The Silence

by Tim Lebbon

  “What are we going to do?” Kelly asked. She’d grabbed the shotgun that they left leaning by the back door, and now she cradled it across her arms. It looked so clumsy and out of place.

  “I’ll go out to see him,” Huw said.

  “I should come with you,” Lynne said. Jude said nothing, huddled to her side, protective and protected.

  “No,” Huw said, but he immediately saw that look on his mother-in-law’s face, the stern expression, head tilted to one side, that meant there was no way he could win this argument.

  “I know you think my being a Christian is submitting to mumbo-jumbo, but it’s important to me, and the fact that he’s a vicar means we’ll have common ground.”

  “I’ve told you what he’s done to himself,” Huw said.

  “And who’s to say he’s wrong?” Lynne said. “We’ve succeeded in talking in whispers, but I bet you feel like shouting at me sometimes.” She offered a faint smile which he returned.

  “Stay in the kitchen, all of you,” he said to his wife and children. They nodded. He glanced at the shotgun, reached for it, hesitated. He looked to Lynne, automatically deferring to her judgement. And just how did that happen? he thought. But she had faith and the man was a vicar, so perhaps this really was her territory.

  “Maybe leave it for now,” was all she said.

  Huw opened the door and Lynne walked out. He followed and pulled the door closed behind him, not quite engaging the catch. They all knew about the vesps within the garden boundary, and now he saw her glancing at them as she walked. For someone so ill she appeared alert and confident. That was good. Huw had no wish to display any weakness.

  As they walked across the lawn to the closed vehicle gate leading out onto the lane, the Reverend and the others with him approached across the scrubland beyond. They avoided the lane, where loose stones might be kicked, or holes might trip.

  We should be helping each other, Huw thought. Pooling our resources, making sure we’re all taken care of. Not this. Not mutilation and fear.

  There were six people with the Reverend, four adults and two children. They wore a variety of clothes, all of them wrapped against the rain. Most of them showed bruising around the lips and mouths.

  With every step Huw took, his heart sank a little further.

  Lynne reached the gate first. On the other side, the Reverend came within touching distance while his flock hung back a few paces, spread out. This close Huw could see that the two children were both girls, very young, perhaps sisters. One of them seemed to be sobbing silently, the other holding her hand. Both had bloodied chins. The adults were two men and two women. They seemed very thin, almost gaunt, and he could barely imagine the pain they must experience while eating. They all stared, and it took a few seconds for Huw to pin down why their stares seemed so strange. They were looking past him and Lynne at the house.

  The Reverend nodded at Huw and smiled at Lynne, opening his mouth to display his ruined tongue. He held out a single sheet of paper over the top of the timber gate.

  Lynne took it, glanced briefly, then handed it to Huw.

  The girl has to teach us, it said.

  Huw shook his head.

  The Reverend glared at him. He wrote nothing else, even though he carried a pad and pencil in his left hand. He did not smile or frown.

  Lynne took a single step back, but Huw remained steadfast. He glanced away from the Reverend again, looking at those poor, tortured people he’d somehow persuaded to follow him, and they continued to stare expectantly towards the house.

  There’s only a wall and a gate.

  He must have told the Hushed about the girl who signed, speaking with her face and hands and arms, silent yet filled with expression.

  If they rush us, we can only run back to the house and lock ourselves in.

  The crying girl shifted from foot to foot. One of the men raised a hand, opened his mouth, and almost touched the pustulant, red-raw stump of his tongue. The agony repulsed his touch. His eyes were wide and he shook with fever. His wound must be infected.

  We’ve got to be strong.

  Huw took a pen from his coat pocket, folded the note and leaned against the wall beside the gate. He wrote quickly, glancing up at the Reverend and his followers between words. The vicar still stared at him, almost expressionless behind those rimless glasses yet exuding danger. Mad, furious danger.

  Huw handed him the note.

  We’re surviving well on our own. Please leave us.

  The Reverend barely seemed to glance at the note before dropping it aside. He pointed at the house.

  Huw shook his head.

  The Reverend took a final step forward, pressing against the wide gate, forcing it against hinges and catch. It creaked, groaned.

  Huw wished that he’d brought the shotgun.

  “Go,” Lynne said, her whisper seeming incredibly loud in the silence. The little girls took a frightened step back, and two of the adults raised hands to their mutilated mouths in shock. Huw wondered what they had all seen to inspire such terror, and whether the Reverend himself had provided examples to teach them the way to survive, his way.

  For a moment he thought the leader of the Hushed would climb the gate and urge his people on, forcing confrontation that could really only end one way. The Reverend pushed against the gate so that his upper body leaned over, a small silver cross on a chain slipping from beneath his white collar and swinging slowly back and forth. Then he eased back. His face fell, suddenly sad, and a dribble of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. Maybe he was trying to speak.

  The Reverend turned to his flock and raised his hands. They lowered their heads and looked at their feet, hands clasped against their chests. Their prayer was silent. After only a few moments he led them away without once looking back. They walked on the grass verge beside the road, passing the vesp that Huw had stirred, now back in its familiar roosting place.

