Demons
Author: Guy N. Smith
Date: 1987-11-19 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: As a macabre joke, three youths rehang the satanic Deathbell. Once again the Deathbell rings, enslaving all who hear it, turning its victims into deaf-mute maniacs. Even when the village is flooded to make a reservoir, a drought eerily resurrects the buildings - and the Deathbell itself. A band of travellers squat in the ghost village, natural successors to the bell;s original Tibetan worshippers. These new slaves make human sacrifices to appease their voracious master, and another orgy of crazed evil begins ...
Publisher: Black Hill Books

Demons - Kindle Version 1.0

(c) Guy N Smith 1987 - 2012

Published by Black Hill Books, March 2012

ISBN : 978-1-907846-43-4

First Published by Arrow Books November 1987.

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Contents

Title

PROLOGUE

1 - THE DEATHBELL TOLLS AGAIN

2 - THE EXHUMATIONS

3 - MANHUNT

4 - THE WATER NYMPH

5 - MIDSUMMER MADNESS

6 - SUICIDAL

7 - RESURRECTED EVIL

8 - VILLAGE OF THE LIVING DEAD

9 - ‘DESTROY THE DEATHBELL!’

10 - DEATH FROM THE SKIES

11 - THE DEAD LAKE

12 - THE FESTIVAL OF MAGIC MUSHROOMS

13 - HUMAN SACRIFICE

14 - THE WATERS OF VENGEANCE

PROLOGUE

‘This is the place.’ Dai Charlton sensed the other two crowding in on him as though they sought his protection. ‘Caelogy Hall. Formerly known as … Sodom!’

‘And a soddin’ awful place it looks,’ Viv Lewis answered. His remark was meant to be a joke but sounded decidedly unfunny.

‘Don’t see why we have to come here,’ Al Griffiths, the third member of the trio, said sullenly. ‘I thought we was goin’ to pinch the Smiths’ turkeys tonight.’

‘We are. ’ Charlton flashed him a warning angry glance in the faint moonlight. ‘But we gotta job to do first. Or maybe you’d forgotten, Al. In a few months they’re going to clear us all out of Turbury, a no-go area in a fucking police state – bugger the lot of you, we’re turning your village into a bloody reservoir. We’ve already got five but six would be nice, wouldn’t it? Get out or stay and drown, you’ve got two choices. Okay, it’s a dead-alive hole but why the fuck should they get away with it? So we’re going to stick two fingers up to ’em, let ’em hear the Deathbell ring once more, frighten the living shit out o’ the bastards.’

‘It won’t do no good,’ Viv Lewis replied feebly, aware how his own voice shook. ‘Anyway, the likes o’ us were only kids when all that happened.’ He fidgeted uneasily and tried to tug the belt of his jeans over a roll of bulging waistline, a habit developed these last few months since he had put on weight. His nostrils twitched at the strong, sour aroma that wafted from beneath his arms, an odour that had long since earned him the nickname of ‘Pongo’. Seventeen years of age, a year out of school and he hadn’t found a job yet; because he didn’t want one, didn’t need one. Like Charlton, he was learning that there were ways of making a few quid without having to work, and unemployment benefit was handy pocket money to supplement it. But he knew buggering about in the grounds of this tumbledown hall wasn’t going to benefit any of them. The authorities would flood the valley, the villagers would move on elsewhere and life wouldn’t really be all that different.

‘Well, we’re goin’ to do it.’ Dai Charlton turned and faced his companions. They shrank back, then nodded their agreement because they were frightened of the tall man who bore an horrific knife scar down the left cheek, had a hair lip and eyes that were set too closely to the bridge of his broken nose. The black beret pulled jauntily to one side of his head combined with the ex-army camouflage jacket and trousers to give him a paramilitary appearance. A thug who had already served a two-year detention sentence for GBH and burglary, they tagged along with him for fear of what he might do to them if they didn’t. ‘So we all know where we stand, okay?’

Al Griffiths nodded. He was already only too well aware of where he stood. His father owned a two hundred-acre sheep farm on the north side of the village, on the slopes that would not be affected by the flooding. With an inheritance waiting for him, he had no reason to join the others in these nefarious nocturnal forays. The raid on the Cwm game preserves had yielded a bag of one hundred and fifty pheasants, knocked out of the roosts with .22 air rifles fitted with night-sights. A quid a bird from one of Charlton’s contacts – fifty quid apiece – and the police were still investigating so that he didn’t sleep easy in his bed. Six ewes knocked off from that unfenced grazing up towards the mountains – a hundred pounds each for them that night. The risk was greater than the rewards, and now he thought they were being just plain bloody daft. But it was too late to back out.

They stared with grim fascination at the remains of the old hall in front of them. The large grey stone house had most of the panes in its mullioned windows either cracked or missing, and the walls were covered by thick ivy that was attempting unsuccessfully to hide the dereliction. Slates had fallen from the roof and shattered on the weed-covered driveway beneath, and the wall of rhododendrons was creeping ever closer, as if Nature sought to screen this place from prying eyes, to preserve the evil that still festered inside.

The mansion had a history that went back to the last century, when it was known as ‘Sodom’ – a terrible name for such remote tranquillity and beauty. In those days the owner was a tyrant who had driven his two daughters to suicide and then murdered his wife, before turning the knife upon himself. After that Sodom became Caelogy Hall, but a mere change of name could not erase the memory of the past. The hall had lain empty since before the outbreak of the Kaiser’s War, the rain washing the mortar from between the stonework, the winds lashing the windows and tearing at the roof, once-splendid gardens becoming a tangled undergrowth of wild willow herb and ground elder. The chapel with its ornate belfry was not spared the ravages of time either, a haven of peace and worship yielding to the atmosphere of evil and decay. Time eroded and none cared, for nobody set foot through those rusted wrought-iron entrance gates – until the Hamiltons arrived, a decade ago this very winter, and brought with them a new evil.

Then death and terror had come to Turbury, madness and murder, when the notes of the Deathbell were heard. The huge bell had been transported from the mountains of Tibet, where its chimes were worshipped by the deadly Seekers of Silence. Priests cut off the ears of their followers and deafened them; the only sound they heard from then onwards was a Deathbell which made them its slaves and drove them to acts of bestial savagery.

The Hamiltons’ son had been one of those unfortunates during their time in Tibet. His parents had sought to save him by fleeing to England and shutting him away in the seclusion of Caelogy Hall with only their beautiful housemaid, Karamaneh, for company. They needed one of the dreaded Deathbells with which to control their offspring but in the end its curse had prevailed, thousands of miles from its country of origin, and they had all died as a result. So the story was whispered amongst those villagers of Turbury who had survived and remembered. Caelogy Hall was left to rot, there were no prospective buyers and now, if the water authorities had their decision to bury the village in a new reservoir upheld by the appeal court, the Deathbell and its legend would be buried forever in a deep watery grave.

‘That’s the chapel over there.’ Charlton pushed forward through the mass of thick constricting weeds that did their best to hold him back. ‘See, just as it was left after the fire that night. My old man told me about it.’

The others saw the gutted remnants of the chapel, a crumbling squat stonework skeleton with the belfry jutting up at one end, spared as though its evil work was not yet done. Still and silent. Waiting.

The charred remains of the door lay on the ground. Dai Charlton stepped over it, heard it crack beneath his weight and shone his powerful poaching torch inside.

Viv Lewis said ‘Jesus!’ and hung back. The woodwork, the beams and the pews were long gone; even the weeds had infiltrated. Straggling briars were inching their way inside, two or three feet each year, wrapping themselves around the stone pillars like boa constrictors intent on crushing any remaining life out of the edifice. Open to the starry moonlit sky, roof and rafters gone, the blackened shell reeked of ancient evil.

‘There it is!’ There was a note of jubilation in Charlton’s voice. ‘The Deathbell!’

The bell lay on its side against a brick dais where once the small altar had stood, its yawning mouth gaping hungrily at the intruders. Coated in mud, tarnished, it reminded Griffiths of the old cement mixer back at the farm, tipped over. He found himself mentally calculating its scrap value. Christ, it had to weigh several hundredweight. He found himself admiring its design and perfect moulding – the workmanship went back centuries before the introduction of mechanisation; man-made, every square inch of it, a work of beauty. He shuddered. Maybe all those stories were just made up, tales to frighten kids, to stop them from coming and playing in a dangerous place. Yes, that was it, he almost convinced himself – but not quite.

‘Where’s that rope, Al?’ Charlton spoke gruffly. Griffiths, suddenly reminded of the coil of strong hempen rope which he carried on his shoulder, shrugged it down on to the floor. Lofting that bell up into the tower would be enough to give you a bloody hernia, he thought! ‘Hey.’ He stiffened, pointing. ‘The clapper’s missing!’

‘Oh, shit!’ Charlton swung his torchbeam in a slow arc, searching the debris-strewn floor about them. ‘Just our bloody luck …’

‘There it is!’ Lewis grunted, wishing he hadn’t even as the words slipped from his thick lips. If the clapper was missing then there’d be no point in hoisting up the bell and they could leave here and go and get those turkeys.

Dai Charlton stooped, lifted up the discarded clapper with some difficulty and scraped soil and ashes from it with his hands. ‘Must’ve come off when it fell. No problem, it just hooks back on. See!’ A dull clang resonated as he dropped the clapper against the side of the bell. The noise jarred their brains, left vibrating echoes and made them clasp their hands to their heads. Humming in the still atmosphere, the sound was reluctant to disperse.

‘Right then.’ The leader shone his torch upwards, noting a blackened beam, possibly the only surviving piece of woodwork in the chapel, at the top of the tower. The flames had licked at it, hardening but not incinerating it. ‘That’ll do. Now … watch this!’

He looped the rope, coiled it and flung it with all his strength, a vicious elongating snake that whipped and lashed, dropped over that beam and dangled.

‘Good throw, Dai!’ They were expected to say that, just as they had to compliment the tall man on his marksmanship when he rolled over a running rabbit with his folding single-barrelled .410. If he missed they didn’t say anything, pretending they had not noticed.

Charlton dropped to his knees and began tying the other end of the rope to a bracket on top of the bell; pulling the knot tight, he checked that it would not slip. ‘Okay, that should hold. Now, all hands to the rope and up she goes!’ Slowly the rusted Deathbell was pulled clear of the ground, a monster rising from a ten-year slumber, angry at being disturbed, pulling against them, as if saying, ‘Leave me be, lower me back to the ground, I command you.’ It gave another half-muffled clang as the clapper swung, an age-old warning to those who meddled and did not understand, but it was ignored.

‘She’s going! Keep at it.’

They were straining, grunting. The acrid stench of sweat came from Pongo, while Charlton muttered obscenities as an encouragement to the others. Almost there, another yard. The bell faltered, threatening to fall and crush them, but the rope was strong.

‘Bloody great! Al, shin up those steps and hook the bugger on whilst we hold it.’

The belfry steps started to crumble beneath Griffiths’ feet, showering stones and dust as he climbed. A wave of vertigo hit him because there was no handrail but the sensation passed. He leaned across and guided the bell’s bracket on to the loop. Those below slackened their pull; the Deathbell bowed the beam with its weight, but it held.

Al Griffiths was sweating. He felt sick as he carefully descended the old stairway. He groped again for the rail which wasn’t there, swayed precariously and almost cried out. The atmosphere seemed alive, a cold invisible entity that swirled malevolently about him. The dizziness passed, he reached the bottom. Charlton was surveying their handiwork and Viv was standing over by the door, poised for a departure that bordered on flight.

‘I’d love to ring the bloody thing.’ Dai Charlton laughed, a hollow sound. ‘Scare the fucking daylights out of these villagers.’

‘No!’ Al Griffiths gasped. ‘You … know what it … does to you. Like it did to us just now. I can still hear it in my head.’

‘If we weren’t going after the Smiths’ turkeys I would ring it,’ Charlton turned away with a shrug. ‘But the last thing we want is to alert the whole countryside. The wind’ll ring it when it gets up next, you see if it doesn’t. Now, come on, there’s a shed full of turkeys waiting for us and further down the line a poulterer with cash in his hand.’

It was a relief to be outside in the open again, to feel the cold of a frosty night on their faces, the ripple of a faint breeze trying to blow that fearsome clang of the Deathbell out of their frightened minds.

Charlton had driven the old Transit on sidelights for the past half-mile, easing the van down the slight incline, past impenetrable forestry thickets on their left, steep grazing fields to the right. A straggling hawthorn hedge reached out for the road as though it bore a resentment to vehicular traffic and still remembered the days of the old drovers and the horse-drawn hay wains. The tyres bumped gently on the verge, branches scratched the rusted bodywork. The engine was killed, the lights doused. Then there was a moment or two of silence, mental preparation for this night’s unlawful deed.

‘Right.’ The big man eased open the driver’s door an inch or two. ‘We don’t go in through the gate – he’s fixed an alarm of some sort there. We could probably dismantle it, but we don’t want to risk any mishaps. We’ll go in through the roadside hedge and pull the mesh fence down. After that it’ll be a piece of cake. I’ll take the birds off the perches, pass ’em one at a time to Viv. You stop this side of the hedge, Al, and take ’em from ’im. Screw their necks and stuff ’em in those coal sacks. Got it?’

The other two had got it all right. They stole a glance down the road. Some four hundred yards away was a cluster of farm buildings, the Smiths’ smallholding. No lights showed; they would be asleep in bed, wouldn’t hear a thing. Dead easy. Al smoothed his hand across his forehead. Christ, he’d got a bloody headache coming on. A steady thumping like a pneumatic drill in slow motion somewhere in the recesses of his brain. Sort of metallic, clanging. Echoing. The Deathbell!

Charlton jumped down into the road, then heard the other two following him. The moon was well up now, there would be no need for torches. Habitually he listened for a second; almost silence, just the bleating of sheep in the fields below. And the muffled thud of that clapper still thumping inside his head. Like a catchy tune that you start off by humming until eventually you can’t get rid of it. But there were more important things on hand than the Deathbell tonight; that had been a mere incidental, a sort of sadistic joke.

The hedge was thick. Charlton and Lewis ignored the wicked thorns and forced their way through until they came to a flimsy mesh fence; they grasped it, tugged, felt it sag and buckle, and trod it down. One glance back; Al was on the roadside, waiting. From inside the corrugated tin shed they heard birds moving restlessly with a faint, gobbled alarm.

Charlton unlatched the top of the stable-type door and eased it back. With a quick flash of his torch he decided he could make a rough count of the takings for a night’s work. Christ, there was a blanket hanging down inside the door. That silly old bastard had rigged up his own draught-excluder for his turkeys! Some folks went to excessive lengths, the next step would be central heating, maybe double glazing. He grasped at the dangling folds, tugged. And screamed.

It was as though a dozen daggers gouged, ripped and shredded Dai Charlton’s arm, and as he made to leap away he lost his footing and fell forward. Invisible talons hooked into his face, ribboning his cheeks, an excruciating pain pierced his left eye. Oh, God Above, whatever it was had blinded him and dragged out his eye! Another curved spike speared a nostril and protruded through the side of the nose; his lower lip was caught, pierced right through to his gum.

He’d dropped the torch but he knew that blood was spurting from somewhere because he could hear it like somebody pissing on tarpaulins. Hung up, he had no way back and no way forward. Turkeys were gobbling their delight at his plight and that thumping in his head grew louder, really hurting. The Deathbell, ringing all the way back in Turbury and they could hear it right out here. There wasn’t any other explanation. Crying, he called out to Viv Lewis to help him.

A torchbeam cut through the darkness and showed a section of army blanket in a white circle, a sort of mottled dirty grey polka-dotted with fresh blood. Dai Charlton was suspended by his arm and face, held there whilst he bled to death.

‘Oh, my Christ!’ Viv Lewis backed away a step, his torchbeam depicting the full horror. ‘That fucking farmer’s set a booby trap, Dai. That old blanket's full of fish hooks!’

Dai Charlton almost fainted. He whined an incomprehensible plea for help and tried to close his uninjured eye so that he did not have to look. He was caught up and bleeding; how long did it take somebody to bleed to death? Not long. Come on, you stupid fuckers, help me!

Viv Lewis wasn’t going near. He couldn’t stand the sight of human blood, he’d faint if he didn’t look away. Hell, they’d have to leave Dai, maybe make an anonymous 999 call from a phone box. They’d never get him out of those hooks, and he’d need hospital treatment whatever they did. Oh Christ, he could still hear that bell, a kind of funereal tolling. Shut up, will you!

‘What’s up?’ Al Griffiths was struggling with the hedge, afraid to shine his torch. ‘What’s going on in there?’

‘It’s Dai. Caught up in fish hooks!’

‘Christ Almighty!’

‘We’ll have to leave him.’

‘We can’t.’

‘We’ll have to. Start the van up, we’ll ring for help from that box at Five Turnings.’

Al Griffiths was trembling as he climbed up behind the steering wheel. He drove a tractor on the farm but he’d never driven on the roads before. Shaking hands found the starter, the hand brake. The engine stuttered into life, then stalled. He fired it again and held it as he heard Viv Lewis slam the other door. The headlights weren’t a lot of good, he thought as he jerked and bumped the Transit on to the road; probably dirty. The steering felt loose too. And inside his head the Deathbell was starting up again, not that it had ever really been silent. He had the kind of headache that affected vision; it might not be the lights after all, he realised.

‘You’ll have to hurry,’ Lewis said.

They drove down past the Smiths’ house. It was still in darkness. You bastard, it’s all your fault, Lewis thought. No, it isn’t, it’s the Deathbell. That’s nonsense.

‘Can you hear that bloody bell?’ Lewis asked.

‘Yes. Somebody must have rung it. Or perhaps the wind’s got up.’

‘It’s coming from inside my head.’ Lewis clapped his hands over his ears. ‘My skull’ll split open in a minute.’

