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<h1>32</h1>
<p><em>.....morning.</em></p>
<p>Day was dawning and it was early morning. Danny Gillan jerked
awake to the distant sound of the cockerel crowing far off down the
slope of the moor in the direction of Blackwood farm.</p>
<p>"Whassamatter?" Tom snuffled, almost incoherent, cringing in
against Danny for warmth. Corky was slumped the other way, against
the damp mound where the hawthorn roots twisted their way into the
moss. The wire was across this throat, but not digging in the way
it had in the dream. His eyes were closed and he was breathing
shallowly.</p>
<p>The cock crowed, distant but still audible, a strange, fierce
and challenging cry coming out of the mist which had gathered in
the dark for the second time and now shrouded the world in a fuzzy
blanket which blunted all the sharp edges which would be later
homed by the rising sun..</p>
<p>"...<em>And the cock crew...</em>" The well-learned words were
ringing in Danny's head, in the shivery aftermath of the dream,
fading now, but still powerful and ominous. Day was dawning but it
was still dark and the mist was almost solid downstream where the
valley formed a scooped cup before the thick tangle of the forest.
The trees were just a dark and impenetrable wall. It was still dark
enough, but it was not night any more, and they had survived
another one. They were still alive. Four of them anyway. Across in
the tent, there was no sound yet. Danny shivered again. Feeling the
damp of morning cold steal through him. His legs were stiff and his
backside numb and wet from sitting hunkered in the moss and
grass.</p>
<p>They had survived a second night, but what Corky had said
sneaked in on him while he was trying to shake off the disabling
drag of the dream. <em>It has to be tonight, because he won't give
us another chance after this.</em></p>
<p>And Corky had fallen asleep, tired and hurt and exhausted like
the rest of them and they'd missed their chance. Night had come and
gone and they were still here, braided together with the
fence-mending wire. Danny huddled still, trying to keep the instant
panic down. For a moment, despite the closeness of the other three,
his solitude was vast. Nothing moved in the valley except the near
tendrils of mist which rose, wraith-like from the pool in small,
translucent columns to condense into the thick billows against the
far wall, then flowed like some magical ectoplasm around the roots
of the alders and hawthorns, crept into the hollows behind the
boulders and the narrow ravines which fed the tributaries into the
main valley.</p>
<p>Far up on the moor, an early lark was singing into the morning
sky. High up on the east, there was a tinge of opalescent pink to
break up the grey, a promise of another hot summer day. Here in the
valley, it was still shadowed, but bright enough see the carpet of
dew on the grass, like a frost. The air was clean and earthy,
redolent of moss and heather roots and nearby uncurling ferns.</p>
<p>A soft morning.</p>
<p>Danny slowly raised his head to the far rim, on the west side
where the bracken grew almost to the rim, fringed by tussocks. For
a moment his eye was transfixed by the exotic fringe of glowing
silk which undulated in the merest breeze, trailing like a white
and lustrous flag across the edge of the canyon. He stared at it,
puzzled, for a while longer and the sight of it, ethereal and
magical on this cool and shrouded morning, helped damp down the
rising tide of black fear.</p>
<p>The gossamer of a million tiny spiders, their gliding threads of
silkweb, waved in the slow air, picking up the reflection of the
roseate flush of dawn in the early sky. Danny gazed, mesmerised in
a moment of rare beauty. The whole west rim of the valley, from the
trees right on up past the hollow of rock, was limned with the
slowly undulating silken tide. It was as if the world had been
bedded in the cotton wool of mist and then wrapped in a cocoon of
silk. The threads, rippling in glimmering sheets, seemed to bring a
hush to the morning, giving an illusion of peace and harmony. As he
watched, the top filaments caught the first sparkle of sun and up
on the east edge, the sky flared in a spectacular flash of green
and then pink, like an aurora, heralding the beginning of true
day.</p>
<p>Way off, down at Blackwood, the cock crowed faint and far off
again, to cut through the gossamer wrapping and the moment of magic
died as Corky's warning came suddenly back on the biblical echo of
the dream.</p>
<p><em>He won't give us another chance after this</em>.</p>
<p>Danny swivelled, nudging Tom who gave a little shiver and tried
to squeeze further in under his armpit, reluctant to come awake. He
forced himself round towards Corky and sought the wire where he had
tried to break through. A line of indentations roughened the metal
about six inches from the loop around Corky's neck. In some places,
the dull patina had been scraped away far enough to show the bright
silver of metal underneath, showing how hard, how desperately Corky
had worked and struggled in the dark of the night. Only the gouges
and the shiny metal and the memory of the dreadful creaking sound
remained.</p>
<p>Danny sighed slowly. Over to the right, the condom that Tom had
filled was lying limp, like a shiny piece of intestine ripped from
the raw fish. Doug still sat frozen, head still cupped in his
hands, elbows braced on his knees.</p>
<p>"I tried, Danny," Corky's whispered voice jarred into the
silence. For an awful moment Danny thought he was still dreaming.
