The Coming of The Strangers

by John Lymington

  There was a silence.

  “What do you think they’ll—do?” Jill said.

  Sebastian shrugged.

  “What happened to Joe will happen to all of us if we try to get out now,” he said. “The only thing was, they didn’t quite kill him.”

  Jill turned, held the edge of the door for a moment, and then went out.

  “Well, I won’t grumble about staying,” said Robert, “so long as they’re outside.”

  “But will they ever go?” Elfrida said.

  Harris turned from staring out of the window.

  “If they haven’t got human feelings,” he said, “then they won’t have impatience. They’ll just wait.”

  “It seems then that they still do care about being found there,” said Laura quietly. “Otherwise what would it matter if we went out of here?”

  Sebastian nodded.

  “Yes. Maybe,” he agreed. “Perhaps the newcomers amongst them are being careless and they’ve had to hit out at people who have seen them moving.”

  “I wonder how many there are?” Harris said.

  “I don’t know,” said Sebastian, wearily. “Could be hundreds.” “Then where are they coming from?” said Robert, keeping to his main point. “If they were coming from another planet they’d have to be landing somewhere, wouldn’t they? Well, are they landing somewhere? I mean—wouldn’t somebody notice a space ship landing? Or is that supposed to be invisible, too?”

  “Even if it was invisible, radar would spot it,” said Harris. “Yes,” Sebastian agreed, “but these things are amphibious, and there are great stretches of sea around the world where no radar scans. Having landed on the water they could then swim in. Lobsters do. They swim very fast.”

  “I thought you said they were crabs?” said Robert.

  “I don’t know what they are. I’ve never seen one! ” Sebastian cried. “Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is they have around six legs and they’re armoured. Now let your muddy mind work on that. I’ve tried it long enough.”

  He crossed to the table by the telephone and took a cigarette. He laughed suddenly and lifted the phone. There was no sound. “Just a thought,” he said.

  “So it’s these things cutting the phones off,” said Elfrida. “Obviously,” Harris said.

  Laura got up and stood close to John by the table. Her silent presence was enough. He took her arm and squeezed it in a small gesture of gratitude for her being there, and knowing that she understood, and incredibly, forgave.

  “So you believe,” Harris said to his back, “that you’ve let these things come in and started an invasion?”

  “It seems like it, doesn’t it?” Sebastian said, turning to him.

  “And. it’s too late to make excuses. It’s almost too late to do anything.”

  “Didn’t you get the jitters right at the start?” Robert said, staring uneasily.

  “I told you—it was gradual. It was in fact quite artistic. They understand fear, but it’s the only emotion they do understand. You’d better be prepared for it now.”

  “It will be better in the daylight” Elfrida said confidently. “Everything is so eerie in the moon.”

  Robert rolled himself a cigarette and began to pace about.

  “Have you planned anything?” he said. “I mean—any idea what we could do? We can’t just stew here till something blows up.”

  “We’ve got to start by thinking that no one outside this house knows what’s happening,” said Sebastian. “So we needn’t expect any help.”

  Robert looked out of the side window to the strings of pearl lights lining the central part of the promenade. They seemed a long way off. Then, as he watched they were switched out. He brought a watch from his pocket and looked at it, as if to confirm the time.

  Jill came in at the doorway.

  “How is he?” Laura asked.

  “He’s bad,” Jill said, a slight tremble in her voice. “I don’t know… ” She broke off, then drew a deep breath and courage with it. “Someone ought to get a doctor. I’ll go. I don’t mind ”

  “Suppose you got out,” said Sebastian. “How would you get back in again—with the doctor? I think you might surprise these things once, but not twice.”

  “You think there is a possibility of getting out, then?” Harris said urgently.

  “I suppose there is, but the trouble is you can’t see your opportunity,” Sebastian said. “You could walk straight into one.”

  “Couldn’t we signal by flashing the lights?” Robert said suddenly.