  Lynne came close and held Huw’s arm, and they stood together watching until the Hushed passed out of sight behind the trees. Then Lynne tugged gently and they went back to the house.

  Kelly was waiting at the back door, eyebrows raised. Huw gestured for her to go inside. Once he and Lynne had followed, he closed the door and slid the bolt across.

  “He’s mad,” Lynne whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean it. Did you see his eyes? It came off him in waves.”

  “Dad, what’s happening?” Jude asked.

  “We were watching from the window,” Kelly said.

  “Not much, mate,” Huw said, answering Jude. “Some people came by and wanted us to go with them, but I said we were happy here.”

  “Is that the one you and Ally saw? The one who’d cut out his own tongue?”

  “That was the one.” He ruffled his son’s hair. “But don’t worry, he’s got friends with him, and they’ll help each other out.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Kelly said.

  Huw saw his own fears reflected in his family’s eyes. They’d already decided that this place could not become their home, and that soon they would have to head out for somewhere safer. Somewhere colder. In those quiet moments in bed, sharing warmth, he and Kelly had agreed between them that their original destination, Scotland, would be their best bet. But now perhaps their hand would be forced.

  There was no telling what the Reverend might do next.

  * * *

  Huw and Ally insisted on having their regular time alone that evening, her iPad open on the table before them. They shared a bowl of peach slices in syrup, passing the fork back and forth as Ally scrolled through websites and articles she thought her dad should see.

  None of it was good news. And to Huw it all felt very far away. Over the past couple of weeks their world had narrowed down to this house, this valley, where they could go for food, how long the power would stay on, when the phone reception might become problematic. He was frankly amazed that the electricity supply remained functional, but 3G re
ception was becoming intermittent. The Internet frequently dropped out while Ally was online. So a family being chased down by a flock of vesps in France… a man in York who paraded naked through the streets wearing the slaughtered creatures’ tendrils from a thong around his neck… the American President promising aid, while several sources claimed he was not the President at all… these were all stories from another world. He cared, but nothing he read helped him and his family confront their own immediate problems. The President could not talk sense to the Reverend. The vesp-killer in York had a long way to come to help them.

  After a few minutes of this, Huw placed his hand over Ally’s and lifted it away from the screen.

  “We’re in danger,” he signed.

  Ally nodded.

  “There’s no saying what he’ll do.”

  She nodded again. “Are you and Mum still talking about Scotland?”

  Huw smiled. She was a clever girl.

  “Can you tell me exactly how far it is?” he asked, nodding at the iPad.

  She brought up an app and entered the details of where they were, then slid it across so that Huw could tap in the postcode of his parents’ old place, Red Rock. A route map appeared with a summation of distances and times, had they been driving a car.

  One hundred and thirty miles. Almost three hours by car.

  “That’s a long way on foot,” Ally whispered. “And Lynne…”

  Huw sat back and sighed. He wished Glenn were still with them. He wished they hadn’t had this extra horror thrown at them, on top of what had already happened. But they had to deal with the situation rather than try to wish it away. Wishing, praying, placing fate in ephemeral hands, that was the Reverend’s domain. And look where that had got him.

  “We have tonight to sleep on it. I’ll chat to your mum. I want you sleeping in with Jude tonight.”

  Ally did not argue and he loved her for that. If something happened—if the Reverend returned—they both knew that Ally would not hear.

  He stood and kissed his daughter’s forehead, and thought, I’m so lucky to have her. She really was a remarkable kid. Loving, intelligent, possessing a great sense of humour, she hadn’t morphed into anything approaching the monster teen he’d once feared. She was beautiful too, in an unconscious way that sometimes made his heart ache. He’d always told her that she would be a good catch for some young lad one day, and she’d blush and tell him to get lost, Aww, Dad, don’t talk about stuff like that. But he’d meant it.

  Now, he wasn’t so sure. The future was an unknown land, growing even more uncertain as days went on. The vesps were one thing, but now there was the Reverend, the Hushed, and what was happening here might well be happening all over.

  Leaving the room, going to look for his wife, he wished for one more night of peace.

  * * *

  Huw walked the house as he had every night, checking that doors and windows were closed and locked, looking outside into the darkness, fearing what was out there. Tonight he feared a little more.

  Everything looked quiet. It was raining again and almost completely dark, with very little star- or moonlight making its way through the clouds. When he shone the torch out through the window it illuminated a splay of falling rain, the splashing ground, and very little else. There was no sign of movement, no indication that the Reverend and his people were anywhere near. And why should they be? They had turned him and the Hushed away, and now he would be back wherever he came from, ready to invite other travellers into his flock. There was no reason for him to come here again. None.

  Yet Huw couldn’t shake the idea that the Reverend was not finished with them.

  He pulled the curtain aside from the window beside the front door and shone the torch outside. Wet, puddled paving, driving rain, nothing else. He sighed. Perhaps the morning would shed more light on what their course of action should be.