He jerked back, almost strangled himself on the wire, suddenly
terrified in case Corky's teeth would be cracked stumps in bleeding
gums.</p>
<p>"Couldn't get through," he said. His face was pale, with his
freckles standing out like sepia ink-spots. His eyes seemed grey in
the light, and they looked bitterly forlorn. "We're stuffed," he
added.</p>
<p>Danny shook his head. "Don't say that," he insisted.</p>
<p>"Say what?" Tom mumbled, coming awake. He shivered violently,
strangled down a cough. Doug was blinking dopily. He sniffed and a
thin trickle on his lip disappeared.</p>
<p>"Is Billy okay?" he asked. Danny shrugged.</p>
<p>"I think so. I haven't heard anything."</p>
<p>"Doug, can you reach the end of the wire," Corky asked. He
couldn't see past Tom and Danny.</p>
<p>"No. I tried last night." Doug's voice was just sift hiss,
barely above a whisper. In the silence of the valley, it sounded
loud, too loud. "It's out of reach."</p>
<p>"Give it another go," Corky said. He was stretching to see if
his fingers could reach the root where the end of the baling twine
was tied. His hand got to within six inches, but no amount of
straining would expand the wire the way they'd been able to stretch
the twine. It had been looped, right over left, then left over
right, so even if they had risked trying to spin to unravel it, the
turns around their necks would only have tightened with every turn.
Doug tried once more, but couldn't get close. He was pulled away to
the right, arm stretched out, face twisted into a toothy grimace.
His outreaching fingers flexed in the air as he pulled as far as
possible, reaching the very limit of give in the wire. He pulled
further and his leg slipped on the wet grass, shooting right out in
front of him. His toe hit the canvas back which slid away with a
tinny clank. Doug slipped back with a sudden, surprised gulp,
pulling them all downwards with the drag on the wire. Tom gasped
and tried to ease the stricture at his neck and Doug scrambled
backwards to get to a sitting position before his air was cut off
completely.</p>
<p>"Doug," Danny hissed. "Don't move." This came out in a harsh
rasp and despite the discomfort, Doug immediately froze.</p>
<p>"What is it?" he managed to get out.</p>
<p>"Look." Danny said urgently. "At your feet." Doug got to his
elbows and looked down at his outstretched foot. The old torn bag
was only a foot or so from his toe.</p>
<p>"Can't see," Corky said, straining to edge past Danny who leaned
back just an inch or two, as much as he could. His breathing was
now coming fast, excited.</p>
<p>"Bloody hell. It's been there all night," Corky almost snarled
in an anger that boiled up on a sudden swell of hope.</p>
<p>"Can you get it,?" Danny asked, hardly daring to speak, hardly
daring to hope at all. Doug looked up at him, brows puckered up in
a puzzled from of incomprehension. Danny nodded at the bag.</p>
<p>"The tools!"</p>
<p>Light dawned. Doug's brows shot right up to disappear under his
fringe of blond hair and his mouth dropped open. Tom started to
shake again and suddenly the air was charged with that enormous,
unbearable and brittle tension. Danny sensed time beginning to
stretch out again on the surge of adrenaline and he felt all of his
senses crystallise to glassy sharpness.</p>
<p>Doug lowered himself back down to the grass again and stretched
his foot outwards. His toe touched the bag and he grinned
hugely.</p>
<p>"Easy," Corky hissed. Doug stretched and the bag moved.</p>
<p>"Can you hook it?" Danny asked, now feeling the panic rise up
once more. Doug nodded, grunted, stretched until the wire was
pulling right under his chin, digging in so far it was just a black
line, as if his head had been cut off and stuck back again. A white
bubble appeared from his nose, burst silently, and a lick of
spittle flecked his lip where his teeth bit in tight. He
concentrated in pushing and on ignoring the sudden hot strangle on
his neck. They all watched in an agony of needing, each of them
focused on that outstretched scuffed canvas boot that had seen
plenty of better days. The toe got to the edge of the bag, barely
to the corner. Doug made a low grunting sound that was all effort
