The Jonah

by James Herbert

  When the senior officer remarked that she, herself, might only be allowed a minimum of time on her area of investigation unless there were some positive results, Ellie nearly blurted out what she and Kelso had turned up so far. Instead, she assured Gifford that she felt they were close to something but, as yet, were only following up loose theories. Fortunately, her superior had sufficient confidence in her investigative abilities not to press the issue. But, he told her firmly, the minute anything concrete turned up, he wanted to know. He didn’t want the Drugs Squad moving in without them.

  From the Customs and Excise headquarters, Ellie went to her flat just off Wigmore Street, and after cooking herself a meal, packed some more clothes for her stay in Adleton. She happily hummed to herself when she tucked away some of her more flimsy underwear. It shouldn’t be happening, she mock-scolded herself. He was a professional, she was a professional, and they were involved in a serious, and probably dangerous, investigation. Making love was a distraction that shouldn’t have been indulged in. She stared at herself in the dressing-table mirror. Falling in love was a distraction that shouldn’t have been indulged in.

  She sat on the bed, wary of her own emotions, feeling both happy yet afraid. But why should there be any fear? What was it about him that caused such a reaction? For some reason, Ellie began to weep, but the tears were not the kind that racked the body, that came in short, anguished gasps, but tears that seeped singularly from the corners of the eyes and fell slowly down her cheeks. Ellie rested her head against a pillow and soon she was asleep.

  She returned to the government laboratory later that evening, having stopped to make a small purchase on the way. The analyst had not yet begun his autopsy on the vole and he insisted that she leave him alone to work in peace. They agreed to meet later in the bar of the nearby National Theatre and Ellie strolled along the Embankment for a while, her collar turned up and hands tucked into her pockets against the dampness of the air. It was bitterly cold for April, the kind of weather that was depressing because winter had overstayed its time and warm sunshine was hard to remember. She wanted desperately to make contact with Kelso, but there was no way it could be done. She looked north across the river and saw the rainclouds resting low on the horizon. There was something ominous in their heavy blackness, a pressing darkness that made her shiver inwardly.

  The bar in the National Theatre was almost empty by the time Foxcroft arrived, the various intermissions of each play performed in the huge, grey-slabbed theatre complex long since over. He had a curious look on his face when Ellie bought him a gin and tonic at the bar, but he refrained from asking any questions until they were seated at one of the white round tables which littered the vast lounge area.

  He had found traces of LSD in the vole and was curious to know just how the creature had come into contact with the drug. Classified information, she told him. He looked disgruntled. Again, why had there been no formal documentation with her request? No time, she explained, and she was working purely on a hunch. She had squeezed his hand and left him there with a dissatisfied and slightly miffed expression on his face. Her promise to return the favour some time failed to elevate his mood.

  The drive back to Suffolk was both tedious and frustrating. Heavy rainfall lashed at the windscreen as soon as she was through the outskirts of London, and oncoming headlights did their best to dazzle her off the road.

  It was only as she had approached the minor roads leading towards the coastal town that the rain eased off, and now, as she reached the first few houses of Adleton, her apprehension inexplicably began to grow. She had slowed down earlier as the car passed the narrow road which led down to Eshley Hall, an eerie feeling drawing her gaze in the direction of the manor house. She had forced herself to ignore the peculiar sensation, pressing her foot down hard on the accelerator pedal to speed on by, but the unease had persisted.

  She was determined now to convince Kelso to call in the troops; the dead vole was definite proof that there was LSD coming out of Eshley Hall and an authorized raid would confirm it. It was much too dangerous for them to continue on their own; the incident with the bulldozer proved that. Jinx or not, Jim was going to listen to reason this time.

  The Escort was descending the hill leading down to the town centre and Ellie gently applied the brakes. At the T-junction at the bottom of the hill, she turned left and drove towards the caravan site. It was hard to believe there were other people on earth, the streets were so quiet, no lights shining in the houses on either side of the road. Still, it could hardly be described as a lively town even in daylight hours, so what could she expect in the middle of the night – or early hours of the morning to be more precise?

  The car bumped over the rough track inside the site and the caravans stood like cardboard cutouts in the glare of its headlights. Steering through the ranks towards Kelso’s trailer, Ellie kept a wary eye out for any lurking figures; she saw none, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any there. She brought the Escort to a halt beside the right caravan and switched off the lights, instantly regretting her hastiness in doing so, for the quarter-moon was hidden behind rolling clouds, and the night outside was a dense black. For a moment, she considered tooting the horn to get Kelso to come to the door, but then grew angry at herself for acting like a nervous schoolgirl. She grabbed the shoulder-bag and her hold-all filled with fresh clothing and stepped out of the car. It wasn’t so dark once her eyes had become adjusted, but nevertheless, she hurried over to the caravan’s door.

  She cursed herself for not having taken out the spare doorkey Kelso had given her while still in the car but, knowing his habit of leaving the door unlocked anyway, she reached for the handle. Idiot! He’d done it again. The door was open.

  Ellie pushed it wide and called out his name as she mounted the steps. Even though she could not see, Ellie knew that the hands that reached out for her in the darkness did not belong to Kelso.

