Shelter, page 24
“So what do you suggest?” Richard said. He was scanning the woods for any movement.
“Do you remember the first day I met you? The accident? Remember the way Socrates reacted when we got close to the cellar? I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but my guess now is that he sensed the Verani in the cellar. Didn’t you, boy?” She crouched down and ruffled the dog’s coat, then removed the choke chain that attached him to the lead. “Richard, you’d better give him the command.”
“Go on, boy, on you go,” Richard said.
The dog started forward, then stopped dead just beyond the trees. He sniffed the air and growled, a steady rumble of aggression and confusion.
“On, boy,” Richard said, urging him forward.
In the clearing Shaun opened his eyes and rolled over onto his back.
Socrates barked once and ran forward. Stopping and sniffing at a pool of foul-smelling liquid next to Shaun’s body. The dog sniffed it once and backed away, hackles rising, loud staccato barks booming from his throat. He looked back at his master, still barking.
“See?” Laura said. “He can smell it. And all his instincts are telling him to be wary.”
Richard looked at her. “Either that or he can sense the Verani inside Shaun.”
Shaun pushed himself into a sitting position. At the same time Richard raised the shotgun and aimed carefully.
Shaun swallowed twice. His throat was dry, his mouth parched. He saw Richard aim the shotgun at him. “What the fuck are you doing?” he said thickly.
Socrates started at the sound of Shaun’s voice, and then his tail began to wag and he bounded toward him. Shaun shrank back.
“He won’t hurt you,” Laura called. “Pet him.”
Shaun stuck out his hand. Socrates sniffed it, and then licked it.
“I think that answers our question,” Laura said to Richard and started to move away from the trees. “Keep the shotgun ready, though, and keep your eyes open.” She ran forward. “Shaun, are you all right?” She bent over him, concern etched on her face.
He stared up at her, bleary-eyed. “Yeah,” he said. “Fine.” He sat up, rubbing his head gingerly. Richard and Catherine were standing a few feet away.
“You were lucky,” Laura said. “You shouldn’t have tried to tackle him on your own.”
“As far as I was concerned I was chasing Brian Tanner. I can handle him. He attacked Catherine. When I arrived there was nothing here . . . except that.” He pointed to the milky pool of liquid. “He must have been waiting for me. I didn’t see a thing. It all happened too fast. Have you checked to make sure he’s not still here?” Shaun continued to rub his head. Laura noticed the red weal scorching the back of his neck, and another down the side of his face.
Laura touched her fingertips to his cheek. “Did you see anything at all?”
Shaun shook his head, but it only made the aching inside it worse.
“All this . . . all this mess here. It looks like the Verani is getting rid of the host body.”
“Getting rid of Tanner’s body, you mean,” Shaun said.
Richard stepped out from the trees. “It’s moved on.” He’d noticed the slime trail and followed it for a short way into the wood. “It gives us something to follow,” he said. “Except for one thing.”
“Which is?”
Richard turned away. “It looks as if it’s headed for Dunbar Court.”
Laura helped Shaun to his feet and turned to the others. “So, what now?”
“It will head for water,” Richard said emphatically. “It can’t survive in the air for more than a day or so. There’s a stream, in the grounds of the Court, just on the other side of these woods. And the trout lake of course.”
“Then my guess would be that it’s heading there. They can probably sniff out water. They would have to in order to survive,” Laura said.
“Let’s get back to the Court,” Richard said.
Laura stared at him. “Are you mad? That’s heading straight for danger.”
Richard placed both his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll understand if you want to go back to the Hooper house. Your car is there, you and Shaun could get away.”
“We could get help,” Laura insisted strongly.
“Who would believe us?” Shaun said quietly.
Richard nodded. “He’s right, but even so you can both get away. I have to finish this; it has affected my family for too long.” He looked across at Catherine, who gave every impression she was staring into space but he knew she was listening. “I’d be happier if you were safe, Laura.”
Laura thought for a moment. She glanced at Shaun, who shook his head imperceptively. “It’s me Tanner is after. I’m staying with you.”
As soon as the changes began inside his body Tanner knew his life was ending. The brief glimpses of clarity that had stayed with him, that had dragged him through the past few hours, were disappearing.
With shaking hands he tore at his shirt. The thin cotton was restricting, tight around his chest. The thin slits on his abdomen were opening and closing rapidly, the thin spines, now pale coral and anemic, danced in and out of the opening, seeking sustenance and finding none.
He pushed himself to his feet and stood for a moment, staring up at the sky, and then his eyes rolled backward in his head, he opened his mouth, and a thin, keening sound escaped his throat. At the same time his body split, ribs cracking and snapping, bursting out from skin that tore like tissue paper.
Tanner drew on every last ounce of strength he had to fight off the Transition. It was useless. The flesh was peeling away like rotted skin from a vegetable. He had long since lost his will for life, that was irrelevant. All that had mattered for days was Laura Craig, and his desire for revenge.
At thought of Laura he felt a residual emotion inside. It wasn’t a will to live, to prolong his existence; it was hatred pure and colorful. With this hatred he began to resist the Verani.