and concentration. The bag moved two inches, turning on the wet
grass as it did so. Doug's foot slipped on the corner, came
whipping across the side and the bag slid away. Doug fell back
heavily. They all heard the creak of the wire. Tom, still shaking
with the wound-up tension, reached quickly and eased him up before
he really did choke.</p>
<p>Danny's heart sank like a stone. The bag had pushed out of
reach, beyond Doug's ability to get his toe around it again and
ease it backwards towards them.</p>
<p>"Shit," Danny blurted. Corky said nothing. He was suddenly
desperate to get the bag, to get a last chance, because he knew
with complete conviction that this <em>would</em> be the last time,
and that the crazy man with the twitchy eyes would do something
terrible today. Today would be the end.</p>
<p>Just then, right at that moment, a movement downstream caught
Danny's eye. He his head and, and the others caught the sudden
motion.</p>
<p>The heron came flapping down into the valley. It skirted the
tall trees and swooped along the rim, stirring the silken gossamer
spiderwebs with its passing. They sparkled and gleamed in the
slanted rays of the rising sun, like filamented jewels. The big
grey bird swerved, banked, then swooped low, over the top of the
pooling mist close by the trees, then beat its wings slowly as it
came flying upstream towards them.</p>
<p>"No," Danny hushed. The heron followed the line of the stream,
curving round at an angle at the point where Corky had been felled
at the shallows of the lower pool. They all sat like stone and all
Danny could think about was that harsh alarm call. If it cried out
it would wake the man, wake Twitchy Eyes and they wouldn't have a
chance.</p>
<p>The bird came flapping onwards. They could see the yellow of its
eye, fixed and unblinking, and heard the low whoosh of its broad,
slow wings. Danny waited, more acutely aware of the danger than the
others. The heron had startled him and made him stumble up there on
the high slope. His back still flared with the burn of the swollen
skin.</p>
<p>"Shhhh." He hushed at it, as if speaking to a child, as if he
could will it to silence.</p>
<p>It came level with them, twisted in the air, as if suddenly
aware of their presence, though none of them had moved a muscle. It
veered sharply, pounding hard to gain height. Danny knew it would
call out: <em>Kaark-kaaark,</em> knew that his bad luck would be
back again, and final too.</p>
<p>But it did not call out. The sweep of its wings trembled the
three feathers of its dead mate in the mist at the waterfall,
making them flutter like flags and then it was gone, beyond their
line of vision, beyond the low ridge where they sat under the
roots. Corky breathed out.</p>
<p>"Try again," he almost snarled. "Go again Doug." All he could
think about was the big pair of insulated pliers that Phil had
jammed in with the rest of his stash. They could cut through mild
steel. They could cut through baling twine, no bother at all.</p>
<p>Doug tried again. He lowered himself back down again until he
was lying almost flat, hands out to the side to brace himself. His
foot went out to its full extent. He closed his eyes and gritted
those teeth again. Me made a little squeaking sound of effort and
his long, bony frame seemed to elongate even further. Tom's eyes
flicked from his foot to the wire around his neck, wondering how
much more pressure Doug could take. Doug's face went red, then
almost purple, shading down by degrees. He hooked his toe again,
got it to the bag. Jerked. It slipped again.</p>
<p>Tom sighed in dismay. Corky said something under his breath that
sounded like a curse. Doug did not give up. He stretched even
further, now making a gurgling sound in the back of his throat. His
foot snicked the side of the bag and the old canvas handle flopped
right down from the top side to land on top of his toe. Danny's
heart was fluttering like a bird's, all out of control. He could
feel the need to pant for breath, countered by the equally powerful
compulsion to hold it in. Doug concentrated so hard his face was
twisted as if it had been mashed. He eased his foot back and up.
