"Oh - are you two with the police, then?" Amanda looked at Steve and Troy as she spoke.
"So, straight ahead it is," said Troy.
Gus laughed and shook his head. Amanda frowned at the lack of an answer, but let it go.
"Hey, Amanda," said Peri.
"Yes, er, you said your name was Peri? Is that right?" she answered.
"Right. I was wondering about your archaeologists."
"Historians, actually."
"Okay, historians. Who are they? What are they like?"
"Wonderful," laughed Amanda. "But then, I must say that, I'm a historian myself by training. That's why I produce historical documentaries. I know how to get on with other historians."
"But seriously, Amanda, what are they like?"
"They're like - well - historians. Sorry, I'm struggling a bit - what do you want to know?"
"Well, who's running the expedition? Let's start there."
"All right. Professor Maxwell Coupar is fronting things."
"I know that name," said Peri. "The History Man, right?"
"Right. That was my first production. I started as an assistant, but by the third series I was in charge. Maxwell was the face of the series all the way through."
Peri was recalling him to mind. Floppy long hair, boyish grin, enthusiastic twinkling blue eyes. "I quite fancied him."
"Did you?" Amanda laughed, and Peri blushed as she realised she had spoken aloud. "You weren't alone. His fan mail included quite a few items of - let's call it, 'intimate apparel.' Some of it - er - ever so slightly soiled."
"Wasn't he fired for shagging the wrong people?"
Amanda looked annoyed, and defensive. "He was naive. He resigned from the University, he didn't get fired, because he did nothing improper."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. His Achilles heel is that he can't say no to a woman, and he gets taken advantage of. His TV appearances meant groupies, and groupies who feel jilted can be trouble. Especially when the aforementioned groupies included wives of colleagues. Silly man, I doubt if he'll ever change."
"Ah," said Peri, thoughtfully watching complex emotions crossing Amanda's face. "You have a bit of history together..."
"We were undergraduates together at York."
"...and you've been trying to save him ever since."
Amanda snorted. "Don't be ridiculous! He's a grown man, he doesn't need saving. Anyway, it's none of your business, is it!"
"No, it isn't, and I didn't intend to case offence, sorry." Peri decided to leave that for now. "And how big is the expedition?"
It took a couple of minutes for Amanda to respond. Peri let her calm down in silence.
"Four," Amanda said at last. "Hardly an expedition to rival Howard Carter. Two grad students and a so-called assistant."
"An assistant who's female and taking advantage of the Professor?" hazarded Peri.
"Oh shut up!" Amanda was back to being annoyed. Then she said, "Sorry. I asked for that by calling her a 'so-called' assistant, I suppose."
Another minute passed in silence. "She's supposedly a research assistant - sort of a cross between a librarian and a gofer. But she's never done it before and she's crap at it. She's contributing her time for nothing, and as I said, Maxwell can't say no to a woman."
"Pretty?" asked Peri.
"Tori looks like a whore," said Amanda, bitterly. "Or a porn star. Fake tits, fake tan, pouty lips."
"Dyed blonde?" suggested Peri. "Carpet burns on both knees?"
Amanda gave a snort of amusement. "Dead shot with a ping-pong ball, I bet," she laughed.
"Can open beer bottles with her pussy?" Peri giggled back at her.
"Cracks walnuts with her sphincter?" Amanda suggested, laughing harder.
"Sucks harder than a Henry?"
"Bounces harder than a Tigger?"
"Licks like a grooming cat?"
"More shag than an Axminster?"
"Whoa, sister," laughed Peri. "You've been giving this sex notion just a bit too much thought! Now, my excuse is wishful thinking, so what's yours?"
"Stop, stop," laughed Amanda. "We shouldn't. We don't know the girl that well, we may be doing her a grave disservice."
"All I can say," said Peri with a straight face, "is that I am now looking forward very much to meeting this lady."
"Lady? Did anyone mention a lady?"
"Okay, okay. Well, what about the grad students?" asked Peri. "What are they like?"
Amanda looked glad to move the subject on. "They're students. They don't take life too seriously, well, not as seriously as they take their beer. I like Owain, he's got a dry sense of humour, but Gilda - well she's okay but she can be a bit catty about Tori. Those two definitely don't like each other."
