They were huge, two or three times bigger than Rottweilers – and more savage too. The flames of the fire that had given birth to them still flickered in their black, shark-like eyes. Their mouths hung open, with teeth like two lines of kitchen knives jutting out beyond their lips. Their heads were high and uneven, their bulging skulls topped by two tiny ears, like horns. Slowly, one of them turned its ugly snout up to the sky and uttered a ghastly howl. Then, as one, they padded forward, their heads slanting unnaturally to one side as if listening to the ground.
Matt had no choice. He had to get away. If the dogs found him, they would tear him apart. No longer caring if he was seen or not, he stumbled to his feet and began to run. His legs were as heavy as lead but desperately he forced them to carry him. The fence was still about ten metres away. Arms outstretched, he raced towards it, not wanting to look behind him. But he couldn’t stop himself. He had to know. Where were the dogs? How near were they? With a grimace, he looked back over his shoulder. And regretted it.
The first of the creatures had already halved the distance between itself and Matt, yet it didn’t seem to be moving fast. It hovered in the air between each bound, barely touching the grass before jumping up again. There was something hideous about the way it ran. A panther or a leopard closing in for the kill has a certain majesty. But the dog was deformed, lopsided, ghastly. The flesh on one of its flanks had rotted and a glistening ribcage jutted out. As if to avoid the stench of the wound, the animal had turned away, its head hanging close to its front paws. Strings of saliva trailed from its mouth. And every time its feet hit the ground, its whole body quivered, threatening to collapse in on itself.
Matt reached the fence and clawed at it with his hands, crashing his fingers against the wire. He thought he had run in a straight line, following the way he had come, but he seemed to have got it wrong. He couldn’t find the gap. He looked behind him. Two more bounds and the dogs would reach him. There was no doubt that they would tear him apart. He could almost feel their teeth tearing into him, ripping the flesh away from his bones. He had never seen anything so ferocious
… not in a zoo, not in a film, not anywhere in the real world.
Where was the gap? In blind panic he threw his whole weight against the fence, almost crying with relief as the edge buckled, revealing the jagged hole. Without hesitating he dived forward. His head and shoulders went through but this time the wire hooked into his trousers. Thrashing out with his arms, expecting to feel the jaws of the dog close on his leg at any moment, he struggled like a fish in a net. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a huge black shape plummeting towards him. He gave a last frantic heave. His jeans ripped and he fell through, rolling into a ball on the other side.
Blood oozed out of a gash in his leg, but he was safe… at least for the moment. He struggled to his feet, then staggered back as one of the dogs lunged at the fence, its mouth foaming, its teeth gnashing at the wire. The two creatures were trapped. The hole had barely been big enough for Matt to pass through and they were bigger and more awkwardly built than him. But then, even as he watched, the dogs began pounding at the earth, raking the soft soil with their claws. They weren’t going to allow the fence to stop them. They were going to burrow their way under it.
Matt fled into the wood. Low-lying branches whipped into his body. Pine needles cascaded on to his hair and into his face. He blinked, trying to keep them out of his eyes. There was nowhere to hide, no way of knowing if he had taken the right path. He was trapped in a vast grid system where every direction looked exactly the same. But the dogs had the advantage. They didn’t need to see him. They would smell him out.
Matt didn’t care where he was going. His only thought was to get away, to put as much space as he could between himself and the two dogs. How long did he have? Thirty seconds? A minute or two at the most. Then they would emerge from the ground on the other side of the fence as if rising out of a grave. They would stalk him through the wood, outrun him and rip him to shreds.
He crashed into the trunk of a tree and reeled away, spinning round. The lights from the power station were already a long way behind him, barely visible through the branches. Matt was exhausted but he couldn’t let himself rest. He needed to find a stretch of water, a river or a stream. Maybe he could throw the dogs off his scent. But there was no such thing in this artificial wood. It stretched on endlessly, with not a glimpse of water in sight.
He paused to catch his breath, his chest and throat rasping, his head pounding. At that moment a terrible baying broke through the air. It was a howl of triumph. The dogs were through the fence. Matt almost gave up. He felt a shiver of despair travel through his body. It was all-consuming. He would just stand here and wait for them to come. All he could do was hope his death would be quick.
No. He forced himself to snap out of it. He wasn’t dead yet. Gathering up his last reserves of strength, he forced himself on, desperately twisting between the trees.
Only the sudden stamping of his feet on hard concrete after the soft silence of the pine needles told him that he was out of the wood. Incredibly, he had broken out on to a road – but it wasn’t the road to Lesser Malling. It was wider and there were white markings down the centre. For a moment Matt felt relief. He was back in the modern world – a car might come. He looked left and right. Nothing. And suddenly he knew that this was the worst place for him to be. He was out in the open, with no cover, nowhere to hide from the dogs.
Where could he go? The strip of concrete divided two worlds. Behind him was the wood. Ahead was some sort of moorland, wild and open. He remembered what he had been thinking. A river or a stream. Matt crossed the road and plunged into the wild grass. He could tell at once that the ground was damp. He could feel it, soft and sticky under his feet. He ran on and as he ran he became aware that the ground was getting wetter. Cold water slid over his trainers and on to his feet.
