The prints on the sea side of him moved, and he pointed to it sharply.
“I see you!” he shouted.
The prints stayed as they were, no new ones coming to betray further movement. Sebastian grinned, and tasted the salt of his sweat on his lips. The sudden smell of a useless victory made a little reaction to his anxiety.
He went a little closer. Nothing moved but the gentle lapping of the sea, frothing up in lace edges then receding with a faint hissing.
“Let me take that man,” he said, pointing.
The prints were sinking deeper into the wet sand; prints he had come to know, as he had used himself to the horror they instilled.
He went forward another pace, then two. Still nothing moved. But then he saw to the landward side the sudden spurting of dry sand, as more prints came running down towards the beach. The puffs of dust in the moonlight looked like bullet spirts, but they were all converging on the spot of the beach where the fallen man lay.
Sebastian knew one thing about them, and it was that one thing upon which he would have to gamble.
He ran forward suddenly, sprinting across the sand, ducking as he went. He saw two of the print sets re-form, coming nearer to the body, but they were slow, deliberate.
He got to the man, bent and grabbed him by one outflung arm. As he did it he saw the prints re-forming closer, heard the curious muffled padder from the sand dunes. He lifted the man’s back clear of the beach, got one knee under it and slung the inert mass round and across his shoulders. He struggled up to his feet and again began to run, heavy and uncertain, his feet sinking deep into the sand with the double weight, making his leet drag and stumble. He tried nut to think of anything but the white wall of the house ahead of him. He heard nothing but the pounding of blood in his ears, felt nothing but the mass of pain spreading from his tortured lungs. The man jogged and slipped on his shoulders, trying to beat him down into the sand, and then he spoke in a voice thick with blood.
“Beatniks. Christ. I’ve had it. Let me go.”
“Hang on,” Sebastian gasped.
An arm came round his neck, hooked round, almost choking him. His footsteps came slower, but there was nothing he could do about it to make sure of escape but drop the man, and he did not do it.
When he reached the garden steps his legs shook so badly he felt they would break sideways at the knees. He charged against the wall of the gateway, falling against it so that the man was almost thrown from his back and he half turned so that he could see down the steps to the sands and the marks of the pursuers steadily beating across the beach immediately below him.
He turned and staggered into the garden. Ahead of him he saw the moon shine suddenly in a glass door as it was thrown open.
“Okay!” Robert said, running out. “I’ve got you. Okay! ’ Between them they got the groaning man, carried him like a sack and ran clumsily for the kitchen door. They got him inside on the table, and Laura slammed the door and turned to John. “Put the light on!” Sebastian gasped. “I think he must be bad.”
He stood there, his chest heaving with pain at the breaths he had to take, his head bent. Laura took his arm and held it, but he was too far gone to feel anything. Harris switched the light on.
“Oh, God,” Jill whispered. “It’s Joe.” She turned her head away for an instant, then recovered. “Get a lot of hot water,” she called, throwing her coat off. “Might as well do it here. Is there any first aid?”
“Just—usual things,” Sebastian gasped. “You can tear—tear up sheets.” He felt Laura’s hand on his arm, and put his across and squeezed it there. “Hell! I can’t breathe! “ He gave a gasping laugh that ended in pain.
“I did a bit of this—in the desert,” Robert said, starting to strip off the tattered remains of the bloodstained shirt. “Struth! What did they hit him with? Choppers?”
“There’s only one thing,” Sebastian said, still breathing hard. “Don’t anybody ask to get a doctor. That’s out. Do what you can ….. He’s conscious. Laura get the brandy, there’s a good girl. Fill him with that. It’ll help …”
Harris filled a plastic basin. Robert felt the pulse.
“He’s bad,” Robert said. “But I’ve seen worse.”
“Get me some scissors,” Elfrida said, curiously unnoticed at the back. “I’ll do the sheets. Done it before, Lord help us.” Sebastian recovered and went, heavily, head bent into the hall. Laura passed him with the brandy.
“Darling,” she said, “sit and rest a little while.”
He went into the big lounge and stopped. He felt his body cold with sweat, but now it was the sweat of physical exhaustion instead of fear and he felt stronger for it. The shirt was stained with wet and Joe’s blood. He could smell it, but he poured a drink before he did anything about it. He stood with the glass in his hand and began to speak softly, as if someone he knew was there.
”Well that’s the last chance gone down the drain.” He drank. I suppose this had to happen. It seemed like a nightmare when they started to come these unlucky people. But the girl and boy made love here last night. Perhaps they rowed, and came back separately, as lovers do. And Elfrida—but doesn’t she know that cat is always hunting in my garden? Or hasn’t she liked to mention it? Of course the bloody animal ran down here, as one sex- sad exile to another.” He began to laugh and drank again. “And of course she followed, and so did her bodyguard. And Harris’s nose won’t be snubbed. He came because the tramp went in. And Laura, darling Laura, because she knew how much I wanted her better then I did.” His swallow caught, and tears of gratitude and love filled his eyes. He blinked, then finished the drink. He put the glass down and looked at the moonlight through the windows. “Well, here we are anyway. This is the end of it.”
