Nightmare Valley

by David Longhorn

  Mel collapsed, all the stress of the morning finally taking its toll. She fell clumsily into the undergrowth, crying in fear and frustration. Wakefield helped her up and led her to a fallen tree-trunk. It was a chill morning, and he put his jacket around her shoulders.

  “I'm so sorry,” he said, taking a tissue from his pocket. “Sorry for my part in this.”

  “I don't care!” she exclaimed, then blew her nose. “I don't care what you've done, I just want my daughter back!”

  What are the chances? Wakefield wondered. Slim, is what my fear says.

  “I don't know much about these people,” he admitted. “But they know more than we do. We have to trust them. I do.”

  As he said the words, he realized he did not really mean them. He simply knew so little about Denny and Jim that he was clutching at hope, not thinking things through. He looked over at the shimmering, translucent gateway into the Phantom Dimension. It seemed slightly smaller than before. He almost commented on this, then thought better of it.

  “Should we call the police?” sniffled Mel.

  The suggestion was so bizarre, so unexpected that Wakefield almost laughed. He tried to imagine the detectives, whom he routinely worked with, solemnly taking down his testimony. The questions they would ask, before having him detained under the Mental Health Act.

  Poor old Russ, he could imagine them saying in the canteen. Pressure finally got to him. And the booze, of course.

  “Probably best not to involve them at this stage,” he said carefully.

  He got up and fetched his bag.

  “I always carry a flask of coffee,” he said. “Want some?”

  ***

  The three small figures were covered in a web of pale strands that flexed and pulsed. It was a living cage, like the one Denny had cut away from the fake Lucy. This time there was no doubt that the captives were human, though. Even from here, she could hear a wailing, the weak cries of children seeing the first hope of rescue. They began to run, but then the reddish dirt darkened with a vast shadow. Jim spun around, aimed upward, and fired his shotgun. A black, whip-like object lashed Denny across the face. She looked up, saw most of the sky blocked out. The Black Star was within reach, but Jim had apparently stung it. The vast creature gave a spasm, retracted the wounded tendril, but others began to reach down. Denny ducked, knowing it was irrational given the exposed position.

  But there's no way those kids have been out here for weeks unless …

  Isobel had told the truth. The Black Star's tentacles flailed, withdrew, reacting far more violently than they had when simply shot. The creature's body rippled, then it began to rise, gradually gaining speed. Denny could just make out bulges along the arms, wondered if they were organic sacs containing hydrogen or some other gas. Shrugging, she turned to the prisoners. Jim was already striding forward, taking out a large hunting knife.

  “Don't worry, kids, we'll soon–”

  The force that had repelled the Black Star from the children struck Jim. He recoiled, dropping the knife, and fell to his knees. Denny rushed forward, got her hands under his shoulders, and dragged him away from the white web. She heard despairing cries from the children, felt a pang of shame, rage at their situation.

  “Like a kick in the balls, only in the brain,” Jim gasped. “Jesus Christ, that hurts worse than stepping on Legos in the dark.”

  Denny had to laugh despite herself. She held up the talisman.

  “Okay,” she told him, “let's see if this trinket always works to counteract their magic, science, whatever.”

  She scurried forward, picked up Jim’s knife, then took two hesitant steps. She was just a few inches past the point where Jim had collapsed when she felt a stabbing pain between her eyes. It grew quickly as she advanced, building into a migraine that clouded her vision with pulses of green radiance.

  Denny was crawling by the time she reached the web-work. She felt more than saw the living bonds, and could just make out the children's cries. She began to cut away the bonds of the nearest small figure as the pain pushed her to the brink of blackout.

  They must be protected from this pain, she thought. Or this web-creature only radiates outward …

  It was almost impossible to think, but she kept working. The white web gave more quickly than she had expected, and as the strands parted, she felt a slight but real diminution in the pain. She wanted to slash violently at the strands, but the danger to the children kept her sawing with the hunting knife. She became aware that a sticky liquid was running down her arm.