He was only conscious of the danger when it was too late. He staggered to a halt and at that same moment the ground gave way altogether and he found himself being sucked down, unable to move.
A bog. He had blundered right into it.
Matt screamed. He was being pulled under incredibly fast. He felt mud and slime rising up over his knees and thighs, then his waist. He flailed about but the effort only speeded things up. The bog gripped him around his stomach and he could already imagine what was about to happen next, during the last, horrific moments of his life. The bog would rise over his face and he would give one last scream. But there would be no sound. He would be silenced for ever as stinking mud rushed into his mouth and down his throat.
Matt forced himself to stay calm. He knew that struggling would only make the end come faster. He almost smiled. At least he had cheated the dogs. He had found the one place where they could never reach him. And if he had to die, perhaps it would be better to go this way.
He relaxed and in that instant he thought he could smell something
… very close and yet distant. The smell of burning. The bonfire? No, that was too far away. Could there be someone else out there on the moor? His hopes were raised, only to be dashed again. There was no one there. The smell disappeared. It had been just his imagination.
The bog bubbled around him and rose to his armpits. Its touch was cold, final. A stench of mud and rotting leaves reached his nostrils. Matt closed his eyes and waited for the end. But now the bog was toying with him, creeping upwards centimetre by centimetre, lovingly drawing him into its embrace.
The beam of light hit him before he even heard the noise of the engine. Out of nowhere a car had appeared. It had veered off the road and now it was parked right on the edge of the bog. A man got out, barely visible behind the glare of the headlamps.
“Don’t move!” a voice commanded. “I’ve got a rope.”
But the bog, as if afraid it was going to lose its victim, tightened its hold. Greedily it clung to Matt, its hands spreading over his shoulders, pushing him down.
“Hurry!” Matt
shouted.
The mud was touching his chin. He forced his head up despairingly, staring up at a pale moon that had at last come from behind the clouds. Only seconds remained.
The bog pulled. The stagnant water rose over his head, up his nose, into his eyes. Now only his hands remained above the surface. But then he was struck by the flying edge of a rope. Smothered, blind, he groped for it. And found it. He held his breath and tightened his grip.
And then he was being hauled up towards the surface. His lungs were bursting. With a cry, he opened his mouth and sucked in. And breathed air. The man pulled on the rope and he felt himself being dragged forward. His waist cleared the edge of the bog with a loud, sucking noise. He kicked out with his legs, still clinging on to the rope. A strong hand grabbed him and pulled him clear. Exhausted, he collapsed on to firm ground.
For a moment he lay there, retching, getting the filthy water out of his system. Then he looked up. And recognized Richard Cole, the journalist from the Greater Malling Gazette.
“You!” he gasped.
“What the hell…?” Richard was equally surprised.
“How…”
“What are you doing?”
The broken questions hung in the air.
Then Matt took control of the situation. “Not now,” he said. He was thinking about the dogs. They might have lost his scent when he was in the bog, but they would find it again soon enough. “We have to go.”
“All right. Can you get into the car?” Richard leant down and helped Matt to his feet. Matt could feel the slime dripping off him. He wondered what he must look like.
The car was standing near the side of the road with its engine running. Richard rested Matt against the bonnet, then went round to open the passenger door. There were piles of old newspapers and magazines on the front seat and he began throwing them into the back to clear a space. Matt was edging round to get in when he saw them.
The dogs had emerged from the wood. They were in the middle of the road. Watching. Waiting.
“There…” Matt whispered.
“What?”
Richard turned and saw them. The dogs were just ten metres away. Their tongues were hanging out. Their breath rose in white clouds. Their eyes flickered. Richard held up a hand. “Nice dogs! Stay!” he muttered. He reached into the car and pulled out a can. “Get in,” he said to Matt.
“What are you…?”
“I’m going to put them down.”
Painfully, Matt eased himself into the front seat, his eyes fixed on the waiting dogs. Water oozed out underneath him and dripped on to the carpet. Richard fumbled in his pocket and produced a handkerchief. Slowly, forcing himself not to panic, he unscrewed the lid of the can and pushed the handkerchief into its neck. Matt smelled petrol fumes. Richard found a lighter. The dogs crept forward, suddenly suspicious, and Matt knew they were preparing themselves for the final leap. Richard flicked the lighter against the handkerchief and hurled the can towards them.
The first dog had just left the ground when the can hit it and exploded into flame. Burning petrol sprayed over the second dog, instantly setting it alight. The fire roared around them. With an unearthly howl, the dogs fell back, one curling itself into a ball, the other snapping at its own hide in a vain attempt to devour the cause of its agony. Fire had been their creator. Now fire destroyed them.
Richard slid over the bonnet and landed next to the driver’s door. He got into the car, slammed the door, threw the gears into reverse and stamped on the accelerator. The back wheels spun, then found a grip, rocketing the car backwards. Matt felt a thump as they drove over the body of one of the dying creatures. But where was the other? He looked around, then yelled out as, still blazing, it slammed into the windscreen, launching itself out of nowhere. For a few seconds it was in front of him, its dreadful teeth centimetres from his face. Then Richard changed into first gear and wrenched the wheel. The dog spun away. Matt looked out of the back window. The flickering remains of one carcass lay in the middle of the road. The second had got snarled up in the wheels, but as the car sped forward it fell free and was tossed to one side.
