If there was any drawback, it was that the neighbourhood was a little cluttered. The streets were narrow, labyrinthine, and had the tendency to turn suddenly into flights of steps between different levels; you were never quite sure if someone was overlooking you or not.
A couple of times, Scott almost ran into trouble because of this. On the first occasion, he found a car parked up with its front-passenger window wound down, and a handbag in full view on a seat. He loitered for a second, glancing around, but only at the last minute did he look up and, directly overhead, see an elderly lady leaning from a window, watching him.
A few moments later he was wandering along another alley when he spotted a rear-gate standing ajar, and on the other side of that a window that had been propped open. Beside it, on the step, a row of uncollected milk bottles suggested the occupants were away. Again Scott dallied, considering – but then spotted a child in the next-door garden. Only its head was visible – it was probably on top of a climbing-frame or something – but it was gazing at him curiously. Scott gave the child the finger, and stalked on.
Neither of these incidents worried him unduly. At least, not as much as the sudden wooden clack he heard a few minutes later.
He came to an abrupt halt. Paused. Listened.
He stared to the front and back, but saw nothing and no one. The alley was still deserted. All he could hear now was a distant cheering from the town centre. But that clack – it had been sharp, abrupt. Like a gunshot echoing in the narrow streets. Anything could have made it, but Scott had the odd feeling that it had been for his benefit.
That was ridiculous, of course. But even so, when he moved on he moved cautiously, ears attuned. He ventured thirty yards to the next junction, looking warily both ways before crossing it. Leftwards, the passage ran up to a parked car and a closed garage door. Rightwards, it bent out of sight under a whitewashed brick arch. As Scott peered down that way, he heard another, very distinctive clack.
He tensed, wondering.
Had the noise come from down there, beyond the arch?
But even if it had done, what the hell? There was probably a perfectly logical explanation for it.
Not that he could think of one.
Scott decided he wasn’t going to hang around to find out. He pressed on quickly, feeling as though someone was watching him. He was quite close to the seafront, he told himself. Once down there, he’d be among other people again. He could take a rain-check on the whole situation.
But suddenly, the seafront wasn’t easily to be found.
Gulls called overhead, he could smell salt in the gentle breeze, but every passage he now took seemed to switch back on itself and send him uphill again.
He glanced though the gaps between houses, but instead of masts and blue sky, and the low, distant woods of the estuary’s eastern shore, he saw only more houses. What was worse, now it seemed there was nobody around to ask. Ten minutes ago, the knowledge that every front door and window was firmly closed because there was nobody at home would have encouraged him. Now, it disconcerted him. Surely the festival wouldn’t empty the residential neighbourhoods this completely? Surely people had other things to do?
He started violently – having just heard hooves.
At least, they’d sounded like hooves.
On concrete.
His ears strained.
Had it been hooves, that eerie but fleeting clip-clop-clip from somewhere close behind? He glanced backwards, but again saw no one. However, as before, the alley curved quickly out of sight, so someone could be close by and remain concealed.
But why should they be? And anyway, it couldn’t have been hooves. They wouldn’t have stopped after two or three beats. He’d have heard them fading off into the distance.
CLACK!
Much louder, much nearer.
Unable to stop himself, Scott began to run. He hared down the nearest passageway, taking pot luck rather than trusting to his sense of direction, and this time, ironically, shooting straight out onto the harbour-side esplanade, almost knocking over a couple of teenage girls as they walked cheerfully past, chomping on pasties.
He slid to a halt, aware that he was red-faced and dishevelled, acutely conscious that he’d drawn several querying glances from the numerous people dotted here and there.
One old boy seemed particularly interested; he was seated on a mooring-pillar, smoking a clay pipe. He had a grizzled, leathery face and white mutton-chop whiskers, and over the top of both he wore a faded seaman’s cap. He was typical of the sort Scott would expect to find on a Cornish dockside: a living, breathing cliché, probably sat here every day bemoaning the fact that he no longer had regular access to his shipmates’ arseholes. Still, the old git had clearly spotted Scott and was no doubt wondering who he was and what he was up to. The young hoodlum realized he’d already muddied these waters too much to continue trawling them.
He strolled across the esplanade to the edge of the dock, and gazed down at the green wavelets lapping the pilings. Striations of oil were visible on their surface, but ducks were bobbing about on them, and healthy fronds waved back and forth just underneath.
It was a pleasant enough scene, but Scott wasn’t taking it in; he was thinking. He glanced right. Beyond the old guy on the mooring-pillar – who was still watching him – he saw jetties, a forest of masts and, on the far side of those, shops and arcades. In the other direction, however, the buildings ran out fairly quickly. A stone quay jutted into the estuary, with a miniature lighthouse on the end of it, and beyond that there was nothing but sand-flats running steadily northwards.
Not sure why, but thinking this was worth investigating, Scott strode off in that vague direction. When he reached the quay he walked a few yards along it, and glanced northwards again. What he’d thought were sand-flats he now saw were an extension of beach; the tide was so low that much more of it was exposed than usual. With the sun at its zenith, it would normally be heaving with visitors, but, thanks to the festivities in the town, there was currently no one out there at all.