The loop of the handle followed, drew upwards tight. Tom could see
the wet canvas slipping over the rubber toe of the old baseball
boot. Doug must have felt it and made a momentous decision. He
kicked upwards. Something in the bag clunked again, muffled under
the canvas and the bag itself came right up off the ground.</p>
<p>For a heartbeat, it looked as if it would go tumbling off and
land on top of the tent. Tom almost wailed in dismay. But at the
very last moment, Doug managed to get enough purchase to flick it
backwards. It took all of his strength and as soon as that
manoeuvre was finished, he flopped back, gasping for breath, Tom
got his hands to the wire and slid his fingers between the metal
and Doug's neck. Doug's face was suffused and swollen.</p>
<p>The bag came flipping backwards and hit Corky square on his
chest with a heavy thud, hard enough to jar him backwards. Despite
the sudden punch on his ribs, the joyful expression on Corky's face
was incandescent. He raised his knees, almost reflexively, to
prevent the bag from falling back, managing to cup it on his lap.
He got a hand to the catch, loosened it with two blurring
movements, dived his hand inside. For a scary split second, his
mouth dropped open blankly as he fumbled inside, then lit up again.
He drew his hand out, gripping the thick red pliers like a
weapon.</p>
<p>Danny breathed out, sucked air back in again. "You flippin'
beauty," he managed to mouth. He lifted the bag from Corky's lap
and opened it out. A few tent pegs remained, along with the
ballpeen hammer they'd used to stick them into the turf. Doug's
catapult lay in the bottom, along with Phil's old airgun. He took
them out and laid them on the grass, searching for something else
to cut the wire. There was nothing.</p>
<p>Corky raised the pliers up to the braid, gritting his teeth.</p>
<p>Before he even got a chance to squeezes, something shook the
tent. A dull knocking sound came from inside, muffled by the
fabric. The man snorted, as if just coming awake.</p>
<p>They all froze, nerves suddenly jangling, wound up tight as
banjo strings.</p>
<p>The man's deep voice rolled out, though they couldn't make out
the words. Corky's expression was suddenly stony and desolate, he
was still sitting with both hands cocked up, gripping the inside
jaws of the pliers against the twist of wire.</p>
<p><em>Bad luck,</em> Danny thought, almost saying the words aloud.
The heron had woken the man, somehow warning him of their escape
attempt. Without thinking, he twisted his head round to look at the
other heron's skull hanging in Billy's collection, what the man
called his altar, half expecting the yellow eyes to be glaring at
him mockingly. A flicker of white caught his eye. For an instant he
couldn't make it out, then saw what it was. Pages of a book had
been stuck to the spread of stag horns. Each page had been pierced
with a sharp tine and left there like flags.</p>
<p>In that moment Danny realised it was the pages of the bible,
pinned by horn and in the same moment he realised that Corky would
indeed be proved right. The man had torn pages of the bible and
left them when he had killed people. He must have torn them last
night in the dark, over by the skulls where he spoke to the
shadows, talking to a man who wasn't there. If he'd torn the pages
out, then he must be going to really do it.</p>
<p>"Oh Jeez," he muttered. Corky looked at him. Tom was cringing in
again for heat or comfort or protection and Danny felt he had none
left to give. An emptiness yawned. Doug just stared at the tent,
like that rabbit with the stoat.</p>
<p>Another rumble came out, very low. Billy said something. It
sounded like a question. The man repeated whatever he said and
Billy whimpered. Doug's teeth ground together like glass beads. A
segment at the side of the tent bulged slowly and the whole thing
shivered. The slit opened, expanding like a cat's eye and something
white flashed in the interior darkness.</p>
<p><em>There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth...</em>the words
came back to Danny and he tried to shuck them away.</p>
<p>Doug jerked so hard that the wire creaked. Inside Danny the huge
tidal wave of panic and utter dread was swelling to an enormous
pressure. Both temples were pounding to the twisting beat of his
heart. Tom was shaking once more, a human tuning fork.</p>
<p>Corky put the pliers down onto the grass and for a moment the
others wondered what he was doing. Very quickly he reached down,
gripped the bottom of his shirt and hauled it up and over his head.
