The Watchers

by Neil Spring

  I nodded. Workmen had unearthed components of ten car bombs and a collection of timers on the coastal path. Speculation was rife among the drinkers at the Ram with theories ranging from arms smugglers to terrorism, although most people thought the American military had something to do with it.

  ‘It’s just another sign of the rot setting in,’ he said, tossing the morning newspaper into my lap. ‘There have been more animal deaths too, more mutilations. And they’ll continue as we approach the sky watch.’

  Jesus. Can this really be happening?

  I couldn’t remember my dreams from that night. Could only remember what I had seen – the ghost of a memory – before bed. Morning had brought with it a redoubled conviction: I had to see this through. I wanted the truth.

  It was late morning now, and great bruise-coloured clouds hung low over St Brides Bay. There was a rough clanging noise as Randall started the engine, and as we pulled away from the Ram Inn I wondered whether to ask him about the Jackson murders. But he was still on the subject of that day’s news: ‘Animal mutilations have been reported for centuries. In ancient Rome farmers spoke of demons attacking their livestock.’

  ‘Demons?’

  He held up a hand. ‘In 1874 sheep were found oddly slaughtered in Ireland and Wales. And last year more than ten thousand mutilated cattle were discovered across the mid-western United States.’

  ‘With no explanation?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, many! But what good’s an explanation if it doesn’t make sense, eh?’ He paused, keeping his eyes on the road. ‘In Latin American cultures strange animal killings are blamed on the chupacabra – that’s Spanish for “goat sucker” – a small grey creature, big head, bulging black eyes. In the United States the dominant suspects are visitors from another planet.’ He smiled. ‘It’s been that way since 1967, when a pony was found dead on a farm in Alamosa County, Colorado.’

  ‘And what was so interesting about that pony?’

  ‘Its abdomen, skull and spinal cavities were completely hollowed out.’

  Suddenly I was eleven again, digging Jasper out of the ground with my bare hands; staring with stunned tearful eyes at the place on his neck and head where the flesh had been completely stripped away. My stomach could hardly stand to hear Randall prattle on about similar mutilations. At the same time I saw something on his face that made me curious. His eyes were wide and dark, knowledgeable, I suppose. And if I’m honest, they didn’t look so crazy to me now. Not crazy at all.

  ‘The woman living on the farm claimed that a large object had passed over the ranch on the night of the mutilation. It soon became a common belief that aliens were responsible for these killings.’

  ‘But you don’t believe that?’

  He looked at me like I was stupid. ‘I believe the mutilations are connected with the UFOs. But I do not believe the UFOs are invaders from other worlds. My study of the subject indicates that flying discs and their entities have been reported for a long, long time. Would extraterrestrials really persist in visiting our planet for thousands of years and never make their presence widely known?’

  It was a fair point. ‘So what do you think it means?’

  ‘The mutilated rabbits I presented at the school didn’t just follow the universal pattern,’ he answered, swerving the car into a narrow country lane. ‘I found something else in their systems – high doses of atropine. I tested them myself; it was easy enough.’ He saw my puzzled expression and added, ‘It’s a tranquillizing drug.’

  ‘Who administered it? For what purpose?’

  ‘The carcasses are deliberately left to create fear.’

  ‘Left by whom?’

  ‘Surely you’ve realized by now?’ Randall pinned me with his eyes. ‘We’re dealing with a cult.’

  ‘I’ve heard of sacrificial rituals in Afro-Caribbean religions,’ I muttered, glancing out of the window. The car rounded a bend and from here I could see miles of rough fields sloping this way and that, dropping sharply towards the cliffs. ‘But here in the Havens?’

  Then, suddenly, What if it’s the Rotary Club?

  The idea seemed to come from out of nowhere. Except it hadn’t, not entirely. Where it had come from was something a local had told me when I asked him about the club’s work: I reckon they think they’re like the Masons or something. Self-important bunch the lot of ’em, but I suppose they have some influence. I wondered fleetingly what the admiral would make of that. He’d think it was time to send me for some psychotherapy.

  I asked Randall to slow down.

