Not hard to guess what's on her mind, Denny thought.
A sudden storm broke over the valley. Rain lashed the window, and Denny give an involuntary shiver.
“British weather,” Mel remarked. “Not ideal if you want to see the sights.”
“No,” Denny agreed. “But kind of nice to be indoors. Like in a story by Dickens or one of those guys.”
Mel gave a murmur of assent, glancing back at Isobel's bedroom door.
“You worry about her a lot, I guess,” Denny said softly. “I remember my mom getting totally frazzled over me and my brothers.”
“Poor woman, one's enough for me,” Mel said, with a wan smile. Her tone was not as light as her words.
“I've seen quite a lot of people who've been through stressful experiences,” Denny began, carefully. “Adults, kids. Sometimes they undergo what seems like a total personality change, you know?”
Mel looked at her, expressionless, her fingers wrapped around the steaming mug of chocolate.
“I remember one case,” Denny went on, “where a mother thought her child had been replaced by someone else. That it wasn't her daughter anymore, you know?”
Mel nodded.
“Doctor Wakefield told me it's trauma and stress,” she said, her voice quivering slightly. “He said if I just act like nothing's changed, things will go back to normal.”
“I met Doctor Wakefield earlier today,” said Denny.
“Oh, really?” Mel looked surprised. “Why was that?”
Denny took a breath, about to launch into a full disclosure of everything; Interlopers, Wakefield, the gateway in the woods. But then she choked back her words.
If I tell her, Isobel will know. That might be a death sentence.
She also thought of Lucy's outburst as the Interloper had tried to kill her. About how much the Interlopers hated human beings for ruining their world, somehow. Denny took a gulp of hot chocolate, then put the mug down on a low table.
“Oh, I just asked him something about local folklore, family history,” she said, standing up. “Nice guy. Guess I'd better get some shuteye, now.”
Chapter 9: Worse Things than Us
The October dawn was just breaking when Mel crashed into Denny's room.
“What did you do to her?”
Denny struggled up onto her elbows, eyelids still gummed with sleep. Mel stood over her, eyes red, disheveled.
“Do what?” Denny asked, beginning to suspect what had happened.
“It's Isobel,” Mel said, and for a moment, Denny was afraid that the woman was going to attack her. But then Mel started pacing back and forth, firing off disjointed sentences as Denny got out of bed. Panicking openly now, Mel took Denny's hand and dragged her into the apartment.
“Tried to get her up – her face, her skin, it's wrong – she can hardly talk – but she said it was you!”
“Mel,” Denny said, going up to the woman and putting her hands on her shoulders. “What is it that I have done?”
Instead of answering, Mel gestured to where Isobel was lying on her bed, gazing up at the ceiling. The Interloper was clearly in distress, jerking and quivering. Denny went closer, moving cautiously, and understood what Mel had meant. The small, heart-shaped face was haggard, colorless, and pebbly in texture. And there was a slight whiff of a smell Denny knew well – the stench of Interloper decay.
Crap, she thought. It must have been too close to the talisman for too long.
“When did this begin?” she asked, feeling sure she already knew.
“I don't know!” wailed Mel. “But we have to get her to the doctor, and I haven't got a car, and–”
“Come on,” Denny said. “You get her ready while I put some clothes on.”
A couple of minutes later, Mel was carrying Isobel downstairs behind Denny. The being Mel thought of as a child was wrapped in a tartan blanket. The day was overcast and a steady rain was falling as they rushed over to the rented jeep.
“Oh God, what's happening?” Mel cried as Denny opened the rear door.
Isobel's face was being worn away by the rain. Streaks of viscous, brownish liquid were running down the decaying cheeks.
“We need to get her back to the woods,” Denny said. “Wakefield can't help her.”
Mel looked at her, eyes huge with astonishment and panic.
“What? Are you mad?”
“Just get in, I'll explain on the way,” Denny went on. “You've got to trust me. That's not Isobel.”
“What?” Mel repeated. “What are you talking about?”
This time, however, Denny heard doubt in the woman's voice.
“Trust your instincts, your judgment,” Denny persisted, as she reversed hastily into the main street. Her driving was sub-par, she knew, but fortunately, it was well before Machen's rush hour.
“Isobel and the other two kids were abducted, and replaced,” she went on, slewing the jeep around and heading for the bridge. “Isobel's a changeling, a kind of supernatural creature. Or an alien, whatever term you prefer.”
Don't get lost in the details, Denny warned herself. Stick to the point.
“Isobel is still alive in – in another world,” she said, trying to sound totally certain. “I know where the gateway to that world is and I think I can go through and get the kids.”
Mel, glimpsed in the rear-view mirror, was staring open-mouthed. But then her expression changed. Denny saw her look down, scrutinizing the diminutive figure, the decaying head resting on her lap.
No mother should have to face this, Denny thought.
“I know it sounds crazy, but do you believe me?” she persisted.
Mel said nothing as the jeep raced over the hump-backed stone bridge, leaving the road briefly before landing with a sickening jolt. The impact produced a grunt from the fake Isobel. It was a deep, animalistic sound, nothing like a child moaning in distress.
“Oh my God.”