  They had taken him across the river, bound, gagged, completely wrapped up in coarse material. He knew they had dragged him back along the underground passageway and onto the boat; he knew he had lain below on a narrow bench or bunk while they journeyed across, moving upstream towards the old mill. But reality had rapidly slipped away.

  Kelso was aware of what was happening, but the awareness was becoming too acute, too unreal. His skin began to glow where the rough material touched it and, although he knew they had covered him in sacking, the cloth felt like huge boulders joined together. And he could see through the cracks, could almost slide through them, could almost absorb the rocks into his own pores. The unreality had become the true reality.

  Yet his senses had remained on a conscious level, he had not forgotten his plight, had not forgotten that the men around him meant him harm.

  When they had taken him from the boat, carrying him as if he were nothing more than a loose bundle, raindrops, each one a separate cascading waterfall, had drenched the sacking material, falling between the chasms to soak his skin and enter him so he himself had become a reservoir, a lake that contained living creatures, his own cells joining with the micro-organisms which danced in the raindrops. He almost panicked, for his breathing seemed restricted, too shallow.

  Then he was inside the huge cavern that was the mill and they had pulled the sacking from him so that he felt he was falling into the very vastness of the building itself, into a universe of rusted red steel girders and cobwebs that hung from the rafters like dusty lace drapes. There were three men around him, the same two who had brought him up from the cellar earlier, and Henson, whose face loomed before him like a huge inflated balloon, every vein, every pore, visible even in the gloom of the poorly lit building. The balloon came even closer and Kelso nearly panicked, feeling he would be swamped by it, suffocated in its softness. The eyes, brilliantly blue, no longer belonged to Henson’s face. They swam out on their own and they were full of crystals that dazzled Kelso like diamonds sparkling in a shaft of light. But still part of his consciousness remained on the
level of normal human concepts.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ a voice boomed out, filling his head and bouncing from wall to wall inside his skull. Henson’s distorted mouth was moving and he was afraid of the huge chasm that opened and closed. The words were not in synchronization with the blood-red lips, though; sometimes they lagged behind, sometimes they were said before they were physically formed. ‘If Bannen had brought you here, he would have killed you, orders or not. You’ve hurt him twice too often. It’s lucky his burns need treatment.’

  Kelso’s hands were still tied behind his back and he tried to scream through the gag that the ropes were cutting into him, that they were becoming tighter, searing his flesh, melting away the bones in the wrists. The three men paid him no heed. He was pulled across the floor, white dust rising like a snow blizzard, each particle clear and beautifully shaped.

  They moved through into another part of the building, Henson switching on lights as they went, and the structure around them seemed to change shape. The girders were no longer straight, but bent inwards as though trying to reach one another; even more disturbing, they were no longer solid – they seemed to be made of a pliable substance, not plastic, but liquid. Kelso began to panic, sure that the building was collapsing around them, but the three men did not seem to be aware of what was happening. The ceiling was lower in this part of the building and he could see the rotted wood above them, and he tried to sink to his knees, certain that the ceiling was slowly descending on them.

  ‘He’s fuckin gone with it already,’ a voice boomed.

  ‘It’s hardly surprising with the dose he’s had. He’ll be in a lot worse state soon.’ It could have been Henson’s voice replying, but sounds were becoming indistinct, for every part of the building was making its own noise and the sagging floorboards above them were loudest of all. Even the dust particles seemed to click as they struck each other.

  ‘Look, Kelly.’ Fingers sank into his face and became part of him. His head was swung towards a tower-like construction that narrowed into a funnel towards ground level. A metal shaft led away from its base through the wall of the building. ‘That’s a pulverizer. That’s where everything is mixed into a fine powder.’ Henson picked up white dust from the floor and threw it into Kelso’s face. The particles were suspended in space, a galaxy of fiery stars. He closed his eyes and the stars shattered around him.

  ‘That’s where Trewick finished up!’ the voice bellowed. ‘He was ground to dust, Kelly. Into animal feed. Not a bone of him left. You’re going to go the same way unless you come clean with us!’

  ‘He can’t hear you! He’s too far gone – he doesn’t know what you’re talking about!’

  But Kelso did, and he was even more afraid. His mouth was dry, his throat parched.

  They dragged him on, through a doorway, past a steep concrete stairway that disappeared into the darkness above, and towards an area of solid concrete. They stopped before a wooden trapdoor in the stone.

  ‘That’s what the workers here call The Pit, Kelly! It leads to the conveyor-belt that carries the grain from the bins above us to the outside! If anything goes wrong with the belt, someone has to go down there to sort it out. Only trouble is, no one wants to go down there!’

  Their laughter beat at his mind, bludgeoning his senses.

  ‘You know why, Kelly? Because it’s bloody dark down there, even in the daytime. And it’s full of rats! Have you seen the kind of rats that run loose in feed mills, Kelly? They’re big because they’re well fed! There’s no way that we can keep them down, not in a place like this!’ Again the laughter, but there was also fear in the sound. ‘They’ll be keeping you company tonight. If you’re lucky, they won’t eat you! But they might try!’

