Crabs on the Rampage
Author: Guy N. Smith
Date: 1981-08-15 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: One man only saw them and him they killed, hunted him down through the dense reed beds, trapped him, drove him mad with terror before they pulled him to pieces and ate every bloodied shred of his body. And then it was quiet again - for a little while, until they came ashore again. On that holiday beach there were hundreds of men, women and children. Food!
Publisher: Dell

Crabs On The Rampage - Kindle Version 1.0

(c) Guy N Smith 1981 - 2011

Published by Black Hill Books, May 2011

ISBN : 978-1-907846-212

First Published by New English Library (NEL) September 1981.

Converted to Ebook from original paperback by Scan2Ebook.com

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Contents

Title

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

The End

Chapter ONE

The Wash shimmered beneath a mid-summer heat haze, even the dark green of the samphire and spartina grass failing to produce a cooling impression across the parched landscape. A nesting peewit rose suddenly, a series of crazy aerobatics that took it in a half-mile radius before it alighted back in the region of its clutch of eggs. It had spotted the man lying at the mouth of the wide creek and knew he was watching. Which was why it walked the last thirty yards back to the shallow indentation in the marsh before settling itself back on the four olive blotched eggs. He would not find them, it was confident of that. Nature had taught it to make these sorties every so often. If he came this way it would do it again, possibly even use the broken wing ploy to take him even further away.

But he didn't come.

Ike Ballinger had followed the bird's course idly with his binoculars. He wasn't particularly interested in lapwings, just accepted them as another cog in the ornithological wheel. But somewhere out here there was a bittern, possibly a pair, he was sure of that. There was no mistaking the boom of the male bird which he had heard across Gedney Drove End in the stillness of the summer evening and just on dusk he'd caught a glimpse of it, following it with his glasses until it was out of sight. A ruse like the peewit had just used so that you searched the wrong place and gave up when you didn't find anything. But if you knew your birds you didn't waste your time; you put yourself in their place and made a few calculations. Ballinger had done just that and it had brought him across to Holbeach St Matthew, just off the RAF bombing range. Somewhere in these vast reed beds the female bittern was sitting and he was relying upon her mate to lead him to the nest. Spurrier was prepared to pay a good price for bittern eggs, more than he'd paid for the Golden Eagle clutch from the eyrie above Inverness last April. And Ike Ballinger was a man who always delivered the goods.

He had anticipated a long wait. It might take him a week or even a fortnight to locate the nest, but that was nothing when one considered the vast area of the Wash. First you had to piece together vague scraps of information that might be nothing more than a waste of time. That youth in the bar of the Bull in Long Sutton had gone into raptures about the woodcock he'd heard ‘drumming’ on the saltings. Sure, you always get a few resident woodcock drumming in summer but not on the saltmarshes. That kid wouldn't know a woodcock from a bittern anyway so Ballinger had settled for long odds and been right. Now he'd played all his hunches and all that was left was the waiting, the worst part because if you were wrong you were wasting your time.

He lay his binoculars on the short spiky grass and proceeded to stuff coarse cut tobacco in an intaglio grained bent pipe. Tall and raw boned with thinning grey hair there was a streak of ruthlessness in his hawk-like features; a bird of prey always hunting, a loner who seldom ventured close to the towns except when he needed information.

Somewhere out there in that mass of reeds the hen bittern was sitting on her clutch. Searching would be a waste of time, even had the area been half the size, because the moment she became alarmed she would become motionless, sit with her neck and bill pointing horizontally and from even as close as a yard away you'd mistake her for a reed. The male might return during the day, more likely he would wait until dusk. And a precise bearing would have to be taken on the place where he swooped down.

Ballinger smoked his pipe but his eyes never relaxed, missing nothing. A movement far out on the mudflats had him reaching for his glasses. Certainly not a bittern but he'd check on it just the same. The moment he focused his lenses he was stiffening, biting hard on the nylon mouthpiece of his Peterson, almost forgetting that brown heron-like bird that might show up at any second.

‘Now, what the hell's happening out there?’ he spoke aloud, a habit he had acquired these last few years through spending so much time in his own company.

He recognised those tideline birds as Canada geese. His eyes narrowed. Something was wrong, nothing that you could put your finger on right away but rather that Nature's overall picture of marsh life didn't quite blend. The geese were a large semi-feral flock, in no way connected with the wild grey geese that came down from Spitzbergen to winter every autumn. These large black and white birds of distant Canadian origin often spent long periods out on the mudflats. But this was the breeding season! The females should have been sitting, rearing their goslings. Instead they were bunched out there and clearly alarmed about something!

Ballinger watched them closely, the bittern temporarily forgotten. A huge gander was leading them away from the tideline, neck outstretched, looking back towards the sea, trumpeting for them to hurry. A warning!

And then Ike Ballinger saw the cause of their concern, his mouth opening in sheer amazement and disbelief, thinking for one moment that it was some trick of the heat, a distorted mirage; or maybe even mistaken identity, perhaps some giant seals which inhabited this part of the Wash coast, or some renegade band of coypu that had survived Man's efforts to eliminate the species.

But it couldn't be! The massive sandy-coloured shells, waving antennae, you could even see eyes the size of saucers. Oversize crabs as big as cows filing out of the tide like an armoured battalion!

‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ Ballinger felt the clammy sweat on his body going cold, trickling down his spine, his pipe falling and thudding into the mud. He adjusted his glasses, took an even closer look. There was no mistake, some twenty or thirty of these outsize crabs were shambling along the tideline, something decidedly evil and purposeful about their movements. The clicking of their pincers reaching his ears like distant machine gun fire.

Click-click-clickety-click.

Now the geese were on the wing, climbing for height like heavy aircraft, a chorus of gaggling as they disregarded their usual V formation and headed northwards. Ballinger did not even watch them go, his lenses riveted on these unbelievable crustaceans, his hands shaking so that he could hardly focus his binoculars.

Oh God, he remembered, knew what they were! Newspaper headlines some six or seven years ago came back to him. Somewhere on the Cardigan Bay, an army of mutated crabs that had wrecked a seaside resort, defied artillery and everything the RAF could throw at them. Then again, some years later, breeding on an island off the Great Barrier Reef. Destroyed this time, so the papers had said.

And now they were back, here on Britain's east coast, a party of them walking out of the sea like behemoths intent on destruction. And they had to bloody well choose the very place where he was trying to locate a bittern's nest. His initial fear blended with anger. This could foul his entire plans up, the mudflats being bombed to hell, the bittern and its clutch of valuable eggs being obliterated.

He just sat there staring out at the crabs, cursing beneath his breath, trying to will them back into the oceans of the world. And then he saw the cow. He hadn't noticed it before, a Friesian with a twisted horn that must have strayed down from the lush pasture below the sea wall in search of shade from the tall reeds or perhaps wanting to wallow in the cool of a muddy creek. It was on its feet, seeing the advancing crabs less than thirty yards away, standing petrified with terror.

Suddenly its limbs unfroze and it broke into a lumbering canter, a shrill bellow of fear. It had a twenty yard start on the advancing clicking crabs and even over terrain such as this it should easily have out-distanced them. Ballinger tensed as though he watched a horse race on which he had gambled his entire savings. A safe bet that was suddenly disintegrating before his eyes.

The crabs fanned out into two rattling prongs, moving at unbelievable speed, overtook the fleeing creature and closed in. A tight circle, motionless. Waiting.

Ike Ballinger moved his glasses round, saw the big crab, a monster half as big again as any of the others; the rest were looking to it, as though seeking a signal. It came, a crane-like pincer clawing the air and the circle began to close in.

The hapless cow backed, cowered on its haunches, eyes rolling in sheer terror. And then the army of sea beasts was upon it, vicious claws slashing, cutting deep. A mêlée beneath a crimson fountain of spraying blood, entrails torn from a gaping belly wound and slurped into revolting mouths like strings of spaghetti. And still the animal lived! Now the crabs' leader was joining in, reaching out a pincer and snapping that deformed horn as though it was a rotten tree branch, then forcing the slobbering jaws wide and delving between them, withdrawing a scarlet morass of offal, lungs that ballooned with trapped blood, squeezing and bursting them before devouring them greedily.

The tortured cow was dead, torn apart, the crabs milling and fighting over the raw meat, crunching bones to powder, strips of hide eaten voraciously by those which had been deprived of the tender joints.

And then it was all over, only a scarlet patch on the spartina grass marking the scene of the slaughter, the crustacean killers forming back into a long file with their terrible leader at its head, clicking their way back to the tide's edge, the water swallowing them up as though they had never been.

Ballinger lowered his binoculars, retrieved his fallen pipe with a shaking hand, wiped some of the mud off it and began to cram tobacco into the bowl with an urgency that came from his taut nerves. Only when he was drawing the sweet-scented smoke did he try to think, to reason.

A few years ago he would have doubted his sanity. Only in the light of previous crab invasions did he reassure himself that what he had seen had actually existed. The creatures had not been exterminated; a few had remained and bred and when their numbers were sufficient they had once again decided to invade Man's domain. The big one, male or female, was possessed with an almost human intelligence, the way it had led its troops, the sheer cunning by which that fleeing cow had been cut off, the revulsion of the feast and the cold-blooded terrifying tactical retreat back to the sea. They had found what they had come ashore for - living meat! And when they had feasted they returned whence they had come. The victim could have been human, a seashell or wild flower hunter. Even himself. He went cold at the thought and then he remembered why he was here and that somewhere in those dense reed beds a bittern sat on her eggs; the golden goose had laid and all that remained was for the spoils to be gathered.

A difficult prospect had now turned into a frightening one. Not only did he have to locate the nest but he had to go out there, close to the tide's edge where unnatural horrors lurked in the muddy brown waters of the Wash. He considered his dilemma amidst a cloud of thick tobacco smoke which dispersed some of the swarming flies. He could go back right now, check out of the Bridges Hotel at Sutton Bridge and head for London. A phone call to Spurrier that the bittern's nest didn't exist but instead he'd go north and try to locate those ospreys on the Beauly Firth. But money changed his mind, screamed at him to stay. He began to weigh up the risks, decided they were almost minimal.

Take killer sharks, for example. In high risk areas they cleared the beaches but just how many attacks were there on record? Compared with road accidents there wasn't any risk at all. Go even further and compare this strange crab population with that of the sharks. Even though Ballinger had only counted some thirty crustaceans and allowing for, say another hundred, unseen, it still worked out at several thousand sharks to one crab. Agreed the latter were probably concentrated here but the Wash was a tremendous area and the chances of them coming ashore again in exactly the same place were exceedingly remote.

And Ike Ballinger made up his mind to go for those bittern eggs.

It was a long tiring hot day, the midges coming in pernicious clouds once the sun dipped in the western sky, a glowing red ball that held the promise of a continued heatwave. Ballinger filled his pipe again, the taste of tobacco beginning to pall but he needed something to do. Anything. Inactivity was the worst part of all. The marsh was silent and empty, not even the shrill piping of a redshank to be heard. It was as though every creature of the wild sensed the presence of the crabs and had fled!

Dusk crept in slowly, turning the sky saffron, gulls flying in from the fields out to the mudflats, a steady stream to the right and left of where Ballinger watched and waited. But none dipped and planed down on to the area around Holbeach St Matthew!

Suddenly he saw the male bittern. It came from his right, low and fast and silent so that had he been looking away he might not have noticed it. It could have been a woodcock or a snipe except that it was too big, too swift for an owl. And he knew without any doubt that this was the bird he sought.

It went down; one moment it was visible, the next it was gone, a landing that defied all Man's aeronautical knowledge, the reed bed swallowing it up as though it had never existed. Ballinger was on his feet instantly, his trained mind taking a bearing, 300 yards to his left and about 200 diagonally from there, almost in line with the mouth of the big creek where it spilled out into the saltings. He walked fast, pulling up his lightweight waders as he did so, checking that he still had his torch. Time was precious, the light was failing fast.

He reached the jungle of reeds and followed the course which he had already noted, splashing through the shallow water, the stems head height and having to be pulled apart to force a path. God, it was thick in here; and dark, too. He flicked the switch on his torch and the beam reflected a wall of greenery, gave him a shut-in feeling so that he shuddered. He couldn't stop thinking about those fucking crabs, big bastards that pulled you limb from limb and gobbled your guts like they were eating tripe and onions. Jesus wept! He paused, listened, tried to calm himself. They're probably miles from here by now, maybe on their way back to Australia; just dropped by for a beef snack. Ugh!

The only sound was the pounding of his own heart and his laboured breathing. The bitterns would hear him for sure. The male might take off but the female would stay. Maternal instincts prevailed in every species. He wondered about bitterns, didn't really know enough about them. Nobody did. The bird might have gone down several yards from the nest and worked its way back to it, a deliberate ruse to confuse a hidden enemy just like the lapwings did. In that case, Ballinger might be floundering around in here for hours. The thought made him go cold.

This was the place, or thereabouts. He swung his torch round in a circle. The dark green foliage was getting on his nerves, like a thick stinking patch of the Everglades. And the mosquitoes were biting like hell, too. Fuck Spurrier and his obsession with rare eggs. Money was no object so long as he got his eggs. It was the reverse with Ike Ballinger; money was the only god he worshipped.

Something moved, scuttled. He swung the torch but saw nothing. Just reeds. It was probably just a rat. Don't panic, just start searching systematically, take ten yards to the left, work in a diminishing square then start again. And again …

He jumped, tensed. This time there was no mistaking the noise, a lumbering body that pushed down reeds and trod them into the mud, coming this way!

Click … click … click.

The eggs were forgotten. There was no mistaking that sound, eerie as though the advancing creature had made it by accident, knowing exactly where its prey was and coming to collect it. The giant crabs were in the reed bed!

He turned to flee, running in his cumbersome footwear, tearing at the reeds to part them, cutting his hands and feeling the warm blood running over his fingers. Falling once in a deeper part, foul muddy water splashing up in his face but he didn't notice the brackish taste. His breath wheezed, his lungs rebelling at this unaccustomed exercise. There was no sound from the crab. Perhaps it had fallen back or hadn't even known he was there. He didn't know how good a crustacean's hearing was.

He should have been back on the saltings by now. He hadn't checked his flight but surely he'd covered a couple of hundred yards. And then came the awful realisation, the ultimate in despair and terror - he had fled in the wrong direction, was lost in the depths of these dense reeds!

He groaned his despair aloud, charged the vegetation blindly. Then came a moment of hope that vanished as soon as it begun. The reeds vanished, he was in the open but his torch beam reflected yet another wall of dense growth all around. A large clearing, a shallow black pool that glinted evilly in the torchlight.

And then he saw them, a myriad of tiny red eyes that glinted like glow-worms, the hideous circle of revolting crustacean faces. Silent. Watching. Gloating. A splashing sound behind him; another of the big crabs had moved in to close the gap by which he had entered. He was trapped!

A wave of terror hit his brain with stunning force, snapping the frail thread of sanity so that when they began to close in on him he was laughing insanely, not even trying to flee. The big one came first, a waving pincer checking the others. This was a human, regal meat!

That same claw reached out, closed over Ballinger's wrist and snapped it as easily as a pair of secateurs cuts through a rose sucker. Blood spouted from the wrist stump, a scarlet salute to the king of the crabs, rich wine spurting into the wizened lusting face.

Somehow Ballinger still remained upright, even after his other hand had plopped into the water. Still laughing, the grin only fading from his face when a razor-like incision opened him up from chest to groin and his entrails flopped out. He would have fallen except that the creature caught him, speared him with a claw and raised his wriggling bleeding body as an offering to the others.

The crabs surged forward, tearing viciously at the mutilated human, pulling it apart, fighting amongst themselves, churning the pool to a crimson froth. It was over in a couple of minutes, some of the creatures scraping the muddy bottom in the hope that some morsel had been overlooked.

And then the silence rolled softly back, squatting grotesque shapes crowding that clearing in the reed beds, content now that they had been well fed, beady eyes focused on their leader. They would not move until he ordered them to do so, for this monster ruled even his own kind with unsurpassed cruelty. He demanded obedience and received it. Without his guile this mutated species would not have survived Man's persecution. But they had lived and bred. And multiplied.

And now the hour of vengeance was nigh. For the Big One had told them so.

Wells-next-the-Sea. Once a picturesque remote haven for wildfowlers and fishermen, but the sweeping tide of civilisation had swamped it during the sixties. The gem still remained but it was overshadowed by its sprawling setting, ugly modern housing, an amusement arcade that brought the unwelcome bikers and tourists at peak holiday times. But the old Wells was still fighting for survival in an attempt to retain its Norfolk heritage, the ghost town casting its shadow over the picturesque harbour. Wide golden sands stretched beyond Holkham with its fringe of tall pines, the line of sand dunes trying to hide the extensive caravan sites which lay on the landward side.

Crowds flocked to Wells because it was the peak holiday period. Campsites and caravan parks flourished and put out their ‘full’ signs, whilst those who remembered Wells as it used to be stayed away and basked in waning nostalgia.

Traffic was still crawling in from Fakenham, Burnham Market and Sheringham by mid-afternoon. Cromer and Hunstanton were crowded and the holidaymakers had spilled over, all with one destination in mind - Wells-next-the-Sea.

By four o'clock the beach had a carnival atmosphere about it; multi-coloured deckchairs, windshields that were being used to create patches of shade, football and cricket for those who somehow found the energy. But the shimmering blue sea had its own lure; bathers, parents paddling with toddlers, swimmers further out where the water was deeper, unable to resist the cooling blue water.

Lorna Watson glanced about her self-consciously. It seemed that everybody was staring at her. Not just because of her shapely figure and the bikini which showed it off to perfection. She wouldn't have minded if that was the reason. No, it was because of the three-year-old boy who was timidly wetting his feet in the tide's edge, fifteen or twenty yards from where she reclined on a towel. Sod them, it was none of their bloody business. They couldn't know anyway; she was a hundred and fifty miles from home in the midst of several thousand strangers who had never even heard of Lorna Watson. They probably hadn't even given her a second glance. It was just her conscience mocking her … You re an unmarried mother and that child of yours is a bastard and always will be!

She groaned, hated herself for what she'd done to Rodney, a scar that he'd carry for the rest of his life even in this so-called enlightened age. You're a bastard, Rodney Watson. Who's your father? An Italian waiter who fucked your mother at the hotel where she had a holiday job, and when he found out he'd given her a baby he took the next flight home and hasn't been heard of since. Your mother was anybody's, Rodney. It was on the cards she'd get pregnant one day. You're just the unlucky bastard out of possibly scores who might have spawned in a nympho's cunt.

Oh God, she clawed the sand with her fingers, wanted to turn and hurl it at those around her. A girl nearby was engrossed in a cheap women's confession magazine, a smirk of enjoyment on her sun-reddened face. Maybe the story was about some unfortunate wench who had opened her legs in a moment of passion and had had to pay the penalty for it by bringing up a bastard. Oh, the public loved that sort of thing, someone to vilify, a joke at someone else's expense. The girls who got away with it were the first to laugh at those who got caught. Of course we wouldn't do that sort of thing, but if we did we wouldn't be stupid enough to slip up.

Turning, looking around in a complete circle. They weren't staring anymore. They were glancing away but when her back was turned they would be at it again. That girl there, she's an unmarried mother. Are you sure? Of course, just look at that kid of hers, how dark his skin is. She's had him by a foreigner. She might have a foreign husband who couldn't come on holiday, Naw, you can tell. She's the type!

Tears misted Lorna's eyes. Somewhere, surely, there had to be a place she and Rodney could hide. She looked for him, her heart missing a beat when she didn't pick him out immediately; relief surging over her when she spotted him a second later. He'd overcome his initial fear of the sea and was in the water up to his thighs. A couple of older children, maybe eight or nine, were playing with an inflatable raft; one was holding it, the other trying to persuade the infant to sit on it.

‘No Rodney!’ Lorna sat up, gave a shout that was drowned in the general hub-bub of beach noise. ‘You're not to go on that raft. It's dangerous. It might float away out to sea …’

But Rodney was already on the raft, gurgling his delight at the way it bobbed up and down, holding tightly to the sides. And then the older boys gave it a push that propelled it two or three yards into deeper water and stood back watching.

‘No! Somebody catch my baby quick!’

But nobody heard. Nobody was interested in one unmarried mother who was screaming with fear in case her bastard child drowned. The raft seemed to pick up a remarkable speed on the ebbing tide or else it was Lorna's movements which had slowed down like a TV playback. Running but seeming to get nowhere, ages before she felt the tepid saltwater rising to her ankles. Splashing in, shouting; folks looking now but not offering assistance. The kid'll be OK and anyway he's only a bastard.

The raft was drifting seawards, Rodney sitting there grinning his delight. Right past a man treading water who looked up but made no effort to halt the small craft. Lorna ran, fought against the water, above her waist now. And then came the awful realisation that she couldn't swim! Sheer helplessness, her child getting further and further away, likely to tumble into the water and drown at any moment and nobody was lifting a finger to save him. Because he was a bastard!

This time her scream rose above the shouting and laughter, heads turned; first in her direction then following the progress of the raft. It was upending, being dragged below the surface, the struggling child going under with it!

Lorna Watson screamed hysterically. And within seconds the whole beach was screaming!

They were coming up out of the water, monstrous creatures erupting out of the deep in miniature tidal waves, a line of them spanning from the harbour entrance right down to the Holkham sand dunes, an invasion so perfectly timed that for hundreds of bathers their retreat was cut off as the flanks of the attackers circled and closed in with amazing speed. Crabs the size of beach donkeys, tiny eyes flashing malevolently in the bright sunlight as their pincers slashed and ripped, leaving a trail of bloody mutilated corpses in their wake, the tide's edge running crimson.

Lorna's one fear was for Rodney. She didn't care that she couldn't swim, if necessary she would drown so long as he was saved. Her mind was crazed with terror, and somehow she had to pull her child to safety. Walking out, the foaming water up to her neck, impervious to the screams of those around her.

And then she saw Rodney. He came up out of the water with unbelievable suddenness, wriggling like live seafood speared on a cocktail stick, clutched in the grip of a fearsome claw, the beast beneath it far bigger than any of these other attacking crabs. And the grip was tightening, cutting through the frail infant body, severing it so that blood spurted in all directions!

She froze, her mind and body suddenly numbed. Rodney's face was turned in her direction, crazed infantile agony, eyes that bulged and filled with blood, then burst like punctured air bubbles. His torso fell and splashed into the sea, the lower, now unrecognisable, half of his body already on its way into a cavernous mouth that munched venomously.

Lorna Watson's world had died in those few seconds. She was aware of pain but it did not matter anymore. Nothing mattered. They had her, too. One of them was dragging her down below the surface into a dark green place that was streaked with crimson. Held in a crushing embrace, vile lips parted in a leer, a crustacean kiss of death; mocking her as its claws began to rip her shapely body to ribbons, writhing as though with inhuman orgasmic spasms. Hussy, this is the price you pay for spawning bastards. This is hell!

Flames licked at her as she died, crimson watery tongues that spread across her face and blinded her, an inferno of pain that engulfed her body and destroyed her already demented soul.

Those nearest the sea wall had made it to safety, scrambling up into the Holkham dunes or on to the Wells harbour wall, turning back to stare in disbelief. A carnage that was staining the golden sands red, an organised attack of bestial ferocity that brought with it a tremendous death toll.

The invaders had closed their ranks, some two or three hundred of them formed into an impenetrable half-circle that was driving the survivors back into the sea. A screaming woman clutching twin babies stumbled and fell, closed her eyes as a huge shadow fell across her. One mighty sledgehammer blow pulped mother and offspring into the sand, trod them into a bloody morass as the army continued its attacking retreat back to the depths of the oceans. So calculated, precise and devastating, a foray on land to which no resistance was offered.

None caught within the closing ranks escaped. A few fled into the tide, tried to swim to safety, but were seized by crabs lurking beneath the surface. Dismembered half-eaten corpses floated out to sea.

And then came the gulls, the scavengers from the skies, diving, wheeling, screeching. Swooping but not alighting on the water. Angry and afraid, a feast floating beneath them but they were unable to go down to it yet. Because they knew the crabs still lurked on the seabed, an occasional pincer appearing to drag down one of the slain.

It was not until the sun slipped behind the western horizon that the seagulls finally came to feed, white blobs bobbing up and down on the swell of a blood-soaked ocean, pecking viciously at human flotsam. Dusk crept in like a smoke haze trying to obscure the horrors of a terrible naval battle and as it deepened the birds took off, flying inland in search of safe roosting places, pools and lakes that held no horrors on their muddy beds. Straggling, seemingly unending columns of feathered predators, the only sound their heavy wingbeats, not calling loudly in their usual manner as though they, too, were afraid.

Chapter TWO

Traffic queued on either side of the raised suspension bridge at Sutton Bridge, columns of sidelights like angry frustrated eyes in the summer darkness, night travellers from King's Lynn and Spalding brought to an unexpected halt. Several people had left their parked cars and gone forward to stare down into the deep, wide River Nene. A ship of some kind, a lumbering silhouette behind its dazzling lights, was coming slowly up river, loudly hooting its dominance over land and water craft, causing a muddy swell that rocked the small moored boats on either bank. It was in no hurry as though delighting in this disruption of passenger travel, determined that its passage should not go unmarked.

The raised bridge was like a majestic sword salute, subservient to a higher authority, awesome and hideously spectacular.

‘For fuck's sake, how long's this going to take?’ a small dapper man wearing a white shirt and tie sat with the driving door of his Escort estate open, revealing stacked cartons that marked him as some kind of travelling salesman. He didn't expect an answer to his question but it annoyed him that others did not seem impatient by the delay, even wanted to waste time watching the goddamned boat go by. He sighed, consulted his wristwatch even though he knew the fingers pointed to twenty minutes to midnight because he'd checked them only seconds before.

He had an urgent appointment, one that had nothing at all to do with business; one that couldn't wait much longer. And neither could he.

He had turned back into the car, fumbling for cigarettes which were somewhere in the pockets of his neatly folded jacket when he heard the commotion, a sort of grinding metallic sound like hacksaws cutting on steel girders. ‘Oh Jesus,’ the cigarettes were forgotten. ‘that fucking ship's run aground!’

The whole scene was lit as though it were some kind of macabre theatrical display on a gigantic scale. A spellbound audience gazing down as though the incredulity of what was happening was so unreal that it could not be, and in that case, there was nothing to be alarmed at. Until somebody shouted hoarsely and broke the spell.

‘The fuckin' bridge's collapsin'.And God Almighty, look at them bleedin' crabs!’ Terror-stricken tones that aptly summed up what was happening!

Some were running for cover, others remaining petrified; everybody thinking, it can't be happening. The massive Meccano-like structure vibrated and tilted, screeching its protest. Lurched. A crack like a gunshot. Falling, slowly at first then hurtling. One moment of horror when time stood still, tiny figures on the deck of the ship below, some leaping into the current in an attempt to escape the thousands of tons of steel which was coming down on them.

Impact! Steel sliced through steel, the cargo boat cut neatly in half, a tremendous wave throwing the dissected vessel high into the air, wreckage and men awash in a seething cauldron. And in that instant the searchlights went out, plunging the river into stygian blackness, a blank television screen where only the sound continued.

The watchers screamed. They had seen the crabs, knew what was going on down below, some already having heard accounts of the carnage at Wells-next-the-Sea on their car radios. The crew which had survived the falling bridge would either be drowned or devoured by the terrible giant crabs. Nothing could save them. Nobody would even try.

And the night air was filled with rapid clicking sounds as though the fallen suspension bridge had been a guillotine and a hundred filthy old hags knitted furiously beneath and grinned evilly at the severed heads and blood.

Finally, a brief silence in which stranded motorists huddled together without speaking because there was nothing to say which they didn't already know. Then the first ambulance arrived and began to weave its way through the stationary traffic, its siren blaring.

Professor Cliff Davenport had aged little over the last few years. Perhaps one or two more flecks of grey in his dark receding hairline, maybe another crinkle or two in his lean, aquiline features but he was still as spritely as he had been in the days of the Battle of Barmouth.

He replaced the receiver on his study telephone in his West Hampstead home and sighed deeply. The call had to come sometime, he'd been expecting it daily since his return from Hayman Island three years ago. He heard footsteps in the corridor and the door opening, closed his eyes momentarily and saw in his memory a dark-haired, attractive petite girl, a wistful expression on her face, sipping tomato juice at a table in that Llanbedr farmhouse. That was where it had all begun, a trail of blood and carnage that had brought its own rewards.[i] That same girl (he repeatedly told her that she had not aged either) was standing right behind him now, waiting for her worst fears to be confirmed. Both of them woke repeatedly from nightmares in which the phone jangled harshly, and tried to reassure each other that it hadn't. Once that bad dream had come true and sent Cliff away to the other side of the world to battle with his deadly foe in the exotic setting of the Great Barrier Reef.[ii]

‘Well,’ her voice trembled. ‘where are they this time, Cliff?’

‘The east coast,’ he turned to face her, saw that she was trembling. ‘In the Wash and along the coast as far as Wells-next-the-Sea. Apparently the first attack was late yesterday afternoon. If we'd had the radio or the television on we'd've known about it before. That was Grisedale.’

‘I know. Oh, Cliff, can't they do without you this time? Damn it all, you've done your whack. They don't need you. This is a job for the armed forces. They can spray 'em with paraquat again.’

‘No, they can't,’ he spoke quickly. ‘The fishing industry is in a bad enough state as it is without killing off schools of fish that provide a living for thousands of people and food for millions. The hell of it is that the crabs have come back in numbers greater even than in the Barmouth days. They breed so fast, just like rats and mice. They've holed up somewhere after the Hayman slaughter and waited until their numbers were sufficient to attack again. It's damned uncanny. They could live in the Pacific Ocean and probably never even be seen by Man, in an ideal climate, but they have to come back here to Britain. Some sort of homing instinct, almost. Or maybe an instinct for revenge!

‘Don't say that,’ she shuddered, pulled herself together. ‘Well, I suppose you'll be going, whatever I might have to say on the matter.’

‘I'll have to,’ he put an arm around her. ‘This time though we've got something to work on. One genuine oversize crab and guaranteed dead!’

‘My God, however did they manage to kill one when bombs and bullets just bounce off their shells?’