  Upstairs he looked in on Ally and Jude. Jude was asleep and Ally was looking at the iPad beneath her covers in the other bed, power lead snaking across the floor. He smiled and blew her a silent kiss she did not see.

  In the room he and Kelly had taken for themselves, his wife was sitting up in bed. Her washed clothing hung on a rack she’d found in the bathroom.

  “Kids asleep?” she asked.

  He nodded, pushing the door half-closed behind him. As he stripped he realised how much his own clothes were starting to stink. They washed them as well as they could, but they’d left the vehicles up on the hillside carrying almost nothing. The dead woman’s wardrobes had given them a few items they could use, but he dreamed of finding another abandoned house with fresh clothes for them all.

  He crawled into bed beside his wife and she snuggled down next to him, resting her head on his chest. He put his arm around her. She was smooth, comforting, familiar and warm.

  “We’ll have to leave tomorrow,” he whispered.

  “Yeah. He’s made us so on edge, we can’t live like this.”

  “Not only the Reverend. The weather. Ally’s seen more and more about them being affected by the cold and…”

  Kelly rested her hand between his legs, gently kneading.

  “And we need snow. And…”

  She raised her face to his and kissed him.

  “What was that for?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  She grabbed him and started to stroke, slow and rhythmic. Huw could not remember the last time they’d made love. Not since the vesps, and a while before that, too. They loved each other but life was busy, tiring, filled with things to think about and do; places to go for Ally and Jude, hospital visits for Lynne, work and chores and a thousand other reasons to be too tired, too bored.

  They kissed again, deep and long, and she slid on top of him, her hand still working, breasts pressed against his chest. He ran his fingertips down her back, squeezing her behind, delving between her legs.

  “We’ll have to be quiet,” he whispered, thinking of Lynne and Jude. But Kelly started laughing silently, and he felt a giggle rising, emerging as a series of heavy breaths.

  “I’ll scream when I come,” she breathed into his mouth. “What a way to go.”

  They took their time making love, and for a while everything else went away.

  * * *

  Lying there afterwards, Kelly’s fast breathing slowing into sleep, trying to make out the shape of the room around him in the darkness, Huw heard a noise. A rustle, then a soft knock.

  He sat up in bed. Kelly murmured beside him but lay still, saying no more.

  He breathed gently from his mouth, head to one side as he tried to listen again. One of the kids or Lynne rolling in their bed? A vesp slithering across the roof, perhaps to get out of the rain? The sound did not come again but he heard it over and over, trying to analyse what it might have been.

  Maybe it was even his own heartbeat settling down. He’d been lying down, head buried in the pillow, and perhaps he’d heard a rush of blood through his ear, or—

  Another sound, and this one was from outside.

  He jumped from the bed and dashed to the window, pulling the curtain aside. Very little was visible out there, other than the faintest tone difference between land and sky. He hefted the torch, pressed it against the glass to reduce reflection, then flicked it on. For just a moment he saw movement out by the garden wall, but when he blinked it was gone. He wasn’t sure what it had been, or even whether it was anything other than rain and shadows dancing in the torch beam.

  “What is it?” Kelly whispered.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Nothing.” But he switched off the torch, pulled on his trousers, and went to check that it really was nothing.

  The landing was silent. He could hear Lynne’s gentle snoring and one of the kids shifting in their sleep. Rain hushed across the rooftop above his head. Somewhere, water dripped. There was nothing else.

  He moved to the head of the staircase and paused, head tilted as he listened.

&n
bsp; “Huw!” Kelly whispered from their room. “There’s someone leaving the house!”

  Ally? Jude?

  He thought of that sound again, the rustle and soft bump. He turned on the torch and aimed it down, illuminating the stairwell and hallway beyond. Something dangled on a string inside the front door, hanging from the letter flap. Several other similar shapes were scattered across the entrance mat, trailing the strings that had been used to lower them quietly inside.

  “Huw—” Kelly began, standing naked at their bedroom door.

  And then the phones began to ring.

  21

  #LondonisGrey

  Twitter, Monday, 5 December 2016

  Someone was shaking me. I’d barely been asleep anyway, or at least I didn’t think so, but when I sprang upright I was groggy and confused, and the remnants of my dream held on. I was one of a group of horses running across the hills, fire leaping from my feet, the beautiful song of my brethren the theme to our escape. Whatever chased us did not stand a chance. Whichever beast pursued us into the mountains was long lost.

  And then Jude was trying to talk to me; I could see that he was shouting, and in his panic he was forgetting that silence meant safety.

  I held his hand and squeezed sharply, and in the light spilling in from the landing he began to sign. “There are phones!”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Phones ringing, some downstairs and I can hear them outside too, like they’re—”

  Our mother appeared in the bedroom door, a blanket about her. “Out here, now!”

  Jude pulled me from the bed. I grabbed my jeans and pullover, slipping them on as I hobbled from the bedroom and followed them onto the landing. Lynne was there, looking old and confused and so vulnerable it made my heart break. I always saw my grandmother as strong.

  “Down!” Mum said. “Help your dad!” She dashed back into the bedroom, dropping the blanket and scooping her clothes from the drying rack.