The Verani felt the surge within it and knew instantly what it was. It had chosen its host body well. This human was possessed of an evil that was to be admired. Even now the Verani could use this final power from the human to get closer to the family it was sworn to destroy.
It was a disfigured Brian Tanner, tatters of flesh hanging from his limbs, head distorted with misshapen appendages, trails of slime cascading behind him, that moved slowly toward Dunbar Court; moved slowly toward Laura Craig.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Richard took Socrates’ lead from Catherine and led him across to the pool of slime, letting the dog sniff it again. Socrates pulled against the lead, growling and snapping. “He may not be a bloodhound, but he can still follow a trail. You should see him when he gets the scent of a rabbit. Find, boy,” he said to the dog. Socrates barked and put his nose to the ground, sniffing furiously. He caught the scent immediately and lurched forward. Richard glanced round at Shaun and grinned. “Let’s go,” he said.
The dog headed into the undergrowth, circled aimlessly for a minute or so, and then picked up the scent again, moving away from the clearing and deeper into the wood. The others had no alternative but to follow, treading down the knee-high ferns, picking their way carefully through thick patches of bramble and gorse.
“Definitely the way back to Dunbar Court,” Catherine murmured. “Going home.”
The farther they went into the wood the less easy they became. The trees were growing closer together here, and it became harder to see any kind of path. Often the way through them was blocked by fallen trees, or by head-high clumps of rhododendrons.
Laura kept glancing from side to side; the Verani could be hiding in countless places, watching them, lying in wait. The truth was they had no idea how it would behave, or even what it might look like, assuming it had cast off Tanner’s body, which was nowhere near certain.
After ten minutes they reached another clearing—a large grassy hollow in the woodland floor filled at the bottom with crisp brown leaves and broken branches from the trees above. Beyond that were the beginnings of the manicured lawns of the formal gardens.
“There’s Dunbar Court,” Laura said. Her hair was soaked with sweat and flattened to her scalp.
Richard nodded and called Socrates to heel. The dog whined in protest. Richard crouched down and took the dog’s great head between his hands, whispering to him, calming him.
“How far to the lake?” Shaun said.
“About another half a mile,” Richard said. “Can you take Catherine straight inside when we get there?”
“No. Not a good idea,” Laura said. “We have a choice. We all go on together, or we all go back to the Hooper site, but it’s not safe for anyone to stay in the open alone. Certainly not after what happened to Shaun. So do we press on?”
“Give me a minute,” Catherine said quietly.
Laura dropped to the grass and sat cross-legged. Catherine lit a cigarette. Shaun took out his mobile to call Siobhan. The phone was dead and when he looked closely at it he saw a hairline crack splitting the case.
“Problem?” Laura said.
“I must have fallen on it. It’s not working.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Siobhan would be furious. There was an open evening at his daughter’s school tonight and before he’d left this morning she’d made him promise to be home on time.
Since the growth appeared on his shoulder he’d avoided any kind of physical contact with her; something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Siobhan. It was starting to create an ever-widening rift between them. Missing the open evening would create yet more friction.
He explained to Laura. “She probably thinks I’m seeing somebody else,” he said gloomily. “It seems so mundane, compared . . .”
“I hardly think she’ll doubt you’re faithful, Shaun. Siobhan’s very bright, and she’s certainly never struck me as the insecure type.”
“Maybe, but put yourself in her shoes. What would you think?”
“I think, that for now, it’s more important that we do this, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Shaun said. “Of course, sorry. I . . . this whole business about my back.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Laura said.
“For what?”
“Getting you involved. If I’d any idea about any of this I wouldn’t have touched the Hooper place with a barge pole.”
“Yes, but that’s the luxury of hindsight. Don’t blame yourself. You weren’t to know. And it was my own bloody curiosity that made me knock down the wall in the cellar. Perhaps if I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have this thing growing on me. But again, it’s easy to be wise after the event. Then again, some people did know what we were getting into.” He nodded at Richard and Catherine. “Might have helped matters if they’d said something to us.”
Richard gave them another five minutes, then said, “Let’s go on.”
Laura looked at Catherine, who nodded her head sharply and got to her feet. “Ready,” she said.
Once again, with Socrates leading the way, they headed across the lush lawns to the lake.
Socrates stopped at the water’s edge, sniffing the ground furiously, turning to bark at them in confusion.
“He’s lost the scent,” Laura said. “So it looks like it probably entered the water here.”
“What do we do then?” Shaun said.
“It’s not a large lake, but it is deep in the center,” Richard said. “He’s going to be weak after being in the air after so long, so I suspect he would take the easier option and go into the deep water to rest.”
“Possibly,” Shaun said, looking around.
“Think about it,” Richard said. “This is the first time the Verani’s been out of the well for almost half a century. It’s going to be disorientated. Confused. My guess is it will hole up somewhere—give itself time to regroup.”
“Laura, what do you think?” Shaun said.
“Sounds reasonable to me,” she said. “Unless . . .”
“Unless what?” Richard said.
“Unless Brian Tanner is still in control somehow.”
“Oh, to hell with it then,” Shaun said.