‘They didn't,’ he smiled. ‘The steel suspension bridge at Sutton Bridge in Lincolnshire crushed one. Not even our invincible crabs can stand up to having thousands of tons of steel dropped on them. It even cracked the shell which will save us an awful lot of hacking and chiselling. I can't wait to have a look at the latest specimen. Now, I think a small suitcase will suffice. With any luck I'll be home by the weekend.’

‘And I've heard that one before as well,’ she tried to laugh then turned quickly away so that he should not see the mistiness in her eyes and the way her lower lip trembled.

In some ways, though, it was a relief for Pat Davenport that the suspense was over. Like her husband, she had not really believed that the crabs had been exterminated.

Grisedale was waiting in the foyer of the Bridge Hotel when Cliff Davenport walked in.

The tall, grey-haired Ministry of Defence man had certainly aged, a stiffness to his movements, lines deeply etched in his florid complexion. Cliff judged that the other couldn't be far off retirement, wished that those damned crabs had held off for another year or two and spared him the anguish.

‘Glad to see you, Clifford,’ Grisedale extended a hand. ‘My God, the devils have come back with a vengeance this time. Three hundred casualties and fifty missing at Wells, and about two dozen out there in the River Nene. Barmouth was like a skirmish by comparison.’

Cliff nodded. ‘Any idea where they're holed up? I mean, this isn't a rocky coastline like the Welsh coast. Too flat and not enough caves for the crabs to hide in, I'd've thought.’

‘That's what worries me,’ Grisedale led the way into a crowded lounge bar and called for two whiskies. ‘We had a fighter force out at daybreak, scoured every inch of mud and marsh between Boston and Cromer. Not a trace, and the thing that worries me most is that there are a lot of crab tracks out on the mud converging on the Nene Cut, but none going back out!

‘They probably followed the river bed,’ Cliff sipped his whisky, noted one or two familiar faces in the crowded bar, some old ‘crab campaigners’ that he found difficult to put a name to; a task force of specialised commandoes summoned overnight from HM Forces.

‘I'd like to think so,’ Grisedale's features were grim. ‘But it was low tide and surely every bastard wouldn't hug the narrow channel all the way.’

‘They'd have to,’ Cliff said. ‘because they can't live out of saltwater for more than a few hours. They could only go so far up a tidal river before they were forced to head back to the sea. Now, I'd like to have a look at the dead one as soon as possible.’

‘We've commandeered an empty warehouse along the river behind the hotel,’ Grisedale prided himself in his efficiency. ‘A “laboratory” has been set up for you. The old bridge was very obliging. It cracked most of the shell as well as beheading the thing so you can get cracking without a lot of manual labour first.’

‘Right,’ Cliff Davenport drained his glass. ‘Let's get started. I'm intrigued to see the latest specimen. One never knows what one is likely to find in a line of mutants.’

Grisedale's thoroughness had not waned since earlier encounters with the killer crabs. The large shed had been cleared and a series of trestle tables installed around the inside walls lighted by arc lamps. Cliffs first impression was that he had entered an abattoir, dissected bloody meat laid out amidst portions of broken shell, larger pieces strung up by ropes to facilitate his investigations.

‘Ideal,’ he smiled, looked at his watch and saw that it was 2.30 p.m. ‘Now, I expect I'll be two or three hours so if you've got anything else to do …’

‘I haven't,’ his companion replied. ‘I'm as interested as you in these creatures, Cliff. The army, navy, and RAF are scouring the coastline in case the crabs try to come ashore again so in the meantime I'll be quite content to be your lab assistant.’

‘Suits me,’ Davenport was pulling on some rubber gloves and sorting through a selection of knives and scalpels. ‘Now first we'll check its digestive organs, although we know only too well what we'll find there!’

The Professor worked diligently in silence, the odd exclamation merely confirming his original findings. Handling chewed chunks of human flesh was far from pleasant. The shell was identical to those of previous crustacean casualties, armour plating that defied most weapons with the exception of nuclear warheads and falling steel bridges!

Time passed. 3.45 p.m. The only sound in the shed was the buzzing of a few bluebottles that found crab meat a delicacy in spite of its tough texture.

‘My God!’ Cliff peered closer at some offal which he was attempting to separate.

‘What is it?’ the other moved to his side.

‘Very interesting,’ Davenport separated some tissue, peeling it away from the flesh with difficulty. ‘These intestines, now look closely and tell me what you see.’

‘Looks like boils of some kind,’ Grisedale shuddered his revulsion.

‘Almost.’ the Professor nodded. ‘In fact, it's a cancerous growth which, judging by the way it has spread right through the internal organs, is highly malignant!’

‘Good God!’ Grisedale stepped back a pace. ‘A crab is “cancer” according to the books. And this bugger's growing 'em like weeds in a May shower. Jesus, it ought to be dead with that lot inside it, Clifford.’

‘A normal crab species with a proportional amount of cancer growth would be.’ Davenport laid down his scalpel, and reached in his pocket for his pipe. ‘This one is just so bloody big and tough that it's kept going in spite of being riddled with disease. But for how long? And why? Interbreeding, the effects of the paraquat we sprayed on its ancestors? And how many of them out there in the sea have got it? That's what we need to know.’

‘I don't quite follow you, Clifford.’

‘Let me explain,’ Davenport paused to get his pipe going. ‘Suppose this latest breed are carrying a terminal disease. One danger is that it might spread to other forms of underwater life and destroy everything that lives in the oceans of the world …’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘The other possibility is that these crabs are doomed and possibly they know it! This is their last throw, a do-or-die assault on Mankind!’

‘Phew!’ Grisedale pursed his lips.

‘It could also be that originally the species was spawned in British waters,’ Cliff went on. ‘but unfortunately, that is something which we shall never know.[iii] Some homing instinct, a sick traveller's last desire to die on home soil. But in the case of the crabs they're out to take us with them!’

‘So what do we do in the meantime?’

‘If possible I'd like to examine one or two more,’ Davenport smiled wanly, ‘but as we both know dead crabs are hard to come by. However, there's always the chance that something weighing a few thousand tons might fall on one. But we've got to clear all the beaches on the east side of Britain until we discover exactly where the crabs are hiding out. By the way, I told my wife I'd try and be home for the weekend. Tomorrow's Wednesday.’

‘Some hopes,’ Grisedale laughed. ‘But I'd be glad to have you stick it out with us, Clifford. And let's hope this cancer is confined solely to crabs of a twelve foot or over shell span and that they'll just go back to the sea and die.’

But Professor Cliff Davenport wasn't laughing.

There were many miles of good fishing on the River Nene out of Sutton Bridge. Much of it was patrolled by water bailiffs and poaching fines were stiff. Andy Caxton was well aware of this; after his third consecutive offence he stood a good chance, the magistrates had warned, of a prison sentence if he transgressed again. They still remembered those pheasants he had snared in the latter part of the previous summer. He was a marked man.

Andy, at 40 and on social security, had no intention of looking for honest hard work. He had always poached, as had his father and grandfather before him. A Lincolnshire heritage that had to be preserved at all costs especially with a wife and two children to feed.

And in the Sutton Bridge disaster Andy Caxton saw an unprecedented opportunity; nobody would be worrying much about poachers just at present. Tonight was as good a night as any. Three miles upstream and there wasn't much chance of coming across any crabs. They would be back in the Wash as far from civilisation as possible.

It was dusk when he left his cottage, habitually taking a circuitous course across the fields, skirting growing corn and sugar beet, following a track which eventually came out on the grassy bank of the river. Beneath his arm he carried a gaff, made from three sectional aluminium poles which when unscrewed were easily concealed beneath his voluminous camouflaged combat jacket.

The light was failing but he could just make out the twisted willow tree spilling its foliage out over the water, casting dark eerie shadows. It was a good place, a backwater where fish came to rest and feed. A good eye and a quick hand and his family would feed well tomorrow.

Yet Andy was nervous tonight, a growing uneasiness which he had been trying to shrug off ever since he had left home. Not the bailiffs; he didn't give a sod for them and he'd give them a run for their money if they showed up. Something else … those crabs! He shuddered. He hadn't seen what had happened at Sutton Bridge but he'd seen the results on the news on his old black-and-white telly. Horrific. They'd shown the dead crab too. The sheer size of it, that face … Even in death there was no mistaking its malevolence, the wizened almost human features. The reporter had prised the lips open with a stick, shown fangs like razors. Andy had never thought of crabs having teeth but logically they had to. Big or small, crustaceans gave him the creeps. He'd be thinking about them every time he went near water, but they wouldn't come this far up river. With an effort he convinced himself and approached the river.

A mosquito flipped his face in passing and he jumped. Calm yourself, laddie. The water swirled sluggishly and he knelt looking down into it waiting for his eyesight to adjust. It was very muddy, just like there had been heavy rain, but it had not rained for three weeks now. Probably the disturbance caused by the falling bridge had muddied the water up as far as here. He cursed; there wouldn't be much chance of seeing anything in these conditions.

Then a yard or so from the bank the sluggish current swirled, sent a wave splashing against the side. He gripped his gaff, instinctively had it poised for action, holding his breath and watching intently. Something was definitely there, something big and heavy!

Andy Caxton staggered back as the huge crab came up out of the water so fast for its bulk, long pincers securing a grip that enabled it to pull itself clear of the river; one tremendous heave and it was on the bank alongside him.

His instinct worked faster than his terror-stricken brain, hurling the gaff with all his force into its grotesque face, hearing his weapon bounce away and splash into the river. He wanted to scream, to flee, but it was impossible to do either. He just stood there looking into those glowing red orbs, mouthing something that didn't make sense, trying to talk to the creature in the way you spoke to a ferocious dog that had you cornered in the hope that it would regard you as a friend.

The crab's mouth was pouted as if its brain was struggling to come to a decision. Almost as though its strength was being sapped and it had to make a conscious effort to remain standing there. The eyes seemed to glaze, momentary fear in those tiny pinpoints; dulling, starting to glow again. Fighting an inner battle, winning by sheer desperation.

Then it struck a tremendous blow with one of its pincers. Bone splintered as Andy Caxton's skull was staved in, the force throwing him back into a twisted lifeless heap. The crab moved forward slowly, stood over him. Hesitating again, mustering a waning strength. It stabbed with a claw, ripping away clothing and flesh, a deep incision that cut through the dead man's ribs.

Those little red eyes seemed to lose their fire, the crustacean's movements sluggish. Starting to feed, eating because it felt it had to, because it was its nature to ravage freshly-killed meat. Munching steadily, then turning away. Throwing up.

Its movements were slower now, pincers dragging, scraping the grass. Resting, squatting. The eyes half closed, then suddenly finding the willpower for another shambling gait towards the river, vomiting blood as it went.

It slid down the bank, hit the water with a loud splash and submerged slowly. The muddy current seemed to revive it somewhat, bringing back the redness to those awful eyes. Again it had to make a decision, fighting against instinct. Behind it, downriver, lay the Wash and the gate to the oceans of the world. Upstream a narrowing watercourse, the salt thinning; death within a few hours.

Unwillingly it set off upstream answering a call that was stronger than the will to live.

‘Incredible!’ Professor Cliff Davenport finished his examination of the latest crab specimen which had been brought in from ten miles up the River Nene on a low-loader. ‘Absolutely incredible! And this just goes to confirm my original theory. This could be the crab that killed that poacher fellow although it's hard to say for certain. But just like the one that was killed two nights ago, this one is also riddled with a malignant cancer which was responsible for its death. There can be no doubt about that.’

‘Which means that if two of them have got it then it's a fair assumption that many more have,’ Grisedale said.

‘Exactly. And I'd even go so far as to say that the whole species is doomed.’

‘In which case we don't have an awful lot to worry about,’ there was relief in the Ministry of Defence man's voice.

‘Oh, but we do!’ Cliff turned, his eyes narrowed. ‘Grisedale, these crustaceans are far more dangerous than they've ever been because of this disease. They're in pain, suffering the whole time, which in turn appears to have obsessed them with a desire for revenge upon Man whom perhaps they blame for it. But they've changed their habits which makes them a far more formidable foe because we've no idea what they'll do next. In the past they ventured ashore periodically, usually around the time of the full moon which affects all crabs anyway. Now they're quite happy to launch a full-scale raid in the heat of the day and this particular devil was travelling away from the sea! He would've died eventually through being away from saltwater only the cancer killed him first. It's almost as though he was intent on suicide.

‘Perhaps he wanted to put himself out of his misery.’

‘Possibly, but I think there's more to it than that.’

‘Such as?’

‘I don't really know,’ Cliff filled and lit his pipe, a thoughtful expression puckering his face. ‘There's definitely a reason, some kind of pattern to their behaviour which we haven't fully uncovered. But whatever it is, it's something decidedly sinister. I think they know that they're finished, that the writing's on the wall for them. But they're as cunning as soldier ants, similar in many ways, warring vengeful creatures that are capable of thinking almost like humans. And mark my words, Grisedale, they're up to something and we can'tafford to relax our vigilance for one moment!

‘There's not a sign of them out on the Wash but the tide could hide ten thousand of them. We can't even look for tracks in the mud at the moment.’

‘Just let's hope they have gone out to sea,’ Davenport looked thoughtful. ‘I wonder how they caught this disease. Maybe it stems from our original theory that they are mutants from some undersea nuclear experiment, and if that's the case, then it could be a build-up of radioactivity through successive generations. Anyway, at the moment all we can do is wait until something happens.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ an orderly pushed open the old warehouse door. ‘Call for Mr Grisedale. Ministry of Defence.’

‘You'd better come with me, Clifford,’ Grisedale moved towards the door. ‘London has obviously come up with something new.’

Or else something awful's happened, Cliff thought as he followed the other across the narrow road and into the Bridge Hotel. He sensed a premonition, tried to shrug it off. One always had premonitions when the crabs were around.

Grisedale took the call in the manager's office; the line was crackling and he had to wait for it to clear.

‘Yes, yes …’ a pause, listening, brow furrowing. ‘Oh God! You're sure? We always get hoaxes. Oh hell, it can't be! They wouldn't have had time to get there, not right round the other side of the country. OK, I'll accept the evidence as it stands right now and I'll call you back.’

He replaced the receiver, turned to Cliff Davenport. ‘Cliff, you're just not going to believe this. More crab sightings. At … Barmouth and Shell Island! The devils have been seen back in their old haunts. But it isn't possible, even they couldn't get there in the time.’

‘No,’ Davenport's face was grave. ‘I'll agree with you they couldn't. But they don't necessarily have to. Grisedale, don't you see what this means; it isn't the Wash crabs that have been sighted in the Cardigan Bay. It's another lot. They've bred even more prolifically than we thought. The ocean bed could be crawling with them. And now we've got the biggest fight of all on our hands!’

Chapter THREE

The crabs were huddled together out on the mud, not moving. Almost pathetic from a distance. The pilot of the approaching plane felt a pang of sympathy and remembered the day in his youth when he'd shot a sitting pheasant in the garden with his father's 12-bore. It had seemed great at the time, the moment the gun kicked and roared. Then when he saw the multicoloured bird kicking its last, his conscience screamed at him; murderer! It never had a chance, wasn't even aware you were there when you blasted it.

He levelled out, knew he had to be ruthless. With these bastards it didn't matter whether they were sitting or scuttling. They had to be blown to hell!

The Saab 105G opened up with its 30mm Aden cannon, looked from a distance as though it was going to dive-bomb the crabs. Banking, turning, coming in again. Direct hits, again and again.

Grisedale turned to Cliff Davenport in the helicopter, handed him a pair of binoculars. ‘How's that for marksmanship, Clifford?’

Davenport studied the crabs closely. Some of the shells were chipped externally like tortoises that had been sniped with .177 air rifles. He almost said, ‘I told you you were waisting your time, the crabs have withstood heavier artillery than Aden cannons in the past.’ Then he stiffened, muttered ‘Oh God!’

‘What is it?’

‘They're all dead!’

‘I told you a good fighter pilot …’

‘It's nothing to do with either the pilot or the cannon. They were dead before he even opened fire!’

‘D'you want to go down?’

‘I reckon we'd better make certain though I'm pretty sure of what we'll find. Tell the pilot to go in as close as he can and I'll probably be able to tell through the glasses. It'd be tricky putting down on this mud.’

The helicopter went in, hovered fifteen feet above the mass of crabs. The professor focused his glasses, wrinkled his face in disgust at what he saw; death in its vilest form! The ugly hideous faces stared up, seemed to see him through clusters of festered warts that wept yellow matter, some of it beginning to congeal, even the antennae bulging with them like weird fungi. Agony, hatred, it was all there.

‘Jesus wept!’ Grisedale felt as though he might vomit. A nauseating aroma was coming up at them, a stench of putrefaction. ‘They've suffered, all right. It almost has you feeling sorry for them. Those two we examined were only in the very early stages.’

‘Yes,’ Davenport lowered his glasses. ‘You might as well tell the pilot to head back to base. We'll let the sea bury this lot. By the way, Grisedale, do you notice anything else?’

The Ministry man stared back down, felt another wave of revulsion and shook his head. ‘No, can't say I do. Except that the cannon fire didn't make much impression on them.’

‘Just look at them,’ Cliff Davenport pointed back; the pilot was already leaving the grisly scene well behind. ‘Look, even in death they've maintained some kind of military formation. They didn't just lie down to die. They were doomed and knew it, heading away from the sea on course for the mouth of the River Nene. Like those the other night that wrecked the bridge. A kind of last fling, a final vengeance strike. Only this lot never made it, they died on the march!’

The two men were thoughtful when they returned to the Bridge Hotel an hour later. Grisedale ordered whiskies in the residents' bar and looked at his companion. It was as though he was waiting for Cliff to make the next decision.

‘Once again it's a time of waiting,’ Davenport said. ‘There are crabs in the Wash and crabs in Cardigan Bay. We can either stay here or fly across country. Whichever, it doesn't make a great deal of difference. All we can hope is that this cancer kills 'em off quick. I know it's a revolting thought, just like when myxomatosis almost wiped out Britain's rabbit population. It pleased some of the more ruthless farmers but in the end it benefited nobody. One never knows what it might lead to, in what manner it may upset Nature's plans, whether it's confined to mutated crustaceans or whether other forms of sea life can pick it up.’

‘Frightening,’ Grisedale agreed. ‘But we still haven't decided what we're going to do.’

‘For the time being we might as well remain here,’ Cliff refrained from adding “until something happens” but he couldn't hold back a shudder. Suddenly the giant crabs had become more terrifying than ever. ‘I did tell my wife that I'd try and be home for the weekend.’

‘Well, you never know,’ the other tried to sound optimistic. ‘If this crab disease is a prolific killer and no more are seen in a day or two then we might just conclude that they've been wiped out.’

Davenport nodded. For the moment, he would like to believe that, too.

Mark Sand had worked at Slimbridge since leaving school. At 22 he was still basking in the fulfilment of an ambition. So long as he was surrounded by birds (feathered ones, he had no time for the other variety in spite of his good looks), he was happy. He had a way with most forms of wildlife; creatures trusted him and he responded. They needed him. The fact that his chores here were menial ones did not bother him in the slightest. Most of his time seemed to be spent in feeding the caged and free-flying species and that was fine by him. The Wildfowl Trust was the finest set-up of its kind in the world, managed by people who really knew what they were doing and Mark was proud to work amongst them, even in a lowly capacity.

He longed for the autumn, the chill winds that would bring the migratory fowl to the Severn Estuary, skeins of grey geese that returned here year after year because they knew it was safe, a place where the guns of hidden fowlers didn't open up on them at daybreak as they flighted inland to feed.

But autumn was still a couple of months away. However, that did not stop him from going up into the observation tower each evening and just standing there watching and listening. Nobody minded him staying on here after the public had gone home and even if they had he would have found some way of sneaking back unnoticed. This was his world.

Tonight was the same as any other night, a lonely vigil up on this wooden platform, watching the dying sun spread its rich golden rays across the estuary, curlews calling their sad warbling welcome home after months spent breeding inland, beginning the task of teaching their young the ways of the wild marshes.

A warm breeze had Mark Sand feeling drowsy. His thoughts turned to autumn once again, saw the high flying Vs of newly-arrived geese starting to dip when they recognised Slimbridge. A change of call, a homecoming gobbling sound, riding the air currents, paddles down.

Then suddenly his dream vanished and he was tensely gripping the safety rail, staring at the black moving shapes that came like a marching army out of the estuary shadows, a waving forest of pincers and antennae.

Click-click-click.

The perimeter fences buckled and fell, were trampled underfoot as the undulating legions spread out into two attacking prongs. Terrified bird noises as two Hawaiian geese disintegrated in a cloud of feathers. Duck were taking off from the pools in steady streams, quacking and whistling in alarm. Mallard, teal, widgeon, pochard.

Mark Sand felt no fear for himself. Horror at the disturbance, the devastation, terror for the non-flying species and those too slow to take to the wing, the swans, especially the rare black ones. He turned, ran to the head of the wooden steps and stopped. Pairs of tiny red eyes stared hatefully up at him, flickering their malevolence, a circle of twenty or more giant crabs surrounding the base of the tower. Waiting; for him! And in the meantime the remainder of the invaders from the sea were bent on a ravenous massacre of any creature unable to escape them. Enclosures were ripped apart as though they were made of paper, feathers floating in the evening breeze like a gentle snowstorm.

The crabs were angry. Their search for humans had so far proved fruitless and the only one in sight was suspended high above them. One moved forward, shambled to the steps. Woodwork cracked and splintered, the wide stair unable to bear the weight of the crustacean. A furious hissing and clicking. They fell back silent, their awful faces upturned. Thinking!

Suddenly they moved forward as one, as though some telepathic order had run through their ranks. Mark Sand dashed back into the observation house, knew exactly what they were about to do and that they would accomplish it with ease. He closed his eyes, tried to pray, couldn't shut out the scene of all those mutilated birds. Now they wanted him!

A fifty-ton battering ram shuddered the frail timber supports; some snapped and the stilted building lurched but remained upright at a crazy angle. Mark was flung to the floor, lay there dazed. Waiting. Oh God, get it over with and let it be quick!

The tower structure tottered, loose timbers showering down and bouncing off the crab shells.

Click-click-click. The falling woodwork seemed to infuriate them, slashing venomously at the remaining struts, cutting through them with the ease of chainsaws. Mark was thrown forward, rolled, the breath knocked from his body, sliding one way then the other; a stomach-churning sensation like that of being trapped in a falling lift. He closed his eyes, braced himself, knew that at any second he would hit the ground. Hard!

The hut bounced before it disintegrated, the shells of the crabs acting as a springboard. Mark Sand was thrown up, somehow found himself clear of the wreckage, twisting like a skydiver, seeing the raised pincers below him, the gloating malevolence in the red eyes.

Coming down, landing in the midst of that circle which had encompassed the tower. He hit the ground, felt a leg break beneath him, the excruciating pain that turned to a numbness almost immediately because it didn't matter anymore; nothing mattered. This was the end of decades of painstaking work and perseverance at Slimbridge. The birds, rare species that had been carefully preserved to guard against possible extinction were gone, lost to the world. These vile monsters devoured any flesh that came their way. His own life didn't matter; if only he could have freed the non-flying species, got them to safety. But it was too late now.

Finish me, you bastards! They moved in closer, stood watching him. A game, enjoying his suffering, savouring the sumptuous feast, the mêlée in which human flesh and bones would be torn asunder.

He found himself looking from one face to the next. He saw the fierce hate, something else which was difficult to interpret; a kind of hopelessness, the way he felt himself. The inevitability of death!

And then they came for him, pincers scraping and tearing, blood squirting from the open wounds. He writhed, found himself being lifted high upside down, a distorted view of his attackers as they clamoured for his body. Then he fell, hit a crab and sprawled across its shell, aware that his legs were gone, twisting round in horror to stare at the bloody stumps. A stretching claw found his arm, dragged him back down.

Oh, God, the stench was the worst part now, the vile nauseating odour of rotting flesh almost suffocating him, causing him to vomit. Then they had him again; two of them, one on either arm, pulling in opposite directions. Mark Sand felt his body take the strain like a length of taut rope and start to fray, muscles and tendons ripping. At full stretch, a living mediaeval torture instrument from which there was no escape. He screamed, was suddenly freed, rolling on the dusty ground, an armless, legless bleeding trunk.

Now they really meant business, pincers crunching on his exposed ribs, snapping them through. Drowning, a beautifully welcome sensation as he was immersed in scarlet fluid, tasting its bitter iron flavour, trying to spit it out but it seemed to be welling up inside him. His anger came back and he vomited a stream of blood into the face of the nearest crustacean, laughed and bubbled more blood at the way it drew back hissing. Take that you fucking big bastard!

He couldn't hold out any longer now, life slipping from him fast. The meat was skewered, rare and tender steaks ripped away by the milling clicking crabs as they forgot their orderly formations and fought each other for the last morsels.

At last it was all over and all that remained was the return to the estuary, a slow shambling march that took them down to the mud, a look of exhaustion about their disorganisation, wallowing like wounded sea cows. A few turned back to sea but the remainder, almost unwillingly, headed up into the mouth of the River Severn.

‘My God!’ Grisedale's voice shook as he thumbed another drawing pin into the large wall map in his temporary HQ at Sutton Bridge. ‘Slimbridge wrecked and some crabs have been sighted in the River Severn. What the hell's going on?’

‘A pattern is forming,’ Cliff Davenport replied. ‘Our theory is becoming reality. The crabs are infiltrating Britain by its tidal rivers. No longer is there safety inland. Of course, as we know, they're doomed and before long they'll all be dead, but they're big and tough and they can survive one helluva lot longer than an ordinary crab out of salt water. The Wash and the River Nene, Barmouth, Shell Island, the Bristol Channel. Where next?’

Where next? The question that every one of the special fighting force in that room was asking themselves.

‘I don't see much point in my remaining here,’ Davenport went on. ‘It looks like a headquarters centrally situated in the southern half of the country might be more beneficial.’

‘Like London,’ Grisedale suggested.

‘Yes, like London,’ Davenport agreed and reminded himself of his promise to Pat to be home for the weekend. ‘As you know, my own home is virtually a laboratory set up to combat crabs. I'd like to work from there.’

‘That sounds a good idea,’ the Ministry of Defence official consulted the wall map again. ‘Now, we must pay particular attention to tidal rivers and estuaries …’

Elaine was beginning to wish that she had not come to the party after all. She'd never thought that it would turn out like this but if she had stopped to think beforehand, she might have guessed. Rex Astley-Mickleton wasn't the kind to hold formal cocktail parties in his parents' absence abroad. Good-looking, suave, almost every girl in the locality had her fantasies about being seen by his side in his vintage Bentley. If you were lucky enough to get a date with him you knew your chances of being taken back to the Hall were slim, unless your family had connections. And money. And Elaine Smith's folks had neither; a comfortable detached house on the edge of the village worth about £40,000, about a tenth of what the Astley-Mickleton residence would sell for.

Elaine had gone to great lengths to discover the date of Rex's birthday. He was a Scorpio, which accounted for a lot. She knew what he was after all right and she was prepared to let him have it, even if he wasn't looking to go steady with her. Rex didn't go steady with anybody, just a long string of conquests and if you made it good for him, then you stood a chance of another date when your turn came round again. His friends were much the same, a breed of high-living young seducers. Snobs, the people off the council estate on the other side of the village called them. They were just jealous, Elaine thought, and secretly half the women in those dowdy semi-detached boxes would have come up to the Hall to be screwed tonight if they'd been invited.

The place was in the hell of a mess, Elaine wrinkled her nose in disgust at the aroma of spilled beer, saw the food trodden into the plush carpets. Somehow red wine had got splashed up the wall and was trickling down in a pattern of rivulets. She wondered idly who would clean it all up. Certainly not the three women who came in daily to clean because they'd gossip about it in the village afterwards. Probably tomorrow Rex and his friends would forget their dignity and buckle down to a few menial chores.

Elaine felt her body stiffening as Rex's arm came round her and his fingers somehow flipped open the buttons on her dress. His tongue flicked tantalisingly at her ear and something very hard pressed into her buttocks as he pulled her back up against him.

‘We're all going for a swim, sweetheart,’ his voice was soft and cultured. ‘The highlight of the evening, a bathing party in the sacred waters of the River Nene, and not a single garment shall be worn by any. Just like it used to be in my great-great-grandfather's day when the orgies lasted a week.’

‘But I can't swim,’ her excuse sounded lame.

‘You won't need to,’ he laughed softly. ‘Where we're going it's a kind of backwater, more like a small lake, lovely and clean and no more than three feet deep. And it's so warm tonight, and a full moon as well.’

Elaine wondered why they couldn't all strip off in the house. The chaps wanted an orgy and the girls were more than willing to give them one. Why go to all these lengths of bathing parties when nobody really wanted to get wet? Or, failing that, there was a large swimming pool in the grounds. But that wasn't Rex's way, he wouldn't get his kicks out of a frolic in the pool or the house. Extravaganza was part of his make up; wine cooled in the river, girls naked and waiting for him and his friends.

‘I've fancied you secretly for years,’ he was playing with a nipple now. ‘Always was looking for the opportunity for us to get to know each other.’

Flattery; he didn't mean it, she didn't believe it but it made no difference. The only thing she didn't fancy was that dip in the river. She'd never liked rivers from childhood, one might tread on a slimy newt or a frog and squash it. Ugh!

‘Nothing to worry about,’ he nibbled the lobe of her ear and pushed his erection at her. ‘I personally will chaperon you every second and keep these lecherous chaps at bay. Tonight, Elaine, you're mine. And who knows, tomorrow night and the night after that as well.’

She tried to believe him; he really wanted her, had singled her out of a crowd of fawning females. And she wanted every one of them to know. They could gather round and watch herself and Rex copulating on the river bank, could even see their expressions of jealousy, hear them whispering amongst themselves ‘that's how Sue Carterways got her baby. Remember?’

Elaine felt heady. Not simply because of the punch which Rex had kept ladling into her glass. She was falling in love with him and maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if he did get her pregnant. That way he would have to do something about it and then she would have the laugh on all of them.

‘All right,’ she started to giggle. ‘I'm game for anything.’

