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<h1>26</h1>
<p><em>August 3. Night.</em></p>
<p>The moon rose over the high edge on the east side of the valley,
a slow, bright dome, just a shave short of full. Doug had watched
it from where he sat, up against the pole of the tent close to the
open flap, seeing the coarse grass fringe limned in silver, then
silhouetted against the light. The others, Danny, Tom and Corky who
were at the back, could only see the effect on the valley and the
water of the stream over by the falls where Billy had stuck the
feathers.</p>
<p>The upstream curve of the valley gradually lightened as the moon
rose higher, sending ink-blot shadows contracting slowly on the
westward slides of the rocks and trees. The water at the falls was
a flow of rippling quicksilver and even the small cascade itself
seemed to be imbued by a kind of magic, softening its sound down to
barely a whisper. The four feathers of the dead heron were narrow
curved blades sticking up from the rocks. Danny turned his head
from the silver stream, drawing his eyes down the bend to the edge
of the campsite. The change in the light was perceptible over the
distance, graduating from an ethereal moondew out in the basin of
the valley, to a baleful red glow by the fire where the pine sticks
crackled and spat and sparks rose up into the blackness above. The
stranger sat hunched on the far side, close enough to the flames
for them to reflect on the smooth gun-barrel. If he had not been
there, the light would not have looked so hellish, merely warm. His
presence changed everything and took the magic out of the
moonlight.</p>
<p>Billy's face was a pale blur close to the man, flickering in the
dance of the flames. He was huddled on the log he'd hauled himself
as his camp bench. His old rusty Sheffield steel knife was still
embedded into the grain at the end furthest from the fire. It
wouldn't have done him any good even if he'd been able to reach
it.</p>
<p>The man was silent for now.</p>
<p>He was only a yard or so from Billy, but he looked as if he was
completely alone within himself. He sat still, solid as the rocks
at the falls. Four Feather Falls, Billy had called it and they'd
all recalled the little puppet show with the hero whose magic guns
would swivel in their holsters and fire at the bad guys, mainly the
Indians. The idea of a gun going off by itself was now a
nightmare.</p>
<p>Billy huddled motionless. They could all see the red glint on
the fire-side edge of the long barrel and the silver streak at the
top where the moonlight reflected. Those parallel lines of
flickering red and silver followed up from the stock to the far end
which was jammed under Billy's jawline.</p>
<p>"We will all sit vigil," the man had said. "Pray that you will
not fall into temptation."</p>
<p>Danny knew, from long experience what he was talking about. The
image of the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane came to him.
<em>Pray!</em> Corky hadn't had the same indoctrination, but he
instinctively picked up the sense of it. Billy's eyes were red in
the firelight, wide and scared. The man had sat him down and took
some of the baling twine which he wrapped quickly round the ends of
the barrels and then looped around Billy's neck to tie it back on
the gunmetal again. The noose was not tight enough to strangle, or
even cause serious physical discomfort, but the agony of
anticipation should have been enough to make Billy sweat blood.</p>
<p>The business ends were right under his chin and the butt dragged
on the ground. The trailing edge of the baling twine went under
Billy's knees and the man quickly bound his hands there, once
again, not savagely, just enough to make it difficult for Billy to
move much. With the gun jammed against his neck, pointing straight
up under his chin, Billy was too scared to move at all.</p>
<p>"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the
hour," the man told them and the crazy emptiness was back in his
eyes once more. They all shrank back from it.</p>
<p>He had made them build up the fire until it was a hot roar of
heat. Doug and Corky had broken the logs which Danny and Tom had
dragged down from the fallen spruce tree close to where the Corky
had struggled for breath in the shallows of the pool. There was no
escaping now, not while Billy's head was wired to the gun. The man
knew it. He had them in his grip now an there was nothing they
could do.</p>
<p>Corky wondered when he would start hurting them. He did not even
consider that they had been hurt yet, despite what they'd been
through. The rabbit's dried blood was smudged on his forehead and
the bruise there throbbed warmly but not very painfully. The side
of his face was swollen and angry and his shoulder and thigh hurt
like all hell. It was possible that the shock had anaesthetised
him. He leaned back, drawing his eyes from the outside to the dark
of the tent. Danny's gaze was fixed on the man, half of his face
pinked by the reflection of the fire, the other half in moonshadow.