A small green button flew off to the side and landed silently in
the grass. Corky, working blind, placed the shirt up and over the
braid of wire. He reached for the pliers, got them in under the
bundled garment, wrapped the whole fabric tight around it so that
both hands were hidden from view. The realisation struck Danny and
his surge of panic subsided under the fierce blast of admiration
for Corky's practical thinking.</p>
<p>Corky closed his eyes, as if in prayer. His stocky shoulders
flexed, tanned and muscular. Up under his shirt, a metallic click
jarred out, very loud in their ears, too loud. As soon as the jaws
of the pliers cut the wire and met, all Corky heard was the sound
of the shotgun's firing pin slamming down on the empty chamber. The
sounds were almost identical. A flare of anger suddenly seared
inside him. Without any hesitation, he unrolled the shirt, put the
pliers down and got his fingers to the braid of wire, working at
the twists to unravel them. They jangled musically, but in only a
few seconds, he had reached the braid at his neck, spun the wires
and was free. The thin strands dropped away with a slight
vibration.</p>
<p>There was no hesitation now. Danny was jittering, feet moving up
and down on the turf in a frantic little dance that was close to
hysteria. Corky got to his knees, twisted, brought his shirt up
again. Danny could see he had two bruises on his ribs, the size of
fists, where he had fallen when the man kicked him. His eyes were
alight and alive and suddenly glittering with determination and
anger. He insulated the pliers again in the roll of shirt, squeezed
hard. The metal snicked again, more quietly than before, right in
against Danny's neck. He felt all the braids part in a snap. One of
the edges stuck into the skin of his neck with a needle burn, but
there was no pain and no blood.</p>
<p>Over in the tent, the man snored or snorted again, like a pig in
a thicket.</p>
<p>Quickly yet very deliberately, Corky moved past Danny, did the
same for Tom, moved on and snapped the cutting jaws down to free
Doug who raised his hands up to his neck. The bite of the metal had
left a thin, fierce red mark, exactly as if his head had been stuck
back on again.</p>
<p>The tent vibrated. Maybe the man had rolled his weight against
the nearest pole.</p>
<p>"What about Billy?" Tom asked in a tight little whisper.</p>
<p><em>Leave him!</em> Danny's first, dreadful thought bubbled up
before he had time to get a hold of it and stuff it back down.
<em>We could get away!</em> Corky looked at them all, his eyes now
more green than grey, his chest heaving. He put his cord shirt back
on, pulling it fast over his head. Sweat was dripping from his brow
and soaking his cows-lick hair into little spikes.</p>
<p>"We have to get him," Doug said, and it was probably the
bravest, the most selfless thing, that any of them had ever heard.
Billy and Doug had always been at loggerheads, were forever sniping
at each other. On the last night before the twitchy-eyed stranger
had appeared, they had savaged one another, stripping each of a
protective coat, using a dreadful and devastating knowledge as
weapons. Now, in one short phrase, Doug Nicol redeemed anything he
had said in a display of the most selfless and courageous
altruism.</p>
<p>Danny bit down on the shameless little voice of unreasoning
fear.</p>
<p>Corky raised a finger to his lips, quite superfluously
demonstrating the need for silence. He moved like an Indian, feet
making no sound, away from the little ridge where they'd sat all
night, first towards the corner where Billy's old sheath knife had
been thrown. He picked it up, jammed it into his belt, and then
came half-way back again. The mist by the stream was almost gone,
trailing its way downstream as the sun rose. Danny got a flash of
iridescence from up on the east ridge where the gossamer sparkled
in sunlight that was risen over on the moor. The morning grey was
already melting to blue.</p>
<p>Without any hesitation, Corky moved, deliberately but stealthily
towards the pile of logs they'd hauled up from the trees.</p>
<p>Over in the tent, the noise came louder. A bulky shape of a
shoulder pushed against the wall of the tent. The man was awake. Or
he was waking.</p>
<p>Tom was still shaking, looking around them in confusion and
fear, wondering what to do.</p>
<p>Corky lifted a thick spruce branch that had been pulled out from
the trunk and had a heavy knot at the thick end. Most of the
branches were that shape, because the limbs always split away like
that when a tall conifer falls. He hefted it like a club, which
indeed it was. Danny realised what he intended and hurried across,
denying and defying the creepy little voice that ordered him to
run, to get up that slope and over the top and away home. He
reached the firewood pile, selected a thick branch a yard long,
pulled it out. The rest of the branches tumbled to the side in a
scuffle of wood. Everybody froze yet again. Over in the tent, there
was a silence, only for a few seconds. The man snorted again. A
round shape, up from the shoulder, bulged the canvas, moving in
slow rhythm</p>
<p>Corky crept up again, holding the branch like a twisted baseball
bat. He got to the side where the slit opened and close to the
pushing of the shape inside. He bent down, suddenly tense, like a
squat hunter facing a leery, spooked and dangerous beast that could
charge out from a thicket. Inside, in the shadows, he saw movement.