“We’ve got about two hours of daylight left,” Laura said.
The area surrounding the lake had been left to be exploited by weeds. For the wildlife, was Catherine’s excuse to the gardeners. Head-high clumps of brambles formed thorny thickets, while snaking stems of bindweed twisted around them, the white, bell-shaped flowers decorating the thickets, making them look deceptively innocent.
The lake was roughly circular, several hundred yards across, the margins filled with water-hungry plants—clusters of bulrushes, great stands of gunnera and rogersia; flag irises, now running to seed in the late summer. The surface of the pond was partly covered by the flat, circular leaves of water lilies, while blanket weed rose up in frothy green clouds, the home for all manner of pond life. As they approached, a brightly colored dragonfly skimmed the surface, searching for food, before alighting on a rush stem to rest.
Richard crouched down next to Socrates, removed the choke chain, and slapped the animal on the rump. “Go on then. Home, boy.”
Tail wagging, the wolfhound ran instead to the water’s edge, barked once, and started to circle the lake. Laura and Richard walked after him, alert for any movement, their eyes flicking from the surface of the water to the trees, to the thick growths of gunnera. There were so many places for the Verani to hide, if it wasn’t in the deep water.
The dog was sniffing at the ground by the edge of the lake. By the time Richard reached him Socrates was staring out at the water and growling deep in his throat.
“Good boy,” Richard said.
Laura stood a few feet back, examining the surface of the lake for any movement.
The dog ignored Richard, his attention fixed on a spot on the water, several yards away from the bank. Laura followed the dog’s gaze. A few small bubbles were breaking on the surface, just to the right of a mound of blanket weed. As Richard reached down to slip the choke chain over the dog’s head again the water started to boil.
Socrates barked ferociously. Richard made a grab for the dog’s ruff, but Socrates lunged forward, shoulder deep into the water, and swam out toward the bubbling water.
“Socrates, no!” Richard cried out, but could only watch helplessly as something dark broke the surface of the water and wrapped itself tightly around the dog’s neck, pulling him effortlessly out into the center of the water. Socrates thrashed in the water, yelping, keening, but the Verani was too strong, lifting the dog out of the water, and then plunging him back down beneath it, once, twice. A few moments later Socrates disappeared from view for the third and final time.
Richard looked away from the pond. Laura took his hand. “Come on! Run.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Within minutes of sinking beneath the surface of the lake the Verani could feel the restorative powers of the water working on its body. The pain where the host body was changing was intense—a white-hot fire that engulfed the body, clouding thought, blurring vision. But now, with the coolness of the water surrounding it, the pain was ebbing away and tissues were regenerating. The mud at the bottom of the lake was a soothing balm, and the Verani was content to lie there while it healed.
Only the pain in its mind matched the pain in its body. It was certain it had seen the human father’s face staring back from the woods, kindling a hundred emotions, reawakening the feeling of betrayal and the anger at being shut away for so long. This father had tricked the boy David, telling tales of an illness that would eventually be cured, when in fact it was nothing of the kind.
Not an illness but a birthright. And the Verani had years of living alone, submerged in the stagnant water of the well, to search the race memory to discover exactly what it was. It was all there in the genetic blueprint. Memories of shifting sands, of barren desert wastelands, and soothing cool oases. There were others, a whole race that called themselves Verani and who had a long and noble history.
The Verani rolled over in the mud, letting it coat its body. It would rest for a while, and once the strength had returned fully it would go again to the surface, but this time prepared. It would seek out the man who had rejected it and shut it away. It would seek out the whole family and destroy it.
Memories mingled with rage: vistas of sweeping deserts, scenes it had never witnessed for itself but which were so much a part of its heritage that they had become its own. Faces of dark-skinned humans, swathed in white cloth, some leading others in chains, others chanting, dancing around, yet seeming to pay homage to its ancestors.
There was a pale moon in the sky, casting little light in the grounds, but stirring shadows and shapes so that the entire milieu seemed to be moving; the darkness alive with constant shifting movement.
Another spasm of pain racked its brain. The host body was still alive. Whatever was driving the human that had been Brian Tanner was a primal hatred. The Verani could see through the human’s eyes and experience the depth of the anger whenever the young female was there. That was good. If the human body remained a little longer, then it could be put to productive use.
With a huge effort the Verani heaved Brian Tanner’s body out of the mud, and swam to the surface.
They hadn’t got far when the surface of the lake, erupted in a tidal wave of rushing white water and weed. Laura turned to see what was emerging from the lake, but the black shape was too obscured by the water.
Shaun took Catherine’s hand. “Come on,” he urged and all but pulled her toward the house.
“Run,” Richard said breathlessly.
When he turned for the others he could see that Shaun and Catherine were already on the terrace at the rear of Dunbar Court. Catherine was handing Shaun some keys, which Richard guessed were the ones that would open the french doors to the drawing room. Why on earth didn’t the staff, Payne at least, hear the commotion and do something? Then he remembered. Generosity of spirit had prompted Catherine to give everyone the two days of the weekend off, as they had worked so hard at the party. Dunbar Court was completely empty.