Tom was just a pale blur. Dougie's breathing was light, but
shallow. They were still alive.</p>
<p>For a bad moment after his escape attempt, Corky had thought the
man would kill them all. With the natural insight of one who had
lived cheeck to jowl with a natural level of violence, he knew it
had been close.</p>
<p>"What's he waiting for?" he wondered, not realising that he had
whispered the words aloud.</p>
<p>"I dunno," Danny said. His stomach was rumbling emptily,
although he did not feel hungry. He was thinking about Billy
sweating blood and he wondered about the gun, whether it would go
off if Billy slumped forward during the night. He wished the man
would untie it. Danny's Uncle Mick who was his mother's brother and
the black sheep of the family, his gun had a filed-down trigger
lever that made it fire, so he said, if anybody looked at it the
wrong way. If Billy fell, or even jerked to the side, would the gun
go off? No wonder he was sitting there like a carved Indian statue.
He looked as if he was scared even to breathe. The safety catch was
off. <em>Now</em> it was off. Too late.</p>
<p>The man had hit Corky with the rabbit and Corky had dropped like
a sack. The move had been so unexpected, so unnatural, that it had
taken them all by surprise and Danny had thought Corky was dead.
The enormity of that sudden loss was matched only by the fear that
he himself would be next. For a moment everything went completely
and utterly still. Then Corky had jerked as if coming awake and had
rubbed at the red splash and they had both realised at the same
time that it was only rabbit blood.</p>
<p>Corky had got to his feet, very slowly, as if he too was still
surprised to be alive. The man had stepped forward and grabbed him
by the neck the way he had seized Danny only seconds before.
Without hesitation he propelled Corky back up the slope and across
the stream, ignoring the stepping stones. His boots splashed in the
water and Corky's splashed beside him, more dragged than stepping.
He made no sound. Danny followed on, unable to do anything else.
The man ignored him, as if he had forgotten all about him, but
Danny knew that was not so. If he ran, the man would turn and catch
him and this time he might not use the pulped rabbit to fell him.
He might pick up one of the smooth stones by the river and smash
him down with it and keep on smashing.</p>
<p>They got to the edge of the camp. Dougie was standing to the
side of the fire, shoulders dropped in defeat, his ears red and
translucent, his vest torn and sagging. Billy was over by the
hollow, down on his hands and knees as if he had suddenly gone
blind. His face was upturned and his eyes open, but they looked as
if they were fixed, the way the stranger's had been, on the far
distance. Tom was moving forward from the low rock wall. Danny
hadn't noticed him at first. For a second he thought he might have
run up stream and got away, gone for help before it was too late,
but then he saw him moving forward and his heart lurched.</p>
<p>Tom had the big gun in his hands.</p>
<p>He had raised it up to his shoulder and the end of the barrel
was waving around as if he was conducting a slow piece of music.
The muzzle ends, the black infinity shape, swung round to Danny who
winced in fright until it moved back to point at the man who was
pushing Corky in front of him.</p>
<p>"Stop!" Tom's voice was high and thin, almost a bleat.</p>
<p>The weight of the gun looked too much for Tom's small frame. The
end dropped slowly, rose, sagged again. His hands were shaking.
Danny saw his finger on the front trigger. The muzzle wavered down
again.</p>
<p><em>"No Tom,"</em> Danny tried to say but the words wouldn't
come. His mental shout was just a clamour inside his head. If Tom
fired, he'd surely hit Corky who was now being shoved up the
incline to the campsite.</p>
<p>The man did not hesitate. He pushed Corky ahead, walking
quickly, his boots thudding the turf and then without warning flung
the boy ahead of him with a violent push. Tom's eyes followed his
friend's progress, pulling his attention away from the real threat.
The man strode forward and took the end of the gun in his hand with
almost casual swiftness. Danny saw Tom's finger tighten reflexively
on the trigger, but nothing happened. The end of the barrel was
pointing straight at the man's head, <em>but nothing happened</em>.
The gun did not roar, did not spit fire and lead shot. The big,
dirty hand clamped on the end and drew it away from Tom. The man's
other hand reached out and took the small boy by the face, thumb on
one side, fingers on the other. The fingers flexed, squeezed hard
until the ingrained knuckles showed white.</p>
<p>Tom made a small <em>oomph</em> sound as his face contorted,
lips forming a vertical, squashed violin-shaped slash. A flick of
spittle whirled out. The man squeezed harder and Tom's eyes bulged.
He moaned in pain, face drawn upwards by the grip. Both his hands
were shaking furiously and his feet did a jittery little dance.
Over by the hollow, Billy was turning his head as if he'd just
realised they were there.</p>
<p>Corky got to his feet, shook his head to clear it, saw what was
happening and said something. It was just one word.</p>
<p>"Don't..."</p>
<p>That was as far as he got, but it was enough to save Tom's face
from being crushed and broken.</p>
<p>The man let go, simple as that. Tom fell to the ground, both
shivering hands immediately flying to his face which bore the full
imprint of thumb on the left cheek and four fingers on the right.
