box that was kept handily beside the coat rack. He’d forgotten the door was locked and bolted. Irritated, he had to stretch up to draw back the top bolt, and then stoop down to do the same on the lower.

  The outside air cut like a knife into his lungs. His feet crunched and sank into the frost-hardened snow, his breath steaming around him.

  The three big tanks were sited away from the building, standing alone on their own specially built concrete raft.

  He set his tools down and climbed up a couple of rungs on the side of the nearest tank. Reaching up he felt for the little pulley-wheel that lowered the float into the tank. If it had stuck, the switch-over mechanism wouldn’t have cut in.

  His hand found the wheel and spun it. There was some movement, but he felt the pulley moving back again. Puzzled, he stepped down to the ground. He tapped the tank with his knuckle. It gave a dull metallic sound, but not the ringing echo he expected. He did it again higher up. This time the sound was more hollow. Baffled, he stepped back. If the tank was three-quarters full, why had the oil-flow stopped?

  His eyes fell upon the horizontal control wheel set into the pipe leading towards the building. He squatted down, and gave it an experimental twist. It was stuck, tightly in.the ‘off’ position.

  “Well I’m buggered.”

  He grasped the wheel firmly and began turning it on. It screeched, making the same noise as it did when McGrath had heard it being turned off.

  He was nearly finished when something made him stop and slowly look up. He sucked in his breath, and then stopped breathing. There, on the flat side of the tank was a huge pointed shadow cast in the light from the open door.

  The man felt the hot liquid coursing down his leg. He turned slowly around. There was nothing there.

  His breath had just started to release when with sickening realization he was aware that the stars in the sky were absent above him, to his right, covered by a dreadful pointed shape.

  It jerked, the goggles flashing in the reflected light from the building that now seemed a thousand miles away.

  “No... no.”

  Whimpering, Campbell fell back as the blackness descended over him.

  17

  McGrath looked at his new cards for the third time, knowing that he was sure to win this hand.

  “Come on, where are you?” he called.

  There was no reply. Frazer finished lighting his pipe and carefully set his matches down neatly beside his own cards. He shivered.

  “Ye gods, it’s really cold in here. There must be a fault.”

  McGrath sniffed.

  “Do you smell something?”

  The older man groaned. “You’re not going to joke about my tobacco again are you?”

  “No—I can smell fresh oil.” McGrath got up. “He must be having trouble.”

  Leading the way, he walked out of the room and round the- corner into the back corridor.

  “Bloody hell.”

  McGrath ran forward, and reached the central heating unit, his feet splashing in the kerosene oil that flooded the area. Quickly he turned off the supply.

  “God what a mess. Where is the idiot?”

  “Bill!” Frazer’s call echoed emptily down the uncarpeted passage.

  McGrath pointed to the place where the tool bag was stored.

  “Tools are gone—he must be outside. Damned idiot.”

  He threw the door open.

  “Bill—you out there?”

  The only sound was a dull metallic clunking noise.

  “Bill!”

  There was still no reply.

  Frazer added his voice, unable to keep the anxiety out of his tone.

  “Billie, stop your damned joking will you.”

  Nothing—only the clanking. They looked at each other. McGrath spoke first.

  “Maybe he’s slipped up and given himself a knock.”

  Quickly they ran out to the tanks.

  The older man’s foot kicked into something.

  “Here’s his tool box. Bill!”

  Frazer’s shout made them both jump. McGrath pointed down.

  “See if the torch is in there.”

  The other coastguard produced the heavy duty electric battery lamp.

  “Ay here it is.”

  McGrath grabbed at it and flicked it on, the powerful white beam reflecting brilliantly from the torch.

  “Oh Jesus.”

  McGrath pointed to the ground. It was covered in blood.

  They drew nearer to each other, as the clanking came again, close to. Frazer’s voice was shaky.

  “Billie lad—can you hear us?”

  A soft groan came from around the back of the tanks.

  Huddled together they moved slowly to the corner.

  “Billie?”

  This time McGrath only spoke the words. The groan came again, ending in a little sigh.