Denny could just make out Mel's words over the engine, the rain, and the steady beat off the windscreen wipers.
She's coming around, I guess.
“But – how can this be true?” Mel demanded. “Wouldn't we know if these things existed, kidnapped people?”
“Some people do know, let's leave it at that,” Denny retorted. “Will you help me get her to the gateway?”
Mel nodded, and a thought struck Denny. She held her phone out behind her.
“There's a number, Jim, call him for me now,” she ordered. “I'll need his help.”
“Doing what?” Mel asked as she took the phone. “Is it – dangerous?”
“Very, but only for me,” Denny replied.
“You've done this before, been through this – this gateway thing?”
Denny made an involuntary clutch at the pendant that she had put on under her shirt.
“Yeah, but I'm holding a better hand than last time. Now make that call!”
***
Wakefield was having breakfast and a somewhat awkward conversation with Jim when the call came. Jim put Denny on speaker and they listened as she explained the situation – with occasional cursing at a tricky bend in the road.
“I'll be right there,” Jim said, dropping his fork. “If you want to come, Russ–”
“No problem,” Wakefield replied. “I half-expected there'd be a crisis with the children. I'll get my medical kit.”
They took the van, with Wakefield navigating, and soon parked beside the jeep. There was no sign of Denny, Mel, or the Interloper. But the back door of the jeep was open. Jim looked inside, recoiled.
“What is it?” Wakefield asked.
Then the stench hit him. Even in the weak light of the autumn dawn, he could see dark stains on the upholstery.
“They fall apart quickly,” Jim explained, opening the doors of the van. “Rot away in front of your eyes.”
“But getting it back into this Phantom Dimension, that will save it?”
Jim shrugged, then took a double-barreled shotgun out of the van.
Jim handed Wakefield what looked at first like a leash and harness for a seeing-eye dog. Then he realized that it was far more substantial, a bespoke restraint made of steel and Kevlar.
“You're going to try and control it, once you're on the other side?” Wakefield asked.
“That's the plan – hastily improvised,” said Jim, taking out a small backpack. “The harness is child-sized so we could try and capture one safely. But now, well …”
He slammed the van doors, turned towards Branksholme Woods.
“I half-expected she'd try to cross over again. This time I'm not letting her go in alone.”
***
“Bloody Hell,” Jim said. “It's a city. They're actually civilized. Sort of.”
It was true. They had fallen from the gateway onto a kind of raised platform made of pale, rough-hewn stone. Around them stretched hundreds of square buildings, each about the size of a bungalow but with flat roofs. They had doorways and windows, all just gaps in the walls. No glass or wood was evident. Here and there much larger structures towered above the smaller structures. Everything seemed to be made of the same pale stone.
Above them a pale, sunless sky radiated an unpleasant, harsh light. Jim winced, put on a set of wraparound shades. He stared up at vast, drifting entities Denny called the Black Stars. As far as she could tell, all of the huge predators were floating too high to endanger them. And there was no sign of life anywhere on the ground.
“So where is everybody?” Denny asked the Interloper.
Instead of answering, Isobel jumped to its feet and scampered to the edge of the platform. Jim hauled on an improvised leash, jerking the creature onto its back. Denny winced at seeing a being that still looked like a sick child being treated so brutally. The creature was still wearing pastel-colored pajamas. Seeing Denny’s expression, Jim shook his head.
“No room for sentiment,” he said. “You taught me that last time.”
“True,” Denny conceded. “Okay, second and last time of asking Izzy …”
She reached down and lifted up the talisman.
“You want me to step a little closer? You know I'd do it. We're doing this, with or without you.”
The fake Isobel had apparently stopped dying. Its face was ravaged by scars and swellings, but no longer weeping rancid brown pus. It had reverted to its true form, with sharp talons, a tapering muzzle, and deep-set, piggy eyes. When it spoke, Denny struggled to make out the words, formed as they were by a circular mouth rimmed with needle-sharp teeth.
“Keep away! I will lead you there. Children are safe.”
Yeah, that's the deal, Denny thought. But how likely are you and your people to keep to it?
As they set off after the creature, she realized that she had suddenly begun to see the Interlopers as people. They were monstrous and deformed by human standards, perhaps. But she could not deny that they were a race of intelligent beings with their own history, culture, and presumably ethics of a kind.
We must look hideous to them, she thought. Yet they risk everything to venture into our world.
“Better late than never,” it hissed over its shoulder. “We have no choice but to try and live among you. No matter how vile you are.”
Jim looked from the creature to Denny, raised an eyebrow.
“Izzy’s reading my mind,” she explained. Then, raising her voice, “So why not cut to the chase and just tell us why you're doing all this?”
Isobel's only reply was a grunt. It continued to lope along ahead of them, moving faster now. It was apparently gaining strength, or confidence. They were jogging briskly along what passed for a street, a dusty track-way between two rows of square buildings.
Now they were closer and her eyes had adjusted to the weird light, Denny could make out more detail. The Interlopers' architecture was not quite so crude and stark as she had thought at first. There were traces of elaborate carvings on stone lintels and around the unglazed windows. But many of the buildings showed signs of damage, with large cracks running from ground to roof in some cases.