"Don't tell me Gilda is a jealous History Man groupie?"
"Oh no, quite the opposite," replied Amanda. "I get the impression that she's a bit disappointed by the Great Man's naivety when it comes to pushy women. And anyway, I'm pretty sure she's gay."
As the party walked inland up Harbour Way, the fog had thickened and visibility diminished. Peri smelled a slightly odd tang in the air, but she could not place it. She paused, and sniffed audibly.
"What's that funny smell?" she asked.
"What smell?" said Steve. He and Troy also stopped and sniffed.
Gus heard Tash's voice inside his head. "Well I can smell it too," the dog said. "What's more, I know what it is."
"What?" Gus said without speaking.
"Now that would spoil the surprise," replied Tash. "There's no fun in that."
"All right," Gus answered in his head. "I deduce from that comment that it will not be pleasant."
"It depends on your idea of fun. Never mind, you'll smell it too, and quite soon."
The party resumed its advance. Troy had, almost absent-mindedly, drawn his gun. Amanda noticed, and stopped.
"Er, I don't want to sound alarmist," she said, and pointed at Troy. "But that's a gun. Why do you have a gun? What's going on?"
"Yeah, it's a gun," said Troy. "Steve, mate, I can smell something … off. Can't you?"
Everyone had stopped now, and peered into the mist.
"Blood and shit," said Steve.
"Are you swearing, or identifying the smell?" asked Peri.
"The second. Someone or something came to a bad end, just up ahead."
"WHAT?" Amanda's exclamation came out as a high-pitched squeak. She controlled her voice with an effort. "A bad end? What the hell does that mean?" She looked, accusingly, at Steve and Troy. "Who are you? What have you got me into?"
"Someone dead or dying," said Peri. She turned to face Gus. "Have you ever done military service? Ever fired a gun?"
"Yes," said Gus. "I have had some experience." He and Tash exchanged amused looks, for some reason nobody else could fathom.
"Steve, Troy, do either of you have a backup piece?"
Steve nodded. "Naturally. I suppose you want give Gus a - what did you call it? A 'piece'? Hey, Gus, have you ever fired a Sig P230?"
"Not that specific weapon, no," said Gus, "but I am sure I can manage."
Steve pulled a gun from an ankle holster and handed it over. "Work the slide to cock it. After that there's no safety, just pull the trigger." He turned to Peri. "What about you?"
"Me? I know nothing about guns! I'm not field trained."
"You're about to get a crash course, then. Troy?"
Troy ejected the magazine from his spare Sig and handed the pistol to Peri. "Hold the pistol grip with your dominant hand. Lay your forefinger along the side, keeping it outside the trigger guard. Now remember that, it's important. You only slip your finger into the trigger guard when the gun is pointing at something you really, really want to shoot. Now, cup your other hand under your right. Your right hand aims and fires, the left is there to balance the weight and stop your hand from wobbling. That's it. Now lean forward slightly from the waist and bend your knees just a little. The idea is that the gun's recoil is absorbed by
your body, not just your wrists. Good, that's a good posture. Now stretch out and up so the pistol is just above your eye level. To aim, you turn your whole body - move your feet, Peri - turn so your target is right in front of you. Then gently bring both arms down so the gun is at eye level. The gun's sights are the white dot at the front of the gun, and the white rectangle at the rear. As soon as you see the dot touching the rectangle, and they are both in front of the middle of the target, you slip your finger into trigger guard and squeeze gently. The pistol will fire, and the recoil will push the muzzle up a little. Repeat the process, bring it down to eye level, align the sights and target, and squeeze again. Got that?"
Peri ran through the actions several times, until Troy inserted the magazine for her. "Right. You have seven shots. Please be careful where you point it, and don't waste any of them on me."
She gave a nervous laugh.
"I mean it," said Troy. "Now please, take your forefinger out of the trigger guard and lay it alongside." He held up his own hand. "Like this, all right?"
"Sorry."
They started moving forward once more. Peri was sure the unpleasant smell was getting stronger, and was about to say so when Steve held up a hand and said, "Stop."