  They stepped out around the corner. The beam of light lanced out across the snow and played on the distant rocks. It took a second for it to register that nobody was standing or lying before them. Only when McGrath moved the torch around did the dangling, boot-covered feet leap into their vision, almost in touching distance from their faces.

  “Christ, he’s slipped and hung himself.”

  Frazer rushed forward and took the weight of the body as McGrath swung the light up on to the young man’s face.

  The shock of what they saw made the older man let go and stagger back.

  Campbell, suspended by a chain around his chest, stared fixedly down at them with eyes bulging out of their sockets. Where his throat had been was just a red gash with bits of pipe sticking out.

  Even as they watched, the blood that had been ebbing and flowing from an artery, forming a red stream down his chest and legs, fluttered and stopped.

  But, bad as his injuries were, it was the face that riveted their attention. Apart from the pop eyes, the mouth had been slit at the corners, lifting in an upward curve on either cheek to expose the teeth at the side of the jaw.

  The overall effect was like the demented, laughing face of a dummy on the seaside pier.

  They backed away, and then ran full tilt for the door. McGrath stumbled and cannoned into Frazer.

  “Get the guns. It must be that thing they were on about.”

  They jammed in the doorway, elbowing each other in panic. Together they burst into the passage—and froze.

  There on the floor before them was a strange trail in blood and oil, leading down the passage where it finally petered out.

  “It’s in here with us.” McGrath’s voice was only a whisper, but it seemed to fill the corridor.

  Backing away, Frazer said: “Let’s get into the bedroom and barricade the door.

  “McGrath tightened his lips.

  . “Hell, we can’t just run away from it. The armoury is down there. It’s our only chance.”

  “Don’t be daft, man. It’s a killer.”

  McGrath stood in indecision until Frazer pulled at his sleeve. He brushed the hand off and made up his mind.

  “We don’t know if it can use them. It might be in the food store. There’s a chance I could get a gun and finish it off.”

  The older man continued to back off.

  “Don’t do it. For Christ’s sake come back.”

  But McGrath was already treading carefully, flattened to the wall, down the long darkened corridor.

  The older man watched as McGrath reached a corner. He looked back fleetingly, then bent forward and peered around.

  Without looking back he gave the thumbs-up sign—and slipped fr
om view.

  Frazer nervously looked around. Even the half-open door into the brightly lit mess room behind him looked sinister.

  Perhaps the thing had come this way—the marks only a blind?

  He shivered, and started to move cautiously after McGrath —anything was better than being on his own. Uncaring he reached the mass of oil, and started into it.

  Halfway through he nearly died—of shock.

  The most terrible human scream shattered the silent building, carrying on, and on—longer than any man could hold his breath—yet he recognized McGrath’s voice.

  It finally gurgled away to nothing.

  The man in the oil froze, his stiff arms and legs arrested where they were.

  The scream came again, higher, finally breaking into a pleading, choking sob that tailed off into a word.

  As soon as he heard McGrath almost calmly asking for his mother, Frazer broke and ran, forgetting about the oil. He fell heavily, arms and legs wildly thrashing in the black fluid. Still moving on hands and knees he fought clear and came upright, slithering at the corner and crashing into the end wall, leaving a trail of oil on the floor.

  In the bunk room he slammed the door shut and threw the bolt across. Terror threatened to shake his body apart.

  Wildly he looked around. The same terror gave him strength. He ran to the end of the huge wardrobe beside the door, and with the superhuman strength of the demented, got his shoulder behind it. Teeth clenched, whimpering, he pushed. It moved a few inches. He repositioned himself and pushed again. And again. And again, every time grunting with the extreme effort. It was only a quarter of the way across the door when he heard it.

  Transfixed with terror, not breathing because of the noise it would make, he listened. Footsteps. Ordinary human footsteps. His eyes widened and he let his breath out with a rush. McGrath, he must be alive! McGrath had killed it.

  He straightened up. The footsteps were fading slightly, going into the mess room. He looked around at the room, at the wardrobe now at a crazy angle, at his dishevelled, wild appearance—and acute embarrassment welled up in him.

  He tried to do something about his clothes, but his hands were still uncontrollable, shaking like butterflies as he tried to straighten his tie. He moved to the door.

  “Hello—I’m in here.”

  The footsteps stopped.