PART TWO
The Siege
CHAPTER VI
Sebastian changcd the stained shirt and trousers. The heat of fear in him was dying off from activity and the strain of the journey on the beach.
Joe was got into bed, asleep, breathing like a groaning bellows.
“Leave him there,” Sebastian said. “You’d all better listen to what I’ve got to tell you.”
Laura watched him intently, but he turned away, casually almost, and went back into the lounge. He turned all the lights off and the bright moon lit the room. Outside the sea stayed calm, and the beach undisturbed. He went to the windows and stared out while the others came into the room behind him.
“While we’re inside here,” he said, turning to their white, eerie faces in the blue light, “I think we’re safe. This house has nothing but steel windows and doors, every one small-paned so that nothing—nothing bigger than a cat can get in through a broken pane.”
“What are those bastards out there?” Robert said.
“I’m going to tell you,” Sebastian said. “There’s no point in hiding anything any more.”
Elfrida sat down sharply and started to fan herself with a handkerchief. Laura sat down nearby, watching John. Jill Stood by the open door, ready to go back to the bedroom where Joe was. Harris stood there, subconsciously licking his lips, but quick with apprehension, his eyes constantly flickering across the icy stillness of the many windows.
“It won’t be as big a shock to you, as it was to me,” Sebastian said. At least you know there’s something there. I had to get myself gradually conditioned to a nightmare, starting from scratch.
“How long have these—things been here?” Elfrida said, trying to sound as if she were asking after a new parlour-maid. Several days now,” Sebastian said. “You’ll forgive me if I’ve lost count. It seems months, years, a lifetime. As if somehow they’ve been in the back of my life all the time, but I never brought them out till now. Some kind of moral stone in me I decided to turn up, and these crawled out.”
“What are they?” Harris queried.
“Some kind of crustacean,” Sebastian said. “But they’ve got no pigment in them which reflects our light, hence you can’t see them, only what they ma
rk. For instance … ”
He went to the window and looked out at the short smooth grass of the lawn. On the silver surface he could see brighter marks in small claw shapes, where something pressed the blades flat.
“You can see one waiting out there now.”
Elfrida clasped her throat. “Oh my goodness. How unpleasant!”
Jill giggled. Harris went to look, and with some hesitation, so did Robert. But Laura sat still, watching only John Sebastian.
“They’re big,” Harris said.
“Yep. About the same volume as a man, I think,” Sebastian said. “They seem to be able to stand up to about my height, from what I’ve seen—from marks of course.”
“Where did they come from?” Harris said.
Sebastian shrugged.
“They say they come from another planet——one they call, ironically, Earth—but I don’t know if they do. These last few hours it’s begun to seem to be they tell me just what they think will bring the reaction they want.” .
“They he?” said Elfrida. “Well, I’m not surprised. Horrible things. Every time I think of one in my house last night I feel quite sick.” She cocked her head. “Why didn’t you tell us then?”
“I thought they were just roaming, nosing round. Originally they told me they were merely a search party, explorers, they said. The scientists of their particular race.”
“They can talk, then?” Harris persisted.
“I don’t know,” Sebastian said. “I should think not, for the means of communication with me has been without any sound that I could hear, yet I could feel it. They hear me, but they make no intelligible sound themselves. They said they left that behind thousands of years ago.”
“Then how…” Harris said.
“Be quiet,” Laura said, angrily. “These questions are just muddling everybody. Start when it began, John.”
Sebastian shrugged.
“It started, I thought, with a dream,” he said.
He went to the window and looked out again, then turned back.
“I dreamt that somebody was standing behind me, talking, telling me to do something,” he said. “When I woke I could not remember what it was until I saw my tape recorder standing by the bed. I then remembered that the man had said I was to listen to it.
“Well, I played it through, and there was nothing on the tape at all. I would have thought no more of it, but I couldn’t understand how the tape had got there. It was always kept in here for transcriptions from the radio. There was no one in the house but myself.
“Next night, the same thing happened. I woke at once. It was dark, and this time I played the tape again, but as one is at such times, I was half asleep. I began to feel words moving in my mind.
“It then occurred to me that somehow, somebody was recording thoughts on the tape instead of sounds, and that in a half- trance, as I was, these impulses were being received by my brain, which was putting them into my words. It was a fascinating idea. So fascinating that I kept on with it, trying as hard as I could to blank my mind and receive what was on the tape. And gradually, it began to take form. Words became sentences of thought, and gradually continuous impulses giving information. The man behind me in the dream continued, and I was certain then that whoever was playing the trick with the tape was also getting at my subconscious mind while I slept. It was all part of a conditioning.
“I did not worry that no one was there with me, for all this communication can be carried out by radio or thought transference; either taking no account of distance.
“You see, I treated the whole thing as a challenge to my brain, to my interest in things. Until the impulses began to become continuous.