"What's that in the road ahead?" said Troy, peering into the fog and aiming his pistol.
Steve said, "It's an animal."
Gus added, "Goat."
Peri chuckled and glanced at Gus. "Is that your idea of swearing? Well, goat me!" Her face reddened as she realised her voice was quavering on the edge of hysteria. "Sorry," she added quickly.
"Take deep breaths for a minute," said Gus. "Focus yourself on the road ahead. I'm covering your back. It will be all right."
Steve and Troy were slowly advancing, and moving apart as they did so. Peri noted that they were swinging their pistols from side to side, and looking to the sides as well as ahead. She glanced back at Gus, and saw that he too, was sweeping his gaze, and his pistol, from side to side, alert for any movement.
"It's a goat all right," Steve said. "Or at least it used to be. Ladies, if you're even slightly squeamish, I suggest you hang back there and don't look."
Naturally, that made Peri and Amanda both look.
"Oh my GOD!" said Amanda, and she promptly turned, bent over, and vomited.
Peri looked at the animal on the road. She surprised herself by not throwing up, because it was truly horrible. The goat lay on one side, its legs splayed out. Its skin seemed to be wrinkled and tattered. Strands of its viscera trailed out of a gaping hole where its underbelly used to be, and it stank of excrement where its bowel had been torn. Her nose also picked up the strong coppery smell of blood, and the stench of rotting meat. Peri realised that the wrinkling of the skin was due to the absence of muscle beneath it. Its chest had been ripped apart, and blood and bone fragments formed a ghastly splash around it. Tash was taking a close interest in it, and Peri was a little surprised to see the dog wrinkle its nose and back away. She would have expected it to react as if it had been presented with a meal, but the dog simply looked back towards Gus and she could almost swear it shrugged.
"Guys," she said as her mind started to make sense of the horrific mess before her. "Er, I'm possibly wrong about this, but ..." Her voice trailed off as she saw splashes of blood off to her left.
"What is it?" asked Steve.
"Most of this damage was caused by something coming out from the inside." Peri moved to the fresh blood that caught her attention. "And I don't think this blood over here came out of the goat."
Gus moved up and looked at the goat. He frowned. "Peri is correct," he said. "If you look, you can see that the goat was eaten from the inside. Something burst out of it quite violently. See?"
Amanda's shaking voice said, "I'd rather not see, if you don't mind." She retched again.
Troy had moved to the left side of the road, and was looking at the blood stains there. "This isn't from the goat. Look, that's someone's footprint. There's a trail going off the road, this way."
Amanda stood, her eyes shut, tears streaming down her face. "I want to get away from here. Please, let's go back to the mainland. We need to tell the authorities about this."
Peri put an arm round her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. "Amanda, love, we are the authorities. Me and Steve and Troy. Sorry, but I don't think splitting up is wise, and we can't go until we check out this blood trail. Somebody could be hurt out there. Just stick close for a few minutes longer." She was all too aware that her own voice was unsteady.
Steve looked over and nodded in agreement. "The missing policemen?" he said softly. Peri only shrugged.
Gus tapped Peri on the shoulder and gestured her away. He wrapped both arms round Amanda, and whispered to Peri, "Let me." He leaned close to Amanda, and murmured, "You just stay close with me and Tash. We'll make sure you're all right, while Peri and her men scout ahead. But you need to walk with me, because we all need to stay together. Tash will let us know if anything bad is out there."
Peri noticed that while he was comforting Amanda, his head still swivelled this way and that, alert for danger. "Come along," she said softly, and they set off.
Troy was tracking, while Steve was covering with his pistol. Peri tried to copy Steve, looking around for any movement in the fog. After a few minutes, she jumped as something touched her arm, but then she realised it was Steve. He simply pointed ahead. Troy had stopped and was peering into the fog off to one side.
"Is that another goat?" she asked. "Fuck, it is, isn't it?"
There was certainly an animal of some kind out there, facing towards them. It simply stood there, unmoving.
"Come on," whispered Troy, and he resumed tracking the blood trail.