  Yeah, bleed out you bastard!

  “I want my mummy!”

  The voice was Isobel's – the real one – audible above the wailing of the Hawkes twins.

  “We'll get you home,” Denny managed to croak. “Don't be scared.”

  The word 'scared' was drowned out by a noise so deep she felt more than heard it. If they had been on earth, it would have suggested some vast machine, perhaps a warship entering harbor. Denny could not believe such technology existed in this world. It must be a living thing.

  The earthquake, in the city. Cracking the walls. The cry of a living thing.

  “Denny! Hurry up!” called Jim.

  For the first time, she heard outright panic in his voice.

  He can see what's coming, she realized.

  The stabbing pain was just bearable now, so she could stagger to her feet and pull the real Isobel free from the white web. The creature was dying, or at least retreating, the strands untangling themselves and withdrawing into the reddish soil. The Hawkes twins were suddenly free and ran to Denny, grabbing her around the legs. Jim appeared, scooped up a bawling twin under each arm, and ran back the way they had come. Denny had glimpsed his face. She clutched Isobel and followed, not daring to look back.

  It's the living mountain from my nightmare, she thought. The sacrifice was going to keep it away from the city.

  The blast of sound came again, much louder now, almost deafening her. After her ears stopped ringing, she heard something else, a roaring like a waterfall, or an avalanche. It was the noise of a colossus on the move. In pursuit. Denny risked a glance over her shoulder.

  The roughly conical shape that had loomed on the horizon was now much closer. It was still shrouded in haze around its base, but Denny realized that was because it was moving. The sides of the colossal entity consisted of glistening grayish-white tissue dotted with roundish shapes. She could not make out much detail. She did not particularly want to.

  Nothing that big can move too fast, she told herself. Like a man trying to catch a fly.

  Then she thought of a man trying to step on an ant, and forced herself to run faster.

  They reached the outskirts of the city and began to weave their way among the low-rise houses. By now, some inhabitants had come out of hiding, but were milling in confusion or fleeing from the approaching menace. Once an Interloper blocked their way, its arms raised in what might have been menace or simply surprise. With her free hand, Denny raised the talisman and ran straight at it, forcing the creature to hurl itself aside.

  Again, the deep roar of the colossal creature ran through the earth under their feet, sending up spurts of dust. There was a crash, and the side of a house fell into the alleyway ahead of them. Looking back as they scrambled over the shattered stone, Denny saw the mountainous being, just visible through a rising cloud of dust and debris. It was hard to judge, but the monster seemed to be well inside the ruined city walls. And it was now getting visibly larger by the second. She could now make out what the round bulges on its sides were. Not growths. Grotesque human faces, dozens of yards across.

  We're not going to make it, she thought. We're gonna get stepped on.

  Jim stumbled on rubble, dropped one of the Hawkes twins, and struggled to pick the terrified child up again. The rumbling roar from the colossus was almost unbearably loud, now. But even as she covered her ears, Denny realized that it was not just an animal sound. There was a hint of something she had never
expected to hear. A series of distinct syllables, just perceptible amid the immense blast of sonic energy.

  Denny turned to Jim, reached up to pull his face down, kissed him. He reeled back, comically surprised.

  “You get them home,” she said. “I've got an appointment with an old friend.”

  “What the–”

  She held up a finger to Jim's lips, raised the talisman with her other hand, then got down and talked to Isobel.

  “Can you run fast?” she asked.

  Isobel nodded. Denny could see the girl was trying to be brave, but almost ready to cry.

  “Then run!” she said.

  “That stone won't protect you!” Jim shouted. “That's crazy!”

  “Get going,” she shot back, and began running back towards the moving mountain. “I'll see you later, maybe!”