‘Topping,’ he gave her bottom another meaningful push and turned towards the crowded room. In one shadowy corner it seemed that the orgy was already beginning, a cluster of semi-naked bodies and shrill laughter. ‘I say you lot, it's everybody down to the river. All clothes to be left in the Hall by order of Rex Astley-Mickleton. Come on, jump to it!’

Drunken laughter, a red-haired youth was having his trousers removed and having to be held upright by two girls. Others were hastily undressing as though it were some kind of race, the loser being the last one to have any garment remaining on their body. Garments were strewn everywhere, the guests pairing up.

‘And, Tony,’ the naked Rex Astley-Mickleton addressed a plump young man who was blushing with self-consciousness. ‘bring a crate of that red plonk with you. Damn it all, we're going to do this in style!’

They left the house, a straggling group, several that had to be helped along, gravel on the wide drive cutting into bare feet. The moon was climbing high into the sky, casting its silvery glow and making their bodies glisten. So unreal, it couldn't really be happening, an erotic dream from which none wished to wake up.

Across the undulating meadow, following a sheep track, now in single file with Rex and Elaine in the lead. She glanced down and saw that he wasn't aroused anymore, experienced a pang of disappointment. She hoped that wine wasn't going to be the only victor on this wild night.

A huddled crowd of some twenty revellers surveyed the moonlit river, the stunted willow trees on the bank casting weird shadows on the water. So still, no breeze and there didn't even appear to be any current, a kind of oxbow lake that the main watercourse had made and forgotten, a long period of steady erosion in preparation for this night.

Elaine found herself being pulled down to the water's edge by Rex, wanted to hang back because now it did not look so inviting. She tried not to think about frogs and newts and things that might be lurking in the shallows. She shrugged off her fear, knowing that the other girls would be watching, hating her because tonight she was Rex Astley-Mickleton's girl. And maybe tomorrow, and the night after that, too. For once she was going to take him at his word. She was in that kind of mood. But first there was tonight and that was all that mattered now.

Shrieks, the water was cold, girls holding back but being dragged forcibly in. Splashing. Elaine clung to Rex, tried not to think about what she might tread on. He started to kiss her neck, let his hands trace a slow path lower down her body and she eased her thighs apart in readiness. She was wet down there and it had nothing at all to do with the river.

‘I say,’ he was chewing her ear again and whispering. ‘you're not a virgin or anything like that, are you?’

‘That's up to you to find out,’ she wasn't giving anything away, not as directly as that. He was going to have to find out for himself.

‘What say we go back up on to the bank?’ he fingered her with a sudden purposefulness. ‘Not as warm in the water as one would think.’

Relief surged over her. Nobody really seemed to be enjoying this chilly nocturnal dip. And Rex was fully aroused now because she could see the shadow of his hardness on the water, a shimmering phallic shape.

Somebody screamed. Elaine thought that maybe one of the girls was being raped. Then suddenly everybody was screaming!

Rex turned, almost lost his balance. A big wave hit them, flung Elaine back and even as she fell she saw the creature. It came right up out of the deep, a gigantic thing with raised claws and a shell larger than the dining table in the hall. The eyes were the worst, red and glowing like live coals. And then she went under, the churned muddy water closing over her head so that she swallowed some. Fighting blindly in her fear, coming up again coughing and spitting.

The crab, it couldn't be anything else, was upon them, moving with incredible speed, creating its own maelstrom, plucking the naked bathers up as easily as catching shrimps out of a rock pool. A girl was snapped in half, her severed bleeding body hitting the water and starting to turn it crimson; another had received a glancing blow across the face, her features torn away and hanging loosely.

Rex Astley-Mickleton had one thought only, his own safety. Elaine grabbed for him as he dashed past her but he felled her with a clenched fist. He was within a yard of the bank when the crustacean caught him as though it had singled him out of the crowd, a pincer closing over his left ankle, snapping through the bone with the force of steel cutters. Rex was yelling his terror as it seized him, swung him aloft and dashed him down on to a piece of flat rock. Every bone in his body seemed to break; he quivered and bled and wished that he could die.

Elaine had almost made it to safety when she felt herself being plucked from the gently sloping bank, a tightening cutting grip around her waist that squeezed her innards up into her chest and had her choking. Then she hit the bank, rolled on the grass and for one fleeting moment thought that she had been hurled to safety. Until she saw that her body was missing from her navel downwards!

She jerked, felt her legs kicking but that was crazy because they weren't there, blood pumping out in torrents, reflected in the moonlight so that it shone and dazzled her with a red haze. She felt dizzy, everything spinning round, the crab whirling like a Catherine wheel, a tunnel that was opening out to swallow her up.

Just five people remained alive, four girls and the plump youth called Tony who had carried the wine down. They had backed out into midstream when their escape route was cut off, clinging to each other in reddish tinged water that lapped up to their chests. Their intention had been to make it to the far side, perhaps hide on the small island amidst the forest of willows. But now the crab had seen them and they knew it was all over.

The crab wallowed like a hippopotamus snorting the water, blowing scarlet bubbles. Corpses and dismembered limbs floated all around it. But it ignored them because the rest of its prey still lived, the final saga of its night of blood sport. Moving one way then the other, seeing them splash and try to run, their cries of terror sweet music in its ears. There was no hurry, it had all the time in the world.

Tony was trying to speak, jerky words that trembled their way out of chattering teeth. The bank … keep backing … then swim … can't get us all …’

Five terrified people moving back a step at a time; a sudden shelving of the river bed that had them buoyant, treading water, turning to swim, frantically threshing the water. A moment of hope that was dashed immediately when the surface erupted into a huge wave, foaming white as razor-sharp claws windmilled furiously. One of the girls was instantly beheaded, a second disembowelled and as the killer crab lurched after Tony, realisation stabbed his crazed brain - the monster crustacean could not have circled them and attacked from the rear in the time. There were two crabs!

It was all over in seconds, mutilated bodies littering the river, dead faces stamped with the mask of the ultimate in fear. And then the two creatures turned to face each other, hissing their hate, shambling warily in a circle. The same mutated species but there was no welcome at finding each other in this place far from their saltwater spawning grounds. One wild beast had hunted and killed, another was trying to steal its food.

Feinting blows designed to test the speed and strength of an adversary. Mutual respect but no fear in the tiny red eyes. Claws scraped and thudded on impenetrable shells. They backed off, attacked again, this time going in close, repulsive faces squashed together in a hideous kiss of death, biting and tearing.

The river churned, stained a deep crimson, the two crabs locked together as one in mortal combat. They submerged, that jaw hold unbroken, draining each other's blood, crustacean vampires drinking their fill.

Finally the waters parted again and the victor dragged itself back into the shallows, laboured movements that took it close to the bank. Some torn human limbs were caught up in a clump of reeds but it ignored them. The eyes no longer shone, just a dull glaze, lips that pouted and trickled blood. Squatting, waiting.

The moon faded and then came the grey light of a summer dawn creeping over the landscape and revealing the horrors of the night, human remains that had drifted into a grisly line of carnage beneath the overhanging vegetation on the bank. A dead crab just visible below the surface. And another which might have been dead because it had not moved for several hours except that every so often its eyes opened and closed again.

A carrion crow alighted in a dead tree some distance away, saw the bodies and cawed a corvine invitation to breakfast. Some more crows came, flitting in on silent black wings, filling the trees, but none dropped down to feed because they knew that the big crab was still alive.

The sun rose and began to heat the day and brought with it clouds of black flies that swarmed and buzzed on the flotilla of human death.

Sometime around midday the crab in the shallows died, no other outward sign except that the eyes no longer flickered open. The crows smelled death again and flitted down to feed.

And within minutes they, too, were squabbling and fighting over the carrion.

Chapter FOUR

Another drawing pin was pressed into the wall map in Cliff Davenport's laboratory. The biologist sighed and hoped that the telephone would not ring again just yet. The door opened and Pat entered carrying a mug of coffee.

‘You'll have to try and get some rest before long,’ she set the mug down on a bench and noted the tiredness in his face. ‘You're not doing yourself or anybody else any good by working round the clock.’

‘I'll try to get some rest later this morning,’ he smiled at her. ‘But I kept my promise, I think you'll agree.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘you were home for the weekend, notwithstanding the fact that you're going to work night and day from now on. Still, I suppose I must be grateful for small mercies.’

‘This is by far the worst and most serious crab outbreak so far,’ he pointed to the pin he had just thumbed into the map. ‘Two of the crabs had travelled up the River Nene right into the heart of Northamptonshire. Almost into the centre of England; they couldn't get further from the sea if they tried! They killed a party of moonlight river bathers and then fought to the death over the spoils. Both of them were riddled with spreading cancerous growths! We know that somewhere in the River Severn there's another bunch but the Severn is long and wide and deep and can hide them just as effectively as the oceans. They'll die eventually but it's all a question of where they'll make their last attack, which they'll surely do Pat …’ he hesitated. ‘I might have to go away again shortly. It all depends …’

‘I guessed as much,’ she turned away abruptly, and when she spoke, Cliff was alarmed to note that she was on the verge of hysteria. ‘Ever since we've been married our whole life has been dominated by these damned crabs! Well, I hope they die this time, every one of them, slowly and painfully. And then perhaps we'll get some peace. Unless, of course, you find some other creature to pursue all over the globe!’

The door slammed. Cliff Davenport sighed and reached for his coffee. Pat's nerves were stretched almost to breaking point. He didn't relish leaving her alone again. And at that moment the telephone jangled.

‘Five dead crabs, Clifford,’ Grisedale didn't waste time with introductions these days. ‘And this one beats the lot. In the River Leam at Leamington Spa!’

‘My God!’ Davenport's gaze was already tracing a river route right from the Wash, one waterway merging into another. The Nene going upstream as far as Weedon Beck … Southam … the Leam! ‘It’s unbelievable but it's happened. It's a though the devils are trying to get as far from the sea as possible. Any sign of those on the Severn?’

‘Not yet but we're keeping watch day and night.’

‘These crabs at Leamington, had they got the disease?’

‘Almost eaten away with it. Clifford, there's a big lot been seen again just off Shell Island. They're lurking somewhere in the bay. A coastguard helicopter spotted them at low tide and then they scuttled back into the sea. But they're out there, waiting. After what happened in that area last time we're going to deploy all armaments there because we feel that that's where the big battle is going to take place.’

‘I wouldn't be too sure about that,’ Cliff was still staring at the map, trying to formulate some kind of pattern.

‘What d'you mean?’

‘You know as well as I do, Grisedale, that these mutant crabs are capable of thinking. The raids aren't just haphazard sorties against mankind, they're planned. Now just suppose those crabs in the Cardigan Bay had wanted to be seen. We know from previous encounters that they don't just show themselves for the hell of it. Every time they've been seen they've been going to or from a destination. See what I'm getting at?’

‘I'm beginning to; a deliberate ruse to throw us off the scent. Whilst we mass on the shores of the Cardigan Bay they strike elsewhere in force.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But I'm afraid the Ministry won't see it that way. They don't accept that the crabs are a thinking enemy. No way am I going to be able to persuade them otherwise. They're going to set up defences around Barmouth and Shell Island and they'll only withdraw them if something big happens somewhere else. I'm sorry, Clifford, I agree with you but that's as far as it goes.’

‘I'll be standing by,’ Davenport replied. ‘call me if you need me. Day or night.’

After he had replaced the receiver he stood there studying the position of the various crab sightings on the map. It was getting like a kind of ‘Place the Ball’ competition. You might stab one in anywhere and either strike the jackpot or else be miles off target. There was no way of knowing, hazarding a guess was a waste of time.

But as surely as the moon would rise tonight, the crabs would be coming ashore somewhere.

London's dockland, a constant hive of commerce, the busiest waterway in the world. Ships came and went, a flow of river traffic that was unceasing night and day.

The Isle of Dogs; a jutting squat peninsular that incorporated the vast Millwall docks and the West India Docks, a lifeline to Britain that thrived on trading, the heart which pumped life into a nation. And yet there was a heart within a heart, one without which even the docks would grind to a standstill, the mighty electric power station situated above Greenwich Pier.

Its importance was not underrated by the security forces as a possible target for terrorists and for years now it had been adequately guarded in the same way that the oil refineries in the Thames Estuary were. The protection of these places was routine but vigilance could never be relaxed.

Bob Stannard had finally adjusted to a life of night-shift patrolling, had accepted the fact that the remainder of his working days, another decade, would never be any different. The boredom was the worst part, after one's digestive organs had accepted a diet of sandwiches eaten at unsocial hours. You clocked in at 8pm, patrolled a section of perimeter hourly, reporting to a central security office, took tea breaks at 12 and 4, and clocked out at 8am. There were no colleagues as such, just numbers, faces that changed with alarming regularity. But, like the station itself, it was security within security, the pay regular and a job for life if you kept your nose clean. And Bob Stannard intended to do just that.

Night life on the river was something that alleviated the monotony and there was always time to stand and watch it during patrols. Especially on a hot summer's night when you strived to suck a breath of fresh air out of the balmy atmosphere. Like tonight.

He stood against the mesh and barbed wire fence on the northern boundary just watching the river. It reminded him of life, went on and on forever, the boats on it just birds of passage; they'd go, others would come, but the Thames was eternal. A police patrol boat was chugging steadily against the current. Like himself, the men on it had a routine job to do, protecting the public. Funny, the rogues of this world provided lots of people with jobs. If there was no crime then there would be no need for a peacekeeping force, no security work, nor religion, because religion was only doing what military law would have to do otherwise and keep anarchy at bay. Convince the masses that it's preferable to be well-behaved decent citizens, and the most important battle of all is won. Priests, in effect, were policemen.

Bob Stannard jerked out of his reverie. That police boat, something was happening to it. It seemed to have stopped as though its engines were battling with fierce currents, threatening to push it backwards, slewing it sideways on. Men were running about on the deck, dashing to the sides and looking down into the water.

Suddenly the launch began to tilt, its bows coming up out of the water, the stern being pulled below the surface. Men slipped, grasped at anything that was handy. Two went overboard.

Stannard stood transfixed. It was so incredible that he didn't go running and shouting for help; he couldn't move, a sort of hypnotised spectator, his mouth going dry and his stomach muscles knotting up. It had to be some kind of optical illusion, the lights of passing boats and the strange orange glow from the power station sometimes played tricks with one's eyesight.

The launch was gone. Just like that. One moment it was tipped up vertically in the air, the next it had disappeared. There should have been men swimming frantically for the bank. But there weren't! Just bubbles bursting on the churning water.

Sirens. Passing river traffic was slowing, the crew of a dowdy old cargo boat were unfastening some lifebelts. This was one time when the people of the river pulled together. Lives had to be saved.

Suddenly it seemed that a tidal wave was sweeping up into Greenwich Reach, a wall of muddy brown water that caught boats and swept them up on its crest, smaller craft snapping their moorings, larger ones battered and buffeted. Men were flung overboard into a foaming cauldron. And out of the maelstrom came the crabs, a massed army that jostled for places in the exposed mud, venomously clicking as they scuttled in to the attack!

Bob Stannard was rooted to the spot, muddy spray whipping his face, seeing the crustaceans coming in their hundreds like nightmarish tarantulas, swarming up on the wharfs on either side, the main battalion heading directly towards where he stood!

A section of steel mesh fencing was swept away, springing high into the air as the tension was released, twanging and catapulting. Stannard saw it coming but there was no way he could dodge it. It bounced, hit him, began to roll, wrapping him in its folds as it went. He screamed; a hand was trapped, undoubtedly broken, a straightjacket that imprisoned him directly in the path of the invading army.

Click-click-click-clickety-click!

‘Oh, Jesus! They were walking over him, quashing the mesh down on to him so that the steel squares cut into his flesh. He screamed again as his ribs cracked, tasted blood in his mouth. Pitch darkness, they were so thick. And the stench! He was vomiting, suffocating. Only the strength of the rolled mesh prevented him from being crushed to death as the never-ending stream passed over him.

Elsewhere men were running and shouting, trying to get out of the way. Buildings were disintegrating in clouds of brickdust, the high cooling towers shuddering beneath the force that battered away at their bases.

And where there had been bright orange light there was now total blackness, an instant power failure as though the crabs had decreed that their destruction should not be witnessed by Man. The Greenwich power station collapsed in a volcanic-like eruption of bricks and mortar, a series of terrifying avalanches that buried its entire area, crustaceans and humans crushed and pulped, but for every crab that died there was another to take its place. Still they came out of the Thames with terrible decisiveness as though each platoon had been designated a target. The river was taken, the power that pumped life into the East End was destroyed. Now nothing could stand in their way!

Spreading out in the darkness, tiny red eyes seeing, mutilating everything they saw, a wide sweeping manoeuvre that reached Creek Road and on to Deptford on the south side of the Thames, whilst on the north side the Isle of Dogs was falling.

A fleet of fire engines was turning out into Ferry Road, sirens screaming, their headlights cutting through the blackness. Calls had to be answered in rotation; Barrel Wharf and Grosvenor Wharf first. Then suddenly their tyres were screaming in protest, skidding across the road, the leading engine buckling under the impact of the first line of crabs. Vehicles ploughed into the back of one another, uniformed helmeted men were flung into the road, the fortunate ones dying instantly. The crustaceans attacked with deadly efficiency, claws slashing and cutting, not wasting time to satisfy their craving for human flesh; there would be ample time for that later! First, Man's domain had to be conquered.

Armoured vehicles were beginning to move in, a depleted emergency force that sped down the Woolwich Road, into Trafalgar Road and began to erect its barricades on the junction of Romney Road and Park Row, a task that was never completed. Mortar fire shattered the castanet-like clicking of the crabs which had already begun their attack on the Royal Naval College. The soldiers backed off, firing as they retreated, realising the futility of the mission to which they had been assigned. Their CO radioed for reinforcements but the very tone of his voice reflected the hopelessness he felt. Nothing short of a warhead would destroy these monsters.

Mollie Stannard had never been able to adjust to the nights of solitude whilst her husband was away at the power station. She had never suffered from insomnia before but lately it had built up on her so that she had given up the useless ritual of going upstairs to bed. The couch in the front room of their semi in Hesperus Crescent was as good a place as any to toss restlessly and doze intermittently throughout the nocturnal hours.

Bob didn't need to work at the station nor did they really have to live on the Isle of Dogs. It was just that he was obsessed with a ‘safe’ job regardless of conditions and hours. He'd always been the same, and there was no likelihood of him changing now.

Mollie had tried sleeping tablets in the beginning. They hadn't worked, not properly anyway. A few hours of deep sleep early on, followed by a long restless period until dawn broke. And just when it was time to get up, and Bob came home, she could have gone into a heavy slumber. So she had settled for the couch and a determination to make the best of it.

Lately she hated the telly so much that she never switched it on. It was all crabs, horrible pictures of dead ones, one scene of carnage that had sent her poste haste to the bathroom. There was no need to go into all the gory details. It was nothing less than obscene; that bird sanctuary that looked like a plucking factory, carcases strewn all over the place. Just when you thought you were safe watching a nice domestic comedy they interrupted with a gory newsflash - ‘the giant crabs have appeared and attacked again, the casualty figure at the moment unknown. Our reporter is now at the scene of the disaster, ready to bring you the latest pictures …’

Mollie Stannard tried to get the crabs out of her mind. They didn't affect her; they were as remote as Cambodia and other disaster areas. Confined to coastal districts. Don't think about them Mollie because you're never likely to see one here on the Isle of Dogs and you never go anywhere else.

It was hot and stuffy tonight so she opened the kitchen window. She made a mental note to close it before darkness fell, then busied herself with one or two chores. She cut Bob's sandwiches for the following night and put them in the fridge; that was one job she wouldn't have to do tomorrow.

There was, however, one consolation to Bob working nights - he was free to do the shopping on Fridays. She hated shopping. No, more than that, she hated going out of the house. Agoraphobia, to give her condition its technical term. But it wasn't an illness, more a state of home loving. But you don't love your home, Mollie. You detest it!

She went back into the living room and closed the door. Don't forget to shut the kitchen window before it gets dark. She sat down on the old sofa, lay back and closed her eyes. She was nervous tonight, more so than usual. Maybe she could convince Bob to try for a job somewhere else, anywhere to get away from here. If she played on the agoraphobia, made him think that stopping here on her own at nights was making her ill, then there was a possibility he would do something about it. Play on it real good, Mollie, make him believe you're heading for a nervous breakdown.

Up on her feet again. Restless. Glancing in the mirror over the sideboard (it needed cleaning but finding time was the problem), not really wanting to because she'd only start looking at herself. She'd aged, looking nearer sixty than fifty, dark patches beneath her eyes (lack of sleep, Bob's fault), a lot more grey hairs, her flesh yellowed and sagging. A right old hag! She winced, that little voice inside her was always screaming insults these days. True ones!

Mollie Stannard needed a cigarette badly but she'd smoked her last one earlier that afternoon and there was no chance of any more until Bob went out to fetch a paper after he woke up tomorrow. She'd have to manage, drink more tea. Coffee was no good, it kept you awake.

Phew, the river was stinking tonight! You could taste it, a rancid rotting vegetation odour that hung in the still air. The weather was to blame, too hot and no wind to blow the smell away. Maybe it would be best to shut that kitchen window now.

She was on her way to the kitchen when she heard the noise, a kind of rushing roaring sound like a tornado, followed by a terrific splashing of water. She stood still, afraid. Listening. It was the Thames, all right. Oh God, an awful thought struck her. She'd read a book once (it must have been some time ago because lately she couldn't settle to a novel) about a freak tidal wave that had come up the Thames and swamped London. And folks had said it was possible!

Fear! The kind that had her rushing towards the window. Shut it quick, Mollie, keep the water out!

But she never made it to the window. She was barely half-way across the room when all the lights in the house went out, plunging everywhere into pitch darkness. The window was just a square of grey light and with horror she realised that it must have been dark outside for some time now. She hadn't noticed, she'd been staring at her reflection in the mirror for longer than she'd thought. Oh God, the tidal wave, it'll be in through the window if you don't shut it quick, Mollie!

Panicking, tugging at the sash, slamming it hard. Glass splintered and fell tinkling on both sides of the window, an eerie frightening noise that seemed to say ‘you can't keep the tidal wave out now, Mollie, because the window's broken.’

The roaring noise of the water was drowned by an even louder, more sinister sound, a rumbling that grew and grew, escalating into a deafening crashing that went on and on. Mollie Stannard recoiled, clasping her hands to her ears but there was no way she could shut it out. Childhood memories and fears came flooding back; the wartime air raids, huddled on her mother's lap in the shelter that night they bombed London to hell, the night they scored a direct hit on a ventilation shaft in the underground and buried hundreds of people who had thought it was the safest place down there.

A multitude of sounds penetrated her fear-crazed brain. Buildings falling in the pitch darkness, the rattle of machine gun fire. Clickety-click-click. Clickety-click-click. Screams in the night, people dying. The wounded, blood on the streets.

And then she knew just what it was. The inevitable had happened, the Russians had started a third world war, blown London up. Everybody was going to die. She fell to the floor, lying there on the bare rubber tiles, feeling the ground vibrate, the house shaking. It might collapse at any second. But she didn't care anymore because there was nothing left to live for. At least she was going to die in her own home and not in some crowded air raid shelter. She didn't want to leave here after all.

Time passed. There were sirens blaring all around, ambulances gathering up the dead and the dying. Unceasing gunfire; the Russians must have invaded on the heels of their big bomb, determined to overrun the western world. Mollie continued to lie there, her heart pounding in time with the rapid firing, a tightness creeping across her chest. Angina, that's what it was. Her arteries had been hardening for years and now they were going to burst because the blood couldn't get through. Well, it didn't really matter how she went so long as it was quick.

Her thoughts switched to Bob. He was probably dead out there; a pity that they couldn't be together in this their last hour. But that was his fault because that safe job was the most important thing in the world to him. In all probability he'd been shot down doing his duty trying to stop the Russians taking the power station. But he'd failed. They'd taken it, cut off the power.

Another noise, this time louder and closer. She tried to sit up but the stabbing pains in her chest wouldn't let her. Somebody was scratching at the kitchen door, trying to get in.

Click-click. Clickety-click.

No, it wasn't gunfire. Familiar in a way … then she remembered where she'd heard it and her heart gave one mighty lurch and nearly stopped. Those crabs on the television news, the ones they'd managed to film in Norfolk! But that was impossible. This was London! There weren't any crabs here.

A tearing sound and the door splintered in half then crashed into the kitchen missing Mollie by only a few inches. She stared, saw the grey ragged outline of an open doorway, lintels hanging crazily, and beyond it the fearsome beast that was trying to push its way in, two tiny red eyes penetrating the darkness and missing nothing.

The crab saw her and those eyes glowed. Most of the human population had fled in the face of the crustacean onslaught so that victims were becoming a rarity. And this creature was crazed by hunger and its natural hate for Man. It hissed, shoved hard against the remaining door frame using its huge shell as a lever.

The brickwork groaned then yielded and spilled into the room in a cloud of choking dust. Mollie Stannard seemed to revive, her terror greater than the constricting pain in her chest. She sat up, edged away, began to crawl towards the door which led through into the hall. Something brushed her foot, clicked loudly as it snapped on empty air. She found more strength, gasped with relief as she felt the worn strip of hall carpet beneath her.

But the crab was after her; she could hear it in the kitchen, smashing furniture as it shambled across the room, hissing its rage when it found its way obstructed by yet another doorway. Woodwork cracked again, plaster showered down from the ceiling. More choking dust. And then she knew that she had made it to the bottom of the stairs.

Now she was moving faster, dragging herself up a step at a time, hearing her pursuer break through into the hall. But it could not follow her up here because the stairs were too narrow.

There was a loud bang and something sharp struck her bare leg. She screeched her terror, anticipating those claws closing over her. But they didn't. Another bang, followed by a tearing and splintering of wood. Oh Lord, the devil was demolishing the stair-rail, hacking away blindly with its pincers in an attempt to reach her.

A gasp of relief as she found herself on the landing. She began to scramble blindly, finding a door in the darkness and pushing it open, going inside. Only when her head bumped against something solid did she realise where she was. The toilet, a cramped crucible that smelled because she hadn't got round to using Domestos on the bowl this week.

The crustacean was coming up after her using an ingenuity that defied its monstrous shape. The stair rail gone, it was able to drag itself up on to the landing. Timbers cracked and fell away but it had a clawhold, enough to hoist itself up even though part of the landing floor fell away beneath it. Precarious but desperate for human flesh!

Mollie Stannard tried to close the WC door but it was impossible because her body was in the way. The strength had drained from her legs, she couldn't move them, and the pain was coming back into her throbbing, heaving chest. She wanted to be sick, managed to clutch the sides of the bowl and get her head over the top just as the vomit began to spout from her. Oh God, it was awful; the stench, not just from her spew but from the crab. A smell that jerked her hazy memory just as it had brought back the wartime bombing a few minutes ago. She could see her father now, propped up in a hospital bed, emaciated so that the red and white striped pyjamas hung loosely on his skeletal frame, leaning sideways to spit scarlet-tinged gobs of phlegm into a bedside bowl. The stench hit her hard, had her throwing up with even greater force. She would never get the vile stink of festering malignant cancer out of her lungs, there was no mistaking it anywhere.

She flopped forward semi-conscious, head lolling in the toilet. And then the crab got to her!

It reached out a claw, severed the nearest leg just below the knee. Mollie screamed into the pan, the echo deafening her, but she couldn't shut out the crunching sound like the lions in Regents Park made when the keeper threw them the carcase of a diseased ewe. Gulping, swallowing. Coming back for more. Oh God, get it over with. Kill me and eat me, but kill me first!

She surrendered her other leg. The offering was taken, severed and devoured, the crustacean eating hungrily in spite of the fact that it hung suspended above the stairwell like a fly on the wall.

It tried to drag her back on to the landing but somehow her shoulder had wedged, so it took a forearm and came back for the upper leg joints whilst it chewed hungrily.

I want to die. I'm being eaten alive!

Finally the pumping blood slowed to a steady ooze and Mollie Stannard died. The crab sawed off a shoulder joint but failed to notice that the remnants of the corpse were now freed from the obstruction. Her head fell, twisted and wedged in the bowl, staring up at the cracked ceiling with an expression of terror that not even death could erase.

With remarkable agility the killer crab backed down and shambled its way out to the kitchen, demolishing a further section of the doorway as it bulldozed its way back outside. It squatted, sniffing the air. The smell of death hung heavy in the dust-laden atmosphere.

‘You were right, Clifford,’ Grisedale had arrived at Cliff Davenport's West Hampstead home shortly after dawn, having flown back from Wales the moment he had received the news of the attack on London's East End. ‘Oh Jesus, how right you were! Those crabs in Cardigan Bay were a decoy. We had half the armed forces ready to repel a major invasion along the Welsh coast and then the big lot moved in on the Thames. The power station on Greenwich Reach is no more than a heap of rubble, as is the Royal Naval College and half the docks, a cost to the taxpayer that will run into billions of pounds. And they're in the Thames! God, they could wreck most of London and we couldn'tuse the heavy stuff on them!’

‘I've news for you, too, Grisedale,’ Davenport's face was grim, his red-rimmed eyes proof that he had not slept much these last few days, ‘I've been carrying out further tests on the remains of that crab in an attempt to identify the disease. Certainly radioactivity is responsible for the growths but I've found out something else, something much more horrifying!’

‘And what's that?’ the Ministry of Defence man seemed to wince as though anticipating a physical blow.

‘These monsters aren't spawned from the ones we fought and almost destroyed off Haymen Island. They're a new mutation! Somewhere in the depths of the oceans somebody has carried out a nuclear experiment which has escaped the notice of the rest of the world. Who and when is anybody's guess, but it's had exactly the same effect as the one which brought the original crabs into existence. Christ Alive, Grisedale, any ruthless nation wanting world domination could create armies of these crustaceans and just sit back and bide their time to take over what's left of the coastal nations. And I'm not altogether sure but I believe that this latest lot can even survive in freshwater! Unless this cancer wipes them out quickly, we're going to be in real big trouble!