There was the red of Billy's tee-shirt and beyond that the curve of
a thick elbow. The one tattooed word stood out clearly, even in the
shadow.</p>
<p>He stood up, turned to them. He nodded very solemnly across the
short distance, and they saw his eyes were set like polished
stones, glaring with a light of their own. His mouth drew back at
the edges until his gritted teeth could be clearly seen. He eased
the branch forward, head nodding a little to some beat only he
could hear. Danny realised he was timing it with the motion inside
the tent.</p>
<p>"Fucking bastard," he grated in a low, hoarse voice, swinging
the heavy branch up and then down in a fast arc, putting all of his
strength into it. The heavy knot of wood at the club-end slammed
against the rounded curve which pushed out against the fabric.</p>
<p>A noise like a pistol shot cracked out, a sharp shock in the
charged air. Corky's club splintered and the thick end broke off
and went spinning away towards the undergrowth, making a whirring
sound, like dragonflies wings, as it flew. On the other side of the
canvas, a deep, somehow mindless groan rumbled out. The rounded
hump in the fabric slid down towards the ground. Billy whimpered,
high and quivering. Danny stepped past Corky who was standing there
with only the shaft of his stick in his hands. He raised his own
club, slammed it down on the shape. It was not as loud as the first
whiplash crack, but duller, somehow deadly. Another groan, more a
whoosh of expelled air, followed. Danny felt his club strike
something hard which moved only a little with the blow. Again he
remembered the sound of the bullocks down in the slaughterhouse
chamber when the malletmen fired the bolt into their brains.</p>
<p>The tent quivered. A violent blow rocked it and then there was a
thud and the sound of splintering wood. Something snapped the far
upright and the whole thing tilted, caving in at one side,
billowing at the side where Danny had cut the escape slit. Billy's
hand reached out, palm down, then withdrew. He cried out. Two of
the ropes snapped with sudden high, almost musical notes and a
tent-peg came shooting out of the ground to spin right over the
tent and land by the circle of stones round the cold fire. The
canvas pulled away from the groundsheet. The butt of the shotgun
lay half exposed.</p>
<p>Tom grabbed the gun. He stood there for strange a moment,
baffled and undecided. The tent collapsed with a sudden snap of
more ropes. The man was groaning now, <em>really groaning</em>,
like an animal. The sound was deadly and awful, even more mindless
than before. A large hand appeared under the frame of the bottom
edge, fingers spread wide. A shape slumped against the billowing
side. Billy's legs, feet still in his baseball boots, were sticking
out on the front side, knees scrabbling for purchase. Tom spun the
gun around, so that it was butt first and ran in, now moving
quickly and smoothly. He raised it up, swung it hard. The edge
slammed the head-shape.</p>
<p>And the gun roared.</p>
<p>The noise was like sudden, catastrophic thunder, this close in
and in the confines between the tent and the hollow. Tom felt an
enormous punch jar though his arm. He felt the sear of fire from
the end of the barrel as the shot belched scant inches away from
his side. By a sheer miracle, when the butt connected, both barrels
in his hands had not been pointing directly at him. The shot would
have cut him in half. The gun jumped out of his hands.</p>
<p>Less than twenty yards away, the rotten deer's skull and its
decoration of bible pages, exploded into fragments as the spread of
shot knocked it straight out of the hawthorn branches. The white
sheep's head tumbled down and cracked against a hard rock,
splitting into two halves. The heron's pointed head disappeared,
along with half the foliage from the tree. The altar, in one
cataclysmic blast, was gone.</p>
<p>The roar of the gun echoed on and on, as it had the first time,
crackling in their ears. In the ruins of the tent, the twitchy eyed
stranger slumped down to the ground. Tom stood transfixed, face now
white as the quartz. Corky ran in, grabbed the gun, turned it
around and put the barrel down to the hidden head, jamming it right
against where the ear would be.</p>
<p>Billy came out of the fallen tent, crawling fast. Danny saw his
face. It was blank and awful. There was a streak of dark on his
leg.</p>
<p>"See how you like it, you crazy fucking <em>bastard!</em>" Corky
grated, not screaming, but low and straight and somehow deadly.