  ***

  The gateway darkened for a moment, then a child fell through and started crying. Mel rushed forward, recognized Michael Hawkes, and hesitated. She bent down and picked up the boy, just in time to be hit in the small of the back by Trudy Hawkes. By this time, Wakefield was helping, in a haphazard way. Jim arrived with Isobel in his arms, and was followed by a blast of heat.

  “Isobel!”

  Wakefield noted that Mel, to her credit, did not simply drop the Hawkes boy, but instead tried to gather up all the children. Jim handed Isobel over, and there were several minutes of talking, crying, confusion. But it was clear from Jim's expression, as much as his words that he did not expect Denny to be coming back.

  Explanations were attempted, then abandoned. But one problem presented itself.

  “What about the fake twins?” Wakefield asked.

  “I can call in a special unit,” said Jim, trying to brush red dust off his jacket. “We can – well, take them discreetly, with your help.”

  “You mean call them in for some kind of check-up?” Wakefield asked, looking at Michael and Trudy. “I suppose that makes sense. The parents trust me.”

  The twins were scruffy and pale, but like Isobel, they seemed unharmed. Seeing Wakefield's expression, Jim patted him gently on the arm.

  “Believe me, Denny would think this was a fair exchange,” he murmured.

  Wakefield nodded. They conferred some more, slightly apart from Mel and the children, so as not to be overheard. Then they agreed to go back to the clinic to make sure the children were okay, and find them something to eat.

  “I'm sorry, Mummy,” Isobel kept saying, as they found their way out of the woods. “I promise I won't wander off again.”

  It was mid-morning, now, over four hours since the expedition had departed through the gateway. As they approached the edge of the trees, Wakefield saw flashing lights, and his heart sank. His receptionist would, of course, have found the clinic and his home empty, and given recent events, would have called the police. Either she or the police would have found the fetid residue in the bedroom. Denny's jeep and Jim's van would be visible from the town.

  QED, he thought. No bluffing our way out of this one.

  When they emerged, two uniformed officers rushed over to them, followed by paramedics. There were blankets and hot drinks for the children. There was talk of statements being taken, and Jim was looked upon with some suspicion despite the children insisting loudly that he 'and the nice lady' had saved them. A detective whom Wakefield had worked with on and off for years beckoned him aside.

  “Okay,” he said, “I can cut you a good bit of slack here, since all the kids are accounted for. But anything you want to say – anything at all to help when I have to report to my boss – much appreciated, eh?”

  For a moment, the officer's words did not sink in.

  “All the children?” the doctor asked.

  The detective looked quizzically at him.

  “Yeah, the Bavistock kid and the Hawkes twins. Are we on the same page?”

  The fake twins are gone, Wakefield thought, looking out over the valley. But they didn't go back through the gateway.

  “Come on, Russ,” the detective pleaded. “Look at the bloody press, they're here already. Christ, it's the BBC. Come and sit in the car.”

  “Okay,” Wakefield began. “These kids have been through the wringer, and I think that killing yesterday must have triggered – some kind of subconscious urge to return to the scene of their own trauma. It does happen in these cases. I can cite research …”

  By the time he had finished improvising, Wakefield had almost convinced himself.

  ***

  As she grew nearer, the huge voice sounded again, deafening her with its plea. The words rang through the ground, the air, her flesh, and bone.

  DENNY. HELP ME.

  She realized how stupid continuing to run towards the thing was. She glanced back to see that Jim and the children had gone. She could see Interlopers scrambling over wrecked buildings in panic, but no sign of the humans.

  Before the advancing wave of dust overwhelmed her, she looked up, straining to see again the vast, distorted face that had not at first registered – so unlikely that this was its location. The face that promised some kind of closure. The oversized face on the side of a living mountain that apparently ate souls.

  “Not looking your best, Frankie,” she said, glimpsing her friend's features for a moment. “But I guess we've both been through a lot.”

  Denny clutched the talisman and closed her eyes, half-expecting to be simply crushed. But the words spoken in the immense voice gave her hope, of a kind. The Eater of Souls was studded with images of the humans it had absorbed. Most of the vast faces on the surface of the entity were those of children, but a few were adults. Frankie's was one of the best-defined.