‘Clang … thump … clang … thump. The Deathbell was speeding up now like a faraway tom-tom being drummed up to a frenzy by warlike tribes. Kill … kill … kill!

Viv Lewis turned away, Al Griffiths heard him trying to open the door, retching and spewing. There was an overpowering stench of vomit. The road ahead seemed to be narrowing to a point as though before long it would peter out altogether, but in reality it led right into the village and joined up with the main street.

Al lifted his foot off the accelerator, realising they were going too fast. Damn, the pedal didn’t spring back – maybe the return spring was broken. Braking, he felt no resistance. His foot went right down to the rusty, uncarpeted floor.

‘Hey, watch it!’

Al Griffiths couldn’t see the road properly now, just a thin ribbon of tarmac that would vanish any second from his tunnel vision. His whole body was vibrating, shuddering. Clang … thump … clang.

Too late, he saw the tree – not that he could have done anything to avoid it anyway. The living oak moved and stepped out into their path, its gnarled features grinning lustfully, bracing itself.

The nose of the Transit buckled. In a blaze of fiery light, the windscreen shattered and vicious blades of glass hurtled back inside the van. Al Griffiths saw Lewis pitched forward, then thrown back, a headless body sprawled over the seat, limbs twitching feebly. Griffiths tried instinctively to save himself, turned sideways on and covered his face with his arms. Then he was airborne, ejecting, bracing himself for impact.

He hit the tree and felt innumerable bones snapping and fracturing. Slithering down, rolling, he came to a halt at the foot of a fearsome bole. There was darkness everywhere; even the moon had hidden itself, as if afraid to look down on this night of terror. Groaning, unable to move, he was aware of the pain, and a warm stickiness soaking through his clothing.

The ground beneath him quivered. He lay there, feeling it amidst the pain. Tremors like an earthquake passed into his own broken body, vibrating their way right up into his skull with an incessant metallic hammering, a resonant ringing. Louder and louder.

He wanted to clutch his head and cover his ears in an attempt to stop it, but his limbs were useless. Lying there, listening to the hypnotic, maddening metronome, he was forced to keep time, faster and still faster. He couldn’t keep up with it and cried out for it to stop.

It blinded him, deafened him, but still he heard it. Driving him before it, pushing him deeper and deeper into the blackness, it was teasing him by going away until it was so faint that he could scarcely hear it, then coming back at him with full force. His ears had burst; he sensed the blood welling up in them, trickling down the lobes and dripping on to his neck. His writhing body was spent; his tortured brain was trying to die but was being held back by the Deathbell pounding at him, beating his battered skull like some grotesque Punch in a killing frenzy. He was screaming but the bell was too loud for anybody to hear him.

One final vision appeared before he died, of the bell resurrected in the tower, a giant instrument of madness and death, a fiery glow coming from within it, the gently swinging clapper dripping thick scarlet fluid with crazed monotony. Drip … clang … drip … clang …

And only when it had robbed him of his last vestige of sanity did it let him go.

1 - THE DEATHBELL TOLLS AGAIN

Turbury was a victim of euthanasia, a slow process of erosion by various authorities. Perhaps there had even been a secret collaboration. And the Deathbell had been a very convenient weapon for them all.

Following the Reverend Rawsthome’s untimely death the diocese had decided not to replace him directly. The Reverend Pickersgill from Bryncalid could easily incorporate the Turbury services into his schedule; he had two curates to call upon if necessary. For eighteen months there was a regular rota of visiting preachers, and even laymen were called in. Then evensong was dispensed with, leaving just a weekly matins. Six months later this was changed to a family communion; the sermon disappeared in favour of a short address that became shorter each week. The congregation dwindled. Pickersgill was not popular with the villagers; he talked down to them as if they were wasting his valuable ecclesiastical time by their weekly demands. So the service became fortnightly and was sometimes cancelled at short notice. Pickersgill stated in the Church News that the people of Turbury might find the weekly services at the mother church in Bryncalid more to their liking. They didn’t, but that was incidental. Then the vicar announced his intention of closing Turbury church altogether; there was a petition by the locals, the fortnightly congregation trebled, but it made no difference. The following September the church was closed. There was no move made to sell it, as though the diocesan hierarchy was aware of the water board’s plans for the new reservoir and was merely waiting for compensation.

The small bank in the main street suffered a reduction in opening hours. The double killing, when a junior clerk had been driven mad by the infamous bell and murdered both the sub-manager and the female typist, tarnished its reputation. It would be far better to close it, to try and bury the past. But some subtlety was required; its small profit margin barely warranted the salaries of a senior official and a cashier. Like the church, it was a devious operation. From 1 April the bank would only open on Mondays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon. That was inconvenient for those who worked away from the village, so they made other arrangements for their banking facilities. In October the branch was finally closed and boarded up. People waited to see what would happen to the small lock-up premises but they were not offered for sale. The bank, too, was prepared to wait for compensation, it seemed.

The closure of the school created the biggest furore in Turbury for years. The threat had been there for a long time, falling numbers of pupils could not be disputed. But the school was more than just a place of learning for the young, it was a focal point in community life. The hall at the rear was used for several dances each year and was the meeting place of the Turbury Airgun Club. Occasionally it was hired for parties and public celebrations; a royal wedding was the last time it was used, with junior athletics in the field behind in the afternoon, and a party inside for adults in the evening.

Vicki Mason had been headmistress for eight years, a tall, dark-haired, attractive girl who wore large glasses and had somehow remained single into her late thirties. If one studied her closely one noticed the lines etched beneath those glasses, which she tried to hide under a layer of make-up; marks left indelibly on her by the Deathbell. She fought for the survival of the school and was instrumental in earning it a five-year reprieve in her early days. Her employers had hinted at promotion and half-promised her a lucrative post at the large comprehensive in Bryncalid, but she had stuck to her principles. She knew that if they closed the school Turbury would die, for it would be cutting out its heart. Which was what they intended to do. The stay of execution came to an end when the roll was down to fourteen; next year it would drop to eleven.

There was a stormy public meeting in the hall one January night. Educational officials dodged the issue, insisting that they did not want to close Turbury school, and even advised the gathering on how to go about fighting any proposed closure. This devious academical process kept the baying hounds in check whilst the closure formalities were secretly implemented and received a governmental stamp of approval.

The school closed and the remaining children were transferred to Bryncalid primary school. Transport was provided for the rest of the year at a cost in excess of leaving Turbury school open. Vicki was again offered a job, but she turned it down. She decided to stay in Turbury. She had a reasonable inheritance from her parents and she could afford to mark time for a while. When she had to vacate the school house she rented a small bungalow on a hillside above Turbury. She was staying put, they weren’t going to move her easily. And then, of course, the water authority stepped in to deliver the killer punch. If you looked at the whole business in sequence it had been planned all right, she thought, one big plot by the System to get their hands on the valley.

They had won; next week they were going to let the water flow in and that would be that.

Vicki sat in the picture window of her lounge overlooking Turbury and felt the desolation, the hopelessness, seeping up from the tiny village below. A ghost village, with people sadly walking out of their homes never to return, not even for a nostalgic visit in the future. Turbury would be hidden forever from the eyes of Man, inhabited only by fish and lakelife, a tourist attraction, with visitors parking their cars and gazing in wonderment at the latest marvel of mankind, not understanding.

There was sadness, but also a lurking relief in Vicki’s mind, a nagging uncertainty that urged the water to rush in and bury everything. Because she had heard the bell again. Just once. She tried to tell herself that it was a figment of her imagination, an echo from the past waking her from a troubled dream which she could not remember. No, it was real all right, there was no doubt about it. A sound that she felt rather than heard, a jarring of her brain, almost a physical blow, trembled her whole body, vibrating it, dragging her from the depths of her slumber. With instant recognition, she cowered beneath the bedsheets, bracing herself for another muffled clang. Soft but penetrating, that was the way it got to you.

The anticipation was akin to Chinese water torture, mentally screaming out for the next drip to get it over, then wait for the next. And the next. But there was nothing, no sound except the soft sighing of the wind through the newly planted conifers bordering the lawn outside.

She did not fall asleep again that night and was still staring at the curtained window when dawn began to filter in, a grey winter light that only served to reinforce her fears. The Deathbell had rung, but she knew that was crazy because it had fallen in the fire and been left lying amidst the smouldering ashes. She hadn’t seen it, but Julian Dane had told her before he left. More memories, more ghosts coming back out of the past – people she had tried to forget.

Perhaps she might have had a permanent relationship with Julian; she would certainly have liked to give it a try. But he hadn’t waited, another drifter moving on. His mother’s untimely death, the bell’s first victim, had brought him to Turbury. Then he had gone; Vicki had hoped that perhaps he would return to see Fred Reubens, his stepfather, one day. She had purposely kept in touch with Fred, enquiring about Julian from time to time, but Fred hadn’t heard and didn’t seem interested. Jane Reubens’ death had severed their last link, and the stepson was cast adrift to go his own way. Vicki had hoped but that hope had dwindled. Fred had sold up and gone back to the city.

Oh God, the Deathbell was raking up the past, she thought. One ring was enough to do it. And it had rung last night. At least when the village was under several fathoms of water that would be the end of it.

She rose soon after nine and made herself a mug of black coffee, anticipating the headache. It came as surely as she expected, a nagging ache behind the eyes, which would only get worse as the day progressed. It might even become a migraine, in which case she would have no choice but to lie in a darkened room for the rest of the day – and remember all that had happened in Turbury ten years ago. It was not a pleasant prospect; she swallowed a couple of paracetamols and hoped that they would do the trick.

By midday her headache had subsided and left her with a tiredness, mostly due to lack of sleep. She resisted the temptation to go back to bed for a couple of hours, knowing that if she was scared she might hear the bell again.

There was a pile of sewing which she had been putting off for the past week. She decided at least it would give her something positive to do. She took it over to the window, to spend a couple of hours with the needle and thread. Then she would check what was on television tonight. She sighed. Suddenly life had become dreary, pointless. At thirty-nine she was succumbing to a middle-aged routine when she knew she ought to have been out enjoying herself, or sewing for a family. She had had her chances and passed them up; she had nobody to blame but herself. Except that it wasn’t too late, she could do something about it. Damn it, you’re attractive to men, she told herself, why let life pass you by?

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a car climbing the steep road out of Turbury, gave it a glance and then concentrated on threading her needle. She knew there was no earthly reason why a car should not be travelling the mountain road even though the tourist season was still weeks away. Somebody taking a short cut to the coast perhaps. Whatever, it wasn’t any of her business.

The car had slowed and was turning into her short driveway. From a quick glance, she recognised the familiar shape of a Mercedes, with mud splashed on the doors. She jerked her eyes away; you didn’t go rushing to the door when you had an unexpected visitor, she thought, you waited until they rang the bell. She didn’t know why, but that was polite procedure. Resisting the temptation to look again, she kept her head down and continued sewing. He probably only wants to ask the way, which means he doesn’t know the short route after all, she decided. Or it’s a salesman pushing double glazing or cavity wall insulation. Sorry, I’ve got both, good day to you.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel. A heavy, confident tread. Salesmen were always confident, she thought. Well, this one would get a shock.

The doorbell rang, a double chime. For a second its ring jarred her headache, poking the slumbering monster in the recesses of her mind. Whoever it was could see her through the window, so she made a pretence of surprise, got up and walked through into the hall. Her hand reached out for the catch but she paused, took a long breath and let it out slowly, knowing she was edgy and had to get herself under control. The indistinguishable silhouette on the other side of the opaque door glass showed a tall man who didn’t appear to be lumbered with briefcases or cardboard files. Standing with his back to the door, he was maybe admiring the view. Well, there was only one way to satisfy her curiosity; Vicki clicked the Yale catch back and pulled the door open a foot or so.

‘Can I help you?’ Her voice sounded strange, faraway, barely recognisable. She didn’t hear her own voice much – so far she had resisted talking to herself.

He turned round. He was taller than she had thought, with wavy grey hair, handsome. His blue suit was expensively tailored and a diamond tie pin did its best to flash in the wan winter sunlight. A smile creased his features, stretching the lines around his mouth. He was vaguely familiar, like an old photograph. Searching her memory again was a painful process that nudged her headache. She stared blankly, puzzled, slightly suspicious, her foot edging behind the door just in case.

‘Vicki!’ In obvious delight, he spread his arms wide. ‘So this is where you’ve hidden yourself. ’

‘I … I …’ She wanted to say, ‘I’msorry, I think you’ve made a mistake, but she knew it was a lie. That old photo was becoming clearer, coming out of the past at her. Then recognition knotted her stomach, making her head thump and her legs go weak so that she could not have slammed the door shut even if she’d wanted to. She was trying to smile politely and making a hash of it, mentally recoiling; knowing for certain that it had been the Deathbell ringing, resurrecting the past in all its forms, recalling those who had survived its reign of terror back to Turbury: Let’s have a reunion before it’s too late, before they flood the valley.

‘Hedley!’ She managed a hoarse whisper. ‘Hedley Chesterton!’ Oh, my Christ, ten years older but still Hedley.

Time seemed to hang suspended, a void which allowed a decade of memories to seep back into her system. Hedley Chesterton, estate agent, architect and a lot more besides. A womaniser, his charisma was irresistible no matter how much she tried to fight it. After an affair she regretted, her body still felt soiled. She had given herself to him, let him have everything he wanted. The Hamiltons’ agent, he was indirectly responsible for bringing the bell to Turbury and then he had walked right out and left them to fend for themselves.

‘You’d better come inside. ’ She pushed the door wide and held on to it for support. The hall carpet seemed to lift off and come up at her, mesmerising her with its array of diamond and circular patterns. The white walls shimmered like a desert mirage and tweaked her headache viciously, and then everything righted itself and she was standing in the hall with Hedley Chesterton, breathing in his aftershave and trying not to find it erotic.

‘You haven’t changed one iota since I last saw you.’ He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. The touch of his lips was like ice that burned, reviving old scars. His eyes travelled up and down her, making her wince in a flood of shame and guilt. Oh, God, I don’t have a secret to hide, he's seen everything I’ve got to offer, he doesn't even have to mentally undress me.

She walked through to the lounge, leaving him to follow her, motioned him towards the sofa and made sure that she sat on one of the chairs opposite. Keep your distance, Hedley, and don’t try to touch me, please. I’m not like that now, I’ve learned my lesson. You taught me!

‘It’s been a long time. ’ He seated himself, crossing one leg over the other. ‘Too long. I’d’ve called before but I’ve been abroad for five years. Oman. Surveying.’

She nodded. The Deathbell was far-reaching, there was no escape from it. She was trembling visibly, entwining her fingers, looking down at her feet and wishing that she had had time to change out of her old frayed slippers. ‘That must have been nice for you, Hedley, away from this dreary British climate.’ Polite conversation, but it sounded false to her.

‘And what are you doing with yourself these days, Vicki? Not retired and vegetating?’ He laughed softly and added, ‘You’re too young and attractive for that.’

Flattery will get you nowhere, Hedley, she thought. She tensed, realising just how weak her defences were. I’m lonely, I need a man. Julian's gone forever, I’m not getting any younger. Despising herself, she remembered those torrid nights of love and still trembled but for a different reason.

‘Your wife must have enjoyed being out in Oman, Hedley.’ A loaded statement – he would lie to her, of course.

‘My wife!’ A pause. He overdid his amazement but she tried not to notice. ‘Oh, you mean Helen?’

She didn’t answer, and could not even remember what his wife was called, if it had ever been mentioned.

‘Good gracious, I’d almost forgotten about Helen!’ He laughed softly. ‘Dear Helen was a little gem. It was my fault, I treated her badly, didn’t realise how badly until it was too late. She left me … let me see, how many years ago was it?’ He crinkled his forehead. ‘It must be eight years ago now. Yes, that’s right, because we were divorced six years ago last November. One of the reasons I went out to the Middle East. But in the end the home country calls and you have to obey.’

She thought he might just be telling the truth this time, in which case there was no harm done. A divorced man and a single woman, with only herself to get hurt. I’m bloody stupid but I can’t help it.

‘How about dinner tonight?’ A direct question now that the preliminaries, the sparring, were over. ‘I hear that the Lion at Bryncalid is just as good as it used to be.’

‘Fine.’ I’m a glutton for punishment but I’ll risk it.

‘I’ll call for you about eight.’ He got up, moved towards the window and stood looking out at the village far below. ‘So they’re going to flood the valley, bury the old village, eh. Well, I suppose some people won’t be sorry after what happened here.’ His complexion appeared to have paled but it could have been a trick of the light.

‘No, I suppose some won’t.’ She moved close to him. She had not intended to slip her hand into his but the move came naturally and took her by surprise. She thrilled to his answering squeeze. ‘Hedley … the bell rang again last night. Woke me up. God, it was terrifying.’ She was doing her best to get it out of her system, almost like making a confession.

‘Maybe it did,’ Hedley Chesterton did not seem surprised. ‘I called at Caelogy Hall this morning. No reason except that it’s still officially on our books, only there won’t be any buyers now, just a lump-sum compensation that’ll go back into the state’s coffers. I didn’t intend to go, don’t know why I did. I was passing by, got a sudden urge to go and look one last time. The place is dilapidated, it’d probably get a demolition order under ordinary circumstances. I went and looked in the belfry, and there it was, not looking any different from when Hamilton imported it. Clean as a new pin, not a trace of tarnish, hanging there. Just waiting for somebody to toll it.’

Vicki shivered. It was as though the central heating wasn’t working any longer. She pressed herself up against him. Protect me, Hedley, please.

‘I got a strange feeling’ – now it was he who suddenly had a burden to unload – ‘of being … a sort of … worshipped. I could have knelt, vowed allegiance to the damned thing … as though it was some kind of … god. All in the mind, of course, letting my imagination run away with me. Frightening, all the same. I had to drag myself away, the thing was a magnet, trying to pull me back. I ran all the way back down to the road, jumped in the car and drove off. Bloody unnerving, to say the least.’