They drove through the night for half a mile without speaking. The car was filled with the smell of the bog. Water was dripping out of Matt’s clothes, on to the seat and on to the floor. Richard pulled a face and opened the window. “So, do you mind telling me what that was all about?” he demanded.
Matt didn’t know where to begin. “I think something is happening in Lesser Malling,” he said.
Richard nodded. “I think you could be right.”
MATT'S STORY
Richard Cole lived in the very centre of York. He had rented a flat above a souvenir shop in one of the city’s most famous medieval streets: a pretty, cobbled passageway called The Shambles. The flat was arranged over three floors, a series of oddly shaped rooms piled on top of each other like children’s building bricks. A kitchen and a living room took up the first floor. Then, above, there was a bedroom and a shower. And finally a narrow flight of steps twisted round to a spare room built into the roof.
The place was in a shambles itself. All the furniture looked as if it had been rescued from a skip – as indeed much of it had. There were old clothes everywhere, unwashed plates piled high in the sink, CDs, books, magazines and half-written articles shuffled together in a way that would surely make it impossible to find anything. The walls were covered with posters, mainly old American films. Richard’s laptop was on the kitchen table, next to a box of Weetabix, a half-eaten can of baked beans with the fork still sticking out, and two pieces of very cold toast.
Matt had felt awkward as they climbed to the first floor and it was worse now that he was in the flat itself. He was very aware that he stank. Richard left him in the kitchen and came back with a large towel.
“We can talk later,” he said. “Right now you need a shower. And we’ll have to get rid of those clothes.”
“Have you got a washing machine?”
“Are you kidding? The washing machine hasn’t been built that could handle all that muck. They can go in the bin and we’ll buy you some more tomorrow. I’ll find you some of mine to wear in the meantime.” Richard pointed upstairs. “You’ll find the shower easily enough. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Well there’s no food in the house. I’ll go out and get something while you get changed.”
Half an hour later the two of them were sitting in the living room, surrounded by Chinese food from the takeaway at the end of the street. Matt had spent twenty minutes in the shower, only coming out when he had washed away all traces of the bog. He was now wearing an old York University T-shirt with a towel wrapped round his waist and nothing on his feet. He hadn’t been aware how hungry he was until he had begun eating. Now he was feeling stuffed.
“Nice place,” he said, looking around.
“I was lucky to get it,” Richard said. “It’s very cheap. Not that I’m here very much. I normally eat at the pub…”
“Do you live on your own?”
“I had a girlfriend until about a week ago. Unfortunately she took a liking to classical music.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
“Now she’s going out with an opera singer.” Richard went to the fridge and took out a can of beer. “You want anything to drink?”
“I’m all right.” There was a brief silence while Richard sat down again. Matt knew that they both had a lot to explain. “How did you find me tonight?” he asked.
Richard shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. After you left the office, I thought about some of the things you’d said. It all sounded pretty stupid, to tell the truth. But there were parts of your story… Well, I couldn’t get them out of my head. And I had nothing else to do.”
“So you went to look at Omega One?”
“Let’s just say I happened to be passing.”
“You knew where it was?”
Richard nodded. “The man who built it still lives in Yo
rk. He was a scientific adviser to the government back in the sixties but he’s retired now. Name of Michael Marsh.”
“Did you meet him?”
“About six months ago. He got a knighthood from the Queen and I had to do a story about him. He’s an unbelievably boring man. Lives in a big house near the river. He collects matchbox labels. If the worst comes to the worst, I may give him a call and we can go and see him. He may be able to help.”
“So you decided to visit Omega One in the middle of the night…”
“It was on the way home from the pub. What’s the big deal? I was near by so I thought I’d drive past. And then I heard someone shouting for help and that was how I found you.”
“That’s not possible.” Matt thought back. “I didn’t shout for help.”
“I heard you.”
“I may have yelled once. But I didn’t even hear your car. You were suddenly just there.”
“Maybe you shouted without realizing it, Matt. I mean, you were panicking. You were probably out of your mind. I know I would have been.”
“How fast were you driving?”
“About fifty. I don’t know.”
“Were the car windows open?”
“No.”
“Then even if I had shouted, how could you have heard my voice? It’s not possible.”
“You have a point,” Richard admitted. “But then how do you explain that I swerved off the road in exactly the right place and came straight to you?”
“I can’t,” Matt said, in a quiet voice.
“Look, I heard someone. All right? I pulled over and there you were, up to your neck in-” He broke off. “You’re just lucky I hadn’t decided to stay for another pint. But now you’re here, maybe you should tell me a bit more about yourself.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t even know your full name. You say your parents are dead but you never told me how you ended up living with this woman… Mrs Deverill.” Matt looked away. “You might as well tell me now,” Richard went on. “It might help me work out what we’re going to do.”
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