Chapter FIVE

Loch Merse lay at the end of the narrow valley, surrounded by stunted Scots pines and steep purple heather-covered hillsides, an expanse of sparkling blue water, so cool and inviting in the heat of a summer's day, believed to be connected to the Solway Firth by a subterranean tunnel. An isolated patch of remoteness, yet so close to the large towns of southern Scotland, its boundaries the mountain ranges that had so far kept civilisation at bay. Several thousand acres of private ownership, one of the few capitalist strongholds that had survived the pressures of syndicate take overs. The Cranlarich Estate had its own legends that went back over the centuries before the time of Wallace and Robert Bruce. And also much more recent ones. Rumour had it that the Ferguson rifle was first tested here on the deer which grazed the slopes and corries; stories that went back barely a decade to that night when the Cranlarich house was razed to the ground by fire and Bruce McKechnie, the laird, disappeared without trace in the same way that several other people had vanished on this sporting estate.[iv]

The village at the entrance to the valley was now a silent gloomy place. The people who lived there remained simply because they had nowhere else to go. When asked about the happenings at Cranlarich they shrugged their shoulders and maintained their sullen silence. ‘It's na' our business.’

The estate had been on the market for two years without any serious offers before John Blockley returned from Nigeria, made a considerably reduced offer to the agents, and bought it. It was a long term investment, he told his friends in London on the night before he headed north. There were many possibilities; forestry, sporting potential in the form of loch fishing, deer stalking, grouse and duck shooting. Of course, the house would have to be rebuilt, everything started from scratch.

John Blockley was just 35. His parents had been killed in a DC-10 crash in 1977 and as the only son he had inherited their entire property empire. But he had realised his assets on the crest of the boom and with more than enough money to last him for life (he always said that he wouldn't make old bones), he decided to set up a different kind of empire. And Cranlarich was just what he was looking for. He didn't really want the village; maybe later he would give his tenants the opportunity to buy their houses at a nominal sum and relieve him of the irksome task of rent collecting and maintenance. He had only once been in the ‘Royal Stag’ for a drink. The atmosphere in there was positively hostile. These villagers resented the prospect of a new laird, finishing their drinks hastily until only Brockley and the landlord were left in the small bar.

‘I can see I shall have to win their confidence in gradual stages,’ John Blockley said as he ordered another brandy.

‘I don't think it's anything particularly to do with you, sir,’ there was a furtive, almost frightened expression on the pallid lined features of Blacklaw, the landlord. A deep-lying bitterness, a sorrow that would never leave him until the end of his days, it's because of … of what happened here a few years ago.’

‘Like what?’

Blacklaw hesitated as though changing his mind, regretting that he had offered any information at all. ‘I … people disappeared!’

‘So I've heard, but as far as I'm concerned they're only unsubstantiated rumours.’

‘They're true enough,’ a narrowing of the landlord's eyes. ‘My own daughter was one of them!’

‘Oh … I'm terribly sorry. I didn't realise. Please forgive me for asking.’

‘Not at all, now that I've told ye some I may as well tell ye the rest. It was all to do with that fiend Bruce McKechnie, the laird who eventually vanished hisself. A bastard, a devil in human form. Aye, he murdered 'em, believe you me, but none will ever prove it because the bodies rot in Cranlarich Bog and there's no way they'll ever be found there. Two Londoners to start with, or rather one and his brother came to look for him and was never found again. A poacher, the gamekeeper, and the servants in the hall all found burned to death when McKechnie fired the place and then done away with hisself. There was a rumour that there was a monster in the loch, doubtless started by the laird to try and cover up why so many were going missing. Police, reporters, they came for weeks afterwards but they were none the wiser. And then my own Christine,’ a sob crept into his voice, ‘they found the wrecked car but there was no sign of her nor the London laddie who was with her. My poor wife … she went into a home shortly after … died last year. That's why, Mr Blockley, the people don't want no more strangers for lairds. If they could, if they'd somewhere to go, most of 'em would've left before now.’

Blockley had wandered down to the lochside in the heat of a late July day. He couldn't get Blacklaw's story off his mind. It was incredible, the place was so tranquil, so beautiful, scarcely a ripple out on the water; the merse so green and lush and yet the Bog was there, as deadly as it had always been, a hidden mire that sucked stray animals down into its foul depths … humans as well if they were unwise enough to trespass there. In some ways the rumours fitted, in others they didn't. A monster, another Nessie (maybe even the original come in via the tunnel linking Cranlarich with the Firth) was too preposterous.

John Blockley walked pensively along the stony shore, kicked a pebble or two into the water and didn't even notice. Maybe that monster wasn't so far-fetched after all. If giant crabs could invade coastal resorts and infiltrate the Thames then anything was possible. But he was staying on at Cranlarich, no matter what. The house was already under renovation, the deer and other game offering winter sport. His new life was only just beginning.

He sat down under an overhanging shelf of rock, grateful for the patch of shade it cast, idly wondering what he was going to do until Cranlarich had been restored to its former state. And then he saw the crab!

It wasn't a particularly big one, not as big as those shown on television recently. Yet it was about ten times the size of a common crab and different, too. The face and eyes, it was squatting in the edge of the water watching him intently, so knowing, so … malevolent! He found he was pressing himself back against the rock, revulsion entwining his stomach into hard knots. Something else. Fear!

His first reaction was one of shame. Dammit, the thing was no bigger than a Jack Russell terrier. A big stone would soon send it scurrying back whence it had come. His fingers groped amongst the pebbles around him until he found one the size of a tennis ball, watching the creature the whole time. Indeed, he couldn't take his eyes off it. Revolting! Moving slowly, his arm went back. He didn't want to scare it away, he wanted to pound it, to hurt it! His aim was true and so it should have been for he had bowled for Surrey in 1973. A direct hit, a sharp crack, and the stone was spinning away to splash into the water ten yards from the sore. But the crab never moved!

Its eyes seemed to bore into him with an even greater hatred and it hissed softly.

‘Insolent little bugger!’ Blockley was angry now, scrambling to his feet, searching for more pebbles. He found a handful, turned back to the loch. ‘I'll teach you, you swine. I'll have you know that I'm the new laird of Cranlarich and what I say here goes. Take that! And that!’

One stone after another was hurled unerringly, each one finding its mark … and bouncing off! John Brockley was breathing heavily, discarding the idea of gathering and throwing more missiles. It was a waste of time, the crab just squatted there almost contemptuously, hissing, watching him.

He turned away, looking round for something heavier. There was nothing, only stones and shingle. He whirled round, grunted in dismay and horror. The crab was no longer alone. Four more had materialised silently out of the water alongside it!

His brain was reeling, he could not accept what he saw. Maybe he had a touch of heatstroke, a fever coming on.

Crustaceans and human eyed one another in a sultry silence that had the sweat running down Blockley's face, his short-sleeved nylon shirt turning damp. OK, it was all happening, but it couldn't be anything to do with the coastal giant crabs because they were all down south and this was an inland loch. Rumour has it that a subterranean tunnel connects the sea. And those huge crabs are starting to go inland. Oh God!

But these are too small, those others are as big as cows.

It was as though his thoughts had been heard and understood down in the depths of Loch Merse. A sudden surge of water, a huge squat shape coming up out of the lake, a crab a hundred times larger than those crouching in the shallows!

And John Blockley knew without any doubt that these were the devastating killer crabs, the merciless monsters from the oceans which threatened civilization. Here in Loch Merse!

The big crustacean just stood there looking at him like the others had done, only its eyes moving. He felt its power, the force of a thinking brain inside that awesome head.

And something else registered a shock that numbed him like a physical blow. The big crab was a female, the smaller ones her offspring. And Loch Merse on the Cranlarich Estate was the crustacean spawning ground where the crabs bred and nurtured their young until they were large enough to join the growing underwater army that threatened to overthrow the world!

Jesus Christy he had to get back, raise the alarm!

His determination, the urgency of the news he must convey, triggered him into action. In one movement he leaped sideways and started to run. And in that same instant he heard the big crab starting to come after him.

Click-click-clickety-click.

On this stony uneven ground he was unable to exploit to the full his athletic prowess. The terrain was slippery and full of treacherous holes, forcing him to jump from one level patch to the next. But for the pursuing crab there was nothing to slow it down, moving with unbelievable agility for its size, the small ones scurrying in its wake seeming to sense that this might be the occasion for their first ‘blooding’

Blockley reached the level grassy merse, burst into a fast sprint. One glance behind was enough; the creature was hard after him, no more than twenty yards at his heels, the smaller ones falling back because the pace was too great for them.

He attempted to increase his speed with all the know-how of an experienced cross-country runner, easing into a faster lope in stages rather than in one motion that would tire him quickly. The partly-rebuilt structure of the Cranlarich house was his destination, a mile or so away, taunting him from afar with the safety it offered. The ground was already starting to rise slowly; his faster pace was now slower than his earlier one. Another quick look behind; the crab had narrowed the gap to no more than fifteen yards.

John Blockley knew that he wasn't going to make it. Regret rather than sheer terror, a feeling that he had let down his fellow countrymen because he wasn't going to be able to reveal the crabs' spawning grounds so that they could be destroyed, and the growing undersea legions reduced in numbers. A lot of other things besides; the mysteries of Cranlarich and Loch Merse might remain unsolved forever, the evil laird McKechnie blamed for deaths that were not his perpetration, a land from which the mists of fear would never lift.

His lungs couldn't take any more, his legs were weakening, threatening to throw him to the ground. Only his pride remained intact. He stopped, turned; there was no point in cowering.

The crab pulled up only a few yards from him. He could see its grotesque face clearly now, the expression of gloating, the mouth moving in the nearest thing to a crustacean mocking laugh, a low hiss that said it all. They waited, eyeing each other, the four smaller crabs scuttling up behind their mother, curious and eager.

John Blockley did not even try to look for an avenue of escape because he knew there was none. He did not fear death, just the manner of dying, the way those mighty pincers were going to rip him to shreds, his body carrion for this scavenger. Another Cranlarich laird would be reported missing, the legend would grow and the agents would despair of ever being able to sell the property again. Possibly the National Trust would step in eventually and purchase a mystery which they would never solve. The villagers would die or drift on elsewhere and nobody would ever know.

The crab came at him in one mighty rush, a bull-like charge that threw him back, breaking his neck at one single blow and sparing him the agonies that victims elsewhere had suffered this past fortnight. It stood looking down on him, a posture that summed up the regret it felt at having killed him so quickly. A pincer was raised but did not fall and begin to tear at the flesh. A kind of salute turning to a signal.

A sharp hiss, a noise that had the four small crabs darting forward like hunting sand spiders, circling the huddled human corpse as though uncertain of how to commence their first carnal feast.

The big one did not help them; this was something they had to find out for themselves. All four closed in together and then as one they began their vicious assault on the flesh, tearing it from the bones in long thin ribbons that resembled scarlet party streamers, slurping it into their mouths, chewing with obvious delight in the way a baby discovers the initial pleasures of solid foods. They went back for more, began to squabble and fight over the diminishing meal until a blow from the watching female scattered them. They picked themselves up, returned to feed in a more orderly fashion. They had learned another important lesson - obedience!

It took them ten minutes to clean the bones and leave a whitened skeleton on the merse grass. Only then did the huge crustacean move in; another lesson that her young must be taught, the crunching of bones to powder, a flavour all of their own to be relished once the meat was gone.

At last the monster was finished, turning away slowly from the flattened blood-stained patch of grass and ambling back in the direction of the loch knowing that it’s young would follow. It had been a good day, they had learned much. The experience would stand them in good stead when the time came for them to be called to join the legions of the victorious.

And high above the moorland, beyond Cranlarich Bog and beneath the mountain known as Criffel, a pair of hunting buzzards wheeled and mewed their frustration. The smell of death had brought them from afar but their journey had been wasted. They did not even swoop down on the merse to search for an overlooked morsel of tender flesh because they had seen the crabs and knew that there would be none.

Chapter SIX

The Rt Hon. Noel Forrest would undoubtedly be late for Question Time in the House this afternoon. He accepted that fact long before he reached Westminster Bridge and was forced to bring his Ford Escort to yet another halt. Queues of traffic jammed Victoria Embankment and Bridge Street. Horns blared. It seemed that everybody was in a hurry to go somewhere. Anywhere, so long as it was well away from the Thames. Simply because somewhere in those muddy depths the giant crabs lurked and might attack without warning at any second. Anywhere.

Whatever else might be said about Noel Forrest none could claim that he lacked courage, certainly not the courage of his own convictions, however ridiculous they might seem to his fellow MPs and the electorate. At fifty he still had ambitions of parliamentary glory, a sweeping victory in a forthcoming manifesto. His remorseless campaign to bring about unilateral nuclear disarmament would one day become reality. As would the nationalisation of the banks, insurance companies, land, and a crippling Wealth Tax would shift the wealth from the rich to the poor, a total reversion of present day circumstances. Which was one reason why Noel Forrest insisted on living in a very ordinary semi-detached Clapham house and driving himself around in a P-registered Escort. It was all part of a subversive plan which even he didn't fully understand although the media had only yesterday accused him of ‘running with the hare and hunting with the hounds’. In short, to win the support, confidence, and votes of the everyday man you had to walk alongside him, drive an Escort in the adjoining traffic lane, not try and put yourself above him with a Rolls or a Daimler. Then he would help you to get what you wanted off the capitalists, a bloodless revolution. And only when that was achieved could you indulge in a few of those luxuries which you had secretly coveted but openly spurned throughout the long campaign. The Russians had needed a bloody revolution to fulfil their ambitions but Noel Forrest was much more cunning than that. Without nuclear deterrents the Soviets might even come and do the job for him in which case they would undoubtedly install him at the head of the puppet government which they would set up. Disarm the people in readiness; a tightening up of firearms and shotgun legislation (promoted under the guise of reducing armed robbery, which it wouldn't as everybody knew, because it was the unregistered, not the registered, arms which found their way into the hands of criminals), helped by inciting the masses against blood sports so that the need for guns in civilian hands was reduced. It was all a very exciting thought. Particularly to the Rt. Hon. Noel Forrest.

Fuck the traffic! He was renowned for his frequent use of four-letter words; the working man appreciated them, they helped him to identify with a public figure, one that was fast coming into the foreground. Nevertheless, Forrest could have done without this hold-up today. There was a leading question to be asked, one that would embarrass the elected party, in particular the Prime Minister. There was only one trouble, an awful lot of backbenchers had that same question on the tips of their tongues - how was it that these giant crabs had been allowed to go unchecked, to destroy wantonly in the face of a recent armament rebuilding programme? And if the reply was that the crustaceans were invincible, impervious to heavy artillery, then there were methods which had been proved successful before and this time had not even been tried. And Noel Forrest wanted to be the one to cause the red faces. Fuck the traffic!

All vehicles were at a standstill and showed no signs of moving. He glanced at his wristwatch, saw that it was just thirty seconds off 2.30 pm. Frustration. The temperature gauge on the dashboard was high. God, suppose the radiator boiled over, that would really be the limit! He hadn't checked the oil and water lately, hadn't even given it a thought. Sod it, this was ridiculous, not a policeman in sight. He thought of another couple of questions that he might ask … if he got there in time!

People were getting out of their cars. Stupid idiots. Gawping down into the river. Get back in your vehicles, you cunts, or we'll be here all day!

Noel Forrest MP was contemplating loosening his tie in this sweltering heat (the only trouble was he would have to waste a few more valuable seconds adjusting it before going into the House) when people started running. Car doors were left open and swinging, men and women were pushing and shoving one another. Others were screaming.

Forrest started to get out of his car; a group of running youths hit the half-open door with force, the window frame catching him with force in the teeth and throwing him back into the seat. He tasted blood and cursed again.

A wild stampede, people coming from every direction. A young woman fell, writhed and screamed as she was trodden upon, then lay still with an upturned bloodied face.

Screams came from every direction, not just from the Bridge but from the Victoria Embankment to the Albert Embankment. Sirens wailed, but whether they belonged to police, ambulance, or fire brigade they had no hope of getting through the traffic.

Noel finally made it out through the passenger door, looking for a gap in the rushing throng, a marathon cross-country race which every competitor was desperate to win. The masses upon which he fawned, a champion to their cause. But they didn't even recognise him!

Angry because he wanted to go in the opposite direction to everybody else. Didn't they bloody well realise who he was, that they were preventing him from getting to the House to ask their questions, to pillory a bigoted government that had been elected by their misguided fellow voters? Get out of my way. Let me through. You don't realise …

The ground trembled beneath his feet, seemed to rise up, jerking so that people were falling, sliding, heaps of struggling cursing bodies thudding against the lines of abandoned cars. Up … up …

Noel Forrest saw the blue sky above, his numbed brain trying to work out why he was viewing it from this angle. An earthquake of some sort … the noise was such that the terrified yells of those around him were blanketed by it; a tearing and screeching of metal, vehicles sliding, piling up, crushing people… an avalanche of death and blood!

His range of vision changed again like some jerky magic lantern slideshow. Looking down now, holding on grimly to the roof rack of a car that tottered on its side. The Thames, a seething cauldron of foam-flecked muddy water, a raging tempest that dashed ten foot waves at either bank, capsized boats that were visible one minute and lost the next.

And when you'd seen all that you noticed the crabs! They were packed tightly beneath Westminster Bridge, several deep, their combined strength being exerted to its maximum as they pushed in uncanny unison. And it was quite obvious that the bridge which had witnessed a nation’s history, and stood astride its lifeline, was about to collapse at any second!

Forrest felt himself starting to fall, clung desperately to the roof rack of a car but the vehicle tore itself from his grasp, plunging fast below him, ploughing its way through a group of airborne people, crushing and buffeting bodies en route to the gigantic whirlpool below. Steel girders were coming out of the sky, a lottery of life and death as they hurtled down, skulls crushed, fine blood spray whipping the dead and the doomed.

The MP saw the Thames coming up to meet him, braced himself, wished that he'd learned to swim when he'd had the opportunity, but it was too late now. He hit the surface with sickening force, the breath knocked from him and no time to draw in air before he went under. Panicking, kicking wildly as he went down and down in a horrifying world of gloom that grew darker by the second. Vague shapes, flotsam springing back up, heavier objects obeying the laws of gravity. A body, it didn't have a head, nudged against him as though angry with him even in death. Large patches of shadow beyond the sun's reach blending into vast dark areas where everything seemed to move. Eyes, a host of red pinpoints that waited, flashing their hate.

Oh, Merciful God, it was like a gigantic abattoir down here, a reddish tinge that showed up everything you did not want to see, bloated corpses spewing their stringy innards out of wide gashes, heads that hung by a single thread and floated in the current, the lower half of a male body jammed upside down in the mud, legs moving feebly.

And amidst it all the crawling ravenous crabs attempted to satisfy their bloodlust, regal gourmets with a never-ending menu. Bones were left untouched because flesh was plentiful; the monsters could always return for the skeletons later.

Noel Forrest was stuck firmly in the river bed. It seemed that something had seized him, placed him in a living human larder. He was drowning but it wouldn't be quick, filling up with water. Something lower down burst with agonising pain; he writhed, thought it was his bladder. A dim red world where everything moved slowly. The crabs came in a double file, dropping out as they chose their victims, everywhere getting redder and redder.

Damn you, I'm Noel Forrest, MP. You can't do this to me!

But they did; two of them, almost fighting to get there first, pincers tearing at the wound that had burst so that the pain shot right up into his stomach and bowels. Buoyant, one holding him, the other slicing into his paunchy stomach.

I'm dead, I tell you. I'm fucking well dead! One second it was a lie, the next it was true. And for that splinter group of an opposition party warring within its own ranks the plans for unilateral nuclear disarmament took a nosedive.

The emergency headquarters for the defence of the Thames were situated in the LCC Fire Brigade's HQ on the Albert Embankment within a mile of the Westminster disaster. The Bridge had gone completely creating a temporary blockage in the Thames which would disrupt river traffic for some time to come. There had only been one brief sortie on land by the crustaceans, a semi-circular sweeping attack that left a few scars on the exterior of the Houses of Parliament. Then they had returned to the water, travelling in the direction of Lambeth Bridge. The area was cleared, the bridge was expected to fall. But it did not. The crabs had other plans.

The meeting room was tense and stuffy. In the distance clearing up operations had already begun, but it would be some time before a start was made on the river itself.

Chief Superintendent Graham Wicklow stroked his sharp-pointed nose with a forefinger and squinted at the street map of London pinned to the wall. Red biro arrows denoted the crabs' progress, crosses marked the areas they had devastated. It was a blood trail right up the estuary and still continuing.

‘How far do you reckon they'll travel?’ he asked.

‘Anybody's guess,’ Davenport replied. ‘We know that one made it right to the heart of England. They need rivers to travel up but they're quite capable of crossing land to get to another one. And, as I believe, they can now exist in freshwater, certainly for lengthy periods, there's no knowing how far they could go. Our main hope, the thing we are pinning everything on, is this disease they've got. We just have to hope that it kills them quickly.’

‘We've got a line of depth charges planted just below the Queenhithe Dock,’ Grisedale interrupted. ‘Our biggest worry is the power station on Kings Reach. Maybe it'll deter them, send them back down river. Otherwise we could have most of south east London brought to a standstill as well. If that doesn't stop 'em we've got some submarines standing by with torpedoes. Oh sure, I know we've had no success with torpedoes in the past but what else is there? We can't blow the Thames up with a nuclear bomb.’

‘Another problem,’ Wicklow glanced at some senior police officers standing at the back of the room. ‘we've lost our grip on the docks area. With a lot of patrols suspended, the criminal element are going to have a field day!’

Suddenly the phone rang. Grisedale picked it up, his features turning ashen. ‘Oh, God!’ he muttered. ‘Yes … yes, I understand. Keep tracking 'em with radar and keep me posted on their progress. Don't risk any more men.’ He turned back to face the others. ‘Well, so much for our depth charges and submarines. The crabs have walked through the lot! Two submarines and crews are reported missing and the devils are proceeding up river. Travelling fast. They've ignored the power station, London Bridge is still intact so I suppose that's something to be grateful for. But they're in one helluva hurry as though they've got to reach their destination, wherever that is, in double quick time. It seems we've about run out of ideas!’

The dock areas were deserted, silent. Just a rustling of scurrying rats as they scavenged unhindered, the pitch darkness like a mantle that had fallen purposely to cloak the subversive nocturnal activities of the East End.

Then came the humans, flitting shapes in the blackness that moved soundlessly, four of them, climbing over barriers with the agility of jungle monkeys, sending the feeding vermin scuttling for safety. Along wharfs, skirting warehouses. Hurrying.

Triads, small and lithe, slitted eyes seeing where none but these trained Chinese killers could have seen, alert to every slight noise and recognising it instantly. They reached a flight of slime covered broken stone steps that went down to the river, descended in single file. Emotionless, not showing their relief at finding the small dinghy still moored there. They clambered aboard, checked that the small waterproofed package was still stowed beneath the engine, then the one in the hold cast off the mooring rope and they began to drift out into midstream.

Lo Chee permitted himself a faint smile of satisfaction. It had gone as planned, easy so far. The Si-kiang had been forced to abandon their cache of heroin when the crabs attacked but now it belonged to his own Triads. Unless … his squat features hardened and he ran back to the engine, his sudden movements causing the craft to rock. Feverishly he tore at the wrappings, lifted the lid of the wooden box that lay within. One momentary flash of his small torch was enough for him to recognise the contents. Flour!

The other three were kneeling beside him, their previously bland faces distorting into masks of rage. Low intakes of breath but no violent cursings. They had been tricked, they would have pulled the same ruse themselves given the opportunity. They accepted it as part of their way of life. Now all that was left to them was revenge.

Lo Chee ran to the helm, began to swing the boat in a wide circle that eventually had it heading back to the wharf. They scraped against those same steps, were leaping ashore leaving the craft unmoored. They had no more use for it; tying it up was nothing more than a waste of time and effort.

Flitting shadows again, fanning out, recognising each warehouse by its smell. It took them ten minutes to reach their destination, a dilapidated building that backed on to a narrow jetty. Against the reflection of the river they saw the outline of a rowing boat. This, indeed, was the place.

Lo Chee and his men did not waste time with reconnaissance for they knew they would not be expected. They found the door, eased through it, went in single file down the dank-smelling dark passage beyond. The rough floor sloped downwards and in the distance they could hear the Thames lapping gently, a timeless watercourse that was hindered by none.

Now it was lighter, the soft yellow glow of oil lamps that came from beyond a right-angled turn. They crept forward slowly, easing sharp bladed knives from beneath their close-fitting garments. Stopping to listen, hearing low voices, they proceeded.

They looked down into a wide loading bay, an oblong of river that cut beneath the wharf, some fifty yards long by twenty wide. There was a jetty on the nearside, a slim streamlined launch bobbing at its moorings. Lo Chee counted the men. Five, all dressed in overalls and rubber shoes, chattering in low voices as they loaded packages on to the boat. Chinese dockers, the nucleus of a Limehouse workforce, working with a zest because now they served the Si-kiang and their rewards would be rich.

There was no vengeful cry from Lo Chee's lips as he leaped the railings and flung himself upon the nearest man. His knife had plunged home before those below were aware of the attack, Triads dropping out of the shadows above, using the element of surprise to their full advantage. Three Si-kiang lay mortally wounded, the fourth was endeavouring to fight against overwhelming odds whilst the fifth leaped from the boat into the river.

Lo Chee smiled as he watched the fate of the one whom his men had overcome, the clothing being cut from the unfortunate man's body, knives going deeper than the material and tearing away strips of bloody flesh. Tight-lipped, not so much as a whimper, no pleading from the eyes because it would have been futile. Accepting his fate, not a flinch in his naked bleeding body as a knife went low and cut swiftly.

Then they let him go, stood watching as his pressed fingers tried to stem the spurting blood, saw him buckle to the floor, trying not to writhe as he died. The Triads jumped on board. There was no time to be lost; the surviving Si-kiang would already have swum to safety, even now clambering his way up on to some wharf, running to raise the alarm. They must leave this place with their cargo, for on the river, death and revenge were an accepted way of life. Tonight the Si-kiang were the losers, their whole shipment stolen because they had tried to plant a decoy. Tomorrow it could be a Triad defeat. This was the law of Limehouse docks.

Lo Chee had already started up the engine when something in the water attracted his attention. He stared, squinted through slitted eyes, could not check an exclamation of amazement. It was crazy, even on the river these sort of things did not happen. The Si-kiang who had escaped was coming back, swimming towards them, a bland expression on his yellow face, not hurrying!

And even as Lo Chee gaped in disbelief, the man was rising up out of the water. But from the torso downwards he had no body, only strings of torn sinews that dripped blood, being held upright by a huge claw that gripped and squeezed so that the remnants of his body squelched like a wet sponge, a trophy being hoisted up, the dead taunting the living!

Fear was unknown to these Triads. If they died, then it was something that had been ordained and in no way could fate be changed. Yet they did not accept the inevitable meekly. Lo Chee opened out the throttle, felt the craft begin to pick up speed. The bows rammed against that upraised claw with tremendous force, dislodging its grisly prize, sending it spinning into the air, spraying blood like a warm April shower.

The boat lurched, something scraped its underside, and then it began to lift, the engine roaring helplessly as the rudder came clear of the water. Triads fell and slid, grabbing at solid objects to save themselves. Lo Chee hung face downwards, saw the twinkling pairs of red eyes below the surface, the wall of giant crab shells which were pushing the launch upwards, claws hacking and sawing at the underside, ripping away the planks, disintegrating the boat.

Then the launch fell apart, Triads and debris spilling downwards. Lo Chee reacted instinctively, turning his fall into a dive, landing spreadeagled on top of the crab immediately below him. Picking himself up, running, leaping from one shell to the next. Almost making it to the safety rail on the end of the jetty …

A pincer seized him just as his fingers reached for the railings. He heard, and felt, his left leg go, but even then he wasn't giving up. One desperate leap and even as he clung above the snapping claws he lost his other leg, a wriggling bleeding Triad whose only motive now was revenge.

They were raking his bloody stumps but could not secure a hold and neither could he pull himself clear with his arms alone. He twisted round, made sure that he still had his knife, then flung himself downwards, powering a blow directly into the awful crustacean face below him.

His aim was true. A bone-jarring impact numbed his arm right up to his shoulder and the weapon spun from his fingers. And then they had him, pulling him down into the murky depths, swarming on him like killer sharks maddened by the scent of fresh blood.

The loading bay threshed as crabs fought each other for the last morsels, more of them spilling in from the open river, a writhing mass of monstrous beasts that piled on top of one another until finally they found their way out on to the jetty.

The feast was over and now they were orderly, soldier-like again, filing out of the water and beginning to explore the passages that led upwards into Limehouse and Stepney. It was the first time they had tasted blood for almost two days. Their appetite was whetted and now they were ravenous.

Chapter SEVEN

A crisis cabinet meeting was called in Downing Street at eight o'clock on the Wednesday evening. At ten o'clock the Prime Minister addressed the nation on television. He appeared calm, even permitted himself the occasional smile, for one of the essential qualities of any leading Minister was that of being a good actor. In his early days he had belonged to an amateur drama group and he was grateful for the experience.

‘As you are all aware,’ he glanced down, checking his notes, ‘this country has undergone a number of attacks from a species of giant crabs. We first became aware of the existence of these creatures a few years ago when they devastated parts of the Welsh coast. Now, within the past ten days, we are faced with the menace which they present again. However, they are only a form of sea life and as such their activities are limited. It is also believed that they have a disease which will wipe them out of existence in the next few weeks. Our greatest problem is that of containing them. Were our population not so heavily condensed it would be a simple matter to bomb them in the rivers and estuaries. If our scientists were not convinced that this cancer which the crabs have is fatal we would resort to paraquat poisoning which proved effective once before but could result in a heavy loss of underwater life. I beg of you to be patient. We are watching the situation closely and will do everything within our power to protect human life. We can track the progress of these crustaceans by radar and any habitations thought to be in immediate danger will be evacuated at once. But, I beseech you, don't panic. If your travel isn't imperative then remain at home. And keep clear of all rivers and coastal areas.’

Within half-an-hour of his broadcast, the Prime Minister received news of the fall of Limehouse and Stepney. And he knew then that the most important message of all he'd tried to get over had failed. Not just London, but the whole of Britain, was on the verge of panic. These terrible sea beasts would be the perpetrators of mob rule and anarchy, hysteria spreading to aid their carnage and destruction.