  ‘We’ve people to see,’ he protested, swerving the battered Hillman Hunter onto a single-track dirt road. ‘As I told you, boy, if I can’t convince you to leave this place with words, I’ll have to show you.’

  We pulled up outside a well-maintained house. The plaque next to the front door said we had arrived at Rose Cottage.

  ‘Who . . .’ I began, but the front door was opening and I recognized the distressed-looking woman standing there, though she seemed considerably paler than when we had met in the post office.

  ‘Come along, Robert,’ said Randall as if I were a kid again and he my guardian.

  We got out of the car.

  ‘Good to see you again.’ Isaac’s mother granted me a meek smile and I knew just looking at her that matters were about to get worse; the woman’s face was a mask of worry. ‘Come in, please.’

  The cottage had a still, uncomfortable atmosphere. We were shown through into a room with a low-beamed ceiling, stained cream carpet and cheap-looking furniture. Here a tall bespectacled gentleman in a smart cardigan was waiting. He was pale and thin with curly grey hair beginning to recede. I recognized him immediately from the town hall.

  ‘Dr Caxton,’ he said, standing and putting out a hand.

  Randall took the hand.

  ‘The doctor is a psychologist visiting from London,’ Mrs Jones said.

  ‘Parapsychologist,’ Dr Caxton corrected her with a pleasant but intense expression. I smiled at him. Two things struck me about this man. First, he was thorough and careful. Second, his mind was acute. ‘I’ve been staying in the area,’ he continued smoothly. ‘Mrs Jones asked me to check over young Isaac, as well as have a look at her husband.’

  ‘Neither Dylan nor young Issac have been at all themselves recently,’ Mrs Jones said. She kept a wary eye on Randall as he took a chair next to the fireplace. I sat with Mrs Jones on a long sofa beneath the bay window.

  Dr Caxton was the only one who remained standing.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Randall about this, after what happened at the school,’ Mrs Jones said to me. ‘He suggested it would be helpful for me to repeat the story for your benefit.’

  ‘Yes, I want to hear it,’ I said firmly.

  Now she began to look scared. ‘My husband is a keen diver, a fit man. Usually. His health has deteriorated rapidly in recent weeks, and his personality has . . . He’s become distant, aggressive.’

  ‘They’re both extremely unwell,’ continued Dr Caxton. ‘Isaac is sleeping now. And his father—’

  ‘Is wide awake,’ said a frail voice.

  All heads turned.

  A tall, gaunt man had entered the room. I saw from his unsteady gait that he was unwell, but nothing prepared me for what followed.

  Nothing.

  – 35 –

  Dylan Jones’s shock of white hair looked thin and dry. His face was narrow and drawn, cheeks sunken, and he hadn’t shaved for days. There was an inflamed lesion on the right side of his neck and a red boil above his left eye.

  ‘Don’t stare, please.’

  He tottered into the room, taking the chair nearest the door, and his wife eyed him warily. I suppose we all did.

  ‘Well. Shall we get on with it?’ he said. ‘You came here because you want to know more about—’

  ‘Your sighting. Yes,’ Ran
dall said. ‘And the diving . . . incident.’

  I didn’t think this man looked capable of diving; he hardly looked capable of standing. He started from the beginning. Around Christmas time he had woken early, shortly before 3 a.m., because of a strange orange light in the bedroom.

  ‘My wife and son were at my sister-in-law’s, so I was alone. The light was coming from outside and it was pulsating off the walls. So I got out of bed, looked out the window and saw this silvery object in the sky, high above the houses opposite. It was like a very large Easter egg – maybe six feet in diameter – swinging back and forth, like a pendulum.’

  ‘Did you hear any noise?’ I asked.

  ‘None, apart from the window. It was shaking, vibrating. Then I saw the man. Well, I say “man”. It had the shape of a man but was much too tall, too wide. Do you know what it reminded me of? That figure off the telly – the Michelin Man.’

  Randall nodded. ‘There have been other sightings. Where was it standing? In the road?’

  Dylan shook his head. ‘No, no. It was in the sky. Floating over the house opposite.’