“Then piece by piece I had the demoralising—the terrifying experience of having revealed to me every secret in my head. I was told of every debt I had, of every threat that lay stuffed in the back of every drawer in the house. They knew everything. The letters, the threats, the bankruptcy notices—the lot. From that moment on, guilt made me not a participant in the experiment but someone trying to hide from it.
“It was then that gradually, these things began to reveal their presence to me. They came as helpers and the thoughts on the tape were of assistance, not accusation. And as gradually I got used to them being here around the house on the sands out there, and they did nothing but move on their own affairs and talk with me by this queer means, I began to get even used to them, and then they showed me how, if I would help them, I could have immediately an initial sum of ten thousand pounds.
“All I had to do was play down anything that anyone outside might notice: to make an official complaint that the cliff was unsafe and get it put out of bounds—they saw to the collapse themselves, and to do everything to isolate this end of the beach for a few weeks, while they made their investigations.
“They intended no harm to anyone, they said, but wished to learn in peace as our explorers do. But they feared harm from us.”
There was a pause.
“Where did they get this money?” Harris said.
“They told me they had radio finders on their planet by which they could analyse exactly where minerals lay undiscovered on our Earth. Do you realise that it is possible to form companies without the actual heads of it ever being seen by anyone? Lawyer instructs lawyer, accountant accountant, bank bank, until a chain is established that is so long no one ever traces it back—provided that the assets are there. And they have the assets there. They knew where the precious metals were, and they are able to reproduce writing with our equipment, pens and typewriters, by simple radio operation. Don’t forget, this had to be done only once—at the beginning, when a lawyer was appointed as operating head of the company. Credits were established, backed by considerable assets. I was given a bearer cheque for the amount made out by the London accountants for this ‘firm’, and it was cashed without any question, though when I went into that bank that day I felt like a robber, ready to bolt.
“But it was there, just as I had been told. My faith in them and their integrity was then complete. All I had to do was keep the secret, prevent others from finding it out, and I had nothing to worry about at all.
“There were five of these creatures, and that was all.
“I went out for them, buying equipment that they needed from various towns, so as not to create any suspicion here. Everything seemed so absurdly simple, until something happened to me that made it almost impossible to keep the secret.”
His gaze drifted to Laura for an instant, then he turned to the window again. .
“And following that, I became suddenly aware that their numbers were increasing. It was then that I began to get frightened. I can’t explain it, but the atmosphere began to change. They started to ignore me, and there were more and more signs of them on the beach, as if they had got so many they didn’t care about being discovered any more. When I say I began to be frightened, I mean more than that. I wasn’t only frightened of them, but of you and everybody else. I began to feel the dread that I had been the man to let in the Trojan horse.”
He came towards them.
“It’s important to grasp this; they have and understand no human feelings. In fact, they seem to have no feelings at all, like insects. They do not understand emotion other than fear. They got me through this. They knew I wanted something desperately and offered it … They understand mating, but no feelings that may go with it. Because of this I have hoped that they do not understand any such game as holding hostages. But they are here to learn, and they learn extremely fast.
“Now they have attacked people, though they promised me they had left all violence ten thousand years ago, so you can see that was a lie. The fact that they have attacked must mean they don’t care what we think any more. That means they feel secure here now, and that means we have little chance of ever getting out of this house alive.”
“No wonder Kissen was frightened,” said Elfrida, cuddling the cat as if she would crush it.
“You’ve n
ever seen them?” Jill said, staring and shaking her head, supplying her own negative.
“There’s nothing you can see at all,” Sebastian said.
“I don’t know about this planet stuff,” said Robert, in a surly tone. “Sounds like a bit of a trick, calling it Earth, like this one.”
“They call themselves Men said Sebastian.
“What? Giant crabs?” said Robert, offended.
“They look on us as degenerate,” Sebastian said. “They are amphibious.”
“What do you know about them—as Beings?” Laura said, with a slight shudder.
“Not much. They are clumsy and slow on land, anyway, though I don’t know about the water. If they talk with each other they do it without making a noise. The only noises I have ever heard is of them moving about—as you did last night.”
“You said that they—found your papers,” Laura said, dropping her eyes a moment. “You mean that they searched this house without you knowing?”
“Yes.”
“So that they could have been looking for my secrets in mine?” Laura said.
“And mine!” said Elfrida, starting. “Good gracious! What would anybody want to know about me?”
“They were finding out about you,” Sebastian said. “That was when I began to get really frightened. They had got hold of me through searching my affairs, and the fact they were in your houses seemed to suggest they wanted more agents … They had been watching you and me, Laura. They don’t visualise emotion, but they can see some kind of association. Perhaps they knew
that only three houses this end were occupied at this time of year and decided to cut the whole block off. I don’t know. All I do know is that since yesterday, when you called me in, they have not communicated with me at all. Before that there were streams of queries or orders to buy equipment. Now there’s nothing.”
The Coming of The Strangers Page 10