Sid Warrener leaned across and switched the television off, stared at the receding white dot until it had disappeared.

‘Don't fucking panic,’ he did a fairly good cockney mimic of the Prime Minister's voice. ‘Just sit where you bleedin' are until the crabs come. They'll be dead in a few weeks but in the meantime they're doin' a good job reducing the population explosion.’

‘What are we going to do, Sid?’ Diane Warrener pretended to knit furiously; she'd dropped a stitch but the cardigan intended for Kit, whom they hoped was asleep upstairs in his room, would probably never be finished anyway. She had to do something with her hands.

‘Well, we can't stop here, that's a certain bleedin' fact.’

‘We're a mile from the river.’

‘I don't care if we're ten bleedin' miles,’ his lean face portrayed all the stubbornness which had earned him the post of shop steward at the docks. ‘It ain't just the fuckin' crabs, it's every thin' they're doin' to the place. There ain't likely to be any work for weeks and, Christ, half the area's without power. The police are runnin' round in ever decreasing circles until they finally vanish up their own arses and that's when we get mob rule. Schools have closed down. ‘Stop at home,’ another mimic. ‘and you'll be all right. Too bad if you fuckin' aren't.’

Diane Warrener fell silent. At thirty-eight she was just beginning to feel that her life was slipping away from her. Lately she hadn't bothered with expensive hairdos and only put on make-up on special occasions. Sid didn't seem to notice, he was too wrapped up in his union work. But suddenly everything was taking second place to one primary factor - safety!

‘Where would we go?’ she laid her knitting down, despair in her voice. She didn't want to go anywhere; the East End was as good a place as any but if Sid said they were going somewhere then they would surely go. He was the boss.

‘Away from London,’ he was buttoning up his shirt. ‘The further the better. I'm going down to the phone box to give Alf a ring up in Warrington. He and Gert would put us up for a week or two.’

‘It's not fair really,’ Diane didn't like Sid's brother one little bit; nor Gert, they always pried into one's business with such obvious enthusiasm. ‘You can't expect people to put us up at a minute's notice.’

‘Alf and Gert won't mind,’ Sid Warrener was undeterred. He'd made his decision and that was that. ‘Start putting a few things in a suitcase, just essentials, not the kitchen sink. I'll pop out and phone.’

There were several people walking down the street as Sid let himself out of the garden gate. Probably turning out of the pubs, he thought, but they didn't usually hurry like that. They were walking fast, just a few muttered conversations as though they had a definite destination in mind.

Several minutes later Sid Warrener discovered where everybody had been heading. A queue, possibly twenty yards long, stretched back from the telephone kiosk on the junction of the next street. People shuffled impatiently and a woman was tapping on the glass door urging the youth inside to hurry up with his call.

‘For fuck's sake!’ Sid pulled up, was already turning to retrace his steps. It was all too obvious what was happening. Everybody had the same idea as himself. London, the East End anyway, was on the verge of a mass exodus.

‘Well?’ Diane appeared at the top of the stairs as he entered the hall, items of clothing folded over her arm.

‘I can't get through,’ he grunted. ‘Not unless I queue for about two hours at the call box and by that time the coin box will probably be jammed full.’

‘We won't be going then?’ sudden hope in her voice.

‘Of course, we will,’ he snapped. ‘Alf and Gert will understand. We'll just turn up, kip down in our sleeping bags in the hall if need be.’

‘But if all these people are fleeing from London we'll never get out. The streets and motorways will be at a standstill. We'd be better off staying here.’

‘At the mercy of the crabs and the gangs who will loot the houses and shops,’ he snarled. ‘No way, we're going to make a break for it whilst we can still get out. Hurry up and get those things packed and cut some sandwiches for us to eat on the way. Then we'll wake Kit and get started!’

Diane Warrener went back into the bedroom, closing the door behind her so that Sid wouldn't hear her crying. He wouldn't understand. He never did.

‘We should've avoided the Tunnel,’ Diane muttered. In front and behind them cars were at a standstill. An occasional horn blared but mostly the frustrated motorists realised the futility of their klaxon protests. Many had left their vehicles and walked on ahead in an attempt to ascertain the cause of the trouble.

‘It would be the same on any of the roads up above,’ Sid glanced behind him, saw the fair-haired boy asleep against the luggage on the back seat of the Allegro. ‘We should've left yesterday but it's too late to cry over spilt milk. We'll get there, though; it'll just take that much longer.’

‘What about petrol?’ Diane had noticed when they had started out that the tank was only half full, if it's like this all the way every garage will have been drained dry.’

‘Once we hit the North Circular we'll find some petrol,’ Sid hoped he sounded more optimistic than he felt.

The lighting in the Blackwall Tunnel had dimmed to a faint glow so that you could only just make out moving shapes, the outlines of the snarled up cars. That was because the power stations still intact were struggling to meet the extra drain on their resources.

Sid Warrener groaned inwardly, tried to work out exactly where they were. They hadn't got far, somewhere within a quarter of a mile of Blackwall Stairs. He was sweating, wished he hadn't put a jacket on but the pockets were handy. He just stared ahead of him, noted that there weren't so many people moving about now; they'd all got fed up and returned to their cars. And it didn't look like the traffic was going to move for hours. A sudden horrifying thought; suppose the East End had been closed off, police cordons stopping folks from getting through … because it suited the bloody government, not just for population reasons, but so that the panic was confined to one area; keeping the crabs in the Thames until they died from this disease. Give them plenty to feed on!

Sid almost panicked. If he had been on his own he would in all probability have abandoned the car and run back up the tunnel. But he had to stay calm for Diane and Kit's sake. Maybe it wasn't as bad as all that.

Suddenly the lights went out, from a dim glow to pitch blackness in one frightening second! People were screaming, mostly women.

‘Sid,’ Diane's voice was a frightened whisper. ‘whatever are we going to do?’

‘We'll sit tight,’ he muttered. ‘perhaps the lights will come back on in a second.’ But he knew it was a forlorn hope. The power wouldn't be coming back on until things returned to normal and that might not be for several weeks. Another power station had fallen to the crabs.

It was stifling hot even with all the car windows open. Suffocating. Diane was right, they shouldn't have taken the Tunnel route, but he would never admit that to anybody except himself.

Kit stirred in the back, sat up. ‘Where are we, Mum?’

‘We're stuck in a traffic jam, love. You just go back to sleep and when you wake up we'll all be well on the way to Uncle Alf's.’

‘But I can't sleep, Mum. It's too hot.’

‘Well, just sit quiet then. Nobody's going anywhere at the moment.’

And then the tunnel was lit up by blinding glaring light. Several of the drivers had switched on their headlights. Engines were being started up so that batteries would not be run down. Sid coughed as he inhaled a whiff of exhaust fumes and began to wind his window up. One way or another they looked like being asphyxiated!

‘Silly bleeders,’ he muttered, ‘If only they'd switch off. There's nothing to see, anyway.’

A faint sound, more of a vibration that was hardly audible at first, or if one did become aware of it, then it was attributed to the rattle of noisy engines; a persistent noise that eventually you noticed because it got on your nerves.

Click-click-clickety-click!

‘What's that?’ Diane turned her head, tried to see out of the back window, but the lights of a Transit van immediately behind dazzled her.

‘Dunno,’ Sid gripped the wheel with clammy hands. ‘Sounds like a pneumatic drill to me. Perhaps it's roadworks that're causing the delay.’ It was a laughable excuse designed mainly to try and allay Kit's fears. The boy was sitting bolt upright, clutching the back of the driving seat.

‘Dad,’ he spoke hoarsely. ‘it's just like … like the noise those crabs on the telly made, the ones on the early evening news!’

Diane Warrener stiffened, knew instantly that her son spoke the truth. The noise was getting louder now, a scraping and clicking as though the giant creatures were dragging themselves along a tarmac surface; echoing, magnifying. They were coming down the Blackwall Tunnel!

Terrified screams came from the vehicles further back. Running feet, people weaving in and out of the lines of obstructing vehicles, some youths running over the roofs.

‘Sid,’ Diane clutched at her husband. ‘We've got to run for it!’

This time he did not argue. They scrambled out, dragging a bemused Kit with them. Everybody else seemed to have gone, just the three of them left in an empty tomb littered with vehicles, a few headlights still lighting up the scene, casting weird shadows.

Suddenly Kit yelled out and fell to the ground. He groaned, tried to get up.

‘What's the matter, Kit?’ Diane flung herself down beside him, felt at him in the darkness and he screamed in pain.

‘My leg … oh, Mum, it's my leg!.’

‘Let me see,’ Sid Warrener pushed his wife out of the way, shone the torch which he had brought from the car and saw Kit's deathly-white face, the way his leg stuck out at an unnatural angle.‘I think … He's broken his leg!’

‘No!’ Diane screamed. ‘He can't have. It's impossible!’

‘He caught it on the bumper of that van and fell awkwardly,’ Sid slid his hands as gently as he could under the boy's armpits, heard him sucking his breath in, biting on his lower lip. ‘I'll have to carry him. Relax, Kit, don't think about anything.’

Warrener struggled to his feet, cradling his son in his arms, paused a moment and was briefly reminded of the hernia which he was hospital-listed for. In all probability it was an operation that would never be carried out. ‘Now, take the torch, Di; go in front down the sides of the cars and keep the beam on the ground so I can see where I'm going.’

Diane Warrener did as she was ordered, the beam wavering because her hand shook; she didn't know how much longer her legs would hold out, they felt ready to buckle under at any second. But she had to force herself to go on, and keep going because their lives depended upon it. Oh God, why were just they left here? Surely not everybody could have fled!

The tunnel echoed with metallic screeches, bangs, as though cars were being dragged along and thrown against the walls. A loud rumbling and crashing as though an avalanche of vehicles was spilling and gathering force, sweeping up everything in its path, piling up, being flattened to sheet metal as the advancing crab army walked over it. An incessant clicking like distant machine gun fire but growing louder. And louder!

Diane was breathless, her legs bleeding beneath her tattered cords where she had scratched herself on strips of jagged protruding metal on some of the old cars which had joined the East End retreat. She was having to force the air down into her lungs, each step an effort. It was a long time since she had walked further than the distance between their house and the shops three streets away. Sid was grunting with exertion, not talking. Occasionally Kit groaned loudly. All three of them were dead beat. And all the time the noise behind them was getting louder; the tearing metal was the worst, a phobia of hers ever since she had first run her fingernails down the side of a parked bus on her way home from infant school.

She stopped, swung her torch back on the two behind her, its power now starting to fade, more like candlelight which created its own illusions, flickering shapes in the shadows, monsters that might have been a figment of the imagination.

But these were not! Lumbering shapes bigger than some of the cars, cutting their own path through the jammed vehicles, smashing them, throwing them angrily to one side. Marching on relentlessly.

Diane managed a scream. Sid tried to run, lurched and almost dropped his burden. The crabs had seen them, possibly having known all along that three humans were left behind after the others had fled, clicking and hissing as they gained upon their prey, crustacean hounds from hell closing in for the kill. Eyes burned with hatred and lust, ready to fight each other for a tasty morsel of fresh human meat!

‘We'll never make it,’ Diane sobbed, resisted the temptation to hang on to Sid's arm. ‘Oh, Sid, whatever are we doing to do?’ If only they could save Kit the crabs could have her and Sid, if only it were possible to make some sort of deal with the devils!

‘Can't go … much further,’ Sid Warrener had reached the limit of his endurance. He looked back; the crabs were struggling to get past a large van which was sideways on across the road, the driver probably having failed in his attempts to make a three-point turn and go back the way he had come. The crustaceans were pushing, rocking the vehicle. Any second it would topple over.

‘Listen,’ Sid grunted, saw that they were temporarily screened from their pursuers' view by some cars on a bend. ‘we can't go any further. We'll have to hide Kit!’

‘Where?’ Panic, the maternal instinct strongest now. ‘There's nowhere …’

‘Yes there is,’ Sid Warrener inclined his head towards a big yellow van with its tailboard dropped down. Diane shone the fading torch and saw stacks of crates and parcels inside, a spilled untidy load. ‘Give me a hand … it's our only chance.’

‘Couldn't we … couldn't we all hide in there?’, she somehow managed to support Kit's weight, knew by the way his head lolled that he was unconscious.

‘No,’ using up the last of his failing strength, hoisting the boy on board, climbing up and dragging him into an alcove of cartons, They've seen us. If we don't lead 'em on a bit further they'll come back … find Kit as well then.’

Diane couldn't hold back her sobs. ‘My boy's in there … all alone … I'll never see him again!’

‘Come on,’ Sid jumped down and began pulling her along behind him just as the big van keeled over twenty yards or so away, crushing cars, splinters of glass flying in all directions. The crabs had broken through, were on their trail once more. Run, but we'll get you in the end!

The torch was almost useless by now. They bumped into cars, scrambled and slithered over them when they couldn't find a way through but the giant crustaceans were bulldozing their own path even quicker. The fugitives dared not look back. Both prayed that the end would come quickly, that their hearts might give out. Then the crabs could feast and neither of them would know anything about it.

Suddenly the Warreners smelled smoke! Acrid lung-searing fumes that came at them out of the blackness. They coughed, retched, eyes smarted so that all they could do was to blunder blindly on, crashing into vehicles, groping their way forward. Despair, utter hopelessness. They didn't care anymore now, just prayed that Kit would be all right, that they'd fooled the crabs.

A few yards further on they felt the heat, hot air that blasted and dried their sweating bodies, forced their eyes open so that they had to shield them from the dancing yellow dazzling light. Flames filled the width of the Blackwall Tunnel, licking and blackening the roof. Advancing.

A loud explosion, burning debris hurtling through the air. Diane screamed, tried to smother her smoulding clothing. Sid threw himself across her in an attempt to shield her. More explosions, deafening reports from every direction.

‘The bastards!’ Sid Warrener pulled Diane close to him. ‘The fuckers have set fire to the tunnel. They've saved themselves and fuck anybody else who happens to be down here as long as it keeps the crabs at bay!’

Diane was incapable of speech, her lips moving but no sound coming from them. Petrol tanks were bursting everywhere, hurling the fire further and further, leaping flames that spared no detail to the watchers. She saw the crabs, the way they panicked and fought one another in their clumsy attempts to turn around in the confined space. The flames were jumping, leaping the traffic, each fuel tank its own bomb, one detonating another.

Diane Warrener was on her knees shaking her prostrate husband, pummelling him with her fists, cursing him, knowing he was dead and hating him for it. My boy's dying back there just as I'm dying and you're dead. All your fault because you brought us here, forced us to go with you when we wanted to stay. Oh, how I hate you. I'm going to leave you, I'm going to die with my boy!

Somehow she managed to get to her feet, staggering towards the fighting fleeing crabs, seeing them but not caring. They were going to die, too. Pulling herself along the cars, explosions all around.

Something struck her in the face, a flying piece of jagged hot steel that tore her mouth right up through the cheek, cauterising the bloody disfigurement into a crazed laugh that spouted crimson blood. Hating the monstrous things that milled and clicked in a crustacean mountain up to the roof, staggering at them, kicking and punching. Unnoticed, the flea on the elephant's hide breaking its teeth in its efforts to bite. Slumping down, seeing the huge shells starting to slide, a living avalanche that gathered force and then crushed her into oblivion.

Kit Warrener slowly regained consciousness, but it was some seconds before fear stabbed like sharp needles at his heart. The pain in his leg was forgotten. He shouted into the darkness, a croak that embodied the abandonment he felt. Crying, wanting his parents, aware that they had deserted him but not knowing why.

Movement was both painful and difficult. He dragged himself along through gaps between the stacked crates and parcels, crying softly. In the distance he could hear the clicking of the receding crabs.

Suddenly he was falling, grabbing at the tailboard and missing it, hitting the tarmac with a force that shook his body, anticipated excruciating agony from his injured leg but there was nothing but numbness, the same as when he sat on it whilst watching television. Maybe he'd been lying on it in the van, in which case it was going to hurt like hell in a few moments when the circulation started to flow again. But it didn't. He couldn't stand on it or use it in any way but he could drag it behind him.

Crawling; slowly because he was weak, praying that he was going in the right direction. His progress was slow, stopping every few yards to feel the blackness in front of him, once gashing his face against a sharp piece of metal and feeling the warm stickiness of blood on his lips.

He wasn't going home again, he made his mind up on that. His parents had seized an opportunity to get rid of him, dumped him in the van because they didn't want him anymore. Well, he wasn't going to look for them and plead with them. He'd find help, get this leg fixed and after that he'd make out somehow. East Enders were tough.

He couldn't hear the crabs at all now. They could be a mile or more away under the river and they wouldn't be coming back. Time was on his side. He wondered what time it was, didn't even know whether it was night or day outside the tunnel. He tried to work out how far it was to the exit but gave it up.

It was the smell which made him stop and try to peer into the Stygian blackness. Nauseating, a vileness which you tasted and had you heaving, like meat that was going bad only worse. Then he heard a movement, a scraping sound, a wheezing of laboured breath that came out in a bubbling hiss.

Click! Like a pistol being cocked. Menacing!

He tensed, stared until two tiny red eyes materialised out of the dark as though they had been closed in sleep and had just flickered into wakefulness. Seeing him, threatening him.

Understanding came in a slow build-up of terror, the paralysis in his broken leg seeming to spread right up into his body. He couldn't see more than that pair of glowing orbs but he visualised the rest, the antennae, the claws starting to reach out for him, tensed in awful anticipation, his brain screaming because his vocal chords were powerless.

Something hard and sharp gouged its way up the inside of his legs. He tried to draw away but couldn't. A snip, his mother's heavy kitchen scissors cutting bacon rind, sudden pain that had him bending forward and vomiting; a grip around his throat, biting deep and checking the flood of vomit so that he gurgled and gasped for breath. Choking. But death came quick as the powerful claws met and something heavy fell to the ground with a sickening thud, rolling against a punctured tyre.

The crab smelled blood but it did not feast. Those eyes burned and then died to a dull glow, almost closed again. The headless body rested against it but it made no move to dislodge it. The claws dropped, weak and tired. Then it got its own scent again and experienced an unknown fear. The others had gone on and left it, the weak discarded by the strong, the law of the oceans. It had only the thing which was eating its inside away for company.

It moved away a few yards, back the way it had come, then had to rest again, body heaving with the exertion beneath the huge shell. It settled again, waited, knew that it would not make it back to the water.

Some time later it smelled the smoke and heard the explosions but it made no attempt to move. It had accepted the fact that it was going to die; the manner in which death came was of no consequence.

Chapter EIGHT

Shell Island, more of a peninsular than an island except at high tide when the causeway to the mainland at Llanbedr is cut off. An idyllic summer setting, even the array of multicoloured tents failing to spoil the wild natural beauty, a mecca for bathers, sailing enthusiasts and campers.

The memory of that fateful, bloody summer had not deterred the influx of tourists. A new sighting of giant crabs had brought them in their hundreds the following weekend, queues of vehicles that stretched from Harlech and Barmouth, ignoring all warnings to keep clear of coastal areas. The police had considered setting up road blocks but it was too late now, the crowds had moved in. It was always the same.

Larry Wentnor and Jill Macklin had only come to the island for the day. Larry was 33, tall and well-built, his skin burned a deep bronze from countless hours spent out of doors on forestry work. Jill was small and light-skinned with a crop of dark hair that fell somewhat untidily around her shoulders. She glanced nervously about her as they crawled in the line of traffic that seemed to move about a yard every five minutes on the last stretch from Tal-y-Bont; afraid she might recognise a familiar face or, to be more precise, that somebody might recognise her. Her misgivings about this day were mounting fast. She'd been seeing Larry for some time now, nothing serious, just a sort of deep friendship. He'd taken to calling round at her council house during his lunch break (which lately had been stretching from midday until about three in the afternoon), and slowly she had found herself getting involved although she refused to admit it - any woman whose husband was away for three or four days at a time needed male company. Nothing serious, she wouldn't let it get that way. But it was becoming so that her heart missed a beat every time she saw Larry. And two-year-old Melvin was not yet capable of telling tales to his father. It crossed her mind that in a couple of years or so her son might present a problem but a lot of things could happen between now and then. But she didn't want to think about that, she couldn't bear the thought of Larry not coming round anymore.

Then last Friday he'd asked her if she'd like a trip to the coast. Her heart had flipped a somersault at the thought. Why not? Mrs Johnson down the road would have Melvin for the day and nobody would be any the wiser. There was no real harm in a day out with Larry, it was only how people's minds worked. But nobody would know. At least she hoped not. And that was what was worrying her now.

The traffic was mostly turning right at a sign that said Mochras. Jill glanced back again. The Wilson family in the village had a blue Maxi; the one three cars back looked just like theirs. She squinted but couldn't make out the registration number. It probably wasn't the Wilsons, anyway. All the same it left a little nagging doubt in her mind. Just suppose it was them.

‘Never thought it'd be as bad as this,’ Larry grunted and glanced across at a barbed wire compound. A small red jet plane was just taking off, making enough noise to drown his words. ‘… these crabs, that's what everybody's come to see.’

‘You don't really think we'll see any, do you?’ there was alarm in Jill Macklin's voice.

‘No chance,’ her companion dropped a reassuring hand on to her knee and let it remain there, the first physical approach he'd made to her. ‘They probably won't see another crab on this coastline again.’

‘It said on the news that the docklands of East London have been cordoned off. The crabs have wrecked two power stations and people are fleeing. There's looting and fires and …’

‘Don't worry,’ he squeezed her thigh and was rewarded by a limp smile. ‘London's miles from here. That's where all the crabs are.’

‘But they did warn us to keep away from coastal areas.’

‘Because it suited them. They'd ruin the nation's annual holiday just to make everything nice and easy for themselves. You let me do the worrying.’ He rubbed his fingers along her thigh and thought about a lot of things that might happen that had nothing whatever to do with giant crabs. Damn it, he ought to have taken her somewhere else, somewhere nice and secluded where there were no crowds. But it was too late now. Anyway, there were plenty of nice quiet places in the dunes along the south shore, a haven for courting couples.

It was after three o'clock when they finally got on to the island, turning left and following the cars heading for the south end.

‘I told Mrs Johnson I wouldn't be late back,’ Jill glanced anxiously at her watch, ‘It's taken us three hours to come.’

‘We'll get back a lot quicker against the flow of traffic,’ Larry Wentnor didn't give a damn what time they got back. ‘As I said, you leave all the worrying to me.’

He pulled the car on to the grass, edging into an open space in the line of parked vehicles. Crowds of people had gathered, many of them carrying binoculars. Stupid buggers, tell them there was a killer shark in the Cardigan Bay and they'd lie for hours watching for it.

They ate their sandwiches and he pulled off his T-shirt revealing a hairy dark torso. ‘You've brought your swimsuit, haven't you?’ He hoped that it was a bikini.

‘Yes,’ she blushed in the way that had excited him ever since he'd first met her. ‘But … it wouldn't be wise to go in the sea, would it?’

‘Suppose we play it nice and safe and sunbathe in the dunes?’ he smiled.

She nodded and he leaned across and opened the door for her. ‘Let's make the most of the afternoon then.’

They walked a hundred yards through the softy powdery sand and coarse tall grass before they found the secluded hollow they were seeking, just room enough for two people, and judging by the pair of snogging teenagers they just passed there was only one reason why folks came here.

They sat down and he slid an arm around her shoulders, glad that she didn't go all tense or try to pull away. She'd have to be played carefully, she wasn't the free and easy type.

Jill Macklin's pulse rate was speeding up. Her conscience was starting to object, too. She told herself all along that this would be nothing more than a trip to the sea, that Larry was just a friend. Even if he did excite her. No way would she take him as a lover. She'd never been with any other man except Geoff and even he'd had to wait until they were engaged before she let him do anything.

Larry's face was close to hers now. He whispered something but she didn't catch what it was. Then suddenly his lips were brushing hers and she found herself responding spontaneously. He pressed her back into the sand, kissing her furiously, his tongue forcing its way into her mouth. Her arms went up around his head, pulled him close, her body instinctively pushing up at his.

Jill closed her eyes; a kind of dizziness engulfed her, so wonderfully pleasant. A distant fleeting memory: her first date with Geoff, when he'd taken her into the recreation park and they'd sat on a bench in the sunshine and eventually, he'd plucked up the courage to kiss her. But he'd never kissed her like this, not in the whole time they'd been married! She wanted to forget about Geoff.

‘I thought you were going to put your swimsuit on,’ Larry drew back smiling.

‘Well …’ she coloured again. ‘Perhaps if I could find somewhere to change …’

‘You won't find anywhere more private than here,’ he said. ‘and I'm going to put my bathing trunks on, too.’

Now she was blushing a deep scarlet. Convention cried out to her not to do it; something far stronger yelled at her to go ahead. And Larry was already starting to unfasten his jeans.

Her fingers trembled with zips and fasteners; she was nervous but nothing was going to deter her now. She wanted to rip off every garment, lie naked before this strong handsome young man, let him have his way with her. She was bared to the waist. Larry's clothes were all off and she couldn't drag her eyes away from that pulsing length of flesh. He wanted a lot more than just sunbathing. Her guilt was getting weaker. Nobody would ever know, Geoff would never guess. She thrilled at the idea, the deceit.

She eased her skirt and pants off then lay back, eyes closed, could almost feel his eyes burning the insides of her thighs. And then he was pressing down on her again, his tongue flicking at her neck, making its own damp path down to her breasts, teasing her nipples until they stood out firm and pink. Going on still lower, her thighs opening wider and wider. The moment she felt his touch she was writhing, convulsing, gasping aloud. Not even Geoff had ever kissed her there!

She wouldn't have had it any other way, his hot kisses throughout, the orgasms which threw them from side to side until finally they were lying in a gentle embrace from which she never wanted to extricate herself. Not even for Mrs Johnson, or Melvin, or Geoff!

She stirred, seemed to have dozed, maybe even fallen asleep. Larry's eyes were closed, his arm still around her. Staring up at the cloudless blue sky above she saw that the sun had slipped right down into the west, but the atmosphere was still balmy. With some difficulty she extricated her left arm and held it so that she could see her watch. Half-past seven, they had slept!

‘Larry,’ she shook him. ‘We've been here hours, it's …’

His eyes opened immediately; he looked wide awake as though he had only been resting. ‘There's no hurry.’

‘But there is. Mrs Johnson will be worrying, I told her I wouldn't be late … that I'd only gone to Birmingham on the train to see my sister.’

‘And you could be back any time up to midnight,’ he laughed. ‘Trains are not noted for their punctuality. Melvin'll be fine. Besides, we can't rush a wonderful day like today, can we?’ His fingers slid on to her thighs, began to slide deliciously up the insides again.

Jill Macklin couldn't help it, couldn't stop the way her body shuddered and began to make itself ready for love again. Larry was kissing her, taking his time as he rolled over on top of her. There wasn't any hurry, he was going to make sure of that. He was going to make it last, savour every second.

Time stood still for Jill Macklin, a wonderful dark galaxy where she floated and drifted. Just herself and Larry. She didn't care about anything else.

Gradually reality filtered back into her. Stars shone in a summer night sky overhead, but this was no dream world of love. It was Shell Island and it was getting very late.

‘We'll have to go, now!’ she sat up, fumbled for her crumpled clothing. ‘Oh, God, it's quarter to ten!’

‘Don't panic,’ reluctantly he began to pull his jeans back on. ‘I'll still have you home before midnight.’

‘What's that?’ she froze in the act of putting on her bra.

‘What?’

‘That noise.’

‘I can't hear anything.’

They both listened. The faint soughing of a breeze that had just got up off the sea, indistinguishable voices from the campsite. Something else, a fast ticking like a busy woodpecker boring into a particularly stubborn tree trunk. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. Speeding up, faster and faster. But there were no trees nearby and, anyway, woodpeckers didn't feed at night.

‘Whatever can it be?’ Larry was both curious and uneasy. He stood up, followed a narrow well-worn path out to where the dunes overlooked the sea, Jill clinging to his arm.

‘Christ Alive!’

They both saw them at the same time, two lines of crawling dark shapes coming out of the tide on to the narrow strip of beach, closing their ranks to make a ‘V’ formation. Shambling ungainly things moving at a fast pace heading directly for the island.

‘Run!’ Larry turned and was pulling Jill with him. ‘We've got to get away from here.’

She was breathless by the time they cleared the dunes on to the expanse of grass higher up. The undulating land ended in a large hollow below them, scattered tents of all shapes and sizes, the soft glow of gaslight coming from some of them.

‘We've got to … to warn those people,’ she gasped.

‘No time,’ he broke into a run. ‘They'll hear 'em before they get here.’

‘No, Larry,’ she tugged at him, tried to stop him but found herself being dragged along in his wake. She mustered up one scream, gave it everything she'd got. ‘The crabs are here!’

Her piercing yell hung in the still atmosphere, an island echo that the sea flung back as though itself eager to warn of the horrors which had been unleashed from the deep. Crabs … crabs are here … here … here …

Canvas flaps were flung wide, the occupants of tents bursting out into the open. Various night attire, some fully dressed, others naked straight from their sleeping bags. Panicking, looking about them. Children clung to their parents, everybody bemused, unwilling to believe. It was impossible. Then they heard them, the rapid crustacean advance on the dunes only a couple of hundred yards away.

‘Hurry,’ Larry was running at full speed, seeing his battered J-registered white MGB on the skyline, a solitary reminder that day trippers came here as well as resident campers. The former had left, disillusioned crab-hunters gone in search of other sensationalism. ‘Got to get on the causeway before these campers otherwise there's going to be one fuck of a jam!’

Larry flung himself in behind the wheel, gunned the engine as Jill slid in beside him, and was swinging out on to the narrow road even as the first pair of headlights from behind cut through the darkness.

The road dipped, cut away in a sharp bend and came back on itself. The MGB's tyres squealed their protest but held the surface. A stream of cars behind, a couple of long wheel base Safari Land Rovers bumping their ungainly way across the rough ground as their drivers sought a short cut. Even so, Larry was first at the exit point, seeing the toilets on his right, the campers' shop on his left. Hurtling down into a stomach-churning dip, surging up again, narrowly missing a nearside gatepost.