And then he saw something else.
Which pleased him no end.
Perhaps half-a-mile away, at the far end of the beach, there was a headland, and on that headland a cluster of four or five white bungalows.
Holiday-homes, almost certainly. They had to be, out in a favourable position like that. Which likely meant that many of their occupants, if not all, would be up in the town, enjoying the fun. Add to that the headland’s isolated position – it was probably only linked to the town by a narrow country lane, which would slow down the police response – and you had a handful of burglaries just waiting to happen.
Scott trotted down a flight of steps onto the sand and, with his hands thrust into his pockets, commenced an idle and apparently leisurely stroll north.
It wasn’t the first time he’d visited the seaside and found his visual perceptions distorted.
After twenty minutes at least, the headland still seemed a good half-mile away, though Scott had now left the environs of the town well behind.
To his left, there were high, rolling dunes crowned with tussocky marram grass, and beyond those were wooded hills. To his right lay the estuary, the glittering waterline of which suddenly seemed substantially closer. The sand, though flat and rippled, as it tended to be on quiet beaches, had dried out in the sun and was becoming crumbly, difficult to walk on.
He’d already taken his trainers off to avoid leaving identifiable sole-prints, but he soon had to put them on again; fragments of shells, crab-casing and small twists of black, hardened seaweed were littered everywhere, and cut like glass. On top of this, to increase his discomfort, the sea breeze was stiffening and freshening, and Scott was wearing nothing beneath his flimsy shell-suit jacket.
He shrugged, strode on determinedly. Hell, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to the cold. He’d absconded from custody numerous times, spending whole winter nights dossing in subways or under motorway flyovers.
By t
he same token, though, he wasn’t as fit as someone of his age should be. For one thing, he was undernourished: by choice, he spent most of his money on booze, cigs and drugs rather than food, while these, in their turn, had further damaged his health.
Even after twenty minutes he was tired and footsore, having trouble getting his breath. Still, who gave a shit? If he finished today with a pocket full of someone else’s jewellery, he’d be perfectly happy for a week or so.
He carried on walking, only for it to then strike him that, out here alone on this huge expanse of sand, he made a conspicuous figure. Anyone currently in residence on the headland would spot him easily.
It might have made more sense to approach along the road, where he could have kept a lower profile. But it was too late to do anything about that now. And, in any case, Scott didn’t really expect to get away with what he was doing here. Okay, they’d send him back to the clink, but they were going to do that come what may.
The main purpose of today, rather than make a major score that he could retire on, was to grab a bit of extra cash; that, and to get his own back on these fucking hicks who thought they were so cool taking the piss out of him.
But still the headland was no nearer. And now Scott had noticed something else. It wasn’t a clear stroll to it. A line of rocks had appeared in front of him, extending all the way down to the sea. He’d have to scramble over those before he got anywhere near the headland, and they weren’t small; they were more like outcrops than loose boulders. He’d probably be able to thread his way through them, but it wouldn’t be easy. It might also mean there’d be people around; youngsters and their grandparents investigating rock-pools and such.
“Shit,” he muttered.
This wasn’t running exactly to plan, but he’d keep going. If nothing else, he would give the Kidwells a good run-around for half a day. That should teach the do-gooding bastards a lesson.
So he plodded on defiantly, progressively narrowing the distance between himself and the rocks, which grew taller and taller, until soon they were towering over his head.
By this time his view of the headland had been blotted out. It was as though the last trace of fellow human life had been extinguished. That was an outlandish but nonetheless discomforting thought, rather like his experience down in the harbour-side neighbourhood, when he’d suddenly found himself eerily alone.
Scott stopped for a moment, breathing hard, his abused lungs working overtime. He glanced towards the water; the estuary had noticeably widened and its far shore was barely visible. Ahead, the rocks weren’t just tall, they’d adopted curious shapes; all jagged peaks and crooked spires, no doubt carved by the weather and the sea, but reminiscent of an alien planet rather than the Cornish coast.
And then – his thief’s sixth sense began to tingle.
He tensed, unsure what it meant. Was someone close by? If so, where? A moment passed, during which he scanned his immediate vicinity, seeing and hearing nothing. And then, slowly, he turned and stared behind him.
He couldn’t believe his eyes; but that didn’t make any difference to what he was seeing.
A large object – a large, red and black object – was in pursuit of him. It seemed to have come from the town, and it was approaching fast along the beach, unnaturally fast.
It was still well over a hundred yards away but he could clearly see the jutting, dragon-like head, the great oval body, the fluttering ribbons and streamers. And now he could hear it jingling, the bells on it, the harness.
At first Scott was bemused rather than frightened. How the hell could one man carry such a bulky costume, at such speed, over such a distance? And where were all the others who were with him? Where were the revellers, where was the “teaser” dressed as Punch?
Scott tried to scoff, tried to laugh at the ridiculous, garish object, though it didn’t look quite so ridiculous any more.
It was still awkward, clumsy, but it was also large and powerful, and even over this distance he could hear the ferocious, repeated clacking as its jaws snapped open and shut. And the question begged again, how could one man move like that under such an encumbrance?