  “What are you going to flash and to whom?” Sebastian said. “The boarding houses and hotels farther along the front here are not open. I think that whoever lives there during the winter keeps to the back parts only. It’s something to do with a rate reduction, so there won’t be anybody watching along there. But suppose there were, what would you send?”

  “Well, SOS or something,” Robert said.

  “If anyone saw it they would think it was a drunk party,” Laura said.

  “Well, there’s a ship out there,” Harris said. “You could try it on that. They’ll have a permanent morse reader on the lookout. Go on.”

  “Where’s the switch?” Robert said.

  Sebastian showed him. Solemnly Robert flashed the message three times and waited. After awhile an aldis lamp shone back from the passing tanker.

  ‘‘What’s it say?” Harris asked.

  Happier April first next year,” said Robert. “Saucy beggars.”

  “Why should they think this house is sinking?” Sebastian asked. “It seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”

  “Don’t be so bloody sarcastic,” said Robert grumpily. “I was just trying an idea.’‘

  Elfrida looked across to a window.

  “Are they still out there?” she asked, and there was a very faint quake detectable in her voice.

  Harris nodded. “You can see the marks.” He pointed. “I’ll take your word,” Elfrida said, looking away.

  “You say we can’t do anything,” Robert said, staring at Sebastian suspiciously. “But you beat them out there. You knew what you were doing.”

  “I could see where they were because of the sand,” Sebastian said. “But once they get on hard ground ” He shrugged.

  “That’s it.”

  “Well, we’ve got to do something,” said Robert.

  “Of course,” said Sebastian. “Think.”

  “Of course,” said Elfrida, “no doubt it’s easier to see out and stop them seeing in, but oh dear, isn’t it lowering for the morale to have no lights on? Couldn’t we have just a weeny—say, a reading lamp?”

  Laura looked at John, then snapped the switch in a floor standard lamp. Nothing happened. All five people in the room looked at the dark lamp, a parachute against the moonlight window.

  “Try the main switch again,” John Sebastian said, making a gesture to Robert.

  The chauffeur was there smartly and the switch snapped with an almost pained sound with his determination to make it contact. No light came on.

  “So it would seem that through flashing the ship, they’ve got the notion light is useful to us for signalling,” said Sebastian. “Now we haven’t got even that. I wonder they didn’t think of it before, but perhaps they just wanted us to be comfortable.”

  “I had an officer like you in the War,” Robert said, almost in awe. “He used to joke in a hard sort of way all the time. He even joked when he got his bloody foot blown off. I waited with him for the blood wagon to come up. I remember I said to him, ‘You want to take it easy, sir, you’re in a bit of a bad shape’. And he said, ‘I’ll be in bloody bad shape if I start taking myself seriously’. That was an hour before I covered him up.”

  “I hope you don’t cover me up,” Sebastian said.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Robert said, and turned away.

  Laura went over to Jill.

  “They’ve cut the lights off,” Laura said.

  “Oh.” The girl spoke almost
without emotion, and turned and went into the kitchen. “I’m thirsty.” She drew water and drank it.

  “The boy is a friend of yours, is he?” Laura said.

  Jill rinsed out the cup.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s funny. Till today I thought I loved him terribly. I thought that all the doubts I had were my father being jealous and kicking up rows. Then suddenly I saw him—you know what a shock it gives you when you see yourself a way you never have before—those dressmakers’ mirrors—you sort of don’t believe it for a minute. You thought you looked better than that. And I saw him like that. Just something he did. Something he said. And suddenly I had the doubts all at once; just as if I was thinking as my father does. It made me feel sick and miserable. But I knew I was wrong about him, and I think I’ve known it all the time. Do you think you can go on with something you know won’t work, to—well, to spite yourself?’’

  “Yes,” Laura said. “Indeed you can. I’ve done it myself. It seems that you come to a point where you’ve warned yourself for so long you just say to hell with it, all of a sudden, and do it. As if you’d sooner do it than go on being frightened.”