There was a vivid red mark just under the curve of the jaw where
the man's smallest finger had dug into the skin, the dirty nail
slicing through the surface. Tom let out a long drawn cry of pain
and his eyes were closed tight, concentrating on the hurt the way
boys do, so he did not see what happened next. Corky said his one
word and the man dropped Tom, as if he'd just flicked something off
his hand. He spun and to Danny it seemed as if it happened quite
slowly, but hewas riding high on that ridge of fear and dread in
which everything seemed to happen at a different speed from normal.
Corky was suffering no such time distortion. Despite his wealth of
experience in such matters, he never even saw the blow coming. The
man spun and his hand swung with him, splayed open, palm first. It
was the hand that had gripped Tom's cheek to the point of crushing
his jaw, which was fortunate enough. The other hand was gripping
the barrel of the gun and if he'd swung that, it would have taken
Corky's head off at the neck.</p>
<p>Corky saw the blow coming, just like Pony's roundhouse punch,
and he instinctively went with it, so that it sounded loud enough,
but caused no damage. He did a little somersault and landed on his
hands and feet and scuttled off out of reach. The man did not
pursue him further. Danny heard Doug's breath catch. The man swept
his eyes across them.</p>
<p>"Again a little time and you <em>shall</em> see me."</p>
<p>Corky looked up warily. They all held their breaths now,
thinking now that this was it. The gun was up now in the crook of
the man's arm, pointing at the sky.</p>
<p>"Could you not wait one hour with me?"</p>
<p>Danny heard the reference to the garden. None of it made sense.
He waited for the barrels to dip once again, but again nothing
happened. The man stared down at Corky who gazed up, unblinking, as
if caught in the headlights. His eyes focused, locked on the man's
own almost in challenge. Danny and Doug watched the exchange and
later they thought it was the bravest thing they had ever seen, but
at that moment, both of them were silently begging Corky to look
away, to deflect the heat. The pair of them, man and boy stayed
like that or several seconds, Corky's chest heaving up and down in
rapid hitches, the man still as stone, looking as if he did not
need anything as banal as air to exist. Finally he turned his head
to the side, like a teacher who has decided to be lenient this
time.</p>
<p>"Don't run again, boy," he said. "We have things to do. Wonders
to perform." He turned away and Corky's eyes closed slowly as if he
was suddenly exhausted. The side of his head was red and angry and
swelling fast.</p>
<p>The man moved towards the fire and picked up the body of the
rabbit and it was only then that Danny noticed the safety catch of
the shotgun was pushed forward. Tom hadn't known about that. His
fingers had definitely tensed on the trigger and nothing had
happened because it had been locked. But Tom had pulled, whether by
accident or design. He had a chance to get them out of it and the
chance was gone. Yet deep inside Danny there was a sneaking
suspicion that even if the gun had roared, the big ragged stranger
<em>-Twitchy Eyes-</em> would still be standing there by the fire,
holding the rabbit up by the ankles. There was something so
depthlessly evil about him that he seemed to be indestructible.
Corky had been right.</p>
<p>"He's not going to do anything right away, is he now?" he'd
said. "Not to all of us."</p>
<p>But it was starting now and they were caught here, miles from
the town. Beyond the man, the four feathers on the falls fluttered
in a waft of breeze and Danny's stomach clenched.</p>
<p><em>Bad luck!</em> He'd brought this on them, hadn't he? He'd
killed it and the shadow had come across the valley. <em>The valley
of the shadow of death!</em> The luck had blown and flown. Tom had
pulled the trigger and nothing had happened. Corky had run and the
man had anticipated it. He'd stepped on his back while he sprawled
in the water and Corky would have died.</p>
<p>Now it was night and the moon was over the edge and beaming down
into the valley and the sparks from the spruce and pine were flying
up on the updraught. Beyond the flames, they had heard the man gnaw
hungrily at the rabbit, making animal feeding sounds. He'd made
them gather the wood and break the logs on the stones, each smash
sounding just like the sound of the rabbit's skull on Corky's
forehead. <em>Twitchy Eyes</em>, there was now no doubt in any of
their minds that this was the man who had done the dreadful things
to the little girl under the bridge and to Donny Whalen and the
others.</p>
<p><em>Twitchy Eyes</em>. He had gutted the rabbit and thrown the
entrails onto the fire, watching them sizzle and shrink, like some
crazed warlock casting an augury. The intestines and lungs
shrivelled to charred lumps while he very quickly stripped off the
skin, peeling it like a tight coat. He severed the head with one
quick, frightening twist of his hands and put it to the side,
looking over at the corner where the three other skulls hung in the
hawthorn. Doug saw the look and knew the rabbit's head would end up
there.</p>
<p><em>And whose else?</em></p>
<p>He shivered visibly. Oh <em>Jesus please us, chill and
freeze-us</em>. His lips moved in the gloom but no sound came out.