When he swore, he really meant it. He held steady, squeezed the
trigger. All of them, except Billy who was still stumbling to his
feet, now dumbly trying to get into his jeans, braced themselves
for the close blast.</p>
<p>Nothing happened. The hammer clicked again on the empty chamber.
The metallic sound was not as loud as it had seemed the first time.
The man was groaning loudly now, and rocking about under the
canvas, blundering his way around. Corky looked at the gun as if
he'd been betrayed, standing stock still for several seconds. Then
he moved, broke it open, looked into the empty chambers.</p>
<p>"Only had one shell," he said. Danny felt a sudden seethe of
resentment against Tom for wasting the last one, but it died
instantly. Corky dropped the gun. The man groaned again, this time
much louder and his head nodded up and down, jammed in against the
corner. A stain of blood spread on the canvas. Danny could smell
it. Billy was on his feet.</p>
<p>"Kill him," he said in a shivery voice. "Kill him, somebody.
<em>Please</em>."</p>
<p>The tent rolled to the side and the man's feet could be seen
now, pushing against the trampled grass and ferns, scraping to get
a purchase. He was struggling to get out, groaning and moaning
wordlessly the whole time, like a wounded bull, trying to get free
of the constraint. Doug ran to the fire, picked up a smooth rock in
both hands, came striding back, straight towards the commotion
inside the tent. He raised it up high, using his whole body,
brought it down, crouching as he did. The rock hit something which
snapped like a branch. This time the man roared, like a mad bull.
His legs kicked out. One foot caught Doug on the shin and almost
felled him. The stone rolled away.</p>
<p>"Kill him," Billy quavered, very softly, but as powerful as any
shriek. "<em>Kill him</em>."</p>
<p>Doug backed off to stand beside Tom who was holding on to Danny.
Corky ran forward, tugging at the knife at his belt, leapt upon the
humping shape. They could see his elbow jerk back. Once, twice,
three times, each movement followed by a forward punch and a
sudden, thudding sound. The canvas blossomed a flower of dark, wet
sheen.</p>
<p>The man's roar stopped dead. He led out a long wavering moan
that tailed away.</p>
<p>"Jesus, oh fuckin' Jesus God." This from Doug who stood there,
mouth agape. Corky backed of. Everything stopped for several
seconds. The man's feet went still. His shape, rolled up in the
bundle of canvas lay long and prone. The blood formed a patch a
handspan wide at the far end. Halfway down, an even wider patch
glistened and spread very quickly.</p>
<p>"Is he dead? Is he dead?" Billy was asking. He'd pulled his
jeans up, but Danny could still smell the blood on him, and the
cold, stale sweat of the stranger. His face was strangely slack, as
if all the nerves had gone to sleep, but his eyes were dark and
feral, almost the way the twitchy man's had been when he looked at
the brightness in the water.</p>
<p>He spun, crossed to the bag, grabbed up the ballpeen hammer that
lay on the grass and ran towards the prone man. He raised it up and
slammed it down, not aiming, just hitting. It made meaty thuds
where it landed. Billy's arm raised up and plunged down half a
dozen times, before he stumbled back, panting very hard. He stood
up, eyes fixed at first on the still shape.</p>
<p>Everybody turned to look at Billy. For a moment, he was fixed on
the prostrate form, as if he wanted to continue, to keep on hitting
with the hammer. A trickle of saliva drooled from his mouth and in
that moment, he looked completely mad. After a moment, he dropped
the hammer. He backed off, and then realised they were all looking
at him. An odd flicker crossed his face. Danny recognised it as
deep and devastating shame and his heart went out to him. Corky put
a hand out and touched him on the shoulder, the way Tom had done to
himself on the night of the big argument. It was just a touch, but
it said a huge amount. In his other hand, Corky held the knife.
Despite what he had done with it, the blade was surprisingly
clean.</p>
<p>There was a silence for a long moment.</p>
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