She said, ‘I believe you,’ because she did.

‘But’ – he let out an audible sigh – ‘its days are numbered. Before long it’s going to be underneath millions of gallons of water and if it wants to ring, then let it because nobody will hear it.’ He laughed, but it sounded false.

Vicki watched him drive away and felt the loneliness, the fear of the unknown rolling back, trapping her in this bungalow up on the hillside. The bell had called Hedley back to Turbury, there was no doubt in her mind about that. It had thrown them together again in a grim twist of fate. A living evil that went back centuries, spawned in a distant land had lived on. The cult of the Seekers of Silence had risen up out of the chapel ashes like a grim phoenix. The Deathbell was alive and waiting to spread madness and death once more.

Vicki was glad that she was seeing Hedley that night, even if their reunion had been brought about by the bell. They needed each other now if they were to fight against the ancient curse.

2 - THE EXHUMATIONS

There had been a last minute hold-up, an unforeseen snag which had delayed the flooding of Turbury valley. A tactic employed by the stubborn committee elected to fight for the village, had produced hidden aces as a last desperate throw. It would merely stave off the ultimate, but now this band of worthy parochial commandos was intent on making life as difficult as possible for the authorities.

There were many graves in the old churchyard; those dating back more than fifty years could be legally left but the more recent ones, the deceased kin of those still living, had to be exhumed and transferred elsewhere. St Editha’s at Bryncalid was the obvious choice.

The Reverend Pickersgill was outwardly shocked that the matter had been overlooked. He listened sympathetically to the request delivered in person by Richard Lee, a retired industrialist whose own dear wife was buried in Turbury. The vicar was agitated – it might have been annoyance under another guise – and straight away telephoned the water authority. The date for flooding had to be put back by a week at least.

That morning two JCBs and a large closed van trundled into the village and began the irksome task of exhuming the coffins: thirty-seven in all, according to the parish records. Pickersgill had sent a fresh-faced young curate to supervise, to ensure that the task was effected with as much dignity as possible.

Tom Williamson watched the proceedings with some degree of habitual furtiveness from behind the crumbling wall that designated the boundary of the cemetery. He was ninety-three or ninety-four, he wasn’t sure which, and if he didn’t know then nobody else did and it wasn’t any of their damned business anyway. He bit angrily on an unlit pipe, a stubby blackened briar that gurgled its gooey protest under the clamp of broken, decayed teeth. He squinted his disapproval of the scene before him with small fading blue eyes, then pulled the peak of his torn checked cap lower to shade them from the bright morning sunlight.

He was always dressed, summer or winter, spring or autumn, in a long navy blue overcoat that flapped its frayed hem around the ankles of his threadbare trousers, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets. A man of few words, he only grunted when it was really necessary, but his mind was as active as it had always been. He was the last survivor of the group of old men who had stood outside the gates of Caelogy Hall that snowy winter’s evening and witnessed the coming of the Hamiltons, with a show of resentment, spitting their phlegm into the gutter. That day evil had come to Turbury and it was still here, he knew. He wrinkled his nose and smelled it in the air, the sour stench of gravesoil.

These people had no right interfering with the dead, he thought, either digging them up or burying them beneath a new reservoir. He spat his contempt yet again.

The villagers had gone; there had been a spasmodic trek out of the village all week, cars loaded up with roof racks, vans, pickup trucks, furniture lorries. They left behind empty houses, memories. They had given up the fight. No guts! Another blob of spittle splatted on the ground at his feet. If they’d stayed then there would have been no flooding, otherwise he reckoned it would have been murder. But they had left meekly, their anger spent. Except Tom Williamson.

He had vacated his old tumbledown cottage but that was merely a tactical move. If he had stayed then the police would have removed him forcibly and taken him away in one of their vans; they had already sent him notice of rehousing – an old folk’s bungalow in Bryncalid. Bloody cheek! He wasn’t going to live in any bloody town, let alone a new-fangled ‘bungilow’ that didn’t even have an open fire. And nobody was coming round to check on him every day.

He had spent last night at the Buffalo, sleeping upstairs in the landlord’s old bedroom; there hadn’t been a bed – the place was cleared of everything – but the floor was quite sufficient as a temporary measure. He’d tested the beer taps and found them dry. Not so much as a bottle of Export left in the pub. Creepy it was, all alone in the snug which he had frequented for seventy years, with not a soul in there and nothing to drink. But nobody had come looking for him, probably because they hadn’t missed him yet. They would, though, and then he’d have to make himself scarce.

He had been born and bred in Turbury and spent his whole life there, with the exception of three years in the trenches in Belgium and France during the war, and he was going to damned well die in Turbury. When they didn’t find him he reckoned they’d give up and let the water in. That was fine; his years were nearly done now, his bronchitis would get him next winter for sure. He’d die here where he wanted to; he didn’t trust them in towns – they’d probably end up ‘crematating’ him just to get rid of him. Blast ’em, he’d do it his way. Just look at the buggers now, no respect for the dead!

It was difficult to believe the elongated wooden boxes we're coffins. They were more like salvaged second-hand packing cases; the soil clinging to the woodwork in clumps had to be removed so that they could be stacked evenly in the big van. As they were chucked in, one toppled off the pile and had to be put back. The old man’s bite threatened to snap the stem of his pipe. That curate was just as bad, he thought, scribbling away in his notebook – coffins were just numbers to him, a cargo to be moved from one place to another.

A mound of damp soil accumulated by the tailboard of the van and was trodden flat as the workmen went about their business. Worms were wriggling out of the compressed earth, confused by this sudden disturbance.

The yellow digger droned and roared, back and forth, pushing the soil up into an untidy heap. Two men in overalls were dragging coffins up to the surface and staggering across to the loading point with them. Some were cracked and split, damaged where the JCB’s bucket had caught them. No reverence, Tom Williamson thought, turning away in disgust. He was glad he had outlived these poor people, that his body wasn’t going on this last sacrilegious journey. But he had to make sure that nobody saw him, that they didn’t mount a hunt to find him.

His ageing ears caught the sound of an approaching car, and he dodged back into the undergrowth. The vehicle slowed to a halt outside the cemetery; a white car with a blue beacon on its roof, lettering on its doors – POLICE. Williamson crouched down and saw a uniformed policeman get out, walk towards the van with the coffins in it and say something to the clergyman. They both laughed. Bastards!

Tom Williamson didn’t know why he went into the grounds of Caelogy Hall. He hadn’t set foot inside those gates since he was a boy; it was a place he had always kept clear of. He had made just one juvenile exploration in the days prior to the Great War, and even then the hall was derelict, the grounds a jungle of weeds. The legend of Arkwright, the owner, was whispered amongst the boys at school. Some claimed to have heard the screams of the murdered womenfolk on windy nights. Whether or not they had was immaterial; the hall still reeked of murder, he was aware of lurking evil.

Now he stood looking at the crumbling façade, sinister even in bright sunlight, leering at him. The windows were dark eyes that saw, the doorway a scowling mouth whose breath was the stench of decay. Grotesque, at bay, it was waiting for the floodwater to gush in and cleanse it. It would seethe and boil, he thought, an angry spirit refusing to die even then.

He skirted it and shuffled round the front. The shrubs were impenetrable, rhododendrons white and stinking with the droppings of the flocks of starlings which roosted here each winter, migrant birds who came to foul it with their excreta and then returned to their homeland. A mass of filth, evil to evil.

Tom Williamson paused in front of the chapel, noting its fire-blackened stonework, the belfry towering above it. An abomination in the sight of the Lord, mocking him, for terrible satanic rites had been enacted within those walls. Rumour had it that Arkwright used to take communion with the devil, a ritual that had ended in triple death, flesh and blood sacrificed to the evil one.

The old man shuddered. He had never been inside the chapel. Even on that far-off day when he had come here with Elwyn Hughes and the others, they had jibbed at exploring the chapel. There would be no harm in a quick look, he decided. He shivered and looked away. There was no point, there would be nothing to see, the fire had gutted the inside. Just blackened stonework, nothing else. Except the bell!

The bell had rung again a few weeks back. If he closed his eyes he could hear it. Boing! Soft yet loud, harsh yet musical. A contradiction in itself, there was no other sound like it. He had heard it for hours, days, afterwards. He could hear it even now, an echo in his mind that went on and on, threatening to drive him mad.

It jarred his brain just thinking about it. It was calling him!Well, that’s what bells were for, to summon folks. Gongs to call them to dinner, bells to herd them to church. A command that had to be obeyed.

He heard it again, a soft note that lingered on inside his head. Come and worship. Tom Williamson. Enter the chapel, for the final hour is nigh in Turbury.

He moved forward with an unsteady step, having to pull himself free of an entwining briar that clutched at his coat. Don't go, that is the house of death and madness before you. It is the house of the Lord. It is the house of Satan.

Just one look to see if the bell really is back up in the tower, he vowed.

His course was slow and erratic, yet determined. A worshipper called to the shrine of an unknown deity, he was all frightened eagerness, trying to draw back when he reached the doorway but being forced to go inside. Removing his cap, he held it before him as he used to in the days when he attended services at the Methodist chapel. Head bowed, his thinning grey hair ruffled in the faint breeze. He was aware of the sour stench of a long-dead fire contrasting with an atmosphere that lived and reached out to embrace him.

Charred dereliction lay everywhere, even the altar had gone. An empty shell. There's nothing here, I can go now.

Then he felt the force, like icy shockwaves that prickled his wizened skin, an overpowering presence that was manifesting itself. Humble yourself, Tom Williamson, for you are in the house of the Deathbell. Look up, gaze upon it, and worship it!

A marionette being pulled into action, his head moved, stiff and reluctant. His neck muscles creaked, his wide eyes looked up. No, I don’t want to see, he thought. You have to!Cowering, his breathing laboured, he cried his terror aloud so that spittle frothed on his cracked lips and ran down his chin. He saw and knew in that awful moment everything rumoured about the bell was true.

The huge hollow vessel glinted silver in the gloom of the ruined chapel, a living entity suspended in the tower. He felt its power, its evil dominating him. Kneel before your god, Tom Williamson, worship him before it is too late.

He was on his knees, heedless of the sharp stones that dug into his frail bones, looking up in terrified amazement. Time had stopped, this was eternity – a world far removed from Turbury – the ancient land where the bell held sway over the Seekers of Silence. Toll the Deathbell, servant, and call the others to worship for I am risen and alive again.

With difficulty the old man struggled to his feet, then tottered. In any other situation he would have fallen but it was as though some invisible force was holding him upright, supporting him, moving his legs for him. The marionette had grown stiff over the years, relying upon its master. He moved a step at a time, arms reaching out for the rope which dangled against the wall. A driving force, an obsession, willed his gnarled arthritic fingers to grip the hempen strands and lean his full weight upon it. Pulling, the feeble body strained back. The task was beyond his senile frailty but he made it somehow. Pulling, he cried out with the exertion, then his feet were clear of the ground just as when he was a boy swinging on a rope tied to the bough of a tree.

He had a sensation of euphoria, weightlessness. With cracked, insane laughter, he begged the bell to ring. It creaked and gathered momentum, the clapper a pendulum picking up force until finally it made contact with hand-forged steel.

On a note of indescribable beauty, ecstatic, the peal that hummed and hovered in the stillness, refusing to disperse; neither rising nor falling, it remained static. On and on it went, as though a thousand echoes had taken it up. The clapper hung, swinging gently but not making contact again. Just the one ring was sufficient.

Tom Williamson stood there looking up at the bell, fascinated, hypnotised. It shimmered, vibrated, an object that had slept and was now awake again, mystic life filling it, invigorating it. A god, a supreme being. A creature that hummed with life, a giant insect about to sting.

He wanted to clasp his ears; the noise was painful, a vibration in his brain that sawed like a thousand grasshoppers, numbing his thinking. He knew only that he was here to serve. He had obeyed its command, tolled it. What next?

Mutely beseeching it, he pledged the rest of his waning years, groaning because his skull felt as though it might split under the strain. The clapper was still now but the noise continued, a steady drone issuing like radio waves, a ripple in the atmosphere that would spread and spread.

He stumbled – those invisible hands no longer supported him. He clutched at a stone pillar and almost fell. A cast-off human shell, he had served his purpose, the Deathbell no longer had need of him. Begone, old man, you have served me, get thee hence.

With a blank mind, his comprehension gone, Tom Williamson staggered out into the sunshine, babbling insanely. Nine decades of life had been destroyed in a few seconds, nothing had any meaning for him. He clawed at his bared head like one pestered by summer flies, trying to dislodge them. But there was no escape from the Deathbell. It had destroyed his brain and left a pathetic body, an unmanned vehicle gone out of control.

Digging out the old graves wasn’t easy. Teddy Jones cursed beneath his breath, grimacing. That fucking curate hadn’t a clue, squinting through his specs at the old headstones and consulting his notebook, and even then he couldn’t make up his mind. There’d been two false starts already, with frantic waving of arms, he’d mouthed the JCB to back up and push the first sweep of overgrown turf back again: ‘Not this one, driver, that one there!’

Stupid prat! What a waste of everybody’s time digging up a load of mouldering corpses just to plant them somewhere else. They should bring in compulsory cremation, save an awful lot of trouble and put these wasted tracts of land to some useful purpose. Christ, you could put a small housing estate on this churchyard!

The young man was stripped to the waist, his T-shirt draped over the seat soaking up the sweat from his back. This job wasn’t scheduled by the firm, he realised. They’d dropped the building excavations at Bryncalid for a day and told old Joe and himself to get over here fast – some urgent job to do with the new reservoir. The boss hadn’t had the nerve to tell the truth, he’d left it till they got here, passed the buck on to that sky pilot to tell them they were digging up corpses. Teddy had a mind to refuse and tell the curate to get stuffed, and if they sacked him then he’d put his case to the union. This wasn’t routine work, it belonged to the undertakers; they had the easy part, loading the coffins on the truck. Here we bloody go again! Wild gestures from the cleric, pointing to his left, checking and rechecking with his records. In the end they’d get it all wrong and dig up those supposed to be left and leave those supposed to be moved.

Teddy Jones looked across to where Joe was working at the other end of the graveyard. No problems there, the older man was droning back and forth, up and down, efficient in every sweep of the big bucket. Picking on a kid, that’s what they were doing, kick the youngster’s arse just to make it look good. Now bloody what?

The curate was directing him towards a mound on the bank that bordered the boundary of the roadside. He could barely see the moss-covered headstone through the weeds. ‘Get that one up next, driver. ’

Teddy’s sweat ran cold. It was steep and at an angle, he knew he’d have to go up behind the grave and sweep downwards. Bloody risky, one false move and the machine would tip over. He licked his salty lips, mimed another insult through the glass at his overseer, but realised that he did not have any choice. Up we go then!

The JCB stuttered and nearly cut out, then picked up and found a firm footing. Roaring, revving, it was trying to excavate. The bucket scraped on rock and showered pebbles with a grinding noise. Try again.

This time Teddy went in more acutely, secured a grip, wrenched up a full bucket of soil and showered it to one side. And another. The machine lurched and his heart missed a beat, but it steadied. Oh, Jesus, that bloody curate was starting to interfere again. The plump cleric was leaning over the side of the partly dug out grave, peering down like a ghoul hungry for corpse flesh. Get out of the way you daft bleeder or you’ll get swept up in the rubble, he wanted to shout, I can’t hold her at this angle indefinitely.

Suddenly things were happening, events that moved too swiftly for Teddy Jones to follow. A resounding noise, as though some metallic object had struck the JCB, was magnified in the hot stuffy cab. It slammed into his ears and set the eardrums vibrating. He looked round in alarm, his head buzzing, his vision distorted by sweat, as though he was staring into a glass aquarium where people moved in slow motion and behaved irrationally. It was like a crazy mirror, or a sick dream in which he couldn’t move.

The JCB lurched, tottered precariously on the miniature precipice which it had created, and caused a small landslip that slid into the partly open grave. The stupid curate, Teddy thought, he did not appear to have the sense to jump out of the way; he stood there staring upwards, an expression of sheer terror blanching his ruddy complexion. With arms raised as though God would give him the strength to hold the digger back, he was yelling something.

Teddy’s sweaty hands seemed incapable of manipulating the controls and appeared to have lost their grip. He clutched greasy levers but could not move them. The noise was driving him crazy, he felt his head might split right open. Dizzily he saw a crimson mist hovering in front of him. Jump, you silly bastard!

The cleric panicked, lost his foothold, staggered and fell. Teddy saw him plunge down into the hole and land on his back with his legs in the air, kicking wildly. Any other time it would have brought a coarse guffaw, a string of abuse from the young driver’s lips, but now a mute scream was all that he could manage. Because the JCB was starting to slide, slewing sideways, toppling!

Seconds stretched to an eternity. Teddy was a mere spectator, a helpless victim of circumstances, writhing in the driving seat, forced to watch as the yellow monster took control, broke free and went its own way. The curate had spread himself out, a sacrificial victim accepting his fate. Tons of metal alighted on flesh and bone, squashing it, ballooning the capacious stomach, bursting it and strewing bloody entrails; flattening the head, grinding bone, settling on it, rocking back and forth in a task of destruction that had to be completed in its entirety.

Teddy saw but comprehension was beyond him; the noise was driving him insane. Leaping up, he pounded at the shatterproof windows, locks and handles beyond his understanding. Screaming, crying, he was a caged animal that had gone berserk and would have to be destroyed. Foaming saliva was stringing from his twisted mouth, his eyes were huge swollen bubbles about to burst. Ramming his head against a steel stanchion in a crazed attempt to destroy the agonised brain, he sank down, limbs flailing, jerking feebly.