On the other side of the fire, limned by the flames, the man held
up the skinned rabbit. Its limbs dangled and it looked like a
new-born baby. The stranger looked like a red-eyed devil, hunched
on the edge of the pit. He took one of the branches and skewered
the little animal, stabbing it through the rectum and up to the
gaping hole at the throat. Very expertly and without fuss, he fixed
up two other branches on either side of the fire and put the meat
across the edge beside the flames and above a hot section of
glowing embers. In a matter of minutes the smell of cooking meat
billowed out. Doug's mouth watered, but he was not at all
hungry.</p>
<p>"What's he waiting for?" Corky had whispered a long time later
and Danny hadn't known the answer. The moon had risen, only a
couple of nights short of full, lighting the canvas of the tent
enough for their night vision to let them see each other, however
dimly. Corky's face was swollen on the right side as if he'd the
mumps.</p>
<p>"We'll have to get out of here," Doug said.</p>
<p>"I tried, really I did. If you hadn't hurt your leg, maybe you'd
have made it, but <em>Jeez</em> he was dead fast." Corky swivelled
and tried to get his hands to the edge of his hip where the man's
boot had caught him and knocked him flying. The baling twine
whipped around his hands made any motion difficult. The bonds,
roughly pulled tight, were connected to another loop around their
necks. If they tried to squirm free, it choked them. It was very
effective.</p>
<p>"I thought my leg was broken."</p>
<p>Despite what he'd been through, he sounded remarkably composed.
Danny could see the dim light reflect in his eyes, could make out
the concentration there. The sparking crackle of the fire was
enough to cover their whispering.</p>
<p>"I thought he'd killed you," Danny said flatly.</p>
<p>"<em>You</em> thought? I never expected him to banjo me with a
rabbit. Swear to God it was hard as a rock."</p>
<p>"Not as hard as your head though," Tom said, and for some
reason, Corky started to giggle, not out loud, but in a whispery,
suddenly uncontrollable heaving of his shoulders. The motion caused
him to fall slightly to the left, against Danny and that in turn
tightened the twine which was looped around his neck and fixed in
turn to the tent-pole. The laugh cut off in a strangled gulp which
they all heard. Corky raised himself back, tears running down his
cheeks and a shadowed smile still stretched across his face.</p>
<p>"What are you laughing at?" Doug wanted to know and Danny felt
the hysteria bubble up inside himself. He bit that down because he
did not know if he could keep it quiet and he did not know that if
it started, he'd be able to stop, or if it would be laughter for
long. It might change into blubbering, snivelling tears. He felt
close enough to them already.</p>
<p>"Not as hard as my head." Corky said, still grinning and in the
light coming through the flap, he looked just a little mad. "No
kidding. I heard that poor wee thing crack like a nut, and I
thought it was my head caving in. Next think all I could see were
sparkly stars right in front of my eyes."</p>
<p>"I saw the blood," Danny finally said. "I thought it was..."</p>
<p>"But it wasn't," Corky interjected, forestalling him. The look
on his face had changed, the crazy grin gone in a wink. "It was
just a slap. It was nothing. I've had worse from my old man. I'll
look like old Quasimodo in the morning."</p>
<p>"But he nearly drowned you," Tom hissed, his voice as tremulous
as Danny felt.</p>
<p>"But he didn't, did he?" Corky said sharply, and Doug's eyes
flicked to the figure beyond the flames to see if he'd heard.
Danny's memory brought him back a picture of his friend helpless,
wriggling and fighting for breath. The hysteria tried to bubble
upwards in a sudden release.</p>
<p>"He didn't. 'Cos Danny came and gave me a hand," Corky said and
now they could all see the faint glint in his eyes. Doug looked
down, all ears and teeth, not moving, but a picture of shame and
embarrassment. Corky inclined his head as far as it could go
without cutting off his breath again. Even in the dimness they
could read his posture.</p>
<p>"Doug," he said, "I never meant you should have done anything.
You'd have run if you could, but you couldn't, so don't worry about
it. Sure it was me that stopped you on the way down, wasn't it? You
were going to go up the side like a ferret up a drainpipe. Even
with him and his gun at your back. That took guts. Plenty of
them."</p>
<p>He nodded his head again. "Wee Tom here. <em>Jeez-o!</em> I
thought he was going to shoot me. Bad enough Old Twitch knocking
the feet from me, but Tom? Our pal?"</p>
<p>Corky grinned again, this time a quick flash and Danny
understood, with a flash of desolate sadness, what he was doing. He
was thirteen years old and he'd told them all great and terrible
truths about themselves to hold them together and now he was doing
the same thing. Holding them together with his own special
power.</p>
<p><em>Old Twitch.</em></p>
<p>The man out there beyond the flicker of the fire, hunched only a
hard away from where Billy sat motionless, the man who'd stalked
ther town and done his killing.</p>
<p>Old Twitch.</p>
<p>"I couldn't get it to fire," Tom said.</p>
<p>"Safety catch was on," Danny explained.</p>
<p>"Just as well for me," Corky said, almost speaking aloud but
checking himself quickly. "The way that gun was jiggling about, I'd
have been a goner for sure. Try explaining that when you get home.