They'd beaten the crowd, were leading the race to safety. They'd make it OK now. The shout of relief and exultation that was forming on his lips died away in a sharp intake of breath as he stood on the brakes. The car slewed right across the narrow track, jolted and almost overturned as the rear wheel hit a larger boulder and buckled. A loud bang - the tyre had burst.

Jill couldn't hold back her scream of fear. Dark deep water covered the causeway in front of them. It was high tide and their escape route was blocked!

Larry climbed out, pulled her after him. She was trembling, barely capable of speech. ‘Can't we … wade it?’ Desperation, even the thought of splashing their way through that forbidding expanse of water was preferable to being caught by the crabs.

‘No chance,’ he muttered, ‘I doubt if you could even swim it. There's warning of dangerous currents, and anyway, we don't know that this stretch isn't full of crabs as well!’

She shuddered. Other vehicles were pulling up, their headlights illuminating the scene, drivers and passengers getting out and huddling in a group, everybody seeing and understanding; knowing that they were trapped on the island!

Listening. The clicking of the advancing crustaceans growing in volume. Nearer, seeming to know that their prey was concentrated in one small area!

Suddenly there was blinding white light, a large barbed wire compound seeming to leap out of the darkness, squat concrete buildings growing like instant mushrooms. A vibrating roar that drowned the noise of the attackers, small aircraft taking off one after the other, flashing red lights marking their progress as they climbed, circled, came back. The Department's top security base had been primed in readiness for such a moment, efficiency that left one breathless. The moment for action had arrived!

The crabs had demolished the campsite in one sweeping shambling run, canvas tents flattened and ripped to shreds. The crustaceans did not pause, they had the scent of humans, knew where they would find them.

The creatures were on the top road directly above the old farmhouse and shop when the first plane levelled out and opened fire. An Aden cannon again and a direct hit, an ear-shattering report like a maroon. The crabs checked.

More planes came like angry attacking hornets, a stream of fire that split the night sky as though an electric storm raged, dust clouds obscuring the island. The pilots circled, waited.

Then out of the dust and sand came the crabs, unharmed and infuriated, scuttling forward in search of revenge!

The buildings were first to fall, one total unbelievable act of devastation, a feat that a dozen demolition bulldozers could not have accomplished in the time. Walls caved inwards, collapsing with a thunderous roar, rubble spewing outwards and the crabs walking on over it.

A cowering group down by the water's edge. Larry pulled Jill Macklin to him, felt her shaking sobs and wished that there was something he could have done for both of them. Already a few people had tried to swim across to the Llanbedr side. They hadn't made it. A few screams and that was all; it was too dark to see what was happening out there but it was certain that more crabs lurked beneath the high tide.

Now the crabs were coming down the slope, their speed reduced to a clicking crawl. They knew there was no escape for the humans; there was no need to hurry!

And then, suddenly, like giant hummingbirds the helicopters came, ungainly hovering shapes with lowered rope ladders. Three of them, the crowd below fighting for the dancing rungs, some falling or being pulled back. The crabs saw what was happening and burst forward lest their intended victims should be snatched from their claws.

Somehow Larry got Jill up, yelled to her to start climbing. Hands were pulling at him, dragging him down, feet treading him into the ground. He yelled, fought; everybody was fighting.

The choppers pulled off; maybe a dozen lives had been saved. There would be no return rescue bid because already the crustaceans were moving in, venting their fury on those left behind because they had been deprived of some of their prey.

A massacre terrible to behold, clusters of bodies being crushed and pulled apart, a few fleeing blindly into the water only to meet the same fate. The small planes came back but this time they held their fire; possibly it would have been more merciful to blast those unfortunates who still lived into oblivion. But they didn't.

The crabs were turning, more joining them out of the flooded causeway, their destination only too obvious - the War Department's security base. Flame stabbed from ground level and from the air, a battery of artillery catching the monsters between two fires. Fragments of chipped shell whined and smashed against the concrete buildings, barbed wire twanged and snaked. Men were running, firing. Retreating.

Suddenly the helicopters were back. More covering fire, not that it was in any way a deterrent to the invaders. The evacuation of Shell Island was under way, more orderly than the civilian one, helicopters speeding across to the mainland, returning.

The compound and its buildings were razed to the ground, Aden cannons still blazing down on the crabs but the air fire was merely a protest. Its futility was already beyond doubt.

The crabs bunched, halted as though surveying their handiwork, the annihilation of Shell Island something which their forerunners had never achieved because they hadn't been so strong, so plentiful, so well organised. Now an old score was settled, the campsite, the military defence destroyed. Gloating in the acrid smoke and drifting dust clouds, the hate seeming to steam off their scored shells, but underneath, the repulsive bodies were unscathed except for the spreading festering growths which ate them away.

Only for a few moments did they allow themselves to bask in their bloody victory, for time was not on their side. There was not just hate in their contorted faces, but something much stronger, a force that drove them to the limits of desperation - pain!

They moved away awkwardly, back down across the wrecked campsite, ribbons of torn canvas catching up in their claws and trailing with them on a relentless forced march. Up the dunes, sinking in the soft sand, down the other side and along the shingle.

Above them the planes circled, marking their progress, watching and waiting. The crabs hit the tide, walked into it until it swallowed them up, only the radar following their route; not seawards, but on a parallel course to the Welsh coast, heading south.

There was something uncannily precise about their direction, as though the ghosts of their predecessors were urging them on one last mission of vengeance. Shell Island was gone, but nine miles down the rocky coastline Barmouth stood waiting. The residents had not forgotten and, it seemed, neither had the monstrous crustaceans!

Chapter NINE

‘It's incredible!’ Professor Cliff Davenport shook his head. For the past three nights he had known only snatches of sleep in between the reports of crab sightings and attacks. ‘They've destroyed Shell and are reported to be heading for Barmouth as though they've come back from the deep to exact a terrible revenge.’

‘We're going to use paraquat again,’ Grisedale glanced at the others in the room as though defying them to challenge his decision. ‘We've no choice. Lives and property are at stake.’

There was a murmur of assent.

‘Unfortunately,’ Grisedale went on, ‘we can only hope to destroy those in the Cardigan Bay. We cannot use paraquat in a densely populated area such as the Thames. We may, however, resort to it in the Bristol Channel.’

‘One point,’ Chief Superintendent Wicklow rose to his feet, ‘we have a number of problems in the East End. At the moment everybody's first thought is to get out, for which one can hardly blame them. Consequently it has been necessary to cordon off that part of London which has invoked considerable criticism from the Press. The Blackwall Tunnel incident was the flashpoint, everybody trying to flee at once and causing a snarl up that would take a week to sort out. Then the crabs got in the tunnel. The fire was presumably started deliberately by someone in an attempt to keep the creatures back and as a result we had a raging inferno in the Tunnel. Certain left-wingers are claiming in the House that it was done by the authorities with total disregard for life or property. Nobody in their right mind would take such an accusation seriously but it has sparked off rioting and looting which we can well do without at this time. My men are stretched beyond their limits and the criminal element is enjoying an unprecedented field day. The Triads and Si-Kiang are openly warring over secret drug caches and by the time things get back to normal we shall have an uncontrollable situation on our hands.’ He refrained from adding if things get back to normal!

‘Our priority as a peacekeeping force,’ he cleared his throat, ‘is to go in there and try to stamp this out. We don't have the men to spare for crab patrols. This is something which must be left to the armed forces.’

Grisedale nodded his agreement, he couldn't do otherwise. Radar tracking and sighting reports were proving erratic, the red-headed drawing pins in the wall map scattered, but going inland all the time. Two dead crabs had been found at Richmond, some more going upriver at Henley. And he couldn't forget the one that had penetrated the heart of England.

‘There is only one explanation,’ Cliff Davenport licked his lips, knew how Darwin must have felt the first time he put forward his theory on evolution. ‘We know that the crabs are dying, leaving dead ones in their wake. We also accept that they are determined to wreak their vengeance on Man in the time that is left to them. The most mysterious factor of all, though, is their determination to trek inland. As I have already stated, they have somehow overcome their physical need for saltwater and are able to survive in inland rivers and waterways for considerable periods of time. But why go inland when they have thousands of square miles of ocean to live in? There can be only one explanation, gentlemen. Doubtless you have all heard of the mythical elephants' burial ground in Africa, a place which explorers and white hunters once searched for in vain. I believe that this is what is happening to the giant crabs - they are heading for a last resting place as far from the sea as possible!’

Gasps of incredulity greeted Davenport's words. Wicklow could not disguise his expression of disbelief. Heads were shaken, lips pursed, but none voiced their inner thoughts. The Professor had earned their respect over the years; if he had suddenly gone off at a tangent then it was only to be expected - they were all under terrible strain.

‘What are your plans, Clifford?’ Grisedale turned to the man at his side.

‘I'm going back to the Welsh coast,’ Cliff had a determined glint in his dyes, his lips a firm line, ‘I think that that's where I'll be needed most and, anyway, I've a score to settle with these devils. We defeated them there before and I'd like to be in at the kill again. Wicklow can go clean up his East End, there's enough soldiers and RAF to keep tabs on those going up the Thames and the Severn. But there's going to be one helluva battle when the crabs come ashore at Barmouth!’

The north-east coast of Britain was enjoying its record holiday season. The hoteliers gave credit to the scorching weather and the climax of improved facilities over the years which had enabled them to compete with southern resorts. Few mentioned the crabs which had ravaged the south and west coasts even if one lot had attacked as far north as the Wash. But the crustaceans were unlikely to come further north than Skegness. From Mablethorpe up as far as Filey one would be in no danger. Of course, the gruesome sightseers would head south, but they were in a minority whilst the crabs drove everyone else north!

Fishing had dominated the Clifford family's life for many years. For Reg it wasn't just a pastime, something he did at weekends whilst Hilda caught up with her housework. Wet or fine, Saturdays and Sundays were spent on the river or canal bank to the exclusion of everything else. In the early days of their marriage, the plump auburn-haired Hilda had complained bitterly about being left alone with young Samuel but it hadn't made any difference; Reg had gone off with his rods just the same. Once they had tried eating pike, found the flesh tough and bitter, but Reg had insisted that it was an ‘acquired taste’ and eventually they would come to regard it as a delicacy. One day he would bring home another.

Gradually (it was a slow process), Reg converted Hilda to the devoted ways of the weekend fisherman. She got round to accompanying him on his trips, taking along a book to read and sheltering under the large green umbrella when it rained. Sam was a problem at first, fell in the river on his second outing and had to be taken home (by Hilda) for a complete change of clothes. But it did not deter the six-year-old boy and on the following Sunday Reg cut a willow stick, tied a length of string and a bent pin on the end and thereafter Sam Clifford followed in his father's footsteps. Luck was on the side of the youngster and he caught a small perch. Success whetted his appetite, the perch was not returned to the water but taken home and cooked somewhat reluctantly by Hilda. And from that day onwards she accepted defeat - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

Their annual holiday was booked with fishing a priority. Sea fishing was the cream of the sport, Reg insisted repeatedly. And, he explained to Hilda the first time they went to Barmouth, if you didn't actually fish then at least you could enjoy the pleasure of several hours spent at sea in a small boat. Unfortunately that week the sea had been choppy; Hilda and Sam had been violently sick over the side but Reg was undeterred. One had to accept the rough with the smooth. Nevertheless, after that first experience Hilda elected to remain on the harbourside. Enough was enough.

The last week of July saw the start of the industrial holidays in the Midlands. Reg had been sorting out his tackle since the middle of June, anticipating with relish an idyllic fortnight. The long-range weather forecasters predicted a continuation of the heatwave which had started in May, and things were looking good. Until the giant crabs attacked Shell Island.

Even Reg Clifford had his doubts about the wisdom of fishing offshore in the Cardigan Bay. Not so much the danger, he told Hilda and Sam when he returned home from the foundry one evening clutching a copy of the Express and Star with ‘Crabs Return to Attack Welsh Coast’ emblazoned across the front page, but the shoals of fish were almost certain to have sought safer waters. Fishing there would be nothing short of a waste of time.

His wife was in agreement, sighed with relief and hoped that maybe for this year fishing was out. But it was not to be. Reg had already scanned the holiday accommodation columns and picked out a flat at Filey – ‘ideal for sea fishing’. She groaned inwardly but at least it would be safe.

Reg Clifford, at fifty, displayed contrasting enthusiasm for anything requiring the expenditure of physical energy. His job he accepted, a sweltering atmosphere for eight hours of the day but there was always the weekly dream that one day the football pools would ‘come up’ and that kept him going from one week to the next. Their small garden had long since been abandoned and become overgrown with a variety of weeds. He promised Hilda that he would attend to it in due course; it was ‘all a question of time’. But fishing was different! The rigours of the open sea were contemplated eagerly and the elements were of no consequence.

‘It's expensive,’ Reg stroked his chin, eyed the boatman in the navy-clad torn sweater with more than a little suspicion. ‘Three pounds an hour! At Barmouth its only …’

‘Well this ain't Barmouth,’ the other replied sullenly and added. ‘wherever Barmouth is!’

‘Half price for the lad?’ Hopefully, Sam was twelve, big for his age though.

‘Who're you kiddin', mister? That lad's fifteen if he's a day. And, anyway, there's no half-price if you work a line. Only for passengers.

A quick mental calculation. Five hours at £3 per hour. Christmas! It was the standard charge here, each fishing boat asking the same, some kind of subversive agreement not to undercut one another and the buggers knew they could get it! Reg's principles (he didn't have many left these days) said stuff it. Then he remembered the money he'd put in the post office each Friday, a hard-earned fiver, earned with sweat and toil with fishing in mind. Hilda would soon find a use for it if he didn't spend it. Over £200 quid and the flat was already paid for.

‘OK,’ he nodded and tossed the end of his Woodbine over the harbour wall. ‘We'll take it.’

Eight fishermen. Jesus, ninety quid a trip, twice a day, nights as well if conditions were right. They were raking it in!

The sea was calm, too calm. Just like boating on a reservoir. The boat rode low in the water, the engine seeming to make heavy work of the outward trip. A clapped-out old tub, they were raking it in, all right! The boatman looked bored; he didn't have to rely on a good catch to make a living.

It seemed an eternity to Reg Clifford before the coastline was no more than a distant rocky ridge on the horizon. Sam was staring intently at the expanse of blue water, tense with anticipation, dreaming the way teenage fishermen dreamed, the big one he'd take home and keep in a glass case on the sideboard. It made Reg think about that pike; it was nothing short of sacrilege to eat it. But he'd catch another someday.

The engine idled, cut out. Reg checked his watch, noted that the journey had taken an hour. It'd be another hour getting back to harbour. Twelve bleedin' quid without a cast. Well, he'd time this bugger, make sure he didn't try to cut it short. If they pulled in and started back before four o'clock there'd be something said for sure!

The afternoon wore on. Hazy cloud formations moved in, bringing with them a sea mist on the horizon so you couldn't make out Flamborough Head any more. Reg shifted his position and lit another Woodbine. Two-thirty and he hadn't had a bite. Neither had Sam. One or two of the others had hauled in the odd mackerel but there certainly weren't any big shoals hereabouts.

Reg started to become angry, drawing in great lungfuls of tobacco smoke. This was ridiculous. Almost always on sea fishing trips you got amongst the fish even if you didn't catch many. There had to be fish down there … unless this guy had deliberately brought them out to a patch where there weren't any! Another crafty fishermen's agreement; rook the tourists in the peak holiday times and go out and catch the fish later. That didn't make sense, though, because the catch belonged to the boat owner. Reg Clifford gave up trying to work it out and tried his luck again.

Sam had a bite but failed to land it. Reg hauled one in just after three o'clock and lost a second shortly afterwards. Dead on four o'clock he heard the anchor clanking up and called across to Sam. ‘They ain't givin' us any extra time even though we ain't caught nothin'. Probably we ain't intended to.’

If the boatman heard, he gave no sign. A few minutes later the engine started up. It sounded as tired as its passengers felt. Maybe it was suffering from mechanical boredom.

The sunshine was no more than a hazy golden light through the high clouds, the sea giving the impression of steaming in the sultry heat. A breeze had sprung up and one sensed a change in atmospheric conditions.

‘Looks like thunder brewing up,’ the boatman spoke to nobody in particular. ‘Reckon we won't be going out tonight,’ Because I've done well out of you lot and I'm going to get a good kip tonight so don't any of you get any ideas otherwise.

They didn't seem to be making much progress on the return journey. Reg thought that it was perhaps because they were going against the tide and the old boat was finding it a struggle, groaning and shuddering.

Something scraped the underside and the fishing vessel lurched as though caught in a heavy swell. Reg Clifford was thrown back, sprawled on the deck, Sam landing on top of him. Everybody was sliding, catching at anything handy to try and keep their balance.

‘The fucking boat's hit a shallow!’ somebody shouted.

The engine faltered, picked up again. The seaman had run to the side, was staring down into the water, a look of puzzlement on his face. There weren't any shallows just here, a good clear six fathoms at least. It was something big that had struck the bottom, though. Possibly some half-submerged debris …

They had slowed. The engine was missing, making a whining noise as though the propeller was damaged. Jim Quelland, proprietor of the ‘Harbour Nymph’ (its lettering had long since faded and he had no intention of repainting it) stood up and checked his bearings. Filey Brigg on his right, you could just make it out because you were close enough. Fuck this thunder haze! The sky was darkening, it didn't look as though they were going to make it back before the storm broke. He glanced to make sure his oilskins were still stuffed below the helm. They were. Good. Most of the passengers seemed to be wearing either T-shirts or just a pair of trousers. Well, that was their fucking hard luck!

‘There's water coming in through the floor.’ Sam Clifford spoke with his usual drawl; if they had been sinking he would probably have informed them in the same expressionless tone of voice.

‘Fuck!’ Jim Quelland moved across and saw the spreading pool of seawater sloshing across the deck as the ‘Harbour Nymph’ rode an increasing swell. He didn't like the look of it, it was coming in too fast. He remembered also that they only had eight lifebelts. Frank Bolton on the ‘Ocean Queen’ had ‘borrowed’ the other four a fortnight ago. He looked up, checked on Filey Brigg again. Hell, this mist was getting so thick you couldn't even see it! But they couldn't be far off course.

He went back, put the engine on full throttle. It laboured and their speed didn't appear to increase. The Nymph was deceptive, though, usually looked to be going a lot slower than it really was. That was because it was cumbersome. It looked like it would have to go into dry dock for a few repairs all the same. It'd make it back, though. It always had, even on that day in 1979 when they'd got caught in a squall; the week of the Fastnet disasters.

A vivid flash of lightning split the encroaching gloom and showed an outline of the Brigg just about where Quelland thought it ought to be. Thunder rolled, burst with a deafening clap. A few heavy spots of rain hit the deck, plopping in the pool which had now spread to both sides; passengers were sitting with their feet up on the seats. One way or another they looked like getting wet. Jim Quelland had a worried frown as he silently cursed Frank Bolton.

More peals of thunder, continuous so that nobody could hear the engine. Sheet lightning as though Neptune was holding his own firework display in Filey Bay. Then a lull. Silence. The engine had cut out!

Reg Clifford felt his whole body go rigid, the hot sweat on his face going cold. The boat seemed even lower in the water than before. It was starting to drift slowly … seaward!

Sam was white-faced, his mass of freckles seeming to soak into his skin. The lad was terrified. Reg had never seen him like that before, not even that time when he'd fallen into the river.

‘Don't panic lad,’ he stretched out a hand and patted his son's knee. ‘We're nearly back home now.’

‘We ain't!’ the boy's head jerked up, the drawl was gone. ‘We're driftin' out to sea. And sinkin'!’

Quelland had to stop them from panicking somehow. He began to shout, had to wait until a peal of thunder had died away. ‘There's lifebelts under the seats. Not enough to go round. Share one, two of you hold on to one. Somebody'll see us before we go down!’

They were all screaming abuse at him now.

‘This old tub ain't seaworthy and you know it!’

‘Three quid an hour, no fish, and we look like gettin' drowned!’

‘We're 'avin' the lifebelts. You can fuckin' well try swimmin'.’

He turned away, didn't want to look into their faces. The land was no longer visible; there was no doubt that they were going out with the tide. And sinking fast!

The rain came with an unbelievable lashing force, whipping their faces, saturating their scant clothing. Quelland thought about his oilskins again and decided to leave them where they were; he hadn't the nerve to put them on and, anyway, before many minutes everybody would be in the drink.

The Nymph was level with the waves now, the sea roughing up and starting to come over the sides, the boat beginning to fill up like a kiddies' paddling pool.

‘Everybody out,’ Quelland had stripped to his briefs. Once in the water he was going to swim fast in a direct line for dry land; no hanging about to see how the others fared. It was every man for himself, they ought to know that. ‘Get clear before she goes down!’

Sam had a lifebelt to himself and so had Reg. Most of the others were sharing. It was so dark, so frightening.

Jim Quelland had struck off at a fast crawl. The waves were getting stronger and higher. Lightning flashed in an angry sky. His ears were roaring and it was difficult to tell the difference between the thunder and the pounding sea. Once he thought he heard a maroon; it could have been wishful thinking. Everybody getting nowhere, the sea getting rougher by the second.

Quelland's feet touched something. Surprise, remembering how the boat had scraped on a hard object. It couldn't be the bottom because they weren't close enough to land yet. He kicked down and his foot banged against a hard surface.

And then he started to scream but never finished; a wave hit him, would have tossed him high up on its crest if something had not been holding him by the legs … cutting! He felt bone snap, went under because he had no feet to kick with.

Going down, a dark gloomy green world, crimson tinged. A face so horrific that it couldn't be real. It's all in the mind because I'm drowning! A claw raked at him, slit him open from groin to throat so that there was no more green, only scarlet slowly turning black.

One moment Sam was there, the next he wasn't. Reg Clifford came out of a wave and began to panic. If the boy had gone under then he'd surely come right back up because the belt wouldn't stay down. He looked round, it was difficult to see anything in this mountainous watery landscape. Once he thought he glimpsed an upstretched arm but he could have been mistaken.

Going anywhere, going nowhere. Swallowing water, trying to see out of salt-smarting eyes. Jumbled awful thoughts. Hilda would never speak to him again. He had to find Sam. Another wave caught him, twisted him round so that he was facing the other way, whichever way that was. And in that instant he saw Sam!

The boy was spinning round, coming towards him. Stupid idiot, somehow he'd got the lifebelt from beneath his arms and had it around his neck like an outsize collar. The same stupid half-soaked expression on his face. What time's tea tonight. Dad? I 'ope Mum 'asn't got wet in the rain.

Angrily Reg Clifford reached out, just managed to get his fingers in the belt. It came towards him easily. Too easily. ‘You bloody fool do you ever do anything properly? Lift your bleedin' arms up and let's get this belt under them before you drown.’

Sam stared vacantly as Reg jerked the belt up out of the water. A rush of water, the boy's head going back, bobbing up and down, upturning in the heavy swell.

Just a head, no arms, no body! Trailing sinews like crimson seaweed. Going under, coming up again, a message in the staring dead eyes. Dad, they got me, just left me 'ead!

Babbling insanely, Reg Clifford clutched at the remains of his decapitated son, cradling the head to him, kissing the unresponding lips, tasting the salty blood.

Then the crabs got him from below, voraciously eating their way up his body, tearing his limbs away, feasting as they travelled below the waves. A dozen of them, no more. Just a scouting party ahead of the main army which bided their time in the North Sea off the Humber estuary.

Before long they would move in on yet another vulnerable waterway.

Chapter TEN

Cliff Davenport received news of the Humberside invasion shortly after his arrival in Barmouth. He wasn't altogether surprised for no waterway was safe. But this time the crabs had not attacked in numbers; a skirmish off Grimsby, a few fishing vessels wrecked. Then the crustaceans had moved on up the estuary as though there was no time to be lost. They were in an unprecedented hurry.

Reports of sightings were coming in all the time. One dead crab had been found in the Manchester Ship Canal. In all probability there were more lurking in the depths. He hoped they died there.

He wondered again about the crustacean graveyard. He might be wrong but he thought not. The pattern, the pins in his map, were not complete yet. It was early days, the crabs still pouring in from the sea. Before long it should be possible to pinpoint their destination.

Davenport stood on the top end of Marine Drive, noted the rows of private hotels and boarding houses, nearly all of them displaying ‘vacancies’ signs; the visitors had all gone in the recent forced evacuation. Tanks and armoured cars along the seafront were evidence that military law prevailed in this picturesque resort with the mountains looming up in the background whilst the hoteliers waited and hoped that it might all be over soon.

Helicopters flew to and fro, dipping low over the estuary, their ungainly appearance accentuated by the agricultural crop spraying equipment. Gallons of liquid paraquat were already being deposited in the brown current, a tide of liquid death ebbing to meet the giant crabs which sophisticated radar equipment reported to be lurking out in the bay.

Yet Cliff Davenport experienced an affectionate nostalgia for this quaint seaside resort. Without the crabs he would never have met Pat Benson; selfish, if one looked at it like that, but it was true nevertheless. But this time there was no sentiment, no feeling for the enemy. They had to be destroyed. Totally. There would be no fond memories of this battle.

The seafront was primed for a siege, everybody waiting. Noon blended into early evening, a sweltering atmosphere that engendered its own uncanniness. The waiting was the worst part. The crabs would come, nobody doubted that. It was just a question of when. The defenders clung to one hope, that the paraquat would sweep out into the bay and form a barrier of death which the crustaceans would not be able to penetrate, that the monsters would die out there.

Davenport wandered down to the beach, a deserted stretch of sand running right down to the harbour, an aura of loneliness seeming to drift in with the dusk. This was not how it should have been in the peak holiday season, silence except for the tide lapping the reaches of the estuary. No laughter, no music from the fairground. He shuddered, walked on. The crabs would come under the cover of darkness like they had before, a terrible and cunning foe. They were just waiting for nightfall.

The mountains were casting long shadows, the sun gone down below the horizon. A cooling breeze had sprung up. Cliff just wanted to be alone, a short time in which to recharge himself like an author working for months on a difficult book needing to divorce his mind from it. It was not easy, almost impossible. He was tense, every nerve in his body taut.

He'd covered about a quarter of a mile, his feet beginning to drag, his head bowed, when a movement on the tide's edge attracted his attention. He stared, tried to make out what it was; it was difficult to discern against the background of the viaduct which spanned the estuary.

His first thought was that it was a crab but it was too small, the wrong shape; no shell, the movements wrong. Crawling in a straight line towards him, not shambling sideways.

He watched as it came towards him, just a shape that moved in the black shadows of the approaching night. Fear stabbed at him. Man's inbred terror of the unknown still predominant even today.

A face, so hideous that a scream was already rising into Davenport's throat. Those features, wide staring eyes, stinking seaweed draped over the head resembling a ragged Neptune-like beard, snuffling like some nocturnal hunting beast, a wasted body incapable of walking.

Oh God, it couldn't be! Bartholomew the beachcomber, the vagrant of the tidelines who had become the crustaceans' beast of the chase that time years ago! A memory that had haunted Cliffs dreams, the way the crabs had run the man down, cut him up and then backed off whilst their royal leader had come forward to feast; a grisly bloody repast, the big crab tossing the human limbs back to his waiting minions, leaving a pitiful living trunk that clung desperately to life, unconsciousness cruelly eluding him. Until finally a huge pincer had disembowelled him, pulling the squelching entrails up to the cavernous mouth, slurping them down like a plate of fresh tripe.

And he was here now. Intact again, living, a vile wasted form reaching out for Davenport. It was impossible!

It was only the realisation that it wasn't Bartholomew resurrected from the bowels of those crabs that saved Professor Davenport's sanity. The features were similar to those of the dead beachcomber only because of their grotesqueness. Seaweed had created the hair and beard. But, God Almighty, what was the misshapen body that crawled beneath the rotting nauseating vegetation?

Backing away, wanting to turn and flee but unable to take his eyes off the thing. A familiarity, something he knew and should have recognised, trying to force his numbed brain to work.

Hissing angrily at him, a sound that lacked … something! Eyes glinted as it flopped to an exhausted halt.

Oh, Jesus Christ, it should have been clicking fearsome pincers, lumbering under the weight of an armoured shell. Instead it was just a slimy unrecognisable body, a moving mass of growths that wept vile puss and gave off a stench of putrefaction. Apart from that it was a giant crab! Its shell was gone!

Davenport backed away another couple of yards, knew that it had not the strength to follow him. He forced himself to look again; it was squatting, the cancerous body heaving and labouring. Any other place and one might have felt pity for this creature but not here on Barmouth beach, the scene of the bloodiest crab encounter in history, and the possibility of an encore looming up.

Die, you bastard, die!

‘Are you all right. Professor?’

Cliff glanced over his shoulder, saw the two soldiers standing there. He'd been so engrossed with terror and revulsion that he had not heard their approaching footsteps on the soft sand. Both of them carried rifles at the ready.

‘Yes … yes, I'm all right. But I'd appreciate it if you'd shoot this thing.’

‘What … what is it, sir?’ They appeared to notice the crab for the first time.

‘It's a crab. One of the crabs. Only this one doesn't have a shell, just a diseased helpless body!’

Intakes of breath. Metallic sounds, bolts being shot home. Bracing himself for the deafening reports at close range. Well go on, bloody well shoot it, what are you waiting for?

Cliff winced clutching at his ears. The rifle shots, the whine and thud of heavy slugs. Eyes closed he could see without them being open. That cancerous shell-less crustacean, writhing and wanting to die just as old Bartholomew had done that time. A heap of blood and blasted flesh, scorched by the powder flashes. Still living, you could hear its screams!

Shoot it, you bastards, and keep on shooting it until it's dead!

‘I think you'd better let us take you home, sir,’ the tall corporal had a hand on Cliffs arm. ‘You've had a nasty fright. So have we if it comes to that. But it's dead now.’

‘Thank you, corporal, but I'll be all right,’ Cliff shook the hand off gently, felt in his pockets for pipe and tobacco, it was just that … that in the dark I thought it was … something else!’

‘Something else, sir?’

‘Yes, corporal. Something that happened on these same beaches once before. But it couldn't possibly have been and I should have known better.’

‘This… this crab hasn't got a shell, sir. We were able to finish it off with our rifles.’