  She stared out at the beach, gave a little shudder and turned back.

  “I don’t love him. I know that,” Jill said. “But if he asks me, I shall start all over again. I don’t want to, but I know I will. I know he’ll use this—being hurt—being ill—to make me feel for him, and I know I shall fall for it. I’m glad there’s something out there. I’m glad the world’s stopped being what it was. It seems almost that there’s a chance I can get away from myself. Oh, it sounds mad, but it’s true! I’m glad that we’re shut in here and can’t go back to the way we have to live. I’m glad! ”

  Laura said very softly, “I know.”

  “You do?” Jill said, amazed. “But you’re so beautiful and rich. You don’t have to do what people tell you. How can you know…?”

  “I just know,” Laura said.

  “Oh.” The girl seemed suddenly repentant. “You mean because your husband—I’m sorry.”

  “My husband was killed running away with his mistress a month after our royal wedding,” Laura said. “He took my jewellery and my Mercedes and he smashed the bloody lot including, thank heaven, the girl. I shouldn’t say that, but I just can’t help it. All my life I’d been warned about men being after my money.

  Time and time again I found myself wondering about decent men who I knew liked me. I got to a state where I wasn’t trusting anybody. That’s the way it can go when upbringing dins a thought into you day after day, year after year. I think they call it brainwashing or something now. And in the end I married the one man that I knew was a rotter. I was attracted to him in many ways, but I knew all the time I was doing it that I was kicking my shoes off into my family’s face. I think sometimes that I hoped to prove they were wrong—that I could change Dennis, but you can’t change anybody. Don’t think that—ever. They have no intention of being changed. That’s all there is to it.”

  “You knew before you married, didn’t you?” Jill said.

  “Yes. But I refused to see it.”

  “Was there anybody else, then?”

  “No.”

  “You knew without—another man being there?”

  Laura leaned back against the table.

  “Jill,” she said softly, “has someone else come along?”

  The girl shook her head violently. “I’m all in a mess,” she said.

  “Someone’s touched you,” Laura said, in the same soft voice, “and I think it’s John Sebastian.”

  The girl turned her back suddenly and looked almost in desperation at the moonlit beach.

  “I’ve known him a long time—seen him—he’s spoken to me..” She spoke broken sentences, half in explanation, half in defiance. “It wasn’t till I saw you come in through the windows, that I—Well, what does it matter, anyway?” She turned back. “We’re all here and we may never get out of it now. I don’t mind. It doesn’t matter any more!” She would have cried but she remembered how they had held each other when Laura had come in through the windows, and stiffened herself against it.

  “This is the sort of thing that happens,” Laura said, gently. “It comes suddenly.”

  “But it hasn’t!” the girl said wildly. “It isn’t suddenly at all. It’s been a long time.”

  “But—this other boy… ?” Laura said.

  “I was trying to get John out of my mind,” Jill said, almost savagely. “Anyone would have done. But it didn’t work. It won’t work.”

  “Jill—you’re making this up,” Laura said, still quiet.

  The girl turned back to her.

  “Go and ask him, then,” she said. “Go and ask him if he wanted me to stay here or not. Go and ask him.”

  A silence hung in the room.

  “I don’t believe you, Jill,” Laura said in a whisper.

  “All right then,” Jill said, and there was a note of triumph in her frightened voice. “Go and ask him! ”

  “I don’t believe you! ” Laura repeated, angry and scared.

  “You only have to ask him! ” Jill said, shaking her head from the strength of her vehemence. “He asked me to stay. And I would have stayed—any time, anywhere at all. Why did you come? He said you’d gone!’‘ She realised a new victory and repeated the words. “He said you’d gone!”

  “No,” Laura whispered. ‘No, he didn’t say these things.”