Sorry Mrs Corcoran. I never knew the safety catch was on. That's as
bad as 'I never knew the gun was loaded.' "</p>
<p>Beyond the fire, perched on his log, Billy sat still as stone
while the man devoured the rabbit. He had thought he was going to
die when the gun had been tied tight to his neck, either from the
blast when it went off, or from the pounding of his heart which was
so powerful, and so stuttering, that it felt like an engine firing
on three cylinders. It felt as if it could burst inside of him and
for a long moment, he was so scared to breathe that his peripheral
vision took on the hue of the splash of dried blood still smeared
on Corky's forehead.</p>
<p>He hadn't been able to move. Not then, not before even when the
man had put his head down close to his cheek and spoken directly to
him.</p>
<p><em>They talk to us all, those voices. You just need ears to
hear.</em></p>
<p>The man brought his head down until his chin was against Billy's
ear. He could smell his breath, flat and cloying and rotten; he
could smell his sour sweat. The man's beard bristles rasped against
the side of his face and Billy had no strength to pull away, no
strength at all.</p>
<p><em>Got to go down into the valley and out the other side. You
want to make that journey boy? You want to listen to the voice of
the dead?</em></p>
<p>And he'd bent further and taken the soft skin at Billy's neck
between his teeth, gently enough, but Billy had been waiting for
dreadful pain of the bite.</p>
<p><em>Oh Jeez! Oh mammy! He'll eat me.</em></p>
<p>Like he'd eaten the fish, heedless of the head and eye and raw
guts. Like he'd bitten the kid from school, bitten pieces out of
him. Billy had felt his legs begin to buckle when the small screech
had startled the man back. After that, everything had been a blur.
One of them, had it been Danny? Corky? had run off, but Billy
couldn't get his eyes to focus. Somebody had called his name, as if
from a long distance, something about a gun, but by now his legs
had given way and the world was just a haze in the pounding of his
heart and the shudder of absolute fear. It had happened so fast and
he was moving so slow and it was all jumbled up.</p>
<p>Parts of it came back to him, jerky little pictures, little
flashes, blurred and fast, almost like half remembered dreams; Tom
raising the gun; Danny yelling something down by the stream; Corky
falling sideways and making a long low sound that seemed to go on
and on.</p>
<p>Now he was beside the fire, eyes fixed on the flames. He could
think now, but it was a slow process, as if his brain had become
fogged with the same numbness that had slowed him during the day
when the man had bent to his neck and promised him....</p>
<p>Over in the tent the others were together and he was alone,
singled out again, the way he had been singled out when the man had
stepped over the stream and forced the fish into his mouth, and
when he'd led him to the hollow to watch the flies crawling over
the dead skulls. Every now and again he imagined he could hear the
others talking, over the whispering hiss of resin bubbling from the
end of the spruce logs and the flutter of the flames. He imagined
he could hear them whisper but he hoped they were all asleep.</p>
<p>Talk was dangerous. He knew that, even in his dull state of
shock. If they were talking, they could be planning to escape, and
if they tried that, there was a gun at his neck and even Billy knew
that was a warning to them all. One wrong move, and the man
would</p>
<p><em>bite!</em></p>
<p>reach for the gun and squeeze the trigger. He would make Billy
come through trials and tribulations to reach that great truth.</p>
<p><em>You want to make that journey boy? You want to listen to the
voice of the dead?</em> In his mind he could hear those words,
played over and over again, the way his mother used to play those
Western tunes on the old Dansette, like the song from High Noon. Do
not forsake me. Oh my.</p>
<p>He'd been singled out, kept apart from the others.
<em>Forsaken.</em> And that meant the raggedy man planned something
for him, something different. He had wanted to plead and cry and
beg for mercy and fall on his knees, but that hadn't happened, not
until the man had followed the rabbit's squeal and walked away and
then he'd been left on his own, forsaken again, with nothing to
cling to. He'd been singled out and the man had told him what would
happen. Not how, but what.</p>
<p>Want to hear the voice of the dead? They had all heard the
stories of Don Whalen in the bomb shelter, stories told in graphic
detail, because nothing stayed secret for long, even the secrets of
policemen. They'd found him dead and stiff and fly-blown with his
head twisted to the side, facing the screaming mouth of the
girl.</p>
<p>When the man had asked him the question, that was the image that
had flashed into his mind: Don Whalen listening to the dead scream
of the dead girl. The <em>Voice of the dead</em>. And Don had made
the journey, down in that squirming shelter, tied to an old table.