‘Apparently so. A lot of peculiar things are happening these days that have never happened before. And Mankind is responsible for them. Advanced nuclear technology created the crabs, now it is destroying them. How many crabs are out there in the oceans of the world? Five hundred, five thousand … fifty thousand? They are doomed by the radiation which mutated them, a cancer which eats the flesh and now apparently separates it from the shell causing untold suffering. Can we really blame them for hating Man, corporal?’

‘I guess not, sir. But if you're sure you're OK we'd better be getting back to the sea wall. It's dangerous to stop out here.’

The three of them walked back together, turning only once to stare back at the incoming tide. A soothing sound, so peaceful in its glorious setting. Deceiving.

But they knew that somewhere out there the diseased, dying enemy was mustering its waning strength for one last all-out attack. There was no way the crabs were going to stop out there and die ignominiously on the seabed.

Cliff Davenport returned to his old quarters in the familiar surroundings of the Town Hall. Nothing much had changed, it rarely did in places like this where tradition was honoured and preserved. A makeshift office, a camp bed and a telephone. And a big map that was fast becoming smothered beneath innumerable drawing pins. Everybody had maps; it was getting like some fashionable gimmicky kids' game.

He undid his shirt then put a call through to Grisedale, told him about the crab without its shell.

‘We know,’ Grisedale's voice was tired, almost bored. ‘One was found in the mud of the Thames late this afternoon. Looks like they're well and truly on the way out this time, Clifford. A party of five came ashore at Wells-next-the-Sea. It was as though they'd been left behind by the big bunch that moved on into the Wash because they were too sick to travel. A barrage of artillery fire drove 'em back into the sea! Imagine it, Clifford. You can't and neither can I. When were the crabs last defeated by gunfire? OK, none were killed, the bullets just bounced off but the devils weren't up to facing anymore. They turned tail and crawled back into the tide. By Jove, we've got 'em on the run!’

‘Don't count your chickens, Grisedale,’ Cliff closed his eyes, exhaustion beginning to take its toll; he knew how the crabs must feel. They aren't all done for. We can't afford to relax yet.’

After he had replaced the receiver he thought about ringing Pat but it was late and she might have gone to bed. She needed all the rest she could get. He'd ring her first thing in the morning.

It seemed that he had only just closed his eyes when the jangling of the phone by his head jerked him awake.

‘Davenport?’ it was Colonel Matthews' voice, a terseness that could have been mistaken for fear. The Colonel was an old ‘crab campaigner’, he knew only too well what they were up against.

‘Yes, Colonel. I take it they're here?’

‘They're in the estuary. We might lose the bridge again.’

‘If they're already in the estuary then I think the odds are that they're not going to veer from their present course to attack Barmouth. Keep pouring paraquat in the water and we might win the day. I'll be right down.’

Davenport hastily pulled on a shirt, tucking it into his crumpled trousers. A new hope, relief; he didn't feel tired any more. It seemed that the giant crustaceans were more interested in going up-river than attacking the resort itself. They weren't going to attack in the way they had attacked Shell Island, the East End, Wells and Slimbridge and other places.

Because they were weakening fast. They had to make it inland before they died!

Cliff Davenport climbed into the waiting Land Rover and the uniformed driver started up.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘The Toll Bridge. Colonel Matthews is already there.’ The Professor settled back, tried to relax as they left the harbour and started to climb. The traffic lights were on red but they ignored them; the road was closed to all except military traffic.

As the Land Rover's headlights picked out the rickety-looking toll bridge, Cliff could not help but marvel at Matthews' efficiency. The scene represented a full scale wartime manoeuvre, tanks lining the road on either side of the wide reed-fringed estuary, helicopters on stand-by, groups of officers and soldiers watching and waiting.

‘The crabs are coming up-river,’ Matthews had an eager glint in his grey eyes. ‘Eye witness reports state that there is some damage to the viaduct but it's still intact.’

They'd've wrecked it if they could have done, Cliff thought, but they need all their strength and they know it! They have to get somewhere!

It was an hour before the first crabs were seen, a swirling of the current that splayed the muddy brown water back, revealing humped shambling shapes that seemed to have difficulty in moving. Stopping; the river closing back over them, being pushed away again.

‘My God!’ Cliff pointed and in the wan light of a summer's dawn the watchers saw the crustaceans breaking for the banks, struggling with the thick sucking mud. Floundering. ‘They're coming ashore!’

Heavy concentrated fire shattered the silence, the mud banks seemed to erupt into a thick brown fountain, craters that filled with water instantly, the crabs squelching like stranded hippos.

Cliff Davenport watched through his binoculars, shouted to Matthews by his side, trying to make himself heard above the incessant bombardment.‘They can't make it! They're not like they were before, no organisation. Just blind instinct. Look, they're retreating, going back into the water!’

The crustaceans' movements were slow, clumsy. A retreat that left half-a-dozen huge sandy shapes immobile on the rutted torn mud. The rest wallowed in the river, spurned the chance to head back to the bay, rapidly submerging until only the churning surface marked their passage. The toll bridge shuddered, timbers creaked, but it remained firm.

‘Tremendous!’ Cliff lowered his glasses, the stench of gunfire sweet in his nostrils. How far they'll get is anybody's guess but I don't reckon they'll come ashore again. Not that bunch, anyway. About three-quarters of a mile further up the river divides. Try and stop 'em from getting into Dolgellau, Colonel. If we can send 'em north up towards Coed-y-Brenin the river's narrow and shallow and we can blast hell out of 'em. First, though, I want a good look at those crab corpses out on the mud. I've got to check on their condition, see how bad the paraquat's hit 'em and how far advanced their cancer is.’

It was a sticky but not unduly dangerous walk out to the nearest dead crab. Cliff sank in above his ankles, once lost his balance, but muddy wet clothes did not deter him. His old eagerness, the scent of victory, spurred him on ahead of the three soldiers following him.

It was big. Huge. An armoured mud-splattered invincible mound of hate that reeked of rotting evil. The stench caught his throat, had him heaving. He approached it from the rear, saw the scored and chipped shell, moved round, trying to hold his breath. Christ, the stench!

The face was the most horrible aspect of all, wizened and gnome-like with pouted lips, eyes closed; at least he didn't have to look at the eyes! All smeared with blood and puss, thick rivulets that still trickled and dripped.

Then without warning the eyes flickered open! It could have been a trapped nerve suddenly springing free. But it wasn't. Those orbs saw, narrowed, blazed their hate. Antennae stiffened and the monstrous pincers lifted and clicked menacingly.

Cliff Davenport reacted slowly. Too slowly. Shock and tiredness had numbed his reflexes. His brain said, it can't be! Several seconds later he knew that it was, that the crab still lived and in the time left to it it was determined to kill!

A claw came at him, opening. With a tremendous mental effort he broke free of the paralytic trance, turned to flee. But his legs refused to move, stuck firmly in the gurgling mud, threatened to overbalance him. He swayed, felt the pincer brush against his shirt tearing off a strip of nylon, a rush of cold morning air flooding his torso. He shuddered, his spine prickled right up into his scalp.

A loud sucking noise as the crab began to extricate itself from this tidal quagmire, hissing its hate, spraying thick yellow/green matter into the air. Some of it hit him in the face, seemed to burn his flesh.

Desperation, tearing at the mud with his feet, feeling them come clear of his short rubber boots, coming out with a rush, throwing him backwards. He was falling, twisting, hitting the soft surface face downwards, a smothering thick brown morass plastering his features. Unable to breathe or see he fought again, almost cried his despair aloud as his feet began to sink once more.

A world of darkness, pawing at his eyes, staggering forward and going in up above his ankles.

Click-click! Deafening, the pincer snapping within inches of his ear. And then the sudden excruciating pain, the grip on his wrist, feeling bone snap, starting to faint and knowing he'd never make it to safety.

The sloppy stinking mud hit his face and instinctively he jerked his head round, gasping for breath. A red and brown haze hovered before his eyes. One last effort, scrabbling at the mud, trying to push himself free; then the terrible realisation. He had no fingers, no left hand!

That was when Professor Clifford Davenport finally gave up, lay there face downwards hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness, unable to collate his thoughts, not even crying out when a crushing weight rammed his legs down into the soft mud bank.

Everything going black. Noises that he only recognised dimly. Voices. A shot. People moving about. Then everything went black and stayed that way.

Chapter ELEVEN

Ben Hendrix had been bailiff on the three-mile stretch of the River Leam during the four years since the angling club from Birmingham had acquired the fishing rights. At fifty years of age he had been seeking a more leisurely and interesting job than working in the car factory. A keen fisherman, he saw a way in which to combine work with pleasure, and if he fancied hooking a fish out of the river at any time then that was up to him. He was his own boss.

The pay wasn't good, less than two-thirds of his previous earnings. His wife, Rose, had complained bitterly but he had pointed out that there was a cottage thrown in with the job, and freed from mortgage repayments and rate demands they would just about break even. They wouldn't, but he convinced her nevertheless. Because he wanted the job. Life was tolerable. Poaching was the biggest headache and the club committee had already informed him that he would have to show greater vigilance if he was to keep his job. Night patrolling, lack of sleep, and a general show of intolerance by the public had him almost wishing that he'd stayed on in the paint shop. But things were bound to settle down again before long.

A week later he'd found the big crab. It was dead, he didn't even have to go down the bank to see that. As big as a cow, it had overturned, floated down with the current until it became caught up in the shallows.

Ben wished now that he hadn't notified the authorities. In spite of the creature's weight and size he could surely have somehow pushed it off into deeper water, sent it drifting downstream into somebody else's patch; let them have all the hassle, the army with their low-loader to cart it away, soldiers scouring the banks on either side for further signs of the invading crustaceans. The reporters were the worst, a dozen or more who wouldn't be deterred, tried to put words into his mouth. Ben Hendrix didn't want his picture in the local newspaper, let alone a national one, but he didn't have any say in the matter. Worst of all he didn't get a penny out of the whole business. Which made him determined that if he ever saw another crab he wasn't going to tell anybody. He'd deny its existence, lie until he was blue in the face if necessary.

Three days later he did see another crab. He was standing quietly in a clump of willows above a gently sloping bank of mud when he spied it in the water. In this particular place the river was no deeper than a couple of feet, and there was no way in which the creature could have passed unnoticed.

Hendrix tensed, drew back. It was shambling and clicking its way across the gravel bed, moving slowly as though its body was barely strong enough to support the shell. Once it stopped and he caught his breath, thought for one awful moment that it was aware of his presence. It squatted there, four or five yards from the bank, making a kind of wheezing hissing noise. There was something wrong with it. Of course, these crabs had some kind of cancerous disease, he'd read about it in the same newspaper which had purloined his own photograph, so in all probability this one was dying too. God, he hoped it wasn't going to snuff it here, start all that rigmarole over again.

He stood watching for five or ten minutes and then gave a sigh of relief when the crustacean hoisted itself upright again and began to click its way on downstream.

Ben remained where he was until it was out of sight round the next bend. He was worried, not so much about that particular crab but about the prospect of more of them coming down the river. They were reported to be moving inland and maybe there were others on the way. He sat down at the base of a gnarled willow and tried to work out a plan of action.

His skin prickled just thinking about crabs, a phobia he'd had since childhood. He'd never forget that time his father had brought home a live crab in a bucket of saltwater after they'd had a rare day's outing to the coast.

‘There's nothing to beat fresh crab,’ his father had stated as Ben followed him into the garage, curious to see the procedure involved in preparing it for the table. Hendrix senior had tipped the crab out on to the concrete floor and had then proceeded to try and kill it with a hammer and chisel. Jesus, it was awful, the old man cursing, the crab trying to shamble sideways in its scuttling attempts at flight, its shell cracked so that you could see the revolting little body inside. It just refused to die!

Tommy (called ‘Tammy’ by his mates at the Lion) Hendrix had become infuriated with his own clumsy efforts but he really went berserk when the chisel bounced off the shell and gashed his forefinger. Enraged, he was determined not only to remove the shell and kill the terrified creature inside but really to make it suffer for its determined efforts at self-survival. When he'd got enough of the shell off to bare the shrimp-like quivering thing inside, he'd hunted round and found two pairs of pliers.

Horrified, Ben had watched as first those snapping vicious claws were torn from their sockets. The other eight legs had been dealt with in the same way, and with all its legs gone the spitting wriggling thing had still been alive! That was when it had been returned to the bucket in which an inch or two of sea water still remained.

But Tammy wasn't finished with it yet. Blood oozing from his injured finger he made three trips to and from the house, a trail of scarlet spots marking his route, filling and boiling kettles of water.

‘Boil the bugger!’ He'd grunted as he poured the scalding liquid into the bucket and heard the injured crab hissing its wrath and agony. The water foamed and splashed, starting to turn pink.

And at the supper table that night, young Ben had taken one mouthful of the nauseating flesh on his plate and puked. It had taken him months to get the memory of that taste out of his system. But he didn't hate his father for what had happened in the garage that night; he hated the crab, for what it was, the way it had fought back and won the day by making him spew up in the dining room. It had beaten him even in death!

And now crabs were causing him more problems. A couple of days passed and although there was no further sign of the enemy from the oceans of the world his hatred for them boiled. God, he'd like to see one of those big fuckers being pounded until it didn't have any shell left, then its claws and legs ripped off until it was nothing but a legless squirming unrecognisable jellified bloody lump, hissing its pain but unable to die. But that wouldn't be possible with the big bastards because there was nothing strong enough to hold them … something jogged his memory; he visualised a gloomy untidy shed crammed with junk that wasn't his, rubbish he'd inherited along with the job and the tied-cottage … that rusty old mantrap with its ten-inch jaws and steel chain that had been the tool of some long dead river keeper who had not been shackled by modern laws when it came to dealing with poachers!

Later that afternoon, much to his wife's surprise, Ben Hendrix began to turn out the shed. Eventually he found the trap, had to drag it clear of a pile of rubbish and out into the hot sunshine where he could examine it more closely. Rusty but sound, nothing that half a can of oil wouldn't put right. He started work on it right away, screened from the house by the rickety wooden building, listening in case his wife should suddenly decide to come out to see how he was getting on.

It was very similar to the gin traps banned in the early fifties, the gamekeepers' chief aides. Gins were still used, of course, and always would be. Man was getting softer, more squeamish, by the decade. In the end he'd starve because this new society would decide that everything that grew, even weeds in the garden, should be afforded protection. You'd be fined for pulling up a dock or a nettle because it was a feeling plant and you'd caused it untold agony. The only thing Man could be cruel to was Man; mug an old pensioner or beat your kids, that was OK, but don't kick the dog or throw at the cat that pisses on your milk bottles. Sorry, there wouldn't be any milk because it hurt the cows to have their teats pulled. Two choices; synthetic foodstuffs or starve.

Fucking hypocrites. Bring back the birch and the gin trap, that'd be a start. Then the man trap and things would really be getting back to normal.

As the evening shadows began to creep across the leafy Warwickshire countryside, Ben Hendrix had the old trap in perfect working order. The well-oiled jaws clicked back into position with a newly-found menace; then clanged together with a tremendous jarring force, severing a branch the thickness of his forearm which he used to depress the footplate.

His eyes gleamed, he grunted his satisfaction and remembered what his father had done to that tiny crab in the garage forty years ago. The boy who had been a spectator that time was now going to do even better. And he relished the prospect!

It was almost dusk when he set the trap. It had taken him all his time to get it down below the river bank, having dragged it by the chain for the last hundred yards or so. He was sweating, his heart pounding until it frightened him almost as much as the prospect of still being down here when darkness fell. Glancing back at the river as he struggled to drive the steel stake deep into the firm ground on the side. In all probability the chain wouldn't hold an overgrown crab. That didn't really matter, even if the creature pulled it out and dragged the trap with it because those steel teeth (he'd filed them until they were razor-sharp) would bite deep and hurt. Strong enough to take a man's leg off. Christ, don't step back into the fucking trap!

Finished at last, he climbed back up on to the bank and surveyed his handiwork. There wasn't a lot of it visible and that was how it should have been, concealed below the shallow water except for the length of furled chain and you had to look closely to pick that out because the rust blended perfectly with the mud.

It wouldn't need baiting. Crabs had ten legs and it only needed to catch one to do the necessary damage. If one of the crustaceans walked across that stretch of mud there the odds were heavily in favour of it getting caught.

Ben Hendrix laughed softly to himself as he hurried away from the river. That little crab had squealed and hissed its pain in the garage that night. And the bigger they were, the more it hurt!

That night Hendrix had the old dream again. The garage, his father, only this time the crab had grown to the size of a huge dog, an evil spitting clicking thing that wouldn't fit in the bucket anymore. It squatted in the middle of the floor over the broken drain grid watching them with tiny flashing red eyes.

Tammy had a hammer but it was a puny tool now. He wasn't even attempting to use it, pressed back against the wall, glancing at the doorway and seeing that the crab had barred the escape route. Ben moved closer to his father, sobbing his terror.

The crab moved, a sinister sideways lurch that brought it a foot or so nearer, squatted again. Unblinking eyes that burned hatred like gamma rays. It knew the two humans had no chance of escaping; it was taking its time, gloating.

Tammy Hendrix swallowed, licked his lips and tasted the salty sweat that was running down his face. He came to a decision; the crab was a slow mover and a sudden leap for the doorway might take it by surprise, enable him to get clear before those vicious pincers could be brought into action. He tensed, flexed his leg muscles, forgot all about Ben. Then he sprang into the air.

Ben screamed as he saw that claw come up with lightning precision and close over his father's ankle, so swiftly like a fielder bringing off a snap catch in the slips. Tammy checked, flailed, then hit the floor with a sickening thud.

Instant amputation; a bloody foot, still with sock and shoe on, rolling away. Tammy had a second of freedom, dragging himself frantically along the rough concrete, his useless leg spurting crimson fluid. Then the creature had him again, this time severing above the knee of his other leg.

He was screaming but there was nobody to hear him except Ben, who was cowering in the far corner. It was upon Tammy now, straddling him like some bizarre act of copulation, its face only inches from his own, its fetid breath hot like a fiery dragon.

The kiss of death! Ben felt the burning bile in his throat as he watched, couldn't drag his eyes away; heard the sucking, squelching slobbering of the giant crab feasting and when finally it raised its head he saw his father - a faceless bloodied unrecognisable skull, half the cranium eaten away, just a mouth that screamed mutely as it pumped blood!

The crab ate ravenously as though it was starved, so horribly methodical, working its way downwards, crunching the bones, masticating and swallowing, coughing once as though something was stuck in its throat. Finally, only blood-soaked torn clothing remained; it examined it like a dog that has tipped out a dustbin, making sure that no edible morsel had been overlooked.

Then it turned slowly, those eyes seeming to blaze with a new lust as it saw the cringing boy. Ben tried to scream but nothing came out, knew that there was no chance of avoiding the awful fate that lay in store for him.

It was a dream, deep down he knew that but it didn't lessen his fear. He tried to jerk himself into waking but it didn't work. The bastard wouldn't eat him though; dreams never got that far, led you right up to the edge of the climax and then evaporated.

The crab moved nearer. He saw its face, the fresh dripping blood that only minutes earlier had pumped through his father's veins, a stringy piece of sinew caught up in one of the claws. It hiccupped, threw out something that splatted on the floor. He saw it, knew what it was, a tiny fragment of torn human flesh. Then it came for him!

He didn't run or struggle. If only he could have closed his eyes! Surrendering himself, retching as it pulled him close and squashed its stinking cold lips against his own, the pincers cutting and gouging as it began to feed.

Oh God, he should have been dead, it was impossible to live to this point in mutilation. Just his head staring up and wondering where his body had gone; the crab backing off, seeming not to notice that its repast was not finished. A head that started to roll, gathered speed and then lodged upright in the drain cover, listening to the steady drip, drip below, trickles of blood coming from all directions across the floor as though they still retained the human instinct to escape. Warm and suffocating, a tangy unpleasant smell. He was blocking the drain, the blood couldn't get away, building up in the concrete hollow, the level rising. Trying to breathe and blowing scarlet bubbles that kept bursting and spraying the walls. Being forced to drink the vile fluid, spewing and spouting it high into the air so that it came back down on him like a treacly cloudburst.

At last he managed to break the slumber barrier, threshing his way back to wakefulness amidst a pile of sweat-soaked bedclothes, feeling at his body beneath his clinging pyjamas to ensure that every limb was intact.

Finally relief, lying staring into the darkened room and trying to suck some air out of the stuffy atmosphere. His wife hadn't moved, still slept soundly. He wrinkled his nose at the sour aroma that came from beneath her fleshy arms. For once it smelled sweet and wholesome, so divorced from that vile stench of death that still lingered in his nostrils.

Ben Hendrix was up and dressed soon after dawn had broken. He glanced out of the latticed kitchen window as he sipped an over-sweetened mug of strong tea and saw the thin veil of mist that lay spread across the sloping meadows … as though a thick curtain had formed when darkness retreated - to hide something! He shivered in spite of the clammy heat. It was going to be hot again today. The river level was dropping fast; if there was no rain within the next week or two it would just become a shallow muddy watercourse in the centre of the bed. The crabs would have no cover. It was a terrifying thought.

He couldn't get the nightmare out of his system, could still smell that crab's vile odour. That was silly, it was the memory of the one he'd found, the dead one, that still lingered.

He poured himself a second mug of tea, a delaying tactic because he didn't relish going back down to the river. Let it get light properly first, let the mist clear. He'd other traps to look at as well along half-a-mile of bank, gins set for feral mink. Best trap ever invented, the gin. Cruel, but what the hell, so long as it caught and held. Like the man trap.

He waited until the first rays of sunshine hit the mist and started to thin it. This morning he'd take a gun, the rusty old 12-bore with hammers so stiff that you could barely cock them. At least it boosted his courage.

Hendrix didn't hurry, taking a circuitous route that would bring him upriver, told himself that he'd check the gins first. By that time the mist should have cleared.

God, the river was low. It must have fallen at least an inch overnight. That was because there was nothing much flowing down from its source, wherever that was. Ben Hendrix was only interested in the water inside his own boundaries.

One of the gin traps had sprung and caught a rat, almost severing the rear portion of its body so that it squirmed and squealed in the grip of the strong steel teeth. He grinned. He could have knocked the rodent on the head with a stone and put it out of its misery. Fuck it, let the bastard suffer, let it die in its own time. People were even getting soft-hearted towards rats these days, mostly ‘townies’. The Protection of Animals Act 1911 was where the rot had set in, do-gooders leaping on the bandwagon and claiming that rats had as much right to live as anything or anybody else. They even tried to stop you training terriers with live rats because it frightened the rats! Let them live, let them multiply, there's a place for everything. Ban the gin trap! Those same silly bleeders would be the first to call for the gin to be brought back if they woke up one night and found they'd got a rat in their bedroom. Maybe you weren't supposed to hurt giant crabs either. Well, fuck the Protection of Animals Act, this was one time Ben Hendrix was really going to have a ball!

He could see the man trap when he got within fifty yards of the place where he'd sited it. His heart gave a jump, something in his stomach knotted. The chain was pulled taut on the stake and the trap with whatever it had caught was half-submerged in the shallows. It had caught!

He squinted, tried to make out what was caught in the jaws. Certainly not a crab because it had no shell. Nevertheless it was big, bigger than an Alsatian dog! He broke into a run, the overspill from his stomach wobbling over his belt.

By the time he reached the place and stood, staring down into the shallow water, he was breathing heavily and the gun beneath his arm seemed like a fifty-pound weight. What the fuck was this bloody thing? His stomach churned at the sight of the slimy body, the conglomeration of wart-like growths that were seeping thick puss into the water like frogspawn tinged with crimson.

Whatever it was it was still alive, caught by a couple of legs that were nearly cut through, tugging and struggling; a tremendous strength that was weakening fast. Suddenly it appeared to sense his presence, pulled round in a clanking half circle that stirred up mud and clouded the water.

Slowly it cleared, a face materialising out of the murkiness, a leering gargoyle with eyes that glowed red, saw and hated. And in that instant Ben Hendrix recognised it, his recurring nightmare coming back with a jarring numbing force. The crab, the one his father had killed in the garage that day, the one that came back from the dead last night, engorged with human blood and hungry for more! Only it had lost its shell!

It reared up out of the river, showering puss and mud like a retriever shaking itself, lunged at him with a newly-found strength only to be jerked back by the chain. A hiss of pain and rage, falling back on its jellied haunches, threshing with its eight uninjured legs.

Ben Hendrick wiped a hand across his sweating face. This was really too good to be true, he'd actually caught one of these oversize fuck-pigs. He stepped back a pace, checked when he remembered that it couldn't get at him anyway. He brought the gun up, was in the act of cocking the stiff hammers when a sudden thought crossed his mind. He lowered the weapon, laughed softly to himself. He could kill it OK, no bother, even with this old scattergun. But that would be too good for it, death a welcome release from the indescribable agonies that were burning up its diseased and injured body. Let it suffer, fuck the Protection of Animals Act 1911!

The crab squatted down again, stared up at him with malevolent pain-filled red orbs, unblinking. It knew he'd done this to it; revenge was uppermost in its warped brain. Which was all the more reason why it had to die slowly!

In a copse on the opposite side of the river a magpie was chattering. Mocking. Somewhere further downriver another took up the chorus. Corvine laughter because an enemy of Nature was suffering, going to die. The law of the wild.

The crab tensed, made yet another effort to break free. The chain creaked under the strain, the two trapped legs tore and almost snapped. The creature rested again. Next time it would break free; the loss of two legs was immaterial, it had eight more.

Ben Hendrix licked his lips. Fuck it, he was going to have to shoot the thing after all. With an effort he cocked the old gun, raised it to his shoulder and looked down the twin barrels, moved the sight along until it rested in between those glittering crustacean orbs. He saw them flicker. It knew? Hate gleamed, died to a dullness. It had accepted its fate.

A double trigger pressure with forefinger and middle finger. A crashing report, the stock kicking back with the force of the twin charge. The crab jerked, reared upright, legs and antennae stretched in pain; at full stretch, one of the legs tearing free of the cruel steel grip but it didn't matter anymore either way. A slow fall back into the water, twitching, antennae waving then folding like wilted flowers. Death.

A sudden stillness, the silence the worst part of all. Ben Hendrix lowered his smoking gun, looked down on the mutilated crab, saw the way the shot charges had cut their way through the sand-coloured fleshy head, obliterating that expression of evil, stringing it across the river in floating bloody ribbons. He regretted that it had to turn out that way but at least he'd given the bastards a bit of their own back. Later he'd reset the trap (the thought of having to touch the slimy remains revolted him), and maybe he'd catch another. In the meantime, though, he'd check the rest of the gins.

A feeling of uneasiness had him glancing about him. Hell, that early morning mist hadn't lifted; it was thickening, drifting in closer, a blanket that cloaked the meadowland, stifled the calling of a lapwing.

He turned, stopped. Those magpies were starting up again … only this time they sounded different …

Click-click-click-click-clickety-click! Fast, too fast!

The mist was swirling, opening up, wafting into distorted unreal shapes. Hendrix tensed, the shambling clicking forms were blending into recognition, sending stabbing blades of fear into the pit of his overweight stomach

Crabs, dozens of them, a marching army of destruction swinging in a semi-circle across the meadow, cutting back to the river. Angry. They saw him, clicked furiously into a rushing tide of death!

He backed away, forgot that he was standing on the river bank, screamed as he felt himself falling, landing with a sickening squelch. His revulsion was almost as strong as his terror, trying to drag himself out of the shot-blasted remains of the dead naked crab, strings of cancerous matter clinging to his face and hands like old man's phlegm. On his knees, glancing up, seeing the horde of crustacean faces screwed up into masks of malice. They saw their mutilated colleague, its killer cringing over its body and came forward as one in a rush of vengeance.

Hendrix was swept aloft beneath a tide of shells, claws raking, tearing deep into his flesh. Slipping; now in a dark forest where trees moved and giant fungi shut out the daylight.

No, that wasn't right, he was back in his dad's garage only old Tammy had forgotten to switch on the light. Where was Tammy? Oh Jesus, these crabs had eaten him right down to the last splinter of bone! Where had they all come from, they couldn't all have come out of that bucket?

It was a dream, he'd wake up any second. Don't panic. Pain, but it didn't really hurt. It was all in the mind.

Something raked across his eyes. He couldn't see any more. Sticky warm blood that he tried to smear away but even then he couldn't see. Arms and legs had a strange numbness about them almost as though they weren't there anymore.

The same stupid dream. It wasn't frightening any longer; boring, in fact. His head rolling, crustacean legs kicking it like a football until it became lodged in something. The drain? Any moment all that blood would come trickling down and form into a pool, the level rising until it drowned him.

The sounds were fainter now, the pain dulled. Perhaps this time the dream would just fade and he would drift off into a peaceful slumber. Funny thing about that crab without a shell; that's what was known as an undressed crab! Laughing softly to himself now that he was convinced that it wasn't all happening, not even trying to fight off the encroaching blackness.

The crabs moved back to the trap. A claw was raised, slashed down. The soft flesh of the mangled victim squelched and split open. The human was forgotten as another stampede of lust churned the shallows. Neither compassion nor respect for the corpse of one of their own species, fighting amongst themselves, tearing and munching … in the same manner that they had fed all the way upriver from the estuary. Scavengers cleaning up their own dead as though they were afraid of leaving the cancer victims to mark their trail.

An army that fed off its own ranks.

Cannibals!

Chapter TWELVE

Cranlarich, once again the forgotten land, a sombre village at the head of the valley from which woodsmoke spiralled upwards in the stillness of a balmy summer evening. Loch Merse glinted and sparkled in the last rays of the sun which slid down behind the distant Criffel.

The partly rebuilt house seemed to frown down upon the undulating marshland beneath it, neither derelict nor renovated, as though debating whether or not to fall into disuse again. The contractors had left, even taken their ladders with them which meant that they would not be returning. John Blockley had not been seen for over a fortnight; more important, there was no wage cheque to be cashed at the bank in Dumfries so they had packed up and moved on to another job up near Moffat.

PC Glendon had arrived in the village around midday, aware that curtains moved on both sides of the street, and if he had stared at the dusty windows he would have seen heads being hastily drawn back, disapproving, suspicious expressions on the faces of the watchers. But he didn't look because he knew these people; his grandfather had lived and died in Cranlarich and it had been the same then.