The Deathbell had rung loud and clear across the churchyard. A single peal, but it was enough; men froze, as in a bizarre game of statues. The second JCB halted, its engine ticking over, the middle-aged driver staring fixedly at the scene around him, his work forgotten. Two workmen in the act of loading yet another coffin on to the van released their grip. The wooden box slipped, bumped on the ground, rolled and came to a crashing halt against a large stone. Rotting woodwork crumbled, dislodged some writhing worms and cracked open. A soiled shroud was visible but nobody was looking.

Their minds in torment, brain-shocked, they stared about them in bewilderment, seeing the JCB topple, but not hearing the savage roar of machinery gone berserk nor the screams of the doomed clergyman because their ears had room only for one sound: a ringing of incalculable decibels, a mind-searing blast that robbed them of all other hearing. With terror but not understanding, in blind fear they lurched about, lips moving but no sound coming forth, pointing at one another like mentally handicapped patients let out to play.

The digger had overturned. Its bucket was buried in an open grave, a corpse pulped beneath it. Teddy Jones was slumped unconscious in the driving seat, flies buzzing and settling on an ugly gash across his forehead. There was no movement – the first act in a bloody play on the stage of this macabre open air theatre was finished; there was no curtain to screen the awful details from the three spectators.

The atmosphere was alive, highly charged, the peal of the bell low and insistent, impossible to escape, like the drone of a swarm of angry insects that searched tirelessly for human brains upon which to feed. Joe was still sitting in his machine; the engine was running, but coughing and stuttering, as if it might cut out at any second. On his face was bewilderment, pain. He swatted at his head, knocked his cap off and released a shock of untidy grey hair. He plugged his ears with his fingers to no avail. His complexion was a dangerous purple, his troublesome blood pressure responding to the stress.

The two undertakers’ assistants stared blankly at the damaged coffin. Sod it, it could stay there, they thought. The worms were wriggling back into the loose earth with an urgency that was the hallmark of fear. Blind, deaf, they too, it seemed, had heard the bell.

At last the sound began to fade, a tuning-fork that had spent itself and was ready to be laid down, now only a vibrant whisper that might have been the wind in the trees or distant traffic. Both workmen stood staring, unable to put their fear into words, pointing towards the toppled digger. Joe still sat in his own machine in stunned disbelief, perhaps hoping that it was all just a terrible nightmare from which they would awake eventually.

The silence was short-lived. No sooner had the notes of the Deathbell dispersed than the still air was shattered by a wail, a cry that bordered on human vocal chords and yet was more animal. The unearthly, high-pitched scream died away to unintelligible gruntings. Heads turned and saw the rag-bag figure stumbling through the broken rusted cemetery gates, a fearsome apparition that was cloaked in a navy blue full-length coat that swung about his heels and threatened to trip him. With twisted, agonised features, staring crazed eyes, bony arms waving, threatening, it was coming towards them.

Instinctively the men by the tailboard of the van cowered, too confused to consider flight. Joe clung to the door of his cab and kept it pulled tightly shut; the engine faded with a final splutter but he did not seem to notice.

An old man, ghastly to behold, was raving as he staggered, towards them, shouting. His words were coherent now, impinging upon the minds of the dazed watchers.

‘Bury your dead!’ He spat, and wiped his mouth with the back of a grimed hand. ‘Bury your dead and leave them in peace because soon we shall all be dead.’

Advancing, gesticulating wildly, now laughing insanely as he confronted them, he began to herd them round the side of the van. ‘The bell is alive, there will be many deaths.’ Tom Williamson was gasping for breath and had to rest, leaning on the side of the vehicle. He was still talking but his vocal chords were exhausted, and he could now only manage hoarse whispers. ‘Begone and leave the dead in peace.’

Somehow the men made it up into the cab of the big van and slammed the doors. Broken fingernails scraped on the paintwork, clawing feeble talons trying to get to them.

‘Let’s get out of here.’ The man behind the wheel fumbled with shaking fingers and eventually fired the engine. The exhaust pumped out thick clouds of diesel fumes as the bodywork rattled and the gears grated. Reversing, for there was no space in which to turn, he scraped the side against the old stone wall but was past caring.

There was a sudden bumping and rolling; heavy vibrations were shaking the vehicle. A cascade of heavy objects in the back burst out of the unlatched doors piling up and obstructing the truck’s progress. Rear wheels pushed, mounted and flattened, crushing the obstacles in their path. The driver was stopping for nobody.

Joe had managed to get his JCB started again, and was following the others out, a heavy robot going through the motions of driving, still holding the cab door shut because that old man was trying to clamber aboard. Keep going, don’t look at him. Christ, he was like something they’d dug up out of one of those graves!

Joe had to slow down because he had caught up with the van. He cursed them because they hindered his progress. Oh, Mother of God, they’d spilled their load – there were coffins all over the grassy track! They were reversing over them, splitting them open, crushing them.

Corpses were strewn down the path in various stages of decomposition, some mangled by the wheels that had gone over them. A skeleton had almost made it out of his wooden casket, only to be thwarted by a heavy-duty tyre, its skull now a mash of splinters.

A woman with half her face rotted away cursed them with a gaping mouth, looking up out of eyeless sockets. Her skeletal hand had caught in the rim of the van’s wheel, dragging her along, refusing to be shaken off. A man whom the worms of the earth had not had time to begin feasting on had been catapulted free, and come to rest in a sitting position against the wall. The torn shroud revealed a fleshy, overweight body, and he watched them from open eyes, so dignified, so scathing, rebuking them. Joe thought the lips moved, and he jerked his head away.

The van made it out into the road, took a wide swing and accelerated away, tossing another coffin in its wake, which slid along the loose chippings and came to rest in the gutter.

The JCB had to go through the scattered dead; the driver’s only other choice was to stop and move them. No way – he wasn’t getting out of that cab for a thousand quid. And he wasn’t coming back. Ever.

With one final, compulsive glance behind, he followed in the direction of the others. He was leaving a battlefield, the dead scattered everywhere and there, moving amongst them as though checking on their injuries, was that crazy old man. Like a tattered medic administering to the wounded in a shelled-out trench, he was talking to them, comforting them, sharing a joke with the corpse against the wall.

Then shaking a fist after the disappearing vehicles, he slobbered his wrath. ‘Begone and leave the dead in peace for the Deathbell is alive again!’

And long after the survivors from the graveyard had left Turbury they could still hear the echoes of the bell within their own minds, its single, never-ending peal jarring and hurting. Warning them.

The Deathbell is risen. There will be more deaths.

3 - MANHUNT

The flooding of Turbury valley was not nearly as spectacular as Vicki Mason had expected. In fact, it was a disappointment, an anticlimax. She was watching for a roar of foaming waters as she sat in the picture window of her bungalow that spring afternoon, an unleashing of a mighty unstoppable force that would sweep all before it and dash the deserted houses before covering them. Instead it had been almost gentle, a softly swirling ribbon that glinted in the sunlight, spread and lapped, more like a river that had overflowed its banks and flooded the surrounding fields. It was a gradual process; even when the sun dipped behind the western mountains and dusk began to creep across the panoramic landscape, the houses were still visible, the water-level barely up to the downstairs window. Darkness came to screen the final destruction, discreetly masking the sadness from those who watched and remembered the village as it once had been.

She let the melancholy mood take her, considering it sacrilege to fight against it. The village had died a lingering death; now it was buried. She consoled herself with the thought that funerals were therapeutic, a termination of grief, and afterwards one learned to live with the bereavement even if one did not forget it. Tomorrow her life would begin all over again.

Thoughts of Hedley plagued her as she drew the curtains, as if on the finale of a sad play.

It was all her own fault, she decided. No, not entirely, the Deathbell had instigated it by throwing them together again. Damn it, she had made a right fool of herself once again. That was three months ago, and the memory was so vivid it might have been last night.

The same old Hedley, he had charmed his way through her defences. A meal at the Lion in Bryncalid and then back here for more coffee, which turned into double whiskies, they finished off that bottle of single malt that had been maturing in the sideboard since her move from the school house. This time she sat on the sofa beside him, and did not resist when his arm crept around her.

Hedley Chesterton, master of seduction. Not for him the sly undoing of a blouse button or attempting to slide a hand up her skirt. His persuasion was verbal: compliments that were not overdone, even a hint of marriage. His aftershave always made her heady, a lethal mixture when combined with alcohol. There was no discussion, no suggestion of going through to the bedroom, just a kind of mutual unspoken agreement. Even then they did not undress right away but sat talking on the edge of the bed for some considerable time. It was serious conversation, not erotic chatter; they discussed the new reservoir, even mentioned the Deathbell. Her mind seemed to flip for a second as though it had rung again, and after that they kissed passionately.

She could not remember actually undressing, only that they were suddenly naked and for a time the clock moved back a decade. There was no hesitation, no false start. She spread herself so that he could kiss her in wildly erogenous places. She still thrilled to the memory of it. And then she wriggled beneath his powerful body and responded to his every thrust.

He stopped for the night, of course. Next morning she woke with a headache and he was sympathetic, going through to the kitchen and bringing her a cup of tea and an aspirin. With no regrets, no promises, he dressed, hinting that he might see her again soon. And when she rose and opened the curtains around midday, the silver Mercedes had gone. No address, no phone number; she fought against expecting a call because she knew there would be none.

Three months later, there was still no sign of Hedley. It made her angry now. She had been his high-class whore for a night when he happened to be passing through, to attend to some final details before the demise of Caelogy Hall. Now that it was gone forever, so was he.

The bell was worrying her. It had tolled twice since Christmas and there had been madness and death again as before. There had been a furore in the papers about the exhumation of the dead, a curate had been crushed by a JCB, the workmen had fled and spilled coffins and corpses out of a van all down the village main street. And then there had been that terrible business of old Tom Williamson …

Tom Williamson had spent himself. His tall feeble body sank down in the churchyard, his back propped up against the wall next to the overweight corpse, listening to the departure of the vehicles, the crash of coffins still tumbling from the van as it sped away through the main street.

‘Just in time.’ He addressed his dead companion in a hushed tone. ‘Them’ll not take the dead from Turbury now. They’ll stop here as they were meant to.’

The corpse shifted and sagged, the head dropping forward as though in a nod of agreement. There was silence except for the buzzing of flies; they had found an unexpected banquet today.

Williamson closed his eyes, dozed a little. His blinding headache was receding and when he opened them again it was gone. He stared aghast at the scene of exhumed carnage around him, then scrambled unsteadily to his feet. Fear made him back away; what had been happening here? So this was what they did to the departed in Turbury, he thought angrily, dug them up and scattered them for the corvids and foxes to feed on before the waters came. The villagers had been driven out, so the authorities could do as they pleased without interference.

He failed to notice the driver of the overturned JCB stirring, he had eyes only for the dead. A noise broke the silence, a harsh wailing. The old man glanced about him with fear in his eyes, then he recognised it: a police siren. They must know that he survived, was still free. They had come for him; they would kill him, leave his dead body to lie strewn with all these others.

Somehow he forced his weary limbs to move, turned and stumbled back through the wilderness, threading his way amongst the craters of opened graves. He went past the church, keeping away from the road, across kitchen gardens and lawns. Anywhere to escape.

Breathless, he found himself back at the hall, crouched amidst the thick rhododendrons that were heavy with starling droppings. The putrid stench was sharp in his nostrils, reviving him. He knew he must hide, but where? They would surely search his cottage, the Buffalo, all the houses. They might even use dogs to track him down. Was there no safe hiding place?

Of course there was. His dimming eyesight picked out the gaunt skeletal structure of the old chapel. A place of refuge. They would not dare to come for him there because it was hallowed ground. Much more powerful than the church. Again in his mind he heard the bell, a soft note that did not hurt this time, the Piper calling his followers.

He felt a new zest, a spring in his unsteady gait, a feverishness to reach his sanctuary. The bell would protect him from those who sought to harm him.

Sergeant Davies stood and surveyed the trail of broken coffins, the mutilated corpses, and felt physically sick. He had not expected anything quite like this. The old JCB driver and the two undertakers were being treated for shock in Bryncalid hospital, and their rambling accounts of the happenings in the cemetery were vague. The younger digger had climbed out of his machine and was leaning against it, dazed, a nasty cut on his head.

The sergeant heard another police car arriving, with the ambulance close behind it. If the story was true then there was a curate’s corpse beneath that machine. God Almighty! He walked towards Teddy Jones, Constable Howells at his heels. ‘We’d better see if we can get anything out of the lad before they take him to hospital.’ He spoke in low tones. ‘This place resembles the Battle of Bosworth!’

‘What happened?’ Davies asked firmly but kindly. He did not like the wild expression on the driver’s face.

‘The bell.’ The reply was hoarse, laden with terror. ‘It was the bell that did it, officer.’

‘The bell?’

‘He means the Deathbell, sarge.’ There was consternation on the young officer’s features. ‘There have been reports of it having been heard recently. You remember, the Hamiltons …’

‘Oh, that!’ Davies retorted with biting scorn; they had been called out to a scene of death and carnage, and no practical police officer was going to include some mystic legendary bell in his report to his superiors. ‘Let’s stick to facts, constable. Laddie, what’s been going on here?’

‘The bell, I told you!’ Impatient, frightened, the injured man looked as though he might make a dash for freedom. The sergeant’s hand dropped on his bruised shoulder. ‘You’d better take it easy. There’s an ambulance arrived to take you to hospital. We’ll talk later.’

More uniformed policemen were appearing, and a couple of ambulance men carrying a stretcher.

‘The sooner they flood this place, the better.’ Sergeant Davies was tight-lipped. ‘Holy Jesus! Okay, laddie, just go with these gentlemen …’

Teddy’s eyes were flicking to and fro again, cringing as though he expected some new apparition to manifest itself. ‘Where’s … where’s the old man gone?’

‘Old man?’

‘Doubtless he means the old guy who’s hiding out in the village,’ the constable interrupted. ‘Williamson, his name is, sarge. A stubborn old boy who’s determined to drown with his home. We’ve got orders to find him and bring him in. The inspector phoned down about it just before this call came in.’

‘In which case we’d better find him whilst we’re here.’ The sergeant saw a ready-made excuse to absent himself from this graveyard nightmare. ‘I’ll tell Constable Brooks to take over here and I think you and I will go and search for our missing friend, eh.’

‘Okay, sarge.’ There was no mistaking the relief in Howells’ tone. ‘Let’s go and find the old bugger. As you said, the sooner this place is under water the better for everybody. If these villagers hadn’t kicked up such a fuss about moving the dead none of this would have happened.’ PC Tony Howells had no regrets about the flooding of the valley, and not just because of the sinister bell whose chimes brought madness to the surrounding countryside. Tony had been the officer in charge at Turbury – until a resident policeman had been dispensed with. On the face of it, it was an easy number, more a job for a policeman nearing retirement than a rookie straight from training college. He changed his mind after a week or two.

There had been two factions in Turbury, a ‘them’ and an ‘us’. The latter were the locals whose families had lived in the village for generations, the former ‘outsiders’ who had moved in from elsewhere. The locals resented any form of change, and thought anyone who hadn’t been born and bred here had no business moving in. A kind of cold war existed, an underlying friction, with one side doing its best to annoy and inconvenience the other. A policeman could not afford to take sides, not even to sympathise, and often Tony Howells’ job had been difficult. Some petty complaints were quite justified, but it was dangerous to probe too deeply.

The ‘outsiders’ were not going to stand for a lot of nonsense that had been going on for years – like tractors leaving mud on the road, or flail hedge cutters strewing the highways with thorny branches which resulted in punctures to cars. Such complaints about contraventions of the Highways Act had to be followed up. Old Frank Sykes from the Oaks Farm flatly refused to cooperate; he had always dropped mud and cuttings on the roads and he wasn’t going to change his ways, he didn’t do it deliberately but it ‘couldna’ be helped and be buggered if somebody skidded or got a thorn in their tyre because we was ’ere fust!’ Sykes learned his lesson; Tony warned him about using his tractor without registration plates and not using lights at dusk. Still the old boy wouldn’t concede a point so the policeman booked him and it cost the farmer £25 in the magistrates’ court. After that he reluctantly showed more consideration to other road-users.

One common battle in which the Turbury people did unite, however, was against the motor rallies which passed through the village, using a stretch of nearby forestry for one of their stages. Petitions and reams of correspondence were sent to the Department of the Environment, a leading motor association, the Chief Constable and even their MP but the rallies, it appeared, were a law unto themselves. Some areas, particularly the main street, were designated ‘black spots’ but there was no escaping the chainsaw-like whine of the cars and their maniac drivers. It was out of Howells’ hands; he just had to deal with the spin-offs. Kids who had just passed their driving tests bought themselves clapped-out cars – Minis seemed to be the favourite – and burned up the lanes round about.

Strangely, girls were the main offenders, daughters of ‘outsiders’ who seemed intent on trying to kill themselves but miraculously escaped with no more than minor bumps. Residents complained to the police but again it was difficult. Apart from the main street there were no speed restrictions, so one of these kids could be doing fifty round the narrow lanes, to the danger of both humans and livestock, and unless Howells could prove dangerous driving there was nothing much he could do about it except give them a friendly warning. That brought cries of indignation from the drivers and their parents, more friction and ill-feeling.

Mrs Bright was a pain in any policeman’s arse, Tony reflected ruefully. She had only been in Turbury a year, and she didn’t like anybody or anything; rarely a week went by without some trifling complaint. But all that was over and done with now. Sykes had retired with a fat compensation cheque and he wouldn’t need to cut any more hedges or spread mud on the roads. The rallies would stop, unless they turned to amphibious vehicles, and there wouldn’t be any lanes left for the kids to blaze up. And Mrs Bright would doubtless find a string of new complaints wherever she had gone. Goodbye Turbury, you got what you asked for.