Hadn't he?</p>
<p>On the fire, one of the logs rolled over and crashed into the
ashes, startling him enough to make him jerk, but only for an inch.
The weight of the gun stopped him, along with the sudden freezing
that came with the knowledge of those barrels pressed against his
flesh. A shower of sparks shimmered upwards on the hot draught of
air.</p>
<p>Billy hauled for a difficult breath, wondering when it would
happen. Beside him, the man gnawed at the rabbit, making little
snuffling and gobbling noises as he did so, sounding like a pig in
a sty. Every now and again he'd flick a bone into the red embers
and listen to it crack and warp. The rabbit's head was off to the
side, but too close to the heat to have attracted any flies.</p>
<p>After a while, the fire died a little and Billy's numbness slid
into a kind of exhausted torpor. His eyes closed and his head
drooped just a little, finally coming to rest against the muzzle of
the shotgun.</p>
<hr />
<p><em>"Slitty eyed vermin!".</em></p>
<p>The man's sudden utterance woke Billy with such a start that he
almost fell backwards off the log. Over in the tent, Danny and
Corky, sitting side by side and both connected to the upright pole
as well as to each other, banged heads.</p>
<p>"Wassamatter?" Tom asked dopily. Danny, just coming awake,
hazily remembered Corky winding Billy up about the disease he could
have caught from Phil's stash of pictures.</p>
<p>"Wassermatter reaction," he mumbled, beginning to smile, then he
came fully awake as the loop of twine rasped against his neck and
brought him right back to reality.</p>
<p>"Hush it," Corky hissed.</p>
<p>"<em>Am I right, Conboy</em>?" The voice was low, but jerky,
like a sleep-walker's disjointed diction. "You can see them. See
everything you do. Got a third eye now, eh? See all!"</p>
<p>"What's he saying?" Tom asked, a disembodied whisper in the dark
corner furthest from the flap. The fire was still glowing, but not
aflame now. The moon was almost directly overhead, sending its wan
light through the thin stretched canvas of the old tent, and
forming almost solid shafts of silver through the few puncture
holes in the slant roof where they caught the motes of old
dust.</p>
<p>"Dunno," Corky said. "Listen." He had not been quite asleep, but
he'd been dozing fitfully, as had the other three, tired and
drained from the events of the day but still in a state of fearful
apprehension that precluded the possibility of deep sleep. The very
fact that the man had started talking, after such a long silence
worried him badly. Was it the start? He couldn't guess, despite the
guessing he'd tried ever since the man had marched them all down
together. Good or bad? He did not know. Bad probably, though the
fact that Billy was still tied to the gun was good, depending on
the standpoint. Corky had figured that as long as Billy was tied,
he was a hostage for their good behaviour. The warning was clear.
It was in all the best and worst of western movies.</p>
<p>One wrong move and the boy gets it.</p>
<p>Good for them. Bad for Billy. But the man was talking now and he
was a crazy lunatic and the normal rules, if there could any normal
rules in this tortured craziness, would not apply. Would it start
now?</p>
<p>Danny was aware of Corky's tension. He could feel it through the
twine that coupled them and he hoped Corky was all right. If Corky
caved in then that was it. None of them would make it. Danny held
his breath tight and tried to figure out, the way Corky had done,
whether it was all going to start now.</p>
<p>"Not talking now, Conboy? Eh?" The voice rumbled over the murmur
of the stream. "What's the matter? Flies got your tongue?"</p>
<p>The man laughed, not high this time, but almost as low as the
voice itself, a kind of derisory, guttural sound.</p>
<p>"I know you can hear me. I know. Not long now Conboy. They'll
come back soon, slitty eyed yellow scum. <em>Dung Fly</em>! We'll
wait for them. Just you and me and we'll finish them all. Wipe them
all out! Dung Fly. Only word they know."</p>
<p>There was a moment's silence, then the voice was back, a little
louder, a little more jerky. "Only word. Hear what I'm telling you
Conboy? You have to stay awake. Keep an eye out. Ha. An eye."</p>
<p>In the tent, Corky and Danny, side by side, shared the same
posture, sitting with their heads back, cocked and listening. Over
on the other side, Doug sniffed.</p>
<p>"Who's he talking to?"</p>
<p>"Who knows?"</p>
<p>"Is Billy okay?" Tom wanted to know, typical of him. Danny
remembered him from the night before, even after Corky had reached
and touched a finger in the jagged wound of Tom's loss, how Tom had
reached to touch Corky and offer his support.</p>
<p>Doug leaned back, squinting through the flap. He moved slowly,
held his position for some time, then turned back. "Still there.