  The trapdoor was lifted and Kelso stared into the black world that was from another dimension. He tried to scream again, but the sound was muffled. His hands were suddenly loose and the knife that had freed him prodded his back.

  ‘Down you go!’ a voice shouted.

  He saw the rungs leading down and he backed away from them because they were not solid and he would sink through them.

  ‘Down, Kelly. You’re lucky Sir Anthony wants you alive, otherwise we’d have left your hands tied. You’d have had no protection at all!’

  He tore the gag from his mouth and began to plead, his mind, through fear, focusing in on what was happening. They grabbed him and threw him down.

  One hand held onto the lip of the opening, but the fingers were viciously kicked away. He fell, the few feet feeling like miles, and landed on the concrete floor. The trapdoor was slammed shut above him and he clapped his hands against his ears to block out the thunder. A deep rumbling sound followed as something heavy slid over the hatch for added weight.

  A squeaking sound told him he was not entirely alone in the darkness.

  ‘Let me out!’ he screamed, reaching out for the ladder he knew was somewhere in front of him. His hand closed around a metal rung and he pulled himself towards it, reaching up for the next, then the next. His head hit the trapdoor as soon as he stepped onto the first rung and the pain flashed through his brain like sheet lightning, stopping not only there within his mind, but spreading throughout his body, flowing out again through his extremities. Reason told him that the pit he was in was not deep, yet he could not shake off the feeling that he was in some vast arena. He reached up once more and beat against the wood, screaming for them to let him out. He could hear scuttling noises all around.

  He had no idea of how long he stood there, pleading and trying to force the trapdoor upwards, for time had suddenly lost all meaning. It was now, and he was now, and his screams were now, and the darkness was . . . no longer darkness.

  Lights were exploding around him, beautiful lights that appeared as blinding white suns that showered into violent shades of red, blue and purple. Kelso sank to his knees and hid his eyes from them, but there was no escape for they were inside his own head. The lights dazzled him and he became no longer afraid of them, for they released his thoughts, somehow freeing his spirit. He wanted to see them, wanted to experience them. He wanted to be them. And he was. His body began to glow; his nerve ends began to tingle. Electric currents were running through him and a part of him that came from his mind ran with the currents, exploring his own body, one moment inside his fingertips, the next following the flow of blood inside his heart. He felt close to orgasm, each separate part of him an organ for pleasure, his enlarged penis no longer the sole instrument for such pleasure and release. But even that feeling was transcended as everything around him took on a brilliantly light blue hue; he was in the sky and there were no confines around him. The concrete grey slabs from where grain was fed through became gigantic buildings, none of their edges parallel, but each one related to an adjoining line, bending to meet each other and bristling with vitality, a life that was not of the material kind but the same as his own, for he had become part of that incredible landscape and the landscape had become a part of him. Then he was no longer just a part – he was everything around him.

  Tears glistened in his eyes and he saw everything through a multi-faceted diamond; nothing was singular, nothing stood alone. He felt close to something that was subliminal, something that was real, could be perceived, yet still could not be touched. Something in a dimension that was so close to the one that he, himself, existed in, only a thin tissue, an incorporeal substance separating them. He glided into the ethereal barrier, knowing he only had to rend the tissue with a fingernail to pass through . . .

  . . . and everything began to change . . .

  Blackness threw itself at him and creatures scuttled across the void, creatures with long pointed heads and bristling fur; and the euphoria vanished to be replaced once more by the excruciating fear.

  And there was the smell.

  Not the smell of the dust around him, nor even the smell of the crushed powder. It wasn’t the smell of rat spoors and it wasn’t the smell of spiders in their webs.

  It was the s
tench of corruption.

  The odour that had assailed him so many times in the past. And suddenly, he was reliving those moments. Images flashed through his mind, parts of his life that he had tried to dismiss, tried to block out for the sake of his own sanity. Some memories were stronger than others, lingering before him as though they were taunts, tormenting and causing him to cry out with their clarity.

  The smell became even stronger and he began to retch. Even though his body convulsed, his muscles tensing then jerking loose, his limbs twisting uncontrollably, the memories flooded through.

  He was gazing down at Sandy lying crushed and broken on the pavement.

  Years between sped by, incidents that he could never explain appeared briefly, then dissolved into other incidents.

  He was staring at his father’s naked body draped over the side of the bath, the old man’s face contorted in an expression of horror and pain.

  More years flew by. More incidents.

  He was cowering in the bombed-out house and the three boys were coming up the stairs after him. He was turning and they were no longer there. The terrible screams over the tearing, crashing sound as they had plummeted down into the floor below, one to be killed, one to be forever paralysed, the other, the youngest, never to remember what had happened that day.

  More time streaked by, always going back, and all clearly seen.

  He was in the orphanage, sitting on a bed, talking to someone – a friend, but it wasn’t clear who the friend was. The door, already open, swung wide and the old man had charged in, had shaken him, cursed him. And the terrible sound only moments later when the old man had tripped and fallen down the stairs. The odd look on his face, the odd angle of his neck, when all the children had rushed out to see what had caused the noise.