‘Well, he’s not in the church nor any of the street houses.’ Sergeant Davies emerged from the Buffalo shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘He’s been dossing down in the pub but God knows where he’s got to now. But he’s only got to take to the woods by day and sneak back into the village after dark and it’d take an army to find him. We don’t have the men available to mount night watches. The stupid old fool will just have to drown. That seems to be what he wants, anyway. Kindest for him and cheapest for the taxpayer, I reckon.’

‘I suppose we’d better check the hall.’ There was a note of obvious reluctance in PC Howells’ suggestion.

‘We’d better.’ The sergeant did not sound any more enthusiastic than his companion. ‘Then I can look the chief in the eye and tell him we searched everywhere. Could be that the silly old bleeder’s left, anyway. Just making work for us.’ It did not sound convincing.

Caelogy Hall was grim and forbidding, a wounded beast about to be despatched, snarling at the hunters who approached it. A waft of stale air came from the open door and water was dripping somewhere inside.

This time the policemen did not split up; they searched each room together and spoke in whispers with a kind of awe. This was a temple of dark worship where you did not linger. Dead but living, the scene of bizarre catastrophes which, if you had scoffed at them before, you didn’t now. Williamson wasn’t here. They gave a cursory glance down the cellar steps, but a reek of mustiness made them step back.

‘He won’t be down there.’ Davies forced himself to speak with conviction. Because if he is, he’s dead, and we don’t want to find him, he thought.

Outside again, they drew the fresh air down into their lungs. The younger man’s sense of relief was shattered instantly. ‘I suppose we’d better just have a look in the chapel,’ the sergeant said.

Howells tensed. The home of the evil Deathbell, where people had died horribly ten years ago, was derelict now – but somebody had rehung the bell, it had rung again. Kids probably, but Christ knew how they’d got it up into the belfry. And a few hundred yards away in the churchyard there had been carnage beyond belief. It couldn’t be anything to do with it, he told himself. You’re a police officer, you stick to facts. But corpses were facts.

He didn’t reply, just followed his superior. At least they would not have to go inside, they need only stand in the remains of the entrance and peer into the gloom. A slight smell of dead ash soured their nostrils as they approached and the sergeant thought he detected that unmistakable odour of death, an inexplicable smell which every police officer recognised. He was being fanciful, he decided, just nervy. He wondered how far the others had got with cleaning up the cemetery.

‘It looks empty.’ Tony Howells voiced his hopes and tried to bury his fears. He hadn’t looked, he’d averted his gaze and left the sergeant to stare into the shadowy gloom. Trying not to see, he was already beginning to turn away.

‘Wait!’

The sergeant’s command was like a whiplash, a blow right in the young policeman’s gut, winding him, jerking him back towards the interior of the chapel. He almost clutched the sergeant’s arm for support. ‘What?’ he asked feebly, not wanting to know, afraid to look.

‘Over there … by that pillar … see?’

Tony’s eyes picked out something, just a huddled black shape. Probably a pile of long-dead ashes blown into a heap by the wind howling in through the doorway for the last ten years. Please God let it be ashes. ‘It’s probably …’

‘We’d better check.’ Davies moved forward and Tony knew he had to follow. Hanging back a yard, he thought: If it is anything, then let the sarge see it first.

‘Jesus wept!’ Sergeant Davies stooped as though to peer closer, decided against it and backed off a step, pointing.

Neither of them spoke because there was nothing to say that wasn’t obvious. They saw, but they didn’t want to put it into words, more than just the corpse of an old man who had long outlived his three score years and ten.

Tom Williamson still wore his navy blue overcoat, a torn garment which now served partly as a shroud, but it failed to hide the full horror. It was open – the buttons had been wrenched off their threads – revealing a grimed and blood-soaked striped shirt that was fastened at the neck by a gold collar stud, and a lacerated and pulped body, broken ribs spiking right out of the cloth like a young rabbit that had blundered into a heavy steel trap. Crushed!

Howells didn’t want to see the rest, didn’t believe it. He’d been at the scene of road accidents on more than one occasion, and viewed the victims before the ambulance arrived. Like those lads in the Transit that had gone off the road and crunched into a tree last Christmas, the passenger decapitated by a flying shard of windscreen. Brutal but believable – not like this!

Old Tom Williamson’s head was gone, wrenched from the neck, leaving torn and still-bleeding sinews. Blood had pumped and slowed, was now congealing, soaking into the ground. That mulch lying a yard or so away must be what was left of the head, blood-streaked mangled features staring at them, still wearing the remnants of a frayed cap. It seemed to be mouthing curses, vomiting bloody defiance: You’ve found me but you’re too late!

They wanted to look away but they didn’t want to look up at the bell. A kind of hypnotic command drew their eyes, to the giant shape suspended above them, the huge clapper swaying gently as though disturbed by a strong breeze. Or vibrating from having tolled!

Both officers found themselves pointing with shaking fingers as though the evidence before their eyes needed a witness, corroboration to preserve their sanity. For the clapper of the Deathbell was smeared with blood!

Something dripped stickily, splatted against a stone pillar and trickled sluggishly. Davies and Howells backed away; alone they would have fled.

‘Well, we found him.’ Howells spoke the obvious because somebody needed to say something.

‘It’s quite clear what happened.’ It wasn’t, but the sergeant had to provide an explanation, a desperate throw which he would later write down in his notebook for the benefit of the scene of crime officer. He thought he would go crazy if he didn’t come up quickly with some kind of logical reasoning. ‘The old boy climbed up those steps, right up to the bell, and hanged himself on the clapper. His weight and his flailing about caused his skull to beat against the sides and crushed it. Then the rope broke, his head came off and …’

‘Yes, of course.’ PC Howells swallowed, clutching frenziedly at his companion’s reasoning. ‘That’s what happened. A good bit of sleuthing there, sarge. Gave me a bit of a turn at first, though. Christ, I thought for a minute the bell had committed a murder!’

They both laughed. Their relieved laughter bordered on the hysterical. If either had any other ideas they could save them for the inquest, and voice them in the safety of a place far from here.

The flooding of the valley had been delayed yet again, by another week. People whispered fearfully that Satan was preserving his own patch of hell and that the reservoir would never be flooded and filled.

But eventually the inevitable happened and the waters came in over the upper dam, swirled their way gently through the deserted village, found the chapel in the grounds of Caelogy Hall and began to rise.

Within two days the belfry was below water and the Deathbell was hidden from human view.

4 - THE WATER NYMPH

Within a month of the Turbury reservoir reaching its required level yet another assault was to be made on the surrounding landscape. A few years after the end of the war, several hundred acres of steep scrubland on the north side of the village had been purchased for a derisory sum by an economic forestry group. In due course the heather and gorse had been cleared and the area planted with symmetrical rows of coniferous trees. An artificial deep green forest had hidden the natural ruggedness; it was too late for the sparse population to fight against this encroachment of their remote hills. The grouse and blackgame had deserted, gone in search of other pastures, and the forbidding forest had shaded the houses below. Grotesque, man-made, it was a long-term investment by speculators who knew only vaguely where Turbury lay.

The forest was accepted, no longer a talking point in the snug of the Buffalo. Impenetrable, the thickets too dense to walk through, it became a fortress for foxes and buzzards. It was here to stay, although one day it might be felled. And now that day had dawned. A gang of workmen arrived with vans and chainsaws and began the felling. An incessant whine filled the air throughout the daylight hours as trees toppled, were trimmed and stacked in readiness for the lorries from the new pulp mill to collect. Newsprint was in demand, the millers were crying out for freshly felled softwood; that long-ago investment had come to fruition.

Such was the demand for the trees after a lengthy recession that the foresters were compelled to work shifts; the day shift finished at six, to be replaced by another gang working by artificial light. Huge open spaces were once again to be seen on the slopes, but without the beauty of a natural landscape; stumps and brashings scarred a hillside that had been a dead place for three decades and longer, for the sunlight had been unable to filter down through those entwining spiky branches to propagate ground growth.

The foresters had despoiled, and in another two or three years a replanting programme would be implemented so that Nature was kept at bay. But this time nobody cared because, apart from a few scattered dwellings on higher ground, the population had been driven out along with the wildlife. It was but another part of the subtle ‘plan’ to destroy Turbury.

Gwyn Jones had worked in forestry for almost five years, a natural progression from the sawmills when the redundancy axe fell. A labourer, physically strong and used to long unsocial hours, his sex appeal was virtually non-existent. He was short and squat, arms too long, legs bowed and too short. His permanent smile revealed uneven teeth, his bronzed complexion and fair hair disguised streaks of premature grey at thirty-six.

He bore little similarity to his brother, Teddy, who had also been employed at the mills but was on lengthy sick leave from the plant hire firm following his bizarre experience at the graveyard a few weeks ago. Teddy was ill; mild sedation was his only means of snatching a few hours’ sleep. The doctor said that he was unlikely to work again for three months.

Gwyn shook his head in mild perplexity. Too highly strung, that was Teddy’s trouble. When he analysed that business – Gwyn didn’t consider himself a deep thinker but it was plain enough to him – it was all a string of unfortunate coincidences, one accident leading to another. Maybe the bell had rung; if it had then it had been an untimely distraction. Teddy’s concentration had lapsed, he’d mistimed his sweep with the bucket and overturned his JCB. That parson shouldn’t have been standing in the way, that was his bloody fault. So everybody had gone over the top, and then old Williamson had put in an appearance. The old boy was a fairly awful sight; Gwyn had seen him about the village from time to time – he scared the kids but grown men shouldn’t have reacted like that. The undertaker chaps had panicked and, with coffins falling off the van and corpses spilling out, the whole affair had got out of all proportion.

That silly old bugger had then gone and hanged himself in the belfry and smashed his skull as a bonus. Not pretty, but you had to put things into perspective. Anyway, the village was under water and that was the end of the matter, the Deathbell included.

Gwyn paused, switched his chainsaw off and wiped the sweat from his brow. He stole a glance at his pocket watch, an heirloom that had been his grandfather’s and still kept perfect time: 1.20 p.m. Dinner break was overdue. He laid the saw down and made his way back to the van where his sandwiches waited. Pork and apple sauce because it was Monday, the left-overs from Sunday lunch. He licked his lips in anticipation.

It was too hot to sit in the van, he’d walk down to the edge of the lake and eat there, and read the paper for half an hour. The rest of the gang were working further up the slope; they probably wouldn’t be coming back. Which suited him because he was a loner, except on Saturday evenings when he went down to the club for a pint.

It was cooler by the water. He sat down, stretched his stunted legs out and began unwrapping his lunch. Pork it was, thick chewy slices the way his mother always cut them. He munched noisily, smacking his lips. There was a lot to be said for living at home with your mother, he thought; your grub was on the table waiting for you when you arrived home from work, the dishes were washed up afterwards and you did not have to think about the next day. There were a few simple chores – get the wood in, sweep the yard – but at present Teddy was seeing to all that, something to take his mind off things.

Life was idyllic for Gwyn Jones in his own way. He had no ambitions, he asked no more than a job and a wage at the end of the week. He reckoned a wife could spoil it all with nagging. Do this, do that. I want to go out tonight. After you’ve washed up, cut your own sandwiches or do them in the morning when you get up, they’ll be fresher that way. Gwyn had seen how some of the chaps in the gang struggled to keep a wife and kids. You worked yourself into the ground for them, made do with what was left over for yourself. Spending your hard-earned money on boring seaside holidays, ice creams and rides at the fair, and didn’t even get half an hour to yourself to doze off in a deck chair. Mind you, there were things you missed out on being single …

The lads were always ribbing him about it, and the joke had worn a bit thin over the years. ‘Ever ’ad a bit, Gwyn?’ They thought it was bloody fun to embarrass him. He’d never given them a straight answer. He knew that if he lied and said he had been with a woman they wouldn’t believe him, and if he told the truth and confessed he hadn’t he would be the butt of their jokes for ever more. He couldn’t win so he dodged the issue, and just grinned at them.

All the same, Gwyn wondered what it was like going with a bird. A sort of glorified masturbation, he supposed; it couldn’t be a lot different. His gaze was drawn to a topless model in his spread-out newspaper, the faint breeze rustling the page and seeming to make her wiggle seductively and the breasts move slightly. Now just imagine having it off with her! The thought gave him a funny feeling as he tried to visualise the situation. Her all naked, him too. Crikey, she’d crease herself laughing. What would a bird like that want with a funny-looking bloke like him? If he ever did get round to screwing a woman it would have to be somebody as desperate as himself, in which case he’d rather not bother.

He finished his sandwiches, then screwed the papers up and shoved them back into his haversack. Keep Britain tidy, he thought. He found himself looking at the topless model in the paper again. Today’s girl really appealed; maybe he’d cut her out, keep her in the drawer in his room. She might come in useful sometime. It was an exciting thought.

He popped the ring of a beer can and slurped the frothy overflow. And that was when he heard a movement, a soft footfall that made him sit up guiltily, turning over the page with a rustle in case whoever it was caught him drooling over the day’s pin-up. He looked behind him and choked on a mouthful of beer. Jeez!

The girl was standing there by a clump of ferns, just smiling at him. She was tall and shapely, with long fair hair that fell about her shoulders and ruffled in the breeze that blew off the lake. Her bright blue eyes twinkled with laughter, her lips were a soft red. Gwyn tried to keep his eyes elevated in his confusion, but made a clumsy pretence of not seeming to notice that she was completely naked. But he knew he was blushing and giving the game away.

‘Hallo,’ she said and walked demurely towards him.

He allowed his gaze to rove over her, noting the perfectly formed breasts with their pink nipples, the flat stomach, the fluffy tuft of pubic hair that protected her lower mysteries from his searching eyes. Licking his lips, he mutely apologised for being there: Don’t worry, miss, I was just about to go anyway.

‘I’m Leah.’ She seated herself down beside him and stretched herself out.

‘Oh … hi!’ There was no point in telling her that he was Gwyn Jones because she wouldn’t be interested. He wasn’t a conversationalist at the best of times, not even down at the club on a Saturday night. Words eluded him, and it was only after several seconds of embarrassed silence that he managed to say, ‘I’ve just finished my dinner, pork and apple sauce.’

‘You look so lonely.’ He noticed that she was wet. Water was running off her legs in sparkling droplets; she had obviously been for a swim. He wondered if perhaps her clothes were hidden somewhere hereabouts, and on her return she’d discovered an ugly forestry worker champing his pork butties right by them.

‘I was … just about to go. ’ He made as if to struggle up, but her outstretched hand dropped on to his knee and stopped him.

She smiled again and said, ‘You’re not really in a hurry to go, are you? An extra few minutes won’t matter, surely?’

‘I … er, I suppose not.’ He swallowed. Maybe she was some high-class tart out of Bryncalid touting for business. Gwyn had no idea what prostitutes charged – a tenner perhaps? But he didn’t have any money on him. He never brought any to work because there was nothing to spend it on in the forest.

‘It’s lovely in the lake today.’ Her fingers found his, and squeezed. She was cold, icy. Well, he reasoned, she was bound to be if she’d been swimming in the lake. It was too early in the summer for the water to have warmed up yet. ‘Why don’t we go for a swim together?’ she suggested.

Gwyn’s brain reeled. His first thought was, I haven’t brought my swimming trunks. But I don’t possess any. I haven’t been for a paddle since I was a kid, when Dad was alive and we went to Borth for a week. Anyway, I can’t swim, I’m scared of water deeper than three feet. Oh, God, what an admission! He scraped his muddled mind for a plausible excuse – a verruca, a cold …

She was smiling seductively, her face suddenly inches away from his own. ‘What’s the matter, lover boy, shy about taking off your clothes?’

He swallowed. Maybe she hadn’t looked at him properly, he thought. She’d only seen him sitting down, and wouldn’t realise his deformities. And the part of his body that mattered most wasn’t very big either, ‘I … I …’

‘Oh come on, be a sport.’ Her long slim fingers found the buckle of his heavy belt and slid it undone deftly. ‘There’s nobody around to see us.’

She was laughing – the sound was like a distant waterfall – as she flipped open his waistband catch and pulled his zip down. ‘After all, I’m not shy about you seeing me without anything on, am I?’

He found himself heaving up his ungainly body so that she could tug his pants and trousers down, and kicked his boots off. His working shirt came over his head, landing somewhere behind him. Just his St Christopher medallion was left, the disc trying to hide itself in shame round the back of his neck. Gwyn closed his eyes; he was dreaming, he’d dozed off after his lunch in the hot sunshine. When he looked again he would be all alone, and this girl would have gone because she had never really been here in the first place.

He felt a pull on his wrist, unbelievably strong, and came unsteadily up to his feet. She was still there, holding him and laughing, pulling him along with her in the direction of the rocky man-made shore. The water shimmered, dazzling him. He tried to resist but it was to no avail.

‘Hey, hold on!’ He stumbled and tried to fall, but only staggered a few yards further.

‘Don’t be an old fuddy-duddy,’ she mock-scolded him. ‘All we’re going to do is to have a quick dip and then you can get dressed and go back to your work. Is that so very terrible?’

It was, it was an awful prospect. Uppermost in his mind was his fear of water. He didn’t know how deep it was at this point; the land might suddenly shelve down to a depth of several fathoms. He tried to remember what had been there before the flooding. The forest ended – was there a bank or just a shallow slope? He did not know.

‘It’s not nearly as cold as you think.’ She tugged impatiently at his hand as his bare feet made contact with the water. The mud was stirred up, obscuring his view of the bottom. For all he knew, it might be hiding all sorts of things – slimy underwater creatures that would squelch and burst beneath his weight, a shard of broken glass from a discarded bottle. Townies were always leaving dangerous litter about the countryside.

‘I … can’t swim!’ It had to come out eventually, so better now, he thought, than when the water was lapping up to his chin or the bottom disappeared beneath him.

‘That won’t matter.’ She seemed unperturbed. ‘I’m a good swimmer, I’ll look after you.’