Can't see if he's asleep or not. The gun's still there."</p>
<p>"What about <em>him?</em>"</p>
<p>"Same place. He's finished the rabbit. Still sitting. Can't see
his face. Maybe he's turned round."</p>
<p>"What do you think he'll do?"</p>
<p>Corky shrugged. So did Danny. Neither of them wanted to say what
they thought.</p>
<p>Outside, the man's voice lowered a little and maybe he had
turned round, for the words were hard to make out, and they'd a
double-toned quality to them, as if they were echoing back from the
steep sides across the steam. The tone had changed too, not quite
so vehement. Danny strained to listen. It sounded as if a
conversation was going on, almost furtively. It continued for some
time, rising a little, falling some more and finally, after a long
time, it slowed and stopped. The fire continued to glow.</p>
<p>Down in the forest, an own screeched like a banshee moorland
ghost and its cry tapered away to a hollow moan. Later on, with the
moon now crossing to the far side of the valley, something small
squealed and died. The glow of the fire lessened.</p>
<p>It was much later, with the embers now a pink circle of light in
the boundary of hot stones, that Danny woke up with a start. Corky
had moved, perhaps, shifted enough to wake Danny.</p>
<p>He came swimming up, panicking, out of a fitful dream where he
was alone in the valley and the night was coming down dark and
heavy and all of the scrub alders and hazels had turned into
gnarled thorn bushes with black spikes, all twisted into circlets,
into crowns of thorns dripping blood. The sides of the valley
soared up into the sky, steep and gravelly and seeming to curve in
threateningly at the top, as if the edges would cave in and bury
him under their weight.</p>
<p>An unseen voice was asking if he could not wait up an hour to
pray and he did not know if it was his father talking to him or God
or someone else, some other awful presence who was now striding
like a giant down the valley of the shadow of death with a
doom-doom-<em>doom</em> tread and a terrible blank and crazy look
in his black eyes.</p>
<p>"Whatever you do to the least of these, you do also to me," the
voice rolled out, echoing from the walls and the heron flew past
him on ponderous wings and though he now tried to haul back, the
staff in his hand whirled through the air and hit it in the neck.
It floated to the ground, broken, its yellow eyes speared on him
accusingly. The beak opened and instead of the harsh <em>kaark</em>
call, it spoke to him in a voice he recognised.</p>
<p>"Done it now, Danny boy. You killed one of God's creatures and
it's the <em>Bad Fire</em> for you. You're going to burn, boy. Burn
<em>forever</em>."</p>
<p>He turned away form the searing eye and found himself clambering
through the boiling liquid on the old linoleum floor, scrabbling
for purchase and finding none while the heat ravened all the way
down his back and he could feel his skin blister and sizzle while
behind him Father Dower, smiling that wide toothy grin of his, was
reaching to touch him and instead of hauling him out of the
dreadful, scalding fire, he just rubbed his hands slowly over
Danny's bare skin and chuckled softly.</p>
<p>Danny came out of sleep hauling for air as if he was drowning.
Corky nudged him with an elbow, keeping it pressed in hard against
his ribs, enough of a contact to let Danny know where he was.</p>
<p>"You okay?" he asked. Danny was still shivering as if he was
cold, although despite the night, it was warm inside the tent. He
blinked rapidly, almost the way the man had done, shaking away the
remnants of the dream until he was just about free of it. The odd
and hungry grin hovered in the near distance before it
fragmented.</p>
<p>"Yeah. Suppose so," Danny whispered back. On the other side of
the tent, Doug and Tom were leaning against each other, both
asleep, their breathing shallow. Doug muttered something
unintelligible and Tom stirred but not enough to wake
completely.</p>
<p>"We have to get out of here."</p>
<p>Danny nodded in agreement. "You nearly made it. If that rabbit
had got caught in the top snare you'd have had a good start and
you'd have made it. It was just rotten bad luck."</p>
<p>"Yeah. Bad luck. It's always bad luck." Danny could hear the
bitterness underlying Corky's whisper.</p>
<p>"It was my fault."</p>
<p>"Don't be daft. It's nobody's fault. Just that crazy nutcase out
there. It's his fault."</p>
<p>"No," Danny insisted. "I knew when I killed the bird. The Heron?