  ‘Floating? Now come on. You can’t be . . .’ I stopped myself as Randall scowled at me. ‘Go on, please.’

  Dylan gave a slight shiver. ‘It just bloody floated there with its arms and legs outstretched, like a free-fall parachute jumper.’

  I sat very still, struggling to picture this. ‘You mean it was hovering face down?’

  Dylan nodded. ‘And all this time the egg thing was moving back and forth, until it and the figure glided away sideways, over the roofs of the houses, and went out of view. The dog was going completely mad, barking and barking. I just wish there was some sort of proof,’ Dylan said, eyeing Dr Caxton. ‘Without firm proof you begin to doubt yourself.’ He gave me an uncertain glance. ‘Know what I mean?’

  I nodded. I knew exactly what he meant.

  Dr Caxton, who had taken a seat next to me and Mrs Jones, was now opening a notepad. ‘You mustn’t worry about that, Mr Jones. A fruitless exercise. Simply trying to understand how the experience affected you is likely to—’

  ‘Understand?’ Dylan interrupted, touching the inflamed skin on his neck. ‘How do I understand this? Life used to be clear and understandable. Now I go to bed at night afraid of what might come out of the sky. Afraid that I’m becoming delusional!’

  Again this resonated with me.

  ‘Have you ever taken an interest in UFOs?’ Randall asked.

  ‘Not before Isaac and his friends saw that thing at the school, no.’

  Randall checked his notes. ‘According to your wife you did experience another unexplained event, while you were diving in St Brides Bay? That’s right, isn’t it? A few days after the school sighting?’

  Dylan nodded and looked doubtfully around the room until his eyes fixed on the window and its all-too-clear view of Stack Rocks. When he spoke next he was slurring and his voice sounded forced. ‘I was on a dive out there. Not the safest spot in the bay, I admit. The north side of Stack Rocks Island has deep gullies, underwater caves and fissures with strong currents coursing through them, but I’ve twenty years’ diving experience in these waters. I thought I’d seen it all, but that day I was about to swim to the surface when I was startled by a bright flash of light under the water.’

  Dr Caxton leaned forward, scribbling in his notepad.

  ‘I know how it sounds, but the water was glowing! I’m telling you now, it was as if something was down there with me. An object.’

  We all looked at each other, except for Randall, whose gaze was now focused on the three humps of Stack Rocks framed in the cottage window. Meanwhile, Frobisher’s comments to me on my first day in the village were surfacing: There’s a tale that in 1884 some labourers . . . saw a blazing object plummeting into the sea near Stack Rocks. They say the water glowed for days afterwards, that the men went blind. And mad.

  ‘What did it look like?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t see it so I don’t know, but I felt it in the water with me. It felt like it was . . . alive.’

  Dr Caxton cleared his throat. ‘Mr Jones, are you aware of any strange stories about these rocks – legends and so forth – that may have influenced your reaction to what you saw?’

  Dylan shrugged, glanced at his wife. ‘Sure, all sorts of stor­ies, I suppose. They say Stack Rocks and that old fort belong to that hotel, the big one on the cliffs, you know? That nobody goes there except—’

  ‘Araceli Romero owns Stack Rocks?’ I interrupted.

  ‘So they say.’ Dylan’s gaze had drifted to the window again. ‘Her father was a recluse, like her mother. Before he left the Havens some of the locals would see the lights on up there in the bar, late at night when the place was shut up, and a string of cars on the drive. There were rumours. Nothing proved but word got around. People heard singing up there, chanting. Some speculated it was something to do with a conspiracy of dark forces.’

  A cult? That’s what is sounded like to me. But how it could be connected to this man’s experiences, his physical symptoms, was far from clear. Yet.

  ‘Do you think that your incident underwater is in any way connected with the figure you saw?’ asked Dr Caxton.

  Dylan’s sallow face hardened with grim conviction. He nodded.

  ‘And how did you feel during both of these experiences?’