‘I’d rather not.’ He was stubborn now, frightened. Sod it, he didn’t care how beautiful she was, this nonsense had gone quite far enough. ‘Let go of me, I’m going back.’

‘No, you’re not.’ There was a trace of anger in her husky voice, a tightening of her hold. ‘You’re just being silly. Now, let’s go right in.’

His resistance was useless. Either she was unbelievably strong or the water had made him buoyant, for suddenly he was dragged forward and fell. His head went under, into an icy world where his brain seemed to explode. Kicking, threshing, he was holding on to her now in case she loosed him. Then he surfaced and gulped for air.

‘You panicked.’ She was alongside him, an arm supporting him. He thought his vision was distorted, for it seemed that the shore was a long way behind them, a hundred yards or more, and that was impossible. ‘Take … me … back.’ It was a plea rather than a command, a whine of fear.

‘All in good time.’ She was floating on her side beside him. ‘See, you can swim, after all. You just didn’t have the confidence before. Everybody can swim if they try.’

His head was thumping, there was a pounding of his temples. He knew it must be the water in his ears, but he was afraid to shake his head in case he dislodged himself from her protective arm. Boom … boom … The vibrations shook his whole body, making it quiver beneath the water like sound waves from an underwater explosion. The shuddering was rhythmic, so that he found himself waiting for the next one.

‘What’s that?’ His question was fear-laden.

‘What?’ Leah seemed suddenly abstracted, as if her thoughts were elsewhere and she had forgotten all about him, which made him cling hard on to her.

‘That noise. That booming.’

‘Oh, that’s the bell.’ She closed her eyes and drifted lazily with him.

His body went even colder. No, it couldn’t be. This was more of her mischief. Bells didn’t ring under water.

It was faster now, speeding up, insistent, pounding at his body. He remembered that day when they had had to use a pneumatic drill to bore down to a stubborn tree stump. He had been delegated to operate the machine and afterwards his body shook for hours. Like now. When he spoke again his teeth rattled and the words were barely comprehensible. ‘I … want … to … go … back.’

Leah opened her eyes. She smiled, but the expression was different now, the parting of those soft lips was like a wolfish snarl and her eyes were blazing like chips of arctic ice. ‘Well, you’re not going back. You're coming with me!’

Her words stunned him, reverberating in his brain in time with that ghastly bumping. The water rippled around them as if with some subterranean disturbance. He did not doubt her word, and felt hopeless. If he had been able to swim …

He could swim – she had said so. It was just a matter of confidence. He dared not turn his head, he merely shifted his eyes until they hurt, and made out the stark outline of the shore. It looked even further away, maybe a quarter of a mile!

He made up his mind to try for it; he had nothing to lose. This girl was obviously mad. She had deliberately brought him out here to drown him. A psychopath! Well, at least he would go down fighting!

He waited his chance, watching her slyly. Her eyes were closed again, her grip on his arm seemed merely a token touch, proof that he could swim. That hammering inside his brain was growing in intensity, as though a steel band was affixed to his forehead and wired up to an electric current for shock treatment. It was difficult to think, but he knew he had to get away whilst he was still capable.

Gwyn braced himself and snatched his arm away in the same movement, kicked out and felt his body shooting clear of his companion. His eyes were closed because he did not want to see, must not look at her. Flailing his arms and legs, he struck out blindly. Swimming.

Sinking!

His body seemed weighted with lead, plummeting downwards, a deep-sea diver on course for the ocean bed. He tried to check his fall but it was impossible. A kind of suction pulled at him and hurtled him down through a world where everything was dark green. And growing darker.

The pounding was louder now, pistons slamming him, robbing him of his powers of logic. Mindless, he was an underwater passenger who bubbled and swallowed water but still lived in a terrifying world of silence.

He alighted gently on the bottom, a hard smooth surface where it was surprisingly easy to stand. Looking about him, he peered into the deepening gloom at houses and gardens that were in need of tending, a road with pavements. Shapes moved, passed him by and disappeared. He tried to call after them but they did not heed him.

That noise wasn’t hurting any longer. He still heard it, felt it, but in a strange way it was soothing, relaxing him like music. His terror was gone, replaced by a numbness, an acceptance of whatever had happened to him. He was standing there, waiting.

A shape materialised out of the darkness. He recognised it as the girl, her white flesh starkly outlined against the blackness of her surroundings. Coming towards him, a hand outstretched, she grasped him firmly but kindly. Her lips moved, forming watery words in time with the incessant beating. ‘Come with me because I have something to show you.’

He let her lead him down the street, turning in through large gates that sagged open, into a wilderness where strands of weeds floated and strained at their roots as if they sought to escape from this place. Brambles with sharp thorns clutched at his legs but there was no pain.

A large mysterious building loomed up ahead of them but they skirted it. Empty windows followed their progress, watching them hungrily. The noise was louder now, a resonant dull bumping that shuddered the ground beneath their bare feet. The girl did not appear to notice it. She was hurrying now, dragging him with a new urgency.

Gwyn saw the smaller building. It reminded him of the Methodist chapel in Bryncalid where he and Teddy and their mother went on occasional Sundays. The brief reminder died instantly, and then it was just another meaningless building, derelict, a broken bell tower jutting up from it.

They went in through the open doorway. Standing inside, he tried to see, but it was too dark. The last vestige of green had merged into an unending blackness. Now he heard the bell, loud and clear, and felt the rush of water that its movements propelled. Cold waves hit him so that he had to hold on to Leah or else he would have fallen. He was aware of people moving about, passing them, hurrying and being swallowed up in the underwater darkness.

And then Leah was gone too. He groped for her, but there were no answering fingers on his outstretched arm. He shouted for her, but she did not reply; he supposed she couldn’t hear him because the bell was too loud. Deafened, he clutched at his ears, afraid they would burst at any second.

Finally came the realisation that there was nobody else there. Whoever these flitting shapes were, they were gone – and they had taken Leah with them. She had brought him here and left him. All alone.

5 - MIDSUMMER MADNESS

Vicki Mason listened with growing unease to the sound of an approaching vehicle. Lying on the lounger on the small lawn at the rear of her bungalow, she was attempting to develop a tan. She had dozed, basking in the warmth. The medley of pollen-hunting bees was soothing, in keeping with her mood. Far away she had heard the whine of chainsaws in the forest. And then the engine labouring to negotiate the steep road.

Whoever it was, they weren’t necessarily coming here, she reasoned. Then with annoyance she struggled back into her bikini. There was a chance that they might call, damn them. Today she did not want visitors, she just wished to be alone. The last few weeks had been a kind of rehabilitation process, shaking off the past, acclimatising to her new surroundings.

She lay back again. The car was nearer now. The driver was forced to drop down to second gear, grating the lever. Certainly not Hedley Chesterton, she thought, not the smooth almost arrogant purr of a Mercedes. It was an ageing vehicle, labouring. Julian Dane flashed into her mind but she banished him straight away; the past was dead, she had buried it just as the water authorities had buried Turbury village.

She found herself willing the car to stop and turn into her driveway. Suddenly she needed somebody to talk to. Only now was she fully aware of her loneliness and what the death of the village had done to her. It was as though part of her life had been cut off; unless she took her car and drove to Bryncalid she was unlikely to see anybody. No longer could she walk down to Turbury, cash a cheque at the bank, pick up a few groceries from the shop and perhaps call in for a coffee with one of the mothers of her ex-pupils. Because they were all gone, scattered.

Her nearest neighbour was the farm below, and Wilf Thomas certainly hadn’t the time to dally talking to her. He worked seven days a week, morning till night, and her only link with him was the agreement in her deeds for him to supply her with domestic water. That was often a problem; the system was worked by a hydraulic ram, and if something went wrong with the ram the first she knew about it was when there was no water coming out of her taps. Then she had to go in search of Wilf and insist that he attended to it right away, then check that he actually did. A stoic-faced man with short red hair and a quick temper, he had been only too eager to enter into the agreement regarding the water supply when he sold her the bungalow. Now it had become a nuisance to him.

Tyres crunched on gravel and came to a halt. The engine died, gave a brief stutter of pre-ignition, then cut out again. Obviously an ageing motor. She heard a door slam with a resonant clang, jump off its hinges and have to be banged shut a second time. A moment’s silence, then footsteps. Whoever it was, they were heading for the front door.

She played a kind of guessing game, eliminating the few possibilities. Hedley was ruled out. It wasn’t a salesman, either. Nor Wilf Thomas, because he would have come in that old Land Rover of his, without an exhaust, which belched diesel fumes; she would have smelled them long before now. Who then?

She heard the bell ring, a double chime, and tensed. It would have been all too easy to lie quiet and let whoever it was ring again and then go away. Unless they came round the rear of the bungalow, they would presume she was out. Probably one of the forestry workers looking for a can of drinking water, she guessed – nothing very interesting. She sighed. She could not be bothered to get up.

‘I’m here,’ she called out. ‘Come round the back, please.’

Footsteps again, slow measured ones. They sounded like wellington boots, in which case it was almost certainly a workman of some description – nobody really exciting. She felt too lethargic for anybody interesting anyway.

The caller was a tall man with frizzy brown hair and a weather-beaten face. He had dark eyes that smiled, and a muscular body beneath a red and blue checked working shirt and faded jeans. And he was wearing wellingtons.

‘Hallo.’ He seemed slightly embarrassed at being confronted with a bikini-clad figure and kept his distance as though he had intruded upon her privacy. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you.’

‘Not at all,’ Vicki sat up and swung her legs to the ground. ‘I was just making the most of the sunshine.’

‘I’m Aden Darrell.’ He was still cautious, dropping his gaze for a second. ‘I work for the water authority. I’m the new bailiff for Turbury reservoir. As I’ll be around pretty often from now on, and there aren’t a lot of folks living in these parts now, I thought I’d better drop by and introduce myself.’

‘Vicki Mason.’ She stretched out a hand and experienced his firm grip. She had always placed importance on how people shook hands; a weak, limp hand was a sign of insincerity and lack of confidence. He had created a good first impression. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’ She stood up. ‘I don’t see many people out here.’

‘I’m from away.’ He didn’t say where, just followed her through into the kitchen. ‘I’ve only been here a fortnight. I live in that caravan you might have seen down by the edge of the wood. They’ve promised me a cottage in due course, when the plans have been passed and the place built, that is.’ He laughed.

‘So the new reservoir warrants a bailiff all to itself.’ She spooned instant coffee into two mugs and switched the kettle on. ‘No wonder the water rates are extortionate. Thank goodness I’ve got my own private supply of spring water.’

‘I’m in charge of the fishing.’ He seated himself on the stool which she indicated. ‘It’s going to be big business for the water board. I’ve already put three thousand fingerlings in the lake.’

‘Fingerlings?’

‘Baby trout. By this time next year fishermen will be queuing up to buy a rod on Turbury, you take it from me. That’s unless this drought goes on for many more weeks. It’s quite worrying, the levels have dropped several feet on the other reservoirs since the end of May, which means there’s no water coming over the dam to fill Turbury. Even now, if you look, you can see one or two rooftops poking up out of the surface. The church steeple’s standing up like a periscope.’

‘God forbid!’ She slopped coffee as she pushed a mug along the working surface towards her visitor. ‘Don’t say the village is going to rise up out of its watery grave.’

‘I’ve been hearing some pretty weird stories about Turbury.’ It was a cue, and he waited patiently.

‘And most of them true.’ Vicki had paled slightly beneath her sun tan. ‘I was here ten years ago when it all happened. And then everything started to go berserk again. They flooded the valley and I was hoping that would be the end of it.’

‘One of the forestry workers went missing the week I arrived here.’ He stared fixedly at his coffee. ‘Doubtless you know all about it.’

‘I knew Gwyn Jones,’ she replied, and added quickly, ‘just to pass the time of day with. Sometimes he used to call here for a can of water. The police came and asked me if I’d seen him. Apparently he went and ate his sandwiches on the edge of the lake and just disappeared off the face of the earth. They had divers searching the reservoir but they never found him.’

‘Aye.’ Darrell pursed his lips. ‘I was there when they were searching. You should have seen that diver’s face when he came up … I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking like this.’

‘Go on, tell me, please.’

‘An experienced diver, a sub-aqua instructor whom the police use to search pools whenever somebody goes missing, he was underwater for maybe half an hour. We were beginning to get worried. Then he came ashore and peeled off his suit, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody so scared in all my life. He told the inspector that if he wanted any more searching doing down there he could b-well do it himself. I think his nerves got the better of him, but he said you could sense things moving about, and then he said an incredible thing. He reckoned he heard the bell in the old chapel start to ring! Apparently it robbed him of all cohesion and he lost his sense of direction, wandered about down there in the village and was damned lucky to get out before his oxygen ran out.’

Vicki shuddered. ‘I’ve had some bad experiences with the bell myself, Aden.’ She used his first name before she fully realised it. ‘I … I don’t want to talk about them. But take it from me, it’s a bad place down there.’

‘Well, I’ll be around if you need me.’ He got up and placed his empty mug in the sink. ‘I’ve got a busy programme lined up. Stock the lake with trout and organise the fishing, and they’re talking about building up the duck shooting potential and letting that as well. Ah well, a step at a time and we’ll see how it goes. I might look in again some time.’ It was a nervous self-invitation, and the implication was not lost on Vicki.

‘Please do, any time.’ She thought she might be blushing. ‘And don’t leave it too long.’

She went through to the lounge, discreetly watched Aden Darrell get into his rusted blue Bedford van and reverse out on to the road. As he said, she reminded herself, a step at a time. He was probably married. Or engaged. Or had a regular girlfriend. And he surely wasn’t thirty yet, ten years younger than herself. Vicki had learned her lesson about building up false hopes. Or had she?

Vicki’s bath seemed to be taking ages to fill. She padded through from the bedroom and stared in dismay at the few inches of water in the bottom of the bath that a near-trickling tap was making a valiant effort to increase. Damnation! She leaned across and exerted full pressure on the handle, but it was already at full turn and gave a kind of metallic groan. Oh, Jesus, that’s all I need!

The reason was only too apparent: the reservoir up on the hillside had run dry. The tap spluttered, fizzed, made one last attempt and stopped; it dripped steadily. She resisted the urge to screw her towel up and fling it at the wall. That would solve nothing. Instead she draped the red and white towel around herself, went through into the hall and picked up the phone. Angry fingers dialled the digits – 882. She knew the ‘I’m-out-of-water’ number off by heart but she could bet there would be no reply from Wilf Thomas’s end.

However, there was. A woman’s slow drawl, in sleepy but reprimanding tones asked, ‘Who is it, please?’

‘Vicki Mason speaking. The reservoir’s run dry.’

A pause. Out here life moved half a pace slower than elsewhere. They were shrewd people but they did not hurry. ‘I’ll tell Wilf when they come in.’ She registered no concern, made no apology.

‘I’d be glad if your husband would attend to it as soon as possible.’ Vicki could not keep that sharp edge out of her voice. ‘I can’t even boil a kettle to make a cup of tea.’

‘These springs are always a nuisance.’ It was a half-excuse, a wife defending her husband. ‘Let’s hope that with this new reservoir they’ll put us all on the mains and have done with these problems.’

‘Not likely,’ Vicki retorted, ‘because it won’t be long before they’ll start putting fluoride and other poisons in the supply. The spring is quite adequate if the ram is maintained.’ Which it wasn’t, she implied, and the least Wilf Thomas could do would be to check the small reservoir regularly.

‘I’ll pass your message on.’ There was a click and the line went dead.

Vicki dropped the receiver back on its cradle. She wished she could start inspecting the water supply herself at regular intervals, but the concrete inspection hatch was too heavy for her to lift. She decided to phone again in the morning if the taps were still dry. The farmer would see to it – he always did – he had to be harrassed though.

She checked the kettle in the kitchen. Fortunately it was half full. If she couldn’t have a bath at least she was not denied a bedtime drink. She made a cup of drinking chocolate, took it through to the lounge and sat watching the sun go down behind the western mountains. The sky was clear, not so much as a puff of cirrus cloud. Of course, it need not necessarily be the ram that had packed up, she thought – the spring might have run dry. Aden had said the water was low in the lake and the village was starting to show itself.

Vicki shivered in spite of the warmth of the late evening and tried not to think about the Deathbell. Instead she thought of Aden Darrell.

Frankie Thomas backed another load of silage up to the silo in the farmyard. Sixteen and lanky of build, he had developed the habit of wearing his old cap back to front on his shock of blond hair because it annoyed the old man. When you slaved 365 days a year for less than an agricultural labourer’s wage, he reckoned you were entitled to aggravate a tyrant father. It was the little things, he grinned to himself in the darkness, which put spice into life. Out here you had to get your kicks where you found them. He switched the tractor engine off and jumped down.

‘Frank!’ The bellow came from over by the hay barn, but he was impervious to Wilf Thomas’s voice and didn’t jump any longer.

‘Whassa matter?’

‘You’m better get up to that reservoir. The teacher’s run dry again. Check that it’s really empty and then have a look at the ram.’

‘In the dark?’

‘You’m got a torch. Use it. We’m busy tomorrow, got to get the rest of the hay in before the rains come.’

‘It won’t rain for another month. I’ll do it in the morning.’

‘You’m’ll do it now if you’m wants any wages on Friday!’

Frank sighed. He would do it, he always did. Because one day this small farm would be his and then he would do just as he liked. And if that silly old bugger dropped dead tomorrow he wouldn’t shed a tear for him. In fact he thought he’d go and piss on his grave as soon as they buried him.

Frankie Thomas took his time on the long climb up the hillside. The dry grass rustled and snapped beneath his heavy scuffed working boots. It was hot, without even a breath of cooling breeze.