  Because she's not been fully consumed, Denny told herself. I must believe that. Something of her survives in there. I must believe that, I must!

  Chapter 10: Victims and Survivors

  “But,” protested Zoffany, “I think we've established that the resilient Interlopers almost certainly aren't equipped with one of these – talisman devices. Davison's testimony states quite clearly–”

  Benson casually waved his chief scientist to silence.

  “The fact remains that Lucy, and the children of Machen, were able to survive in our world for far longer than they should have been able to. We need to know why. Analysis of tissue and blood samples has failed to find anything new. Whatever it is could well be inside.”

  Zoffany began to object to this line of reasoning, but was again discreetly ordered to shut up.

  “Dissection is the sensible option,” Benson went on. “The bad news is, after making a few discreet overtures, we have been unable to find a reputable surgeon willing to undertake the task.”

  The chairman paused, looked down at his desk, brushed an imaginary speck of dust off the mahogany surface.

  Bastard, Zoffany thought. Frigging mind games, like a Bond villain.

  “And the good news?” she could not help asking.

  “You get a bonus after you cut it open.”

  Four hours later, preparations were complete.

  “So, you've all read the briefing?”

  Harriet Zoffany stared at each member of the security team in turn. A couple of guards failed to meet her eye.

  “I'll recap for the benefit of anyone who is unclear on the details,” she said. “What we're dealing with is not a child. It is not a little girl. It is an alien entity that has killed at least one person and injured several more. Understand?”

  There were nods, grunts of affirmation.

  “Some of you,” she went on, “may be wondering why we are doing this in the middle of the night. Mister Benson decreed it, so that there would be fewer non-essential personnel around. Minimizes the risk to innocent bystanders, should we screw up.”

  After they had donned their respirators, Zoffany led the team from the elevators to the corridor where Room 101 lay. Outside the cell door, Forster was already waiting. He was supervising a technician who had sealed the edges of the door an
d then pumped in nitrogen gas. The heavier-than-air gas was now at just under adult head height, totally immersing the prisoner. Zoffany had staked her reputation on this subduing the creature without proving fatal.

  “Okay?” she asked the security chief.

  Forster nodded and the technician removed the pipe from a hole drilled in the observation window. Looking inside the cell, Zoffany saw Lucy lying motionless on the bed. The scientist felt her heart rate increase as she wondered if she had in fact killed Lucy. Then the small, pajama-clad figure stirred. A leg flexed, pulling weakly at the chain that shackled it to the wall.

  “It's still alive,” she said, stepping back from the viewing slit. “Assume it will be alert and able to attack. Restrain arms and legs before undoing the shackles.”

  And may God forgive me for this, she thought. There's more than one inhuman being involved in this.

  ***

  Denny struggled blindly in darkness, panicking as she felt her lungs fill with a vaguely acrid fluid. Every breath she tried to take drew the luke-warm fluid deeper inside her. Eventually she blacked out, certain that she was dying, only to wake again. She was adrift in what seemed total blackness. Her limbs were not exactly tied up, but the gelatinous substance around her made movement difficult. Her eyes were open, but coated with an unpleasant greasy film.

  If I keep struggling, I'll exhaust myself, she reasoned. And I'm not dying, clearly. Not yet, anyway.

  Instead of fighting the gelatinous stuff, she tried to focus on what had gotten her here. She remembered looking up at Frankie's face, impossibly huge as it bulged from the surface of the monster. Then she had been swept up by a kind of pseudopod that had gradually absorbed her.

  It carried me inside, into the belly of the beast.

  'Denny? That you?'

  Frankie's voice sounded in her head, apparently coming from all directions and none. It was faint, but very audible above the sound of Denny's pulse hammering in her ears.

  “Frankie?” she tried to say, only to gag on the dense fluid.