“Are we in an earthquake zone or something?” Denny asked.
Again, Isobel said nothing.
“Black ops,” Jim suggested. “Top secret.”
“Hell, yeah,” Denny agreed. “Or maybe it doesn't know.”
“Yeah,” Jim went on. “Probably just a dumb grunt obeying orders.”
Isobel stopped, turned to look at the humans.
“Reverse psychology!” it croaked painfully, then turned to lope onward. “Not play your games.”
“Sod off, bloody mind reader,” mumbled Jim.
She peered ahead through the ski goggles she had brought from London, part of some general gear she had only half-expected to use. Slung across her back was a crossbow – legal in England, just like Jim's shotgun. Before they came through the gateway, Jim had politely asked if she knew how to use the medieval weapon. She had explained that she had made a short documentary about medieval weapons for her journalism course and had 'kind of picked it up'.
That was a few years back, though.
She glanced up, and saw that one of the Black Stars had descended so that she could now clearly make out the huge, single eye in the center of the five-pointed body. Tendrils, still thread-like at this distance, were unwinding from the vast arms.
“We'd better get under cover soon,” said Jim.
Isobel snorted, perhaps out of amusement. It was no longer possible to read any human emotions into the creature's responses.
But it can still read us, Denny reminded herself.
“Can we go into one of these – these houses?” she asked.
Without replying Isobel swerved through a doorway. They followed and found themselves inside a featureless room. At first, Denny thought it was empty, then saw eyes gleaming in the murk. Denny removed her shades and saw that, in the corner, a group of Interlopers was huddled. Jim raised his gun, but the creatures showed no sign of even noticing them, let along attacking.
“What's wrong with them?” Jim whispered urgently.
“Scared.” Isobel reached up slowly and pushed the gun barrel up toward the ceiling. Its voice was now barely comprehensible. “All people scared.”
“Of what?” Denny demanded, but again the Interloper ignored her, squatting down in the middle of the room.
Jim flattened himself against the wall and worked his way along to a window. He took a quick glance outside, jerked back.
“That thing is rising again,” he said. “Give it a minute.”
Jim stopped, frowned. A vibration ran through the floor, a distant rumbling that grew, then dwindled. It reminded Denny of a London Underground train passing beneath her. The Interlopers in the corner reacted by emitting high-pitched screeches and cowering even closer together. They covered their heads with their claws.
When scary things get scared …
They did not talk for another minute or so. Denny tried to calculate exactly how much time had already passed in the outside world, could not focus, gave up, and guessed at several hours. Jim looked out again.
“It's gone, I think.”
They set off again, leaving the terrified Interlopers behind, weaving their way through a labyrinth of dark alleyways. Eventually they emerged into the open, or very nearly did. Ahead of them was a long, low heap of rubble, beyond which was the kind of bleak, reddish plain Denny had seen before. On the horizon, a huge, dark object loomed. It reminded her vaguely of Mount Fuji in shape, only stretched upwards. The mountain, if that's what it was, seemed to be shrouded in mist around its base.
“City walls, yes?” Jim asked Izzy, gesturing at the rubble, which seemed to stretch all the way around the settlement. “Not very effective, it seems.”
“There,” it said, raising a claw. “There! Sacrifices out there.”
“They're just pegged out in the open?” Jim asked, staring incredulou
s into the hazy distance.
“Remember, to the kids it's just been a few hours, not weeks,” Denny reminded him. “They won't be starving yet. Maybe dehydrated, though.”
“Sacrifices to what?” Jim demanded, jerking on Isobel's leash again. “What else is out there? Come on, terrify us!”
Isobel looked up into the man's face.
“Eats souls. Younger is better.”
“Thanks,” said Jim, trying to sound sarcastic. “That's a big help.”
He looked up at the Black Stars, then back at Denny. So far as she could see, none of the drifting creatures were descending. But out on the red plain they would be very obvious targets.
“We've got to go,” she said.
“Thought so,” he grinned. “Let's get some more exercise.”
Isobel balked at leaving the city. Instead the creature pulled at its leash, screeched and snarled. No threats, not even a shotgun pointed at its face could persuade it to move.
“We should kill it now,” Jim said.
“It knows we won't,” Denny sighed. “Let it go.”
As she said the words, she noticed that the creature was in Frozen-themed pajamas.
Isobel fled back into the nearest alley without another sound.
“A bit of taunting would have been nice,” Jim grumbled, as they clambered over the low line of shattered stone.
“Yeah,” Denny said. “Nothing says ‘You Are Now up Shit Creek’ like your native guide fleeing in panic.”
***
“What do we do if they don't come back?” asked Mel Bavistock. “They've been gone for ages! Oh God, what do we do?”
She looks to me for guidance, Wakefield thought.
“Time flows much more slowly there,” he explained, struggling with the concept himself. “According to Jim, a year there is like a decade here – something like that.”
“A year?” Mel's eyes were huge with shock, now.
Brilliant, he thought. I couldn't have used minutes and hours.
“But Jim said that Denny has been into this – this other dimension,” he went on. “And she came out again after a few hours. So we can wait here, maybe take turns.”
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