It took him a quarter of an hour to reach the two small reservoirs because he didn’t hurry. There were two raised concrete hatches; the nearside one served the farm and watered the stock via a series of troughs around the fields. The overflow filled the second, larger reservoir – Vicki Mason’s supply. Simple but effective, he thought. The old man had got it all worked out. The sheep had the water first; if it was dry weather and they were thirsty then there was no surplus to flow through the outlet pipe into Vicki’s. Which, in all probability, was what had happened now.

He knelt down, lifted the smaller hatch with some difficulty and shone his torch inside. A quarter full, so the stock had been drinking thirstily. Well, there was a remedy and Dad would have to accept it, Frankie decided. He lay full length, managed to reach a small float switch on the inside wall and flicked it. The ram would now pump directly into the larger tank, maybe taking a couple of days to fill it. In the meantime the sheep would go thirsty. Too bloody bad, his father should have thought of that when he built these reservoirs. Well, he’d learn now but it wouldn’t make any difference. There was one criterion where Wilf Thomas was concerned – money! If it cost money to do a job he didn’t do it, he took a short cut, bodged it and hoped for the best.

Frankie decided that he had better check the larger reservoir whilst he was up here. It was bound to be empty but he’d look all the same.

The hatch was heavy, it took him all his strength to lift it. He was tired after a hard day’s silage carting in scorching weather. It moved. He raised it and supported it at an angle with his left arm, using his right hand to shine the torch down into the depths. He saw a glistening damp symmetrical hole in the ground, shiny concrete reflecting the beam back at him. He knew the measurements by heart. He had dug it out with the JCB and mixed the concrete to line it. It was 15 feet deep, 12 feet long and wide. Full, it held about 5,000 gallons. At least, that was what Dad said and Frankie couldn’t be bothered to do a calculation to check.

It was empty, as he had known it would be, with just a puddle in the middle of the floor. The float switch would rectify the situation; in about half an hour the water would begin to trickle in directly from the ram. Christ, it was a real Fred Karno set-up! The inspection hatch had a corner chipped off, which meant that if a sheep stood on it and did its business, which it surely would when they moved the ewes back up here in the autumn, then the water would be contaminated. There should have been a fence round the perimeter to keep stock off, but fences cost money! Another thing – Frankie shone his torch back down into the depths – there should be an inspection ladder leading down from the top. He thought it was a legal requirement – but he could never be bothered to check up and wouldn’t know where to look for a start – just in case somebody … fell in!

The very thought brought on a mild attack of vertigo. The walls were sheer, and there was no way back up. Frankie was sure that there was an old iron ladder lying in the back of the implements shed. He’d look it out tomorrow, bring it up here at some opportune moment when his father wasn’t around. The old man would go berserk if he found out; scrap ladders were probably worth money. He could imagine him saying, ‘It’s cheaper if you’m don’t fall in, Frankie.’

His instinct was to drop the hatch and let it thump back into place and echo in the empty reservoir. All he had to do was to move back, and release his hold on it. But he didn’t, he continued to kneel there for some inexplicable reason, listening to the thudding of his heart, counting the beats. Waiting for something …

The breeze blew up softly from the lake below, refreshingly cool, soothing his tiredness at the end of a hard day, Frankie’s arm was still supporting the open concrete cover, its full weight on its axis. His posture was much the same as leaning on a gate for a moment or two of reflection. The youth’s mind was a blank, it had switched itself off. He would just rest awhile like this and in a few moments go home to bed.

A resonant clang caused him to tense, pushing up at his burden. An echo seemed to come from everywhere at once, lingering in the atmosphere. It was like the noise the hatch made when dropped shut, booming down in the empty reservoir. But the hatch wasn’t shut, Frank was propping it open.

A wave of dizziness swept over him, a hint of his former vertigo. There should have been an inspection ladder, he recollected, but there wasn’t. So if he fell in … Oh, fucking hell, don’t even think about it!

But the thought was there, a seed blown into his mind by that strange clang, beginning to germinate. Auto suggestion. He gripped the lip of the heavy concrete square, but it seemed to be pressing down on him. He knew all he had to do was to loose it and jump back. I can’t, my legs won’t move. Frozen into immobility, he crouched there, that strange noise ringing incessantly inside his head, growing in volume.

His arm muscles were weakening, quivering. Maybe if he used both hands … As he raised his right hand, something slipped from his grasp. A shaft of bouncing light hit the floor of the empty reservoir and was extinguished instantly. The crash of shattered glass and plastic magnified as it echoed, mingling with that other semi-musical noise – the sound of hopelessness, empty mocking laughter.

You haven’t got a free hand now, Frank. You’re trapped, you’re going to have to kneel there like that all night and when you get tired … He was sweating, salt smarting in his eyes. Drop it, but you'll have to jump back fast otherwise it'll come crashing down on your head, a kind of deadfall trap like the old gamekeepers used to set for vermin, a flat slab of rock baited with a chicken carcass which brought instant death.

All he had to do was to leap out of the way. Frank knew that his weary limbs would not respond quickly enough; they were heavy, encumbered, not just with tiredness but with the awful reality of what was inevitably about to happen. There was no way of escape.

He tried to shout. A hoarse whisper of fear escaped his lips, a call for help to the darkness, but the lurking invisible powers merely mocked him; somewhere far away a muffled bell was ringing, echoing in the depths of the small concrete reservoir.

He called out for his parents, but knew they would not be able to hear him as he knelt trapped on the brink of this man-made chasm, a yawning black pit waiting to swallow him and slam its gaping mouth closed as he plunged down into its belly. The darkness rushed up to meet him and grasped him with icy fingers.

It was like one of those dreams where you trip and pitch forward, he thought. A rush of dizziness, then you brace yourself for the impact. For Frankie Thomas everything had slowed down. He felt himself floating, weightless, like a gas-filled balloon that might just float back up. Mouthing his terror with mute cries, he heard the bell tolling more clearly now as though anticipating his funeral.

Then came the dreaded thud of the falling inspection hatch, followed by a mind-shuddering explosion. He felt the force of it hit him and throw him forward, a catapulted human missile.

He hit the floor with a bone-jarring crash, skated along wet concrete and thumped against a wall. Bouncing back, he slid to a halt in a huddled heap. Shocked, numbed, he was aware of pain but not sure where it came from. The bell was louder still, reverberating inside his skull, its clapper bashing on his shaken brain. Writhing, convulsing, he was unable to quieten it, so he yelled obscenely at it.

The silence came suddenly, frighteningly. No bell ringing, nothing. He was alone in a watery tomb, resigned to his fate and cursing his father for being too miserly to install an inspection ladder.

Some time later – he had lost all conception of time – he heard the faint trickle of water and felt it splashing on his upturned face. And that was when the midsummer madness took him, making him rush from one wall to another, screaming insanely.

For the float witch had worked, the redirected water supply was flowing in to fill the empty locked chamber. To drown him.

6 - SUICIDAL

Laurence Benson was a professional and social failure; his ambition in life seemed to be to fail at everything which he attempted and to incorporate friends and acquaintances into his lack of success. He maintained that ill fortune dogged him; others claimed that he made his own bad luck. Possibly it was a combination of both.

At thirty-two, he was two stone overweight and had ceased to pay attention to personal hygiene apart from a, cursory wash in the mornings. His denims were rarely changed, his trainers were split and torn and let the water in on rainy days, which was why he welcomed the present drought.

An unkempt beard spread down from his round face on to his chest, giving him a wild appearance. A recluse, he had, kept to his tumbledown cottage in Turbury and was only seen on his infrequent trips to the shop to replenish his meagre provisions. Once an alcoholic, his cure had been found in lack of finances, and he had given up smoking for the same reason. He was a roosting drifter with nowhere left to go.

His dwelling – a legacy from his mother – had been heavily mortgaged to the bank, and they were threatening to foreclose on the overdraft. The water authorities saved them the trouble; the compensation cheque put the account in order and Laurence drew out the small surplus in cash. He moved to a small rented flat in Bryncalid, and when his money ran out he would be left with a meagre social security benefit after the rent had been deducted.

He spent most of his time day-dreaming of his ‘affluent’ days, the period when he had been a moderately successful magazine writer. If anybody asked him what he wrote he replied evasively ‘feature articles’ and steered the subject round to general journalism. The boom in soft porn magazines during the mid-seventies was the only time when he had really earned any substantial money. He had drunk well then, two bottles of whisky and a crate of beer a week, and even frequented the Buffalo on Saturday evenings because he had salvaged some pride in himself.

For him those had been halcyon days. He had had a live-in girlfriend for almost a year, an exceptionally attractive hippy who had moved out of the commune beyond the village. He had met Jane at the Festival, that period in August and September each year when hippies and dropouts from all over Britain flocked to Bryncalid Common for the ‘magic mushrooms’. There had been two thousand of the invaders that year and he had found Jane; he thought it was incredible that they had been living only a few miles apart for the last couple of years and had failed to meet. For Laurence it was love at first sight; his writing was pushed to one side – he had other priorities.

Commissions were not fulfilled, irate editors found other willing writers and Laurence Benson’s income fell apart. That didn’t matter whilst he had Jane, but when they split up he did not have the money he needed to obliterate his sorrows in alcohol. He tried to retrieve the threads of his writing but those same editors saw fit not to answer his letters of pleading.

And that was when he made his first suicide attempt. After being totally bored with stories of his catastrophes, the landlord of the Buffalo chalked up a half-bottle of Teachers on the slate just to get rid of him. Laurence already had some aspirin. The job wasn’t going to be very difficult. He planned every detail: when dusk fell he would leave the cottage, armed with the whisky and the aspirins, and walk the half-mile or so to the Rock of Turbury, a huge flat slab of rock that jutted out from the road below the wood. This was to be his chosen place to end it all; not for him the ignominy of a filthy cottage that had long ceased to be home. Instead he would have a place of panoramic splendour, a picnic site which drew tourists from near and far, a fitting tribute to his death. A monument, in fact. For years to come this place would be famed for his death, a legend that would go down for posterity in the local guide books.

It was a warm spring evening, heavily overcast. He waited for dusk, fidgeting his impatience away for most of the day. He had no fear, no second thoughts, just an urgency to get it over and done with. The end would be pleasant, a creeping drowsiness terminating in eternal sleep. He was looking forward to it.

It was dark by the time he arrived at the Rock of Turbury, a gigantic stone which would not have been out of place amongst the pillars of Stonehenge. The silent sentinel had witnessed the growth of a landscape, had weathered a thousand or more winters. A sacrificial stone! The thought sent excited shivers up his spine and into his scalp.

He was relaxed now, climbing up to the rock, sitting cross-legged on it. His relief was almost euphoria. It was a downhill run that had bottomed out, come to an end, he thought. It didn’t really take guts, not doing it this way at any rate. Some people slashed their wrists or cut their throats – messy, he’d end up screaming for help if he tried that. There was no gas in Turbury, which ruled out that method. Hanging … horrible! Even an overdose on its own was a frightening proposition: swallowing the tablets and waiting. A moment of panic and he might dash and dial 999. The whisky was a vital factor because it would make him feel happy, dull his senses.

No rush, have a drink first, a kind of toast, he told himself. He broke the seal on the bottle and took a gulp. Christ, it burned his throat, making him cough and splutter. That was what came of abstaining from alcohol for so long, he realised – he had sort of got out of training. He tried a small nip, swilled it round his mouth before swallowing it. Ugh, it tasted vile!

Something cold and wet dropped on to his wide forehead and made him jump – a huge rainspot. He heard rain splattering on the rock surface, a steady pitter-patter. He glanced up at the dark sky: not a star in sight, just lowering, unending cloud formations. He shivered, and wished he’d brought his old raincoat. Oh, Holy Jesus, it would decide to piss down tonight of all nights! He clenched a fist and shook it up at the heavens. Why couldn’t it bloody well have waited until tomorrow, or even for just another hour?

A steady unrelenting downpour saturated his flimsy denims. The thin material clung to his body, wet and cold. Shivering, he reached for the whisky bottle again, groping in the darkness, and caught it with the side of his hand. He heard a clink as it toppled over; he grabbed for it but it was too late. The fiery spirit rushed out of the open neck, flooding away to mix with the rainwater.

Laurence could not hold back his tears. Shaking sobs mixed with grunts of frustration. He crouched there, slid the aspirin bottle from his wet pocket, held it, then threw it as far as he could, and heard it smash. And that was the bloody end of that!

Dejected, soaked through, he began the long slouch home to a cold inhospitable cottage which soon would belong to his bank.

Now he was going to give it one more try. The last of his money was gone, the bailiffs had threatened to call next week – not that there was anything of any real value for them to take. But his back was to the wall, this was the end of the road whichever way he looked at it. Okay, there were a lot of folks, three million plus of them, out of work, but the majority of them had never known the good times, the affluent days.

He still fancied the Rock of Turbury as his venue. So fitting, majestic, his death would not go unnoticed. The papers would splash it on their front pages and Jane would see it. The bitch! She’d be sorry then. A pity we can’t form a lovers’ death pact, he thought – I’d like to take her with me.

He bought a half bottle of whisky, a cheap blend, out of his weekly benefit drawings. This time he’d drink at home, get tanked up before he started out, he decided. Not an overdose, that had failed before, it had to be something else. Drowning!

Although he had a fear of water the idea did not frighten him. He knew he would be too drunk to comprehend at the time. He had read on more than one occasion that drowning was a pleasant death. Had anybody ever come back from the depths to substantiate that claim? He’d take the writers’ word for it. He couldn’t swim so there was no chance of chickening out once he’d jumped.

He’d leap from the Rock. It was probably the deepest point on the shore since the valley had been flooded. He remembered the spot as it used to be: flat stone, a kind of symbol dreamed up by the Flat Earth Society. You would have stepped off into nothing, a sheer drop. Mothers went frantic about the risk of their children falling over; in the past the kids would probably have broken their necks after a fall of some thirty feet. Now the water would have filled the bottom. Laurence shuddered as he poured the last of the whisky out into the stained plastic beaker in which he used to keep his worn old toothbrush.

The night was dark but not overcast, warm. It wouldn’t rain, because a myriad of stars dotted over the black velvet mantle above him. The last of his social security money went on a taxi from Bryncalid. Do it in style, he thought, and fuck the way the driver kept stealing sly glances at him. It was none of his bloody business what Laurence wanted to go out to Turbury lake for.

Alone, he watched the red tail lights of the car disappearing down the narrow winding lane like fireflies hastening to some unknown destination. His last contact with the human race. He had thought about leaving a note but decided against it, to hell with it let ’em work it out for themselves. Just so long as they didn’t think it was an accident, another bloody fool gone and drowned himself.

It was a steep climb up to the Rock and he had to stop and get his breath every few yards. He was so out of condition, he reckoned if he’d waited another week or two he might have had a nice peaceful heart attack. No, he’d rather go out in a blaze of publicity: ‘Writer found drowned in cursed reservoir’.

It was strange about that bell, he thought, but probably there was a perfectly ordinary explanation for it. Some yobs had rehung it and tolled it, and it all tied in with things that would have happened anyway. It was too late now to worry about that kind of crap.

He stood on smooth flat rock; he scraped his feet along it just to make sure. This was it, the preliminaries were over, it was down to business. Keep walking and don't think about it, you don’t want any more balls-ups.

Taking slow, unsteady steps, he almost fell over. He hiccuped loudly; at least he was going out with a drop of the real stuff inside him. They would probably do a PM on him: ‘this man was drunk’. So what? Yes, it was a damn pity Jane wasn’t here to go over with him, it was the very least she deserved. She couldn’t stand the pace when the going got rough; she thought that writers were rich. Sod her!

Hell, the edge was a long way! He stopped, peering about him in the darkness. He wasn’t by any chance walking in the wrong direction, was he? If he ended up back on firm ground then that would be the finish. He had failed at everything throughout life, beginning with muffing his Eleven Plus exam at school. And now he couldn’t even bloody well kill himself!

Ah! His outstretched foot dangled over an empty space; he swayed, then nearly fell backwards. This was it, he had arrived at his destination. Keep walking, Larry, that’s all you have to do. Even so he hung back.

So near, so simple. One step to death. But I won’t know anything about it because I’m pissed. Go on, he urged himself, what are you waiting for?

A moment’s hesitation; he nearly funked it. And then a bell rang, a single clear note that pealed out of the night and hung in the atmosphere, magnifying, growing in intensity.

Laurence recoiled, sobering instantly as though a bucket of icy water had been flung over him. Breathless, shocked, he tried to plug his ears with dirt-grimed fingers. Waves of vibration came at him; every bone in his body trembled. Mentally and physically weakening him, a force drove at him, sapping his determination.

His legs moved, sagged and managed a tottering step. Then another. His sense of direction was destroyed, a broken compass. Move, and keep moving. Anywhere.

Totally lost, he felt a surge of panic, another pace. And then there wasn’t any ground beneath his feet. He sensed his body obeying the laws of gravity, plunging. In the rush of air, the bell was now a siren-like whine inside his head. I’ve done it, I’ve jumped. This is the end!

‘I don’t want to bloody die!’ Laurence shouted. He didn’t know if he managed to get the cry out because all he could hear was the bell. Any second he would hit the water and go under. Black, icy cold water would gush into his mouth, fill his lungs. Take a deep breath and hold it. I can’t!

He was still plunging down. A thought flashed across his mind that perhaps he could swim, strike out for the shore. No, that was too much to ask, he’d better resign himself to his fate. They said it was pleasant; he just hoped it was quick. He was going under any second. Christ, how much further?

He knew he had to hit the lake soon, so he braced himself. And then came a bone-shattering impact, a collision with a mighty battering ram that threw him and bounced him. There was a blaze of lights before his eyes; he had not hit deep water, he hadn’t gone under. It was crazy, he screamed, as he felt himself rolling, sharp stones cutting at him, shredding his ribboned clothing still further, gouging his skin.

Then he was lying still, trying to recollect his thoughts, with the bell still mocking his plight. In excruciating pain, his legs doubled under him. He was clutching at himself, tasting blood in his mouth, crying and still hearing the echoes of the bell, a dull throbbing inside his head that pounded his eardrums.

