[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

should have spouted thick red blood. The eye holes deep craters, the lips torn
and twisted into the ultimate in malevolent expressions.
And Jim Fillery knew then that he was at the final barrier, the one that
separated bravery from cowardice, sanity from madness. So narrow, he almost
screamed and ran but at the last second he stayed and watched, conquered his
inner self.
Ross Droy, or whatever this manifestation was, sagged back against the
stonework and those terrible wounds began to ooze thick fluid, not scarlet
blood but revolting grey slime, sludge that dripped in heavy splodges like
cow-dung, a substance that had its own life and stank of a putrescence that
spanned centuries. Death that lived and spread into pools and gave off vile
vapours.
All three of them were fleeing back down those stairs, heedless of the way the
structure creaked and shuddered, rotted pieces of woodwork snapping off and
splashing down on to the slime-covered floor of the hallway below them. Fog
wisped in through the partly open door, seeming to take on malicious shapes,
threatened to impede their progress.
'Keep going.' It was Andy Dark who was in the lead now, elbowing his way ahead
of the detective, dragging Carol with him. 'Don't stop, ignore them, whatever
they are.'
Whatever they are! He didn't want to think about it. The German, Ross Droy . .
. some kind of astral projection that had taken on a solid substance, the evil
in this foul marsh mud breathing life into bodies that were long dead. Don't
think about it.
'Which way?' Fillery pulled up, glanced about him. A grey frightening moving
world hemmed them in, whilst underfoot the stinking slime swilled and grew
deeper, an incoming tide of putrefaction. There was no sign of the men he had
instructed to surround the house; he had known deep down they would not be
here.
Which way, oh Jesus God which way? We've been trying to get out of this place
for days! Andy Dark felt himself starting to panic.
'Look!' Andy pointed to where a rivulet of thick slush was oozing its way into
the clearing like a giant slug slithering out of the reed-beds. 'This stuff is
flowing from the coast, and that means if we head directly in the opposite
direction we've got to reach the road. We've got to!' Trying to sound
confident for the sake of the others. But at least the foul brackish water was
on the move now, propelled by this vile substance that was seeping up out of
the ground to cover the wood. Right now he couldn't think of anything else.
'Keep going and don't stop for anybody or anything.'
A howl, escalating into a baying, dying away as suddenly as it had come, a
chilling sound that echoed in their brains.
'That must be the Alsatians, they've found a scent,' the detective grunted.
Somehow he did not sound convincing.
'It's . . .' Carol checked herself just in time.
'It's the Alsatians,' Andy snapped. Except that Alsatians don't bay on a
scent. He checked his Luger and suddenly it was a futile encumbrance. Bertie
Hass had not managed to stop the wolf pack with it. 'Don't take any notice of
anything, concentrate on keeping our direction.'
Several times they had to make a detour, pools that had previously been
shallow enough to splash through were now bubbling morasses of what looked
like untreated sewage. Andy's greatest fear was that they might be tempted to
take an easier path and double back on themselves. Fearfully he watched the
murky gloom ahead, afraid that that turreted house might loom into view again.
Welcome back, this is the home of Ross Droy and none shall leave it.
The sea was louder now, almost as though a huge tidal wave was pursuing them,
a raging vengeful mass of water determined not to be deprived of its prey.
They glanced behind them and then suddenly they felt the wind fanning their
faces, an unmistakable cooling freshness laced with a tang of seaweed.
'The wind's getting up,1 Andy yelled above the noise in an attempt to make
himself heard. 'That's why we can hear the sea. And look . . . the mist's
thinning!'
True enough the thick grey vapour was losing its density as it was swirled,
lurking grey shapes being blown into nothing more harmful than twisted trees.
Branches snapped, splashed and floated in the treacly spreading mire. A
shrieking that might have been the wind, a screaming and wailing like that of
souls in torment.
'My God!' Jim Fillery gasped, 'what the hell's going on?' His features were
pale and he still gripped his pistol.
'The elements are battling it out.' Andy Dark was reluctant to delay. 'The
wind and sea versus Droy Wood with its foul mists and polluted mud.' The
termination of centuries of strife, Nature taking on the forces of evil in a
way which none would ever truly understand. The final conflict, a kind of
Armageddon.
The road!' It was Carol Embleton who spotted that unmistakable line of ragged
hedgerow beyond the trees less than a hundred yards away. 'It's the road!'
It was. A straight stretch of B-road surfaced with worn tarmac and sparse
chippings. They broke into a run, cursed the mud which made one last effort to
suck them back, prayed that that which they saw ahead of them was not a mirage
sent to taunt them by the dying spirits of the wood.
People were walking along it, standing talking in groups, mud-splattered
bewildered searchers who had been lucky enough to make it back to dry land.
Some were still out there. Occasionally, borne on the gale, they heard the
barking of a dog, a human cry of anguish. But none was prepared to go back in
there.
Gratefully Andy Dark grasped at the stools of the hawthorn hedge, heedless of
the spiky thorns, pulled Carol up the bank with him, forced his way through
the branches. There was no time to search for a gap, they would not be safe
until they were clear of Droy Wood.
'Jesus wept!' Jim Fillery followed them, and only when his feet were on solid
tarmac did he turn back to look the way they had come. 'Just look at that
wood, it's awash, half the trees are floating. This tide'll reach the road.'
'It will that,' Andy Dark agreed, holding Carol close to him. 'The sea's been
chipping away at that coastline for centuries and now it's finally broken
through. I guess that's the end of Droy Wood . . . and everything in it!'
For a few seconds they stood and watched the final destruction of the wood,
swirling foaming water washing over the foul mud, cleansing it, sweeping away
the trees whose shallow roots had been dislodged. The mist was gone, replaced
by driving spray. Shapes that were gone before you had a chance to identify
them. A ruined house which might or might not have been turreted; it crumbled
and fell. Within a few hours it would all be one huge seascape. Nature had
fought fiercely ... and won.
'We'd better go home and get some clothes,' Andy smiled wryly at his
companions. 'A hot bath, something to eat and then sleep the clock round. And
after that I guess we'll be plied with questions to which there aren't any
answers, eh?'
Jim Fillery nodded. This was one report which he wasn't looking forward to
writing. It was going to read like some weird way-out piece of fiction. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]