A hush settled in the smoke room of the ‘Royal Stag’ as he walked in, hostile stares from the menfolk of those women who had already noted his arrival from behind their curtains. Blacklaw, the landlord, glanced up and looked back down again, the drying of a pint tankard suddenly the most important task in the world.

Paul Glendon was only three years off retirement yet his age was deceptive. A few grey hairs but the smooth face was relaxed and unlined. Twice he had turned down promotion; they wouldn't offer it again. He didn't want it because this was his life, a large and remote area where trouble was rare. Dedicated in everything he did because it was in the interests of the community. Tomorrow he would patrol the Bladaggon mountain where an eagle had successfully reared her young up on the tall crags. They would be safe now but he'd check just the same. Ballinger hadn't been seen in the area for months but he could still come even at this late stage, armed with some intricate net trap which would take the eaglets alive. It was strange that Ballinger hadn't come, more worrying in some ways than if the man had shown up.

‘Whisky, please,’ he edged up to the bar, addressed his order to the sullen man who seemed intent on getting a shine on that tankard. Elsewhere the police officer would not have risked drinking in uniform, but here in Cranlarich it didn't matter. Also the Royal Stag was the only place where he was likely to get any information. The rule books did apply in these places.

With obvious reluctance the landlord poured a shot of Black Label into a glass and took his time changing the £5 note in the till.

‘I'm lookin' for John Blockley,’ Glendon spoke loudly enough for everybody in the room to hear. They probably guessed anyway; there was nothing to be gained by being secretive about his mission.

‘I canna help ye, officer,’ Blacklaw banged the change down on the bar. ‘He has' na' bin seen for two weeks and I doubt whether he'll be seen again now. Like the others. Cranlarich is a strange place. The bog has its own secrets.’

‘So I've heard,’ Glendon sipped his whisky, ‘I just wanted to ask. In case. I might've saved my time looking but I see now I'll have to look all the same.’

‘Ye're wastin' yer time whatever ye do,’ Blacklaw found another glass to dry. ‘It isn'a that we wouldn'a help ye, constable, it's just that we canna.’

‘Aye, I understand,’ the policeman drained his glass, put it back on the bar. ‘But I'll ha'ta look all the same.’

It was hot, not a breath of wind. Twenty minutes later, Glendon pulled his car on to the side of the narrow winding road at the nearest point to the lake. Through the tall pines it was possible to see the water shimmering a rich blue, so inviting. He took off his jacket, got out and locked the door. This was as good a place as any to start his search.

He made his way down through the wood, the coolness beneath the trees so much in contrast to the heat of the valley. Gloomy, eerie. A sense of relief that he tried not to notice when he emerged into the bright sunlight. He knew the Merse as well as any from his childhood holidays spent with his grandparents, and it had not changed any. Sheep tracks that the animals had trodden for a century, maybe longer, winding and turning back in places for no apparent reason. Foolish was the man who tried to short-circuit the tedious route, for beneath the lush green of the spike grass Cranlarich Bog waited patiently for its next victim, man or beast; it was in no hurry.

The ground became harder, more stony as it neared the loch. Huge boulders were strewn along the shore as though in bygone ages some mythical giant in a tantrum had decided to try and spoil the even, well laid out landscape.

Glendon seated himself on a large flat rock and lit a cigarette. It was a lazy sort of day but in spite of his physical relaxation his mind was alert, his grey eyes missing nothing. It was pointless walking the moors up above in the hope of finding Blockley's body lying hidden in the thick purple heather. He would tell his superiors that that was what he had done and they would accept his word, even if they guessed otherwise. Because Paul Glendon would not shirk a duty. If he suspected that Blockley was up there he would comb every inch of moorland until he found him. But had that been the case then, that pair of hunting buzzards, distant specks as they drifted above the slopes of Criffel, would have been elsewhere feasting on human carrion. So Glendon remained on that rock smoking a cigarette.

A hunch, nothing definite, not even a whiff of suspicion. But he knew that John Blockley was dead and that he had died somewhere down here, maybe even carelessly walked into the bog, and if that was the case then it would never be proven. In the meantime, though, the policeman would just watch and wait. He could not do anything else because he was not one to expend needless energy.

Now the sun was setting, the heat of the day seeming to rise back out of the scorched earth into a sultry, windless evening. And Glendon still watched and waited as the shadow of Criffel began to spread across the surface of Loch Merse. In this valley it would be dark half-an-hour or so earlier than it would be outside on the Firth.

So silent, as though the wildlife of Cranlarich had emigrated. Not even the call of grouse from the upper moors or a flight of mallard or teal winging their way in from the Solway mudflats. Silence.

Glendon sensed rather than saw the first movement, a rippling of the water as though an otter swam twenty yards or so from the shore. Curious, he edged behind the rock, his eyes never leaving the water for a second. Whatever it was was coming ashore; it would emerge thirty yards or so to his left. Damn the shadows, it was difficult to see anything at all.

Something moving, dragging itself up out of the water, a shifting patch blacker than the shadows, too big and slow for an otter. The police officer strained his eyes, tried to identify whatever it was. Almost gave up.

With a start he realised that there were more of them coming ashore, rippling water, pebbles being dislodged, a strange clicking noise that echoed across the loch and bounced back off the overhanging cliffs on the opposite side.

And suddenly Paul Glendon knew what these creatures were that were coming out of Loch Merse. Giant crabs like the ones that had brought most of London to a standstill and had invaded other parts of Britain. And even as he crouched down amongst the boulders he knew without any doubt what fate had befallen John Blockley!

And the crabs were still emerging from the loch, crawling up on to the merse, the night air vibrant with a crustacean symphony of death.

Glendon was sweating. A crab had passed within a yard of him, several more squatted silently only ten yards away. He wondered about their powers of scent and hearing on dry land; if he was discovered, then yet another missing person would be listed in the Cranlarich file.

He tried to determine what was happening. There was no moon, just a faint glow of starlight that showed up in silhouette any crab which moved across the higher ground behind him. They seemed to be congregating on the merse itself like juking partridges in the long grass. Only an occasional click as a pincer moved, its owner perhaps shifting position.

Silence. The crabs were waiting for something!

Glendon's legs alternated between pins and needles and cramp, every so often endeavouring to shift his position until in the end he had exhausted every possible permutation. He prayed that the monsters would return to their water domain before daylight, otherwise he could not avoid discovery and certain death.

Hours went by, a night that passed slowly then raced headlong towards the dawn. He groaned as he saw the first grey streaks daubing the eastern sky. There was only one way back to the road, that snake-like twisting track that was doubtless lined with huge crustaceans. Two ways to die - the crabs or the bog! If he was given a choice he would take the latter.

Daylight crept in revealing the silent humped shapes, not a movement from any of them. Glendon tried to press himself down into the rocks still further, knew that within the next quarter of an hour he would have to run the gauntlet. He'd go down fighting rather than skulk here and wait for death. Run, jump, weave. There was an outside chance; he made no attempt to work out the odds against his survival. It was better not to know.

A rose-pink hue began to spread across the grey horizon, a splendour that did not go unnoticed by the crouching police officer. In all probability he would not see another sunrise. He made a deliberate effort to appreciate this one.

He heaved, almost coughed, suddenly became aware of the vile odour that hung in the still air. A fleeting reminder of a missing stallion he'd found dead one day on the moors. A magnificent specimen named Quicksilver, a hunter that had been put out to graze because it had developed a malignant growth. The vet had given it three months to live; maybe it had heard and understood, or else it had known all along. Whatever, it had broken out of its paddock and headed right up on to the Bladaggon Moors, determined to die in the wild places it loved the most. The smell had led Paul Glendon to its last resting place; a stench similar in many ways to the foul odour which permeated the scent of heather and pine now.

He made up his mind to go on the spur of the moment, hit the bank at a run, trying to ignore the stiffness in his legs. Stumbled, almost fell, but managed to keep his balance.

There were crabs everywhere, their sandy shells standing out starkly on the greenery of the merse, like roosting wild geese on the mudflats with their heads hidden beneath their wings. A scene of tranquility, not a movement anywhere. Singly, in bunches, a line of them dotted along the sheep track which led to safety through the Bog. They were everywhere, dozens of them.

He slowed, something inside him shouting to him to give up because he'd never make it, heaving because the stench was thicker up here, a suffocating vileness that had him wanting to throw up.

Then came the stunning realisation, the truth. Standing there laughing insanely, a condemned man that has received an unexpected reprieve just as the noose was being placed over his head. You're not going to die!

He sank down on the grass, suddenly knowing that there was no hurry. He had all the time in the world.

For every crab, from the shores of Loch Merse, right up to the edge of the pinewoods below the road, was dead!

Chapter THIRTEEN

‘They're dying in their hundreds,’ there was a note of triumph in Cliff Davenport's voice as he sat up in his hospital bed and greeted Pat as she walked into the small private ward of the Wrexham hospital.

‘And you're lucky you're not dead,’ her features were tear-stained, her eyes black-rimmed because she had not slept for thirty-six hours. ‘The crabs have left me with a cripple for a husband. D'you call that beating them?’

‘It's not that bad,’ he smiled. ‘My broken legs will mend even if it does mean a month or two hobbling around on crutches. Mercifully it's not my right hand that's gone. I'll soon get used to coping with an artificial one.’

She sat down on the chair by his bedside and for a time could not trust herself to speak. Finally she said, ‘It's all over, isn't it? The crabs are finished, there won't be anymore … will there?’

‘I don't know,’ he wanted to say yes, but Pat was the one person he couldn't lie to.

‘But they're being found dead all over the place, in rivers and lakes, even on dry land where they've crawled out of the water to die.’

‘Sure. In a week, maybe less, there won't be a crab left alive. Grisedale came to see me about an hour ago. There's over a hundred been found dead in a loch in Scotland, some of them had crawled their way on to the open merse to die. That's what's worrying me. They've changed, can live for a long time in fresh water but why have they even started deserting that?’

‘Look,’ she rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘it's none of your concern now, Cliff. The authorities have got everything under control. You've got to rest, forget the crabs.’

‘They left the sea, now they're leaving the rivers,’ he appeared not to have heard her. ‘I thought maybe they had some place lined up to go and die in, let my fancies run away with me. Now I'm not so sure.’

She stared at him, noted the intensity of his expression. Something else, a flicker in his grey eyes that could have been … fear!

‘It could be that they came inland to die,’ his voice was scarcely audible, or else they left the oceans because they had to. Maybe they're aware of radioactivity in the water or … or they're afraid of something else.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like an even more terrible mutated species that's even now growing and breeding on the seabed unknown to Mankind!’

She tensed, a wave of terror sweeping through her like one of those dreams where you're suddenly falling and you wake up with a jump, pulses pounding.

‘You're only surmising,’ she tried to sound convincing even if she didn't feel it.

‘Maybe, maybe not. By the way, I'm coming home tomorrow.’

‘No, you're not!’ Her eyes blazed. ‘You're in no fit condition. You're still suffering from shock and the sister told me that it'll be at least a week before …’

‘I'm coming home,’ Davenport was determined, a mood she knew only too well when nothing would dissuade her husband from something on which his mind was made up. ‘If Doctor Marriott won't let me, then m discharge myself.’

At that point Pat could not hold back her tears any longer.

Chasewater, a natural lake in the heart of the industrial West Midlands that had had much of its original beauty taken away by the permanent funfair and its crowds of weekend visitors. The speedboats and yachts had for a decade now deterred the flocks of migrant wildfowl from coming here any longer. Housing estates had crept closer and closer like a creeping tide, and gone was the tranquillity which this place had once known. Yet it thrived on its new image, few paid any attention to the old legend that the dark water which had seeped in from the coal mines was bottomless in places. There was a permanent carnival atmosphere that dominated.

Bill Wallace had gone down to Chasewater before six o'clock that August morning, changing into his wetsuit whilst he waited for Tom Carter to arrive. Tom was always late, that was why Bill had said six instead of seven. It was their only chance to enjoy an hour's uninterrupted waterskiing before work; in the evenings nowadays it was always too crowded, too many boats causing a swell that created unnecessary difficulties. Maybe eventually he and Tom would have to look for another place, somewhere more secluded. The trouble was everybody else was doing that, too.

He stroked his short beard as he sat on the bumper of the old Spitfire and looked out across the water. Chasewater was nothing special really, just a big marl hole which had had a facelift in the interests of commercial enterprise. Take away the fairground and the boats and nobody would really be interested; the pool would revert to its former state in a few years.

He heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and glanced back to see a car bumping its way across towards him, a dust trail in its wake. Not bad, he thought, twenty minutes late is early for Tom. A brief moment of guilt: Tom didn't really want to turn out this morning, he was doing it for Bill's sake. But in a partnership like theirs there was always a driving force, otherwise they would both falter.

‘Hi,’ Tom, who was clad in a torn blue sweater and faded jeans, had driven all the way down from Cannock in his wellingtons. ‘I'll just start the old tub up. Better not waste any time, I was ten minutes late clocking in yesterday morning.’

Bill Wallace began fitting on his skis, heard the ‘Cormorant's’ engine whine a couple of times then fire. Tom was coasting back, throwing out the line. They made ready, not speaking because it would have been impossible to hear each other anyway over the roar of the small speedboat.

A couple of minutes later the rope tautened and a rush of exhilaration hit Wallace along with the fine spray; he wanted to sing, didn't care that nobody would hear him. There was nothing to beat this sport for excitement, a kind of eroticism in a way, building up to a climax, blood pounding through you as though you were going to burst. In a way it divorced you from the world, made you a loner where nothing was mundane. As for Bill, he just lived for speedboats, wouldn't have fastened on skis for a tenner. That was why they were such a complete unit, because they were both getting what they wanted out of life.

Turning, a gradual half-circle on the Norton side, just to let you get the feel of things; the Brownhills end was the tricky one, eight times out of ten you lost your balance. But that was where you got your kicks, trying to beat the water and the boat in front. This morning he was determined to make it.

Christ, Tom really had her flat out. Everything he did this morning was done in a hurry. Bill Wallace was really going to have to pull out all the stops to beat the sharp turn.

Even as Tom was beginning to veer from the straight stretch his companion realised that something was wrong, the way the water seemed to suck at him. At first he thought it was one of his skis not properly fastened. No, that wasn't it. Jesus Christ, Tom Carter was weaving crazily as though it was some kind of obstacle race, zigzagging, riding waves that shouldn't have been there, couldn't possibly be!

Bill braced himself, forced his muscles to relax as he was pulled sideways on then hit the water. One brief glimpse through the spray - the boat in front was rearing up like a seaplane about to take off, starting to disintegrate. Then it was lost to sight as Bill Wallace went under, the dark murky waters engulfing him.

He'd been under before scores of times, it was all part of the sport. The fact that it was dark and abominably cold was all the more reason for striking back up to the surface quickly. An eerie underwater world, which was why the superstitious locals claimed it was bottomless. He shuddered inside his wetsuit and struck upwards.

The water was getting lighter; he couldn't have been more than three or four yards from the surface when something fastened on to one of his flippers and stopped him abruptly, a jerk that almost dislocated his ankle. He floundered, struck out again, but he was held firmly. Now he was being dragged back down!

The air in his lungs was used up. He gulped instinctively, started to swallow water, a thrombosis-like pain spreading across his chest. Twisting, panicking, trying to see below him. Everywhere was so dark, just little red pinpoints that glowed and flashed in the murkiness. Eels of some kind, he didn't know much about underwater life. Nothing dangerous in inland waters though, it had to be some kind of debris that he'd got caught up in. Once a car had run forward and gone over the edge, he didn't know quite where, but there could be all kinds of wrecks lying down here.

Suddenly he was fighting for his life in a grim black world where jagged knives seemed to slash from every direction. Writhing and kicking, feeling himself being torn apart. Trying to scream so that the water poured into him.

He knew he was going to die! A crushing grip that crunched bones, splintering his ribs so that they punctured his lungs in a dozen places. Only then did he realise, his pain-crazed brain screaming at him, that it was the giant crabs, that somehow they'd found their way in here via a maze of rivers and canals!

The water was churning as though he were caught up in some rapids, being thrown one way then the other, jagged rocks tearing and smashing into his body in a world of red and black. Bill Wallace's last conscious thought, in keeping with his unselfish character, was for Tom Carter. It was all Bill's fault for persuading his friend to come down here for a few early morning circuits and for that reason he was glad to die.

A group of teenage schoolboys had ventured along Pool Road and out towards the canal, armed with flimsy fishing nets. With only a fortnight of the holidays gone, boredom was already beginning to set in. They weren't really concerned with sticklebacks or roach, just intent on larking about. A few pebbles were skimmed along the surface, an empty lemonade bottle smashed on the pyramid of broken bricks which they had built the evening before, showering glass all over the towpath.

‘Let's go across the Pool,’ the lanky red-haired Timmy said. The other three did not argue; anything Timmy said went, because if you crossed him he was the kind who got his own back in a lot of nasty sly ways. It had been his idea to come out early this morning. Now they were all bored but they'd stick it until Timmy said it was time to go home. 6.50 a.m. Christ, it was virtually the middle of the bleedin' night!

The wall of the dam hid the lake from their view. Somewhere a speedboat was whining like a chainsaw with the throttle jammed. At least it would be something to watch, even though they'd seen it all before. Perhaps the silly bugger being towed would get a ducking, it was bloody monotonous if he didn't. They'd go see.

A steep sandy dry bank had them scrambling on all-fours up to the dam, sliding back a yard for every two they covered. They didn't believe in following footpaths or tracks, or doing anything that people usually did.

Then, suddenly, the drone of the speedboat cut out bringing a silence that had them all looking at one another and then at Timmy. He usually knew the whys and wherefores of everything, poured forth a convincing spiel. But this time there was only puzzlement on his coarse freckled features. He was not committing himself at this stage.

The crashing sound was too near for it to have been a motor accident on the distant road; the same sound effects, tearing metal, something breaking up. Then silence again.

‘Come on,’ Timmy was scrambling frantically up the last stretch. ‘The fucker's 'it sommat, probably the jetty. Might see sommat real good!’

Four sensation-seeking boys pulled themselves feverishly up and looked over the stone wall, stared in total disbelief!

There was no sign of the boat they'd heard, or if the debris was still floating, then it would have been impossible to see it for the entire expanse of water, supposedly a 7-mile circumference, was a foaming seething cauldron as though the whole of Chasewater boiled. White-tipped waves several feet high dashing themselves against the artificial sides, the spume hanging in the still air. The observation tower which stood just off the Brownhills shore was gone, the nearby funfair disintegrating as though a hurricane was tearing it from its site. And from out of the dark waters huge crustaceans were spilling, a demolished anthill from which the inhabitants poured to wreak their vengeance on the violator!

‘It's them fuckin' crabs that were on the telly!’ Timmy grunted.

The others did not answer. They were safe up here, the monsters couldn't climb the sheer wall of the dam. Suddenly life had ceased to be boring.

Crabs were fighting blindly in and out of the water. Whole regiments clashed, milled until they were three or four deep, a moving ten foot wall of sandy shells, slimed with the seeping puss that squelched from their bodies. Vicious, unfeeling, their only thought death to anything within reach of their claws, the air echoing with the blows that rained down.

Many were already dead, some with split shells, a few naked and unrecognisable for what they were, Man forgotten in this last battle to exterminate life, crazed so that even their insatiable hunger for flesh and blood was overlooked. The dead and the dying, the latter still fighting.

A crowd had gathered on the Norton Canes skyline, people streaming across the waste ground from Chasetown and Brownhills drawn by the sounds of battle. Death locks went unbroken in a tangle of gigantic corpses, the nauseating stench of disease drifting in all directions fanned by the strengthening rays of the sun as it climbed into the sky and steamed it out of them.

Armoured trucks began to arrive but the soldiers did not advance. Helicopters circled but kept their distance. Not a single shot was fired, the crop sprayers loaded with paraquat were not brought into action. There was no need. A few more hours and the enemy which had threatened civilisation would destroy itself. That was a certain fact.

Only when the sun began to dip in the western sky were the waters still again, discoloured and stinking as they attempted to cover their vile secret. And then came the seagulls, long lines of huge birds which had lived on these pools amongst mining subsidence for years, scavengers who scented the banquet which had been set for them. At dawn the following day the crows came. None interfered with them; they were allowed to squabble and feed, for this was their role in life. To cleanse.

‘Well, I think it's about all wrapped up now,’ Grisedale relaxed in an armchair in Cliff Davenport's West Hampstead home and looked thoughtfully across at the man who had given his left hand unselfishly in the fight. ‘The only reports now are of dead crabs. Everywhere. They've got to dredge them out of the Severn and the upper Thames. A few without shells, it seems that this cancer takes their armour off if it doesn't kill them first. I don't think we've anything more to worry about now, do you Clifford? In the end the cancer maddened them so that they fought and destroyed their own species.’

‘I was saying to Pat the other day,’ Cliff lowered his voice, glanced towards the door, ‘I'm not a bit happy about it. OK, we've got rid of the crabs and I think this time we can congratulate ourselves on a pretty good clean up. But it's these subversive undersea nuclear tests that worry me. That was how the crabs were created; who's to say that the Russians won't go and mutate another batch? Or some creature far more terrible! The crabs left the oceans for a very good reason and I'd like to know what it was. Did they realise that there was radioactivity in the seas and do their damnedest to get away from it, or is there something far more insidious lurking out there right now that even they fled from?’

‘Good God!’ Grisedale grimaced. ‘You don't really think so?’

‘Speculation on my part,’ Davenport forced a laugh. ‘Until something happens we'll never know. In all probability it won't. I know I'll be damned glad to get an artificial hand and these plaster casts off my legs. Then maybe I can start doing something useful again.’

This time they both laughed, but they had to work at it.

EPILOGUE

The years had not left their mark on Klin, the fisherman. He still moved with the ease of a twenty-five-year-old athlete, tall and rangy, his skin burned a deep copper colour by the sun. His hair and his beard were jet black with not a trace of grey in them and his dark eyes shone perpetually with a zest for life.

A loner now, more so than ever before, he only came into Hayman Island to unload his catch of fish then set off again for the remote islands of Barbecue Bay which he loved most of all. It was as though he was done with civilisation.

Some said that he'd found a cache of treasure buried somewhere and only fished for the love of it; others claimed there was a native girl hidden away on one of the islands who kept him shackled. But none really knew. Klin was as much a mystery as he'd always been.

His boat was noticed in the Hayman Island harbour one morning, drifting lazily at its mooring, but there was no sign of the man himself. And when dusk came the boat was gone; a matter for casual interest but nobody really cared. There were always comings and goings on the island. Klin was one mystery that would never be solved.

After five years Klin had returned to this tiny island. A three-day journey out across Barbecue Bay during which he neither fished nor slept apart from the odd doze. It was just … well, he wanted to see the place again, the scorched and blackened mangroves where he, Shannon and Davenport had burned the giant crabs, trapped them in a ring of fire from which there was no escape … except for the big one that had somehow got back into the sea. He'd never forget the nightmare of it, none of them would.

And now the bastards were back, invading Britain by means of its inland waterways. That big bitch had somehow spawned, reared her vile offspring. They'd spread. Come back for revenge. He wondered about this small virtually unknown island, if it had all happened here, that after the fire they'd returned to claim their domain, a crustacean phoenix rising out of the ashes.

It was midday when he beached, pulling his craft up on the shore, shading his eyes and gazing up the gentle slope to where the mangrove swamp began. There was no sign of the burned weird skeletal branches that they'd left behind; a new growth had sprung up and hidden the devastation. Strange growth, mangroves. Some five hundred acres of land stuck aimlessly in the Great Barrier Reef, its shores bounded by coral reefs as though put there deliberately to deter casual visitors. Mostly the land was swamp, only occasional patches of water visible through the dense foliage.

Fifteen years previously, the first time Klin had set foot on this place, it had been a barren wasteland of swamp. But in a decade the mangroves had come, seedlings drifting on the ocean, capable of remaining alive for up to a year whilst afloat, until eventually they washed up somewhere. Like here. And grew and spread into an instant jungle.

Klin shuddered as he walked up the beach and clambered over the rocks. The place reeked of rotting vegetation. Death! He had risked his life just coming here, negotiating the coral reefs which might have ripped the bottom out of his boat at any second. He would risk it again on the return journey. And all so pointless because in the end there wouldn't be a living thing here. But he had to be certain.

He walked along the edge of the mangroves until he came to the narrow watercourse, a tunnel formed by entwining overhead branches and going inland. The same one that he and the others had followed before. Nothing had changed, there wasn't a sign of the blaze that they had started, not so much as a charred withered branch as though that terrible inferno had never happened.

He moved inside, following the channel, his feet squelching in deep mud in places, scraping on coral in others, thick slime clinging to his legs. In places the water was a foot or so deep, in others only a few inches, brackish and stinking where the stream had widened and formed still, silent pools. So gloomy, like the interior of an unlit cathedral, damp and inhospitable. Forbidding, threatening.

His progress was slow and with the overhead sun screened from his vision it was difficult to determine time. He found his thoughts embarking upon a strange sequence of old memories. Harvey Logan the big game hunter who had tried to bag himself a crab trophy with a .500 Express; Caroline de Brunner who liked her men big and even then wasn't satisfied. And Shannon of the Shark Patrol who had survived it all and now had a brand new luxury office on Hayman. Few had lived to tell the tale and of those, most were haunted by feverish nightmares. Even himself, but maybe after today he would be able to get it out of his system. Then he'd begin to live again.

Some time later he reached the wide clearing, a miniature Everglades where mosquitoes rose in swarms from the stagnant pools and honed in on him like angry spitfires.

He scarcely noticed them, glancing round, his eyes missing nothing in this land of shadows, the mangroves twisted into weird shapes like gnarled dragons into whose secret domain he had trespassed. They seemed to move … at least one of them did!

A branch cracked and dropped into the water, floated a few inches and then stopped. Two eyes, glowing redly in the semi-darkness, reflecting hideous features that even mangroves in all their stunted ugliness were not capable of creating. Big, so big that a whole section of forest seemed to disintegrate as the creature moved forward.

And in that instant, terrible realisation dawned upon Klin, the fisherman. A crab, the one that Shannon had referred to as ‘Queen Crab’, the female who spawned her evil eggs and left an army to hatch out. And when she died another would take her place. She was here, only a few yards away, the old one who had survived or a new one, it mattered not.

Click-click!

A pincer was raised like snapping fingers, the noise echoing in the stillness of this swampland. The creature moved again, lowering itself into the water and sending up a wave that splashed against Klin's waist. She was coming for him, the fucking bitch! And there wasn't a goddamned thing he could do about it!

A kaleidoscope of thoughts, regrets. He should have brought a rifle. What the hell, a catapult would have been as much good. That money he'd dug up and reburied. Twenty thousand quid. It wouldn't be any good to anybody now. But what the hell, this was what life was all about - death!

Rivulets of sweat ran down his forehead and stung his eyes. It was the heat, not fear. He wasn't afraid anymore because that was why he had come here, to kill a bogey that had been plaguing his sleep. One way or another he'd get rid of it. Maybe the others went through it all just the same as he'd done, each one of them scared to let on that they were scared. Now was the moment of truth and Klin wasn't scared anymore.

The crab was close. Close enough to crunch him up any time it chose. But it did not appear to be in any hurry. There was an expression on its contorted vile features. Not just lust and hate. Something else. Curiosity. As though it had never seen a human being before. Holding back … afraid …

‘Come on you big fucking bitch!’ Klin yelled. ‘What the fuck are you waitin' for? Come and get me!’

The echoes came back at him out of the dark forest, flat and toneless. ‘Come and get me … and get me … get … me …’

Time passed, minutes that were marked by sweat streams, timed by thudding heart and pulses. It seemed to grow darker so that he could scarcely make out the shape of his enemy, just a patch of black shadow. Not even the eyes glowing now.

And for the first time he noticed the smell, like rotting corpses, coming at him in waves. He thought maybe he was dead but when he threw up he knew he still lived. He also knew that the crab was dead! It had come back here to its birthplace to die, or perhaps it had never even been away. That was something that nobody would ever know.

Slowly he began to grope his way back downstream. Sometime later he emerged on to the rocky shore and breathed in the fresh sea air, trying to get the last lingering vileness out of his lungs. Overhead the stars gleamed in a mantle of night sky and he knew then how long it had taken Queen Crab to die and why there had been fear stamped on her awful face.

And as Klin made his way back down to his moored fishing boat, his thoughts went back to that buried money. Twenty thousand quid! He was going to be mighty careful negotiating those coral reefs on the way out; it was time he did some spending.

[i] See Night of the Crabs (book details)

[ii] See Killer Crabs (book details)

[iii] See The Origin of the Crabs (book details)

[iv] See The Origin of the Crabs (book details)

The End

Thank you for purchasing this ebook.
I hope you enjoyed the read!.
Guy.

This ebook is the twenty-second book to be published as part of a project to convert Guy's entire back catalogue to ebook format. Beginning July 2010 it is expected to have all books available by the end of 2012.

The list of books so far published is :

1. Werewolf by Moonlight.

2. The Sucking Pit.

3. The Slime Beast.

4. Night of the Crabs.

5. The Truckers 1 - The Black Knights.

6. The Truckers 2 - Hi-Jack!.

7. Return of the Werewolf.

8. Bamboo Guerillas.

9. Killer Crabs.

10. Bats Out of Hell.

11. The Son of the Werewolf.

12. Locusts.

13. The Origin of the Crabs.

14. Caracal.

15. Thirst.

16. Deathbell.

17. Satan's Snowdrop.

18. Doomflight.

19. Warhead.

20. Manitou Doll.

21. Wolfcurse.

22. Crabs On The Rampage.

The next book will be :

23. The Pluto Pact.

"Centuries have passed since that terrible night of reckoning, but still the dark shadow hangs over a Scottish valley. Bob Coyle believes that his home town is menaced by a new centre for disposing of nuclear waste - a lethally dangerous project he calls 'Holocaust'. Yet his efforts to alert the people fall upon deaf - or angry - ears. For them the center means new-found prosperity. But a series of strange deaths and brutal killings at last starts to bring home the danger..."

To view all ebooks currently available, including the one above, please follow the link below.
View Ebook Catalogue

Best regards,

Guy and all at Black Hill Books.