  “He’d say anything,’‘ Jill said, hotly. “Didn’t he bring these things outside here? He told lies then, didn’t he? If he wants something he doesn’t care what he says. You know that. But he asked me to stay. He asked me! ”

  “Jill, you told me you knew you would start again with the boy if…”

  “I wasn’t talking about the boy,” Jill snapped.

  “But you said…”

  “I know what I said. I wasn’t talking about Joe. I wasn’t talking about Joe!”

  “But I can’t believe…” Laura had tried to hold herself

  back, but she could not go much longer, when Jill cut in again.

  “It doesn’t matter what you believe, it’s what happened! ”

  Laura held up a hand as if shielding something from hitting her face.

  “Don’t!” she cried. “I’ll ask him. Now!”

  As she turned and went out, Jill stepped forward a pace, hands half lifted, as if to stop her, then she drew back again and her arms dropped to her sides. She shook her head as if to free it of some thought.

  “God, what’s happening?” she whispered.

  Laura went into the moonlit lounge to the silent, scattered people. She went to John, standing close to where Elfrida sat on die sofa, cuddling her cat. John was looking out of the window, watching the beach to the east.

  “John,” Laura said, very quietly, “did you ask Jill to stay here tonight?”

  “Yes,” he said, turning his head to her. “It was because…”

  Laura turned away with a swing almost like a dancer’s, and bent to Elfrida.

  “Elfrida, darling, I’m worried about you,” she said.

  “So am I,” said Elfrida, stiffening.

  “I think you’d better try and rest here,” Laura said. “John will get you some cocoa.”

  “Cocoa,” Elfrida said, letting Laura put her feet up, though she needed no assistance. “How you do remember people’s little weaknesses, Laura! ”

  Laura turned her head as she stayed there, crouching gracefully by the old lady, and looked up at Sebastian.

  “Get her cocoa, John,” Laura said.

  He licked his lips, but could not understand.

  “There’s no electricity,” he said.

  “Use the oil,” said Laura, and turned to smile at Elfrida.

  “In the moon,” said Elfrida cunningly “one cannot see people blush. But then,” she added, with a little affected laugh, “one cannot see these things outside at all, can one?”

  John went out to the ki
tchen, a new fear rising; one he did not know.

  The girl turned quickly as he came in.

  “Can I do something?” she asked quickly.

  “The old lady—Elfrida”—Sebastian said, halting, “—she wants cocoa. There’s an oil cooker but just try the electric. It glows red.”

  She turned a circular switch on the front of the cooker, then shook her head.

  “No red light,” she said, anxious to talk about something.

  He went to where the little oil cooker was and struck a match. “Did you tell Laura I asked you to stay the night?” he asked. “Yes,” she said. “Of course I did. It wasn’t a secret, was it?” He lit the wick and closed the door.

  “No,” he said, turning back. “I just thought you shouldn’t go home and I think now I was right.”

  ‘‘Why did you ask me that?” she said.

  “I thought she was upset.”

  “Because you asked me?”

  “I suppose so. With such a pretty girl as you, naturally, she…” He shrugged and poured milk into a small saucepan.

  “Pretty?” she said .’ I didn’t think you’d noticed me.”

  He gave a short chuckle.

  “Don’t be absurd, Jill.”

  He put the saucepan on the little cooker, and she came closer. “Did you notice me in the shop?”

  “Of course I did. I have a great weakness, and it’s pretty girls.” He half turned and looked out along the beach.

  “If I’d stayed and nobody had come,” she said quietly, “would you have made love to me?’’

  “No,” he said. “You have a boy, Jill. You told me. He’s here now.’’

  “He is not my boy, really,” she said, letting the lie ride her. “He’s just someone I—played around with. I had to do something, you see. Surely you understand that?’‘ She caught his arm, and felt him start slightly.

  “Jill, you don’t mean that you’re in love with me at all, do you?” he said, softly.

  “It’s a year since you started coming into the shop,” she said, urgently. “Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember me then? Say you do. Please, say you do! ”