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253 lines
13 KiB
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<title>34</title>
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<h1>34</h1>
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<p>....<em>It's going to.....</em></p>
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<p>The bindings parted with a savage crack. All of them gave at the
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same time and the thick branch whipped up, swiping through the air
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in a vicious whoop. It unleashed in a blur, uncoiling as all the
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latent tension punched upwards, like the arm of a siege catapult.
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The sudden violent motion threw Corky backwards.</p>
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<p>"....<em>Go!</em>"</p>
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<p>Danny blurted the word just as Corky slammed into him. Both of
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them landed beside Doug on the short, tough grass only inches from
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the drop-off. Danny instinctively grabbed a thick tuft to stop the
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pair of them rolling over the edge and tumbling down the scree</p>
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<p>The forked branch carried the bomb up, reached the end of its
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travel, slammed against the cross-trunk and once again the whole
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tree shook from the roots upwards in a seizmic shudder. A
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scattering of leaves exploded outwards. The branch hit the trunk,
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rebounded, slammed in again and stopped dead, but the bomb simply
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kept on travelling, almost straight up into the air, thrown off its
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cradle with the huge and sudden acceleration.</p>
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<p>It went on up, a black and heavy shape, soaring into the sky,
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wobbling just a little on its tail. The fins were clearly outlined
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against the cloudless blue of the morning.</p>
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<p>"Christ on a bike, I thought it got you," Doug gasped, but only
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Danny heard him, and that very faintly. His attention was fixed on
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the rising black bomb. Corky was lying athwart him, face up, mouth
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agape. Over on the far side, beyond the tree, Billy and Doug stood,
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eyes wide, stunned by the catapult crack that had sounded so much
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like a pistol-shot, sounded too much like the sound of a club
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against a skull.</p>
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<p>The bomb was travelling upwards, thick and massive, a solid
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black zeppelin, defying gravity. Its ascension transfixed them
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all.</p>
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<p>Danny's breathing stopped and the whole world seemed to freeze
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into a sludgy, slow motion. The bomb rose up and up.</p>
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<p><em>"It's going to...it's going to..."</em> His own words were
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still ringing in his ears, along with the air-shattering crack of
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the branch slamming the cross-trunk, and Doug's blurt, all of them
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jangled together, encapsulated in the focus of that single moment
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of time.</p>
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<p>Billy Harrison saw the thing soar, unable for the moment to
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comprehend what had happened. Tom's body was in the act of turning,
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as if flinching from the whiplash of the tree. A deep vibration
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shivered in the ground, almost able to be heard in a thrumming
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tremor. Hawthorn leaves floated in a wide slow halo of green around
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the tree and pieces of old bark scattered like shrapnel from the
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trunk. The bomb soared upwards and it snared Billy's eyes, a black
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and powerful silhouette, shark fins jutting out from the tail.</p>
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<p><em>"What's happening?"</em> he heard his own voice ask, inside
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his head. The moment was somehow charged with a inexplicable and
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powerful energy. His heart was beating, still fast, squeezing
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inside his chest, but he felt it like a slow pulse and the harsh
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whiplash of the tree seemed to stretch out and develop a bass thrum
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which matched the deep vibration under his feet.</p>
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<p>"<em>Want to cross over? Eh boy?"</em></p>
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<p>The monster had dragged him into the tent and broken him.</p>
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<p><em>Tried to kill him!</em> He had lashed out with the ballpeen
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hammer, feeling it hit in meaty thuds, wanting to break and shatter
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and destroy.</p>
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<p>The mad man had taken him down to the water he had gone down
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into the valley, into the shadow, and death had been hovering
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nearby. Pain throbbed up from the tender, torn skin and the bomb
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was going up and up, expanding, rather than diminishing in his
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consciousness, powerful and mesmerising. Billy stood slack-jawed,
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watching it, as if his life depended on it; unable to look away,
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despite the need to be up on the moor and gone.</p>
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<p>Tom Tannahill was half turned and his face tilted to the sky.
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The panic and exhaustion had squeezed at him so tightly that a
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little dribble of urine had spurted out to stain the front of his
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jeans. The bomb rose up.....</p>
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<p><em>"Sorry Tommy, just trying to say, okay</em>?"</p>
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<p>Corky had looked over at him with eyes like fine glass, so
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fragile they could break and shatter and they focused on him with
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such powerful regret and sorrow that it had reached and soothed a
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cooling balm into the raw open wound of his hurt.</p>
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<p><em>Read me the story Tom, would you?</em> Little Maureen's slow
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voice and the bruises under her eyes and the paunchy, sick swelling
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of her skin. <em>I need to go to the bathroom Tom. I need to
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go.</em> And she had gone and everything in his life burst
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asunder.</p>
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<p>Now the bomb was going up and it held him, held everything that
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he was, in that one brittle fragment of time. He held on to it, the
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fear magically numbed away.</p>
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<p>Doug Nicol was on the grass, braced for balance, behind Danny
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and Corky. <em>Hells bells!</em> It was going up, heavy and
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thunderous, rising like a black stone.</p>
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<p>The rock had gone up, raised high in his two hands and then it
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had come slamming down and something had snapped with the sound of
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a branch cracking, like the sound of the string breaking, the noise
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of the hawthorn limb smashing upwards against the trunk. The bomb
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was up.</p>
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<p>The first one had missed and they could have got him this time,
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but the knife had sliced wrong and their last weapon was gone. They
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could have used it like the campfire stone, just a weight to crush
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and break.. Now the bomb was up, on its own course, not theirs,
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dragging his eyes with it.</p>
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<p><em>Bugsylugs, Bugsylugs,</em> Billy's voice taunted in the
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background of his mind and he ignored it. That had been then,
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before this <em>now</em>. The taunt was meaningless, its power
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gone.</p>
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<p>There was a red pain across his neck, where the wire had bit
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into him. It had been worth it.</p>
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<p><em>Did my best, honest to God.</em> He had done his best.