Peri kept glancing to the side, and noticed that the goat was still watching them. It took a few steps, keeping them in view.
"Is it just me," she whispered, "or is that fucking goat keeping us under surveillance?"
***
Peri almost walked into Troy again. He had stopped. She followed his gaze, and saw a dark shape on the ground ahead. Steve and Troy systematically scrutinised the gloom around them, their pistols tracking their eyes. The others, just behind, had also stopped, and dead silence fell. Peri thought she caught something on the edge of her hearing. Was it a wet sliding sound from straight ahead? A rustle from her left? It was too faint to be sure, but she felt a growing sense of dread.
Troy moved forward to the shape on the ground, which Peri now recognised as a human figure in dark clothing. He stretched out a hand.
"No!" she hissed. "Troy, don't get too close!"
He withdrew his hand and turned to look at her.
"I need to check for a pulse," he said softly.
Peri's feeling of foreboding was getting stronger. She was almost sure she heard something - a wet gurgle. "Did you hear that?" she whispered.
"Hear what?" said Troy, and he stretched out towards the neck of the figure on the ground. Peri felt a weird sensation stab through her stomach, and her eyes caught a flash of something black leaping at Troy, smashing into his face as he tumbled backward. Then she saw Troy, stretching his hand forward slowly, and the bottom of her stomach seemed to drop away. Hysteria? A vision? Whatever it was, she was compelled to act. She jumped forward, catching Troy's arm and pushing it away from the body on the ground. Her momentum bowled him over.
"What the -"
"Peri -"
"No -"
Something black erupted from the body's throat and launched itself at Troy. Or rather, it launched itself at where Troy would have been, if not for Peri's desperate jump. The black shape hit the ground, squirmed round, and sprang again, towards Troy. His eyes went wide, he uttered and incoherent cry and tried to roll back out of the way. There was a sudden, shockingly loud, crack-crack and the black thing screeched and squirmed on the ground, short of Troy. Steve's boot came down on it with a wet squelch, and he ground it underfoot.
There was a moment of silence, everyone sti
ll, then everyone seemed to be talking at once.
"What's that-"
"Oh Jesus-"
"Where did that-"
Woof!
They all fell silent and stared at the dog, whose bark had just restored order.
Peri, her voice shaking, said, "I think that policeman is well and truly dead, Troy." She struggled to get to her feet.
Troy, too, was trying to stand, but his legs shook and he croaked, "Well, that was a bit surprising. I need clean shorts now!" He made it to his feet. "Peri, thanks for knocking me out of the way. Steve, mate, that was nice shooting, and just in time."
Steve was staring at Peri and frowning. "Wasn't me that fired at it," he said. He pointed a finger at Peri. "We need to talk, madam," he growled.
Everyone looked at Peri. "What?" she said. "What are you all looking at me for?"
"You said you'd never used a gun," said Steve, his tone slightly accusing.
"I haven't!" she protested.
"Well you nailed that thing - whatever it is - with two shots in the head while you were falling over."
She was genuinely surprised. "Did I?" She looked down at the pistol in her hand. "I didn't, did I? I mean, I don't think I fired it. Did I?"
Gus intervened. "That's not important right now. The things approaching through the grass are important right now, and I suggest we get of here, quickly."
They all stared at Gus. Then Peri heard it, too. The odd rustling she thought she had heard earlier was coming from two different directions. Steve cocked his head to one side. "Anyone else hear that?"
Gus and Peri, simultaneously, said "Yes."
"Right, this way," said Steve, and led off, avoiding the faint sounds in the grass, and angling towards the road. "Let's get off the island. Peri? We need some more manpower."
Without stopping, she fished out her smartphone, and typed a number from memory. After a single ring, a bored-sounding voice answered, "Yeah? What is it?"
Peri replied, "Code word Buckthorn, status red, I repeat, Buckthorn red."
"ID?"
"Golf, Charlie, Zero, Four, Niner, Eight, Eight, Eight."
"Hold the line."
After a minute or so, a familiar voice came on.
"Peri? You're declaring a Buckthorn Red event? Please confirm." It was Tommy.
Island of Fog and Death: A sci-fi horror adventure Page 15