If it was one man.
But then it had to be? Whoever he was, the guy’s head was in place in the middle of the hobby-horse’s broad back. The conical hat gave it away, but with all the paint and ribbons adorning it, it melded so comfortably into the rest of the creature’s livery that, in truth, it wasn’t really distinguishable.
And still the thing was coming.
Scott now fancied he could hear the thunder of galloping feet.
No – not galloping. That was ludicrous. Humans didn’t gallop.
All right, the thunder of pounding feet. But more than one pair.
And still it was coming. Now it was less than a hundred yards away, much less. Unquestionably, there was no human who could move that fast, or show such endurance.
By sheer instinct, Scott started to retreat.
He reached the rocks in record time, and hurriedly began to clamber among them.
As he’d hoped, there were many clefts and crannies that he could follow, some of which were narrow, their side-surfaces slick with weed or serrated with barnacles; not ideal avenues for something as large as Obby Oss.
Yet somehow Scott didn’t think this would pose a problem for it. And indeed, less than a minute later, he heard the jingle of its bells and harness again, the thumping and clopping – yes, the clopping – of its feet, as it came racing into the rocky enclave.
“This is not . . . happening,” he wheezed. “Not . . . happening . . .”
He found himself at the head of a narrow defile shaped like an inverted triangle. It was cluttered with boulders and pebbles, and slippery with weed.
He tottered down it, falling at least twice, gashing his arms, ripping holes in his shell-suit. But none of that mattered because he had to get away, and he would get away. He was Scott Sinclair, and he’d done jobs all over Manchester. He’d evaded some of the toughest cops in the whole of Great Britain. Of course, his options now weren’t quite as wide as when running for broke through the benighted sprawl of the city.
At the end of the defile, for example, he had to scale a sheer rock-face, skinning his fingertips, spraining his wrists. On the other side of that, he dropped downwards again. He didn’t mean to drop so quickly, but gravity took over and he found himself sliding on his arse over another near-vertical face, slashing yet more holes in his clothing and flesh.
The next thing he knew he was on sand again but, though it was easier to land on than rugged rock, it was problematic for different reasons. He’d alighted in a natural cove, with no obvious way out – other than the sea.
The walls hemming him in on all sides were probably not unclimbable, but they were hugely steep, and Scott was now exhausted. He hobbled forward, tripping and falling onto his knees.
Immediately, there was a scraping and clattering of what sounded like wood and – yes, hooves – behind him. He turned. Like some immense, armoured insect, Obby Oss had appeared over the parapet behind, and was now perched on the incline just below it, at an angle that was surely impossible.
Briefly it was still, the sun embossing its brilliant but demonic colours, glinting greasily from its thick whorls of oil paint, from its flashing crimson eyes and clamped white teeth.
Scott crab-crawled backwards, rose, turned, tried to run, and tripped and fell again.
He heard it start to descend. He glanced back; unbelievably, it was climbing down the rock-face head first, bulky and clumsy, swaying from side to side, but negotiating the perilous footing with astounding ease.
With no other options, he jumped to his feet and ran towards the water – but he’d never been a confident swimmer. Beyond the line of surf, it deepened quickly, and the first wave to hit his legs bowled him over. He plunged beneath the surface, and for seconds was in a frantic, twilit world of swirling, salty bubbles and lashing strips of kelp. Even then, he might have tried to make progre
ss, might have risked everything to swim out farther – had he not suddenly spotted certain things beneath him.
When he re-emerged he was coughing and gasping. He threw himself back onto the shore, drenched but shivering more with horror than with cold. When he managed to regain his feet, he stumbled backwards, retreating from the waterline but staring down at it all the same.
He’d have liked to think that the ivory ribs, broken teeth and multiple fragments of skull scattered across the shifting sands down there were all that remained of the French pirates who’d come here in 1347. But deep inside, he knew the real truth: they represented raiders of a more recent vintage.
Instinctively, he glanced up at the rocky ridges encircling him. He wondered if he’d see Peace Oss at this point: smaller, slighter, and with gentler curves than its mean-spirited cousin; decked in blue and white, its polished wooden head a reminder of graceful carousel rides rather than brutish, pagan feasts.
But there was no sign of it. And why should there be? Peace Oss had not been introduced to halt Obby Oss’ activities, merely to temper them, to moderate them, to restrain them – perhaps, just for the sake of argument, to once a year?
Scott nodded, smiled bitterly. And a jingle of harness alerted him to the presence now standing directly behind him.
It was a couple of hours later when Mary Kidwell finally looked at her husband, and said: “Okay?”
Russ Kidwell nodded amiably. “Absolutely fine.”
“I suppose I ought to inform the police that he’s gone?”
Russ, who was puffing on his pipe at the far side of the table, shook his head. “Give it another half-hour or so. Let’s enjoy ourselves a little longer.”
The pub garden and all the adjacent streets were teeming with revellers. The noise, laughter and song was astonishing, the music of drums and flutes almost deafening. Mary took another sip of wine. “It’s a fun night on the town, that’s for sure.”
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20 Page 22