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Together they had almost beaten him. Almost. Nearly. The bomb rose
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up and up, for that strange and unreal moment filling the entire
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sky.</p>
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<p>John Corcoran watched it, sharp black against the light blue,
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black as the gaping barrel of the shotgun up against his eye. The
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crack of the branch had been like the crash of the pin against the
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empty chamber; world shattering, devastating. Numbing.</p>
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<p><em>Nothing happened. Nothing happened!</em></p>
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<p>The air had whooped when the bough had uncoiled like the strike
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of some knotted brown snake. He watched the bomb float up and away,
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heavy and blunt and somehow mindlessly vicious.</p>
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<p><em>See how you like it, you crazy fucking</em> bastard!</p>
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<p>The pin had come down on an empty space again. <em>Nothing
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happened</em>.</p>
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<p>"<em>Kill him</em>." Somebody had said from far away. Under his
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back, the earth shuddered violentlyThe crack of the parting string
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and the crack of the shotgun's firing pin resounded inside him,
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with the jar of his teeth on wire, on and on and on, a mental
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ricochet that seemed as if it might go on forever.</p>
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<p>"<em>Kill him!"</em> Somebody had demanded and he had not
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hesitated, because the voice had really been his own and this could
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be the last time, this <em>would</em> be the last time and Corky
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felt the quivering violence and he'd punched forward, felt the thud
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and then the fruity slide as the blade went in and the blood came
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out to make a butterfly pattern on the tent.</p>
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<p>He'd done it again, twice, thrice.</p>
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<p><em>And again he defied him.</em> The voice had been mad and
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dreamy, black and rising, like the bomb soaring into the air.</p>
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<p><em>You afraid boy? You scared?</em> Not of you, you creepy mad
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cunt! But he was afraid. Really and truly. He could feel it in the
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grind of his teeth.</p>
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<p><em>If thine eye offends me. Pluck it....</em>And the black
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rising shape held him now.</p>
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<p>The bomb went up and Danny Gillan watched it, black as the
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valley of the shadow of death. Danny soared with it, numbed. <em>Up
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and over, up and over,</em> the litany that had kept him going up
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the slope while exhaustion and pain dragged at him and fear tried
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to paralyse him.</p>
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<p><em>Denied me thrice.</em> The night had been filled with the
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sounds of weeping and gnashing of teeth on a hard steel wire.
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<em>Bad luck, Danny Boy.</em> He had knocked the heron out of the
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air and brought bad luck down upon them all.</p>
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<p>The bomb was floating there, huge in the sky above them.
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<em>Dung fly!</em></p>
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<p>What did <em>that</em> mean? <em>What....?</em></p>
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<p>The bomb found the reach of its trajectory, slowing down at the
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apex, the tail now beginning to rise up. It wobbled, seemed to stop
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still in the air, then, just as slowly, tilted, turned, began to
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drop.</p>
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<p>The strange little bubble of time that had held them, it burst
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silently, threw them clear.</p>
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<p>"Watch out," Doug found his voice. A spittle of saliva spat out
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with the words. "It's going to..."</p>
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<p>He flinched back. The bomb fell straight down, all of two yards
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out from the edge. It had seemed to go straight up, but the
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uncoiling branch had thrown it forward too. It dropped like a
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stone, still wobbling a little, blunt end down. They turned to
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follow its progress. Down below, something pale fluttered, it was
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the man's face twisting upwards towards the sky and the black
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shape.</p>
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<p>The bomb plummeted towards him. His mouth opened and he yelled
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something, jumped backwards with both arms outstretched, his skin
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white against the grey of the shale, streaked scarlet with blood.
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He missed his footing, rolled and skittered halfway down.</p>
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<p>The bomb hit the soft slope, dug in a little, but its momentum
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ploughed it forward and it bounced out, somersaulting once, heading
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for the ledge of mudstone rubble twenty yards from where the first
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one had landed, but close to where the third bomb from the previous
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attempts had rolled in the shale. It hit the mudstone, tail first.
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A piece of tailfin flicked off and it too spun, whirling, straight
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for the soft shale bank.</p>
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<p>The man bellowed in lunatic triumph, despite the fact that he'd
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slid down the incline almost as far as the basin of the corrie.</p>
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<p>The bomb bounced fast straight towards where the other stubby
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black shape lay. They watched it, all five of them, high on the
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side of the gorge, unable to draw their eyes away.</p>
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<p>It hit.</p>
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<p>The whole world turned a brilliant, searing, blinding white.</p>
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