Remember?"</p>
<p>"Course I do. Great shot."</p>
<p>"I knew right then I shouldn't have done it. I knew something
bad was going to happen, and it did. We all started fighting and
then he...<em>him...</em>he turned up."</p>
<p>"Aye, and if you believe that, you believe in Santa Claus,"
Corky said. His head was only inches away from Danny's and the
sarcasm was thick in the sound of his voice. "No kidding Dan, you
should listen to yourself. Ol' loony-tunes didn't need you to magic
him up here. This must be where he's been hiding all this time. The
bird was nothing to do with it. <em>Jeez.</em> I've lost count of
the number of street-scrag pigeon chicks I've had to wring. And
trout. And remember that time we got a half dollar for wringing the
chickens at Boghead farm? It was just a bird."</p>
<p>"But it was..."Danny paused, tried to thing, remembering the
slow whoosh of wings. The image of the dream came back, that yellow
eye spearing him. "I dunno. It was special."</p>
<p>"Special my arse," Corky said. "No kidding Danny. It's got
nothing to do with you.</p>
<p>"What do you think he'll do?"</p>
<p>"Christ knows. We can't hang around for it anyway. He's waiting
for something."</p>
<p>"You think there might be two of them?"</p>
<p>Corky shrugged. "Up here there could be a whole army of them.
Maybe he's been up here since the war. Shell-shocked or something.
You know, with the bombs and stuff. Whatever it is, he's as mad as
a wet hen. Honest to god, I thought I was a goner today when he
stepped on me. I thought I was drowned for sure."</p>
<p>Danny recalled that Corky had veered off that subject when Tom
had said the same thing earlier, when the man was eating by the
fire. He recognised that this was for him only.</p>
<p>"One of us will have to get out. You reckon you can make
it?"</p>
<p>"I'm not as fast as Doug."</p>
<p>"Nobody's as fast as him. He's built like a starved greyhound. I
don't know what he'll be like in the morning. Maybe his ankle will
have stiffened up."</p>
<p>"Maybe it'll have loosened off" Danny said, more in hope that it
wouldn't have to be himself who took the risk.</p>
<p>"Aye. Maybe. But I don't know if this time he'll just freeze. He
would have run this morning and if he'd done that..." Corky left it
hanging for half a second, then changed tack. "Just in case. You
think you can take off if we get the chance? Tom hasn't a hope, and
my leg's going to be black and blue in the morning."</p>
<p>"Is it sore?"</p>
<p>"Only when I laugh, arseface." Corky said and turned to grin
again. Danny knew he'd ask again and forestalled him.</p>
<p>"If I get the chance, I'll run. Maybe I could get into the
bushes and up to the ferns. If I could get that far he'll have a
job finding me. So long as he doesn't keep firing, 'cos that gun
could fire through bushes no bother at all."</p>
<p>"He's not got enough cartridges I don't think. I had a look at
him. He's got no bag with him and his pockets don't seem that full.
I think he's just got a few. If you get to the edge of the woods,
you could be up and away. That's where I was heading for."</p>
<p>"It'd be quicker to go up the top and down the moor. Quicker to
get home."</p>
<p>"Sure, as long as you weren't out in the open for too long. If I
had the chance, that's the way I'd go, so long as he didn't have
the gun, and as long as he leaves us alone for a while. He'll have
to take a piss sometime, or go for a shit. I was hoping that fish
would give him food poisoning."</p>
<p>"I'm just glad he didn't make us eat the rabbit. Raw trout guts
would be bad enough." Danny felt Corky twitch with spontaneous
laughter and a bubble of hysteria swelled in his belly. He
swallowed down on it.</p>
<p>There was a silence for a moment then Corky whispered: "Dan, I
don't think we'll get a lot of chances. I don't know what's going
to happen tomorrow. I think we're all right for the night, or he
wouldn't have tied Billy up like that. He's got to sleep sometime
too. But whatever he's waiting for, he's not going to wait long. If
one of us gets home, he'll run because he'll know they're after
him."</p>
<p>"He'll kill us," Danny said flatly and he was amazed when the
words came out just like that. The enormity of it. The end of his
life, contemplated and made concrete in three small words.</p>
<p>"Don't think that way," Corky hissed urgently, digging hard
enough to hurt with his elbow. "Danny. Listen. He's crazy, for
sure. It's the guy they've been looking for." Danny noticed he
didn't spell it out, but he didn't have to. They all knew the list
of names. Corky's voice had gone very cold and earnest and of a
sudden he sounded all grown up. "We can't think about what might
happen. If I did that all my life I'd be a nervous wreck by now.
Billy's no use. You can see it in his face. He's thinking ahead and
that's why he can't move. You see that in the fights at the back of
the school when somebody doesn't want to. He's all seized up."</p>
<p>Corky dropped his voice even lower, so that there was no chance
anybody but Danny could hear it. "I think maybe Tom and Doug might
freeze as well. Honest, if my leg's okay I'll do it, but it might
not be. I think that nutter nearly broke it."</p>
<p>He twisted round as far as he could, so he could just get a look
at Danny.</p>
<p>"If we get a chance, Danny boy, we have to take it."</p>
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