  ‘Disorientated, frightened. My head was filled with thoughts that weren’t my own.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  He wet his lips before answering. ‘When I was under the water there was a moment when I thought I could have stayed there and let my air run out.’ He looked at his wife, who was hunched over and shaking her head, her eyes glistening. ‘You understand? I’d lost all control and every desire to live. I wanted to die.’

  There was an awkward pause. ‘And now? Do you still think about harming yourself?’

  Dylan nodded and said, ‘All the time.’

  ‘Dylan, no!’ his wife said, her voice rising. She stood up and said to Dr Caxton, ‘For God’s sake, make him see sense. There must be an explanation!’

  ‘If there is, I’d certainly like to hear it,’ Randall said. His tone was doubtful, and I shot him a warning look to suggest that it would be unwise for him to annoy Dr Caxton or the Joneses.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Randall muttered. ‘I have an unfortunate habit of interrupting.’

  ‘You’re an experienced diver, Mr Jones,’ Dr Caxton went on. He removed his spectacles and turned to face the gaunt Welshman. ‘I assume you’re familiar with the rapture of the deep – narcosis?’

  ‘You think I imagined all this? Hallucinated?’

  ‘Diving any deeper than thirty metres can be hazardous for the mind. At its most dangerous, narcosis results in the impairment of judgement – the loss of decision-making ability and focus. There can be visual or auditory disturbances. And the syndrome can cause extreme anxiety, depression or paranoia.’

  ‘That must be it,’ Mrs Jones said, going to her husband’s side. ‘That’s what happened, dear.’

  ‘After what happened in the water, I started getting these bouts of fatigue. I would be walking the dog or working in the garden when I would get cold and start to shake. Isaac’s been the same since that thing at the school. He gets so exhausted and crawls into bed trembling.’

  Dr Caxton turned then and gave Randall a direct stare. ‘I understand from what the locals say that you predicted the sightings in a very public manner,’ he said. ‘Do you not think, Mr Pritchard, that you planted the seed?’

  He certainly did, I thought. But what nobody is talking about is how.

  ‘I am afraid I made an error,’ Randall conceded. ‘By warning people I only increased their interest – the opposite of what I intended.’

  Dr Caxton nodded. It was a gesture of understanding, not criticism. ‘What happened at
the school was the catalyst, and from that stories of unusual happenings have spread through the community, each more dramatic than the last. An ingrained lack of faith in the authorities allows people to accept these stories more easily than they would otherwise.’

  I thought as he spoke that Dr Caxton was clearly an intelligent man, but as he warmed to his theme Randall glowered at him.

  ‘What about all I’ve seen?’ he demanded.

  ‘The more you look for something, the more likely you are to expect to find it,’ Dr Caxton said, giving a slight shrug. ‘Whether they’ve seen something or not, everyone in the village seems to agree on certain “facts” about these UFOs – that they make roof tiles rattle, car radios go fuzzy. The greater the expectation that such events will happen, the less reliable the witness’s memory. A light in the sky quickly becomes a flying saucer. A ripple in Loch Ness rolls and rolls until it becomes a monster. I know it is difficult to accept but, trust me, in a restricted area the effects can be most dramatic. Folie à deux,’ he said. ‘Madness shared by two.’

  This was interesting – was it the explanation? Were the giant figures in silver suits, like the ones seen by Araceli and Martin Marshall and now Dylan, a perfect example of shared delusions?

  When I first saw the drawing made by Martin Marshall my first impression had been of an astronaut because the entity’s appearance fitted very well with images from NASA missions. Almost too well. Had Araceli, Martin and Dylan seen ‘aliens’ simply because that’s the context they understood such beings in? Possibly. If Dr Caxton was right, then in another era they might just as easily have interpreted those figures as God or angels of light. It sounded plausible but it didn’t account for the fact that they still had seen something. Also, the man we had come to see, Dylan Jones, looked desperately unwell, and I wasn’t at all convinced that some form of mass hallucination could do that. More specifically, speculating was fine but not at the expense of action: I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, particularly Araceli or Tessa.

  Randall was clearly of the same mind. ‘What about Dylan’s physical symptoms? Those aren’t imagined.’