In the midst of it all he accepted failure. Holy shit, I can't even bloody kill myself. The fucking lake's dry!

Then he began to crawl, dragging himself over the loose shale, a slow and agonising process like that of a rabbit shot in the hind legs, wounded but still trying to reach the safety of its burrow.

7 - RESURRECTED EVIL

Vicki Mason dreamed that the Deathbell had rung again. She tossed uneasily in her sleep, pressed her head hard down into the soft pillow and pulled the sheet up. A low moan escaped her lips, a wheeze of terror. No, please don’t let me hear it again.

Subconsciously listening, waiting for a second fearful ring, she heard somewhere in the distance a hammering and thumping that did not sound quite right. Not metallic, dull blows but urgent ones. Don’t listen, she told herself, perhaps they’ll go away.

There was another ring but different in tone: no depth, a double chime, musical. She turned on to her other side and wriggled down the bed.

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

Even in her slumber she recognised it and gasped her relief at the mundane, everyday noise. The doorbell! Her brain responded and began to emerge from the fog of sleep. Her body stirred; there was somebody at the door, she’d better go and see who it was. Wide awake now, she stared up at the whiteness of the emulsioned ceiling which gave off a kind of luminous glow. Now I really am being silly, she thought, I’ve been dreaming about bells. She peered at the green digits of the radio alarm; 2.30. Damn it, now I probably won’t be able to get back to sleep. She sighed, smiling to herself as memories of the previous day and Aden Darrell seeped back. She’d …

Ding-dong.

It was the doorbell! For real. Then a pounding, fists hammering on woodwork, and a raised voice, but she could not tell what it said. Her heart began to beat fast, her mouth went dry. Nocturnal callers almost invariably were the bearers of bad tidings. She remembered the night her mother had died suddenly and the police woke her up. They came in person, to comfort, never phoned.

But she had no living relatives; there was no reason for anybody to call on her in the early hours of the morning – and that was an even more frightening thought.

‘Oi!’

It was a man’s voice. He was beating on the door again, giving another dual ring of the bell. Vicki sat up, groped for the light switch and changed her mind. No, she would go through and take a discreet look first. The phone was in the hall; if necessary she would try to use it undisturbed.

She grabbed up a lightweight housecoat, slid her trembling body into it and crept out of the bedroom. Now she could see an indistinct outline on the other side of the opaque glass of the front door. The frosted silhouette was unrecognisable in the faint starlight.

‘Wake up!’ He was becoming frantic, banging on the glass now. ‘Are you bloody dead or sommat?’

She contemplated phoning the police – but realised they would be unable to get here in time. It would take but a matter of seconds for her nocturnal caller to kick the glass pane in and reach her. Better to try and reason with him, to discover what all this was about.

‘Who’s there?’ Her voice trembled and she wondered if he had heard.

A pause and then, ‘Open up, willya!’

‘Not until I know who it is and what you want.’ She moved closer to the phone and rested a hand on the receiver. It gave her scant comfort.

‘Wilf Thomas. Who d’you think?’

She let out her pent-up breath in a rush. The silhouette, the voice, fitted. And something was obviously seriously amiss. He certainly had not called about the water supply but she could not think of anything else.

‘Just a minute.’ She fumbled to free the flimsy security chain, flicked the light on in the porch and opened the door. The farmer stood there, hatless, distraught, a grim expression on his usually dour features.

‘Has you seen our Frank?’ he grunted.

‘Why, no, should I have done?’

‘’E went to fix your water, didn’t ’e? It was you what wanted it done in an ’urry.’ He was blaming her, scowling.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand …’

‘Frank’s missing, that’s what. ’E went to fix the water and ’asn’t come back.’

‘Oh, goodness!’ She couldn’t think of an answer.

‘Is your water back on?’ He was starting to edge his way inside.

‘I don’t know but I’ll soon find out.’ She turned towards the bathroom, aware of his heavy clumping feet following her. She turned on a tap; there was a hiss and a gurgle followed by a stream of water. It was not back to full pressure but there was certainly water in the header tank again.

‘’E’s working, so Frankie must’ve fixed ’im.’ The farmer was deathly white and hands were shaking. ‘’E went up there, did the job, or else’ ’e had to go down to the ram. One or t’other, ’e did it.’

‘Where is the ram?’

‘Down yonder field, about a mile, bottom of the dingle. I’ll ’ave to go and look.’

‘Let me come with you.’

‘No!’ His thick lips curled in scorn. ‘I’ll go. Sorry to’ve troubled you.’ He turned and went straight out through the open front door and into the night.

Vicki closed the door, went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. She certainly wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. She could not understand about the Thomas boy, but there had to be a perfectly logical explanation. He was quite a likeable sort of youth, brow-beaten by his father. Perhaps he had rebelled. Being sent to repair the water system after a gruelling day’s work might have been the last strawand he had walked out, left home. Thousands of teenagers did that every week all over the country.

She felt guilty. If she had not been so insistent, so sharp with Mrs Thomas, the task would have been left until morning. But it was no good blaming herself; if Frankie was going to leave home then he would have done it anyway.

She sat down with her coffee, aware of a slight headache for the first time. She recalled the ring of the bell in her dreams – not the doorbell, that had been real enough – the first one. The one that bore a remarkable similarity to the Deathbell. Real or a figment of her troubled dreams, it had again left its mark on her.

Wilf Thomas knew that he would have to make the arduous trip down the dingle to where the ram was situated. Even in daylight he regarded the task as a last resort and usually delegated it to Frank. As he had done tonight.

They hydraulic ram was situated in a dense coniferous plantation that bordered the stream, sunk in a three-foot-square brick well where it caught the cross flow of both watercourses. It pumped one gallon up the pipe for every ten it allowed to go its natural way. Simple, effective. Now, apparently, the water was flowing again but Frankie had not returned.

The steep hillside was slippery with the dryness of summer. His working boots slid on dead grass instead of maintaining a grip on lush pasture. Wilf picked out the winding sheep track with his torch and followed it. His mouth was dry – there was something seriously wrong, he had that ominous feeling. Just as he had done ten years ago when his brother, Ralph, had not come back from checking the sheep that snowy March evening at the height of the lambing season. Wilf had gone to look for him and found him lying there on the ground, a skimming of snow giving him a ghostly appearance in the darkness. He was dead – a sudden heart attack. But Wilf had known all along, and prepared himself for what he would find when he had set out. It was like that now. Oh, Lord, whatever would Rose say? She doted on the boy. He had no faults in her eyes.

Wilf reached the bottom of the slope. He followed the nearside bank of the stream, shining his torch in an arc before him as he walked. Sheep moved out of their nocturnal shelter place in the bracken, bleating. That puzzled Wilf, too. The animals gave no sign of having been disturbed recently; if they had been they would have congregated up on the path higher up, nervous because something had interrupted their nightly routine. Sheep were stupid, the slightest thing upset them. He hesitated; Frankie hadn’t been down here, he was sure of that. It was a waste of time, he might as well go back now. No, because Rose would be sure to ask him, and he could never lie to her. But maybe when he got home Frankie’d be there. He won’t, I know it. He’s not coming back.

It was almost impossible to locate the path that led in through the dense fir branches without the faint thumping of the ram somewhere in the wood. Wilf stopped, listened and thought he heard it but it was his own heart hammering. There was a pounding in his head, too. That came from the bell; he knew it of old. It annoyed him, angered him, put him on edge for hours after it had rung. Bloody thing, he thought, they should have sold it for scrap and had done with it.

He moved on, then paused to listen again. This time he heard the bump-bump of the hydraulic ram, the gentle swish of water. He grunted, parted the branches and went inside, impervious to the slapping and pricking of the hard green pine needles.

The thumping grew louder by the second and then he saw, in the yellow circle of his torch beam, a bricked-in pit, moss growing on the sides, some pine needles swirling in the rush of water. It was a mechanical slave that worked twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred and sixty-five days year; unless it broke down and needed maintenance. Wilf only serviced it when that happened; he never did anything today which he could leave until tomorrow.

Wilf swung the beam of light round in a circle and sent the shadows scampering. He almost called out ‘Frankie?’ He didn’t because he knew that his son wasn’t here, and somehow he did not want to hear the sound of his own voice. He was for once afraid, knowing Frankie was somewhere not too far away but not down here in the Dingle. He had to continue looking.

The climb back up to the road seemed endless, a dragging of weary, dejected limbs. He had to call upon his reserves, push himself to the limit. By the time he reached the lane he was out of breath, wheezing. It made sense to go home but that would mean facing Rose. Mild mannered, withdrawn most of the time, he had been the victim of her wrath over their son on more than one occasion. The maternal instinct ran strong in Rose Thomas’s veins; Frankie was the one subject where Wilf always came off second best. She’d only say, ‘You go and look for him, Wilf Thomas, and don’t come back here until you’s found ’im.’

Slowly he began the ascent up to the reservoirs. Frankie wouldn’t be there, he couldn’t be, he reasoned. Unless he was lying in the grass like Ralph had been that night, dead. Wilf’s chest was pounding. It was as though there was a steel band encircling it, being tightened with every step he took. He felt sick. Damn that teacher, it was all her fault, ringing up in the middle of the hay harvest and bitching because she hadn’t got any water. That was what happened when you sold property to outsiders, townies. Country people accepted inconveniences, appreciated that hay was more important than water. The ram could have been attended to next week when the bays and the silo were full.

Up above him he saw the dark outline of the start of the big forest against the night sky, a forbidding artificial world. It hadn’t been like that when he was a boy, just gorse and heather. Turbury should have been left alone, he thought. People would have been a lot better off if it had. And some of them would still be alive today.

He reached the area of flat ground where the reservoirs stood. There was a roaring in his ears so that he could not hear water trickling in below the concrete hatches. He would have to take a look.

The small one first, he decided. He struggled to lift the lid, propped it open on his shoulder and shone his torch inside. It was full, going through to the adjoining reservoir all right. So Frankie had done the job – there was no more to be seen here. He dropped the hatch with a reverberating bang and straightened up. He could tell Rose he’d checked the ram and the reservoirs, and he wasn’t there. Then, he knew, she’d ask, ‘Did you check both reservoirs, Wilf? And don’t you lie to me!’

Damn it, he’d have to look in the other one. He moved across and gripped the edge of the heavy cover with his fingers. Even as it started to come up he heard the laughter, manic peals of mirth floating up from the depths, rushing at him as if they had been hovering beneath the single exit awaiting their chance to escape.

Wilf Thomas recoiled and gave a hoarse cry of fear instinctively keeping his hold on the raised hatch to stop it slamming down on to him. He guided the torchlight down in shaking stages, past glistening wet walls, on down until he met the water level, barely eighteen inches deep and still trickling in. There was a movement, a slopping wave. He jerked the torch to his left and saw the figure standing there looking up at him, the upturned imbecilic features, the grinning mouth sending up another peal of crazy laughter.

‘Frankie!’ Wilf almost dropped the hatch. The torch tried to squirm out of his grasp as though to spare him the awful sight. ‘What you’m doin’ down there, boy?’

The youth’s lips pursed and blew a raspberry as he jerked two fingers upwards.

‘You’m fell in or did you’m jump in?’ He was still trying to convince himself that everything was all right, that this was no more than a boyish prank. ‘Your mother’ll be cross at you, we bin lookin’ all over for you.’

No response. A feeling of dread engulfed the farmer. He didn’t understand, didn’t try to. All he knew was that his son was down below in this watery tomb and he had to get him out. First, though, he had to stop the flow of water from the inlet pipe. He thanked the Lord that the water levels were low and there was no more than a meagre dribble being pumped up from the ram or surely Frankie would have drowned by now. Wilf reached down and managed to flick the float switch. And he thanked God , again because the switch hadn’t worked properly. It had filled the small reservoir first – another reprieve. Frankie was a lucky lad, but he had to get him out quickly.

Wilf Thomas heaved upwards, pushed and sent the heavy cover crashing away. But the yawning hole didn’t solve his immediate problem.

‘Now, listen to me, Frankie.’ His throaty whisper echoed down below and came back as though it had been rejected. I’m going back to fetch a ladder. You just stay right where you am. Understand?’

‘Ha-ha-ha-ha!’ Another two-fingered gesture was given with force this time.

Wilf dodged back as though some missile was being thrown at him. He turned and stumbled into a run, scared of that thing down there which never in this world was his own son. It was a caricature, an impostor. A maniac. But inside whatever it was lay the remnants of his son. He had to get help, and fetch that ladder out of the barn.

His temples were pounding with a kind of inner metallic clanging. The Deathbell! It was happening all over again, when the bell rang it brought madness and death. O
Merciful Lord, please don’t let Frankie die, because Rose would never get over it.

‘Where is he?’ The farmhouse door was open, a shaft of light jutting out on to the yard. ‘Where’s my Frankie, Wilf?’

‘I’ll need you to ’elp me,’ he called out as he made for the implements shed.

‘Why?’ Rose followed him, wearing a frayed blue dressing gown and wellington boots. ‘Where is he?’

‘In reservoir.’ He found the ladder and tugged it free of a plough. ‘Here, give we a hand.’

‘In the tank!’ For Rose a reservoir was an open expanse of water like the lake down below and the ones in the Elan valley.

‘Aye. ’ He pushed the ladder towards her, and she grabbed the end rung and lifted it. ‘Must’ve fell in. He’s all right, though.’ Perhaps he won’t be mad when we get back up there, he thought, but if he is then let her see for herself. ‘Water’s low, only a trickle.’

They formed a bizarre procession back up the slippery hillside, Wilf in the lead with the ladder on his shoulder, Rose clinging on to the rear. Once they fell and had to retrieve their burden and lift it again. They pushed their bodies beyond the limits of middle-aged endurance in their desperation, until at last they came to the open hatch.

‘Push ’im down.’ Wilf Thomas began to lower the rusted iron structure. He did not want to see what was down there. He hoped to God the ladder was long enough. It was. It rested in the open square with a foot to spare. Rose pushed past him and shone her own small pocket torch down into the depths.

‘Frankie!’ Her cry of disbelief turned to a sob. ‘Oh, my Lord, what’s happened to my boy?’

Wilf peered over her shoulder and glimpsed the boy down below, the grinning vacant countenance, the eyes staring up at them and seeing but neither recognising nor understanding.

‘Wilf, we’ve got to get him up.’

‘Aye, he’ll climb out now he’s got the ladder.’

Seconds later it was quite obvious that Frankie Thomas wasn’t going to climb out. His outstretched hands gripped he iron struts and pushed at them. The ladder moved, clanged against the hatch and slipped a few inches.

‘Frankie, climb out.’ Rose’s voice was low. She was trying not to realise the truth. ‘Come on, your mother’s waiting for you.’ She didn’t mention his father, thinking he’d probably stay down there because of him. ‘Come on and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea when we get home.’

Frankie gurgled, kicked the ladder and rattled it. Another laugh, another raspberry. Walking away, leaning up against the far wall, he was like a sulky schoolboy refusing to come inside at teatime.

‘It’s no good, you’m’ll ’ave to go down there and fetch ’im, Wilf.’

Her husband stiffened and drew back. No, he didn’t want to go down there with … that! ‘Give ’im a minute and p’raps …’

‘Wilf, go and get him else I will!’

For one moment the farmer seemed to challenge his wife, then he moved reluctantly, gripped the ladder and lowered a booted foot on to a rung and climbed down a couple of steps. With his other hand he directed his torch below him and kept its shaky beam focused on his son. I don’t like the look on ’is bloody face!

Frankie wasn’t grinning any more. Instead there was an expression of bestial ferocity on his face. He looked like a fox that had been run to earth and was now being dug out. At bay, he would attack and die: he had nothing to lose.

Wilf was almost at the bottom. He hesitated and tried to turn and look at Frankie, and that was when he heard Rose’s terrified scream. ‘Frankie! Wilf Oh, my God!’

Wilf tottered and lost his hold on the rungs. He would have fallen backwards, had not strong hands seized him round the neck. The stranglehold crushed his windpipe, cut off his cry and pulled him backwards. He hit the water and went under. He fought to get to the surface but Frankie was holding him under, pulling his head back, and there was a red haze before his eyes.

‘Stop it! Frankie!’

But Frankie Thomas was heedless of his mother’s distraught cries. All he heard inside his head was the steady ringing of a distant bell, speeding up. It was commanding him, urging him to kill. His crazed mind was fed distant memories, ones that brought with them intense hatred for the man struggling feebly beneath the water level. He remembered the time when he had shirked some farm work – eight years of age, yet his father expected him to stall-feed all the cattle when he came home from school. He had been held down on the bed, his trousers around his ankles, with his father roaring like a berserk bull as he strapped the small bare buttocks, leaving weals and bruises; it could have been, much worse if his mother had not rushed into the room and physically restrained his father.

And now he was taking his revenge; eight years of smouldering hatred were bursting into flame, a raging infern that, the waters of the underground reservoir could not douse. Kneeling on his father, laughing insanely, he yelled his triumph as he felt those struggles growing more feeble. Then ceasing altogether.

Frankie straightened up and tried to brush away the torchlight from above which blinded him. He grunted, then gave the roar of a wild beast that has killed and is still not satisfied.

He staggered forward, found the ladder and began to mount it. Rose Thomas drew back in horror, wishing she had the strength to push the ladder down into this pit of death, drop the cover and imprison the crazed killer down below, the manic savage who had once been her own son. But the task was beyond her so she turned and began to run back down the hillside.

And she knew without any doubt that Frankie was coming after her – and what he would do to her when he caught her.

8 - VILLAGE OF THE LIVING DEAD

Aden Darrell was out soon after daylight. The drop in the water level was worrying; he would have to hold back the next batch of trout fingerlings due the day after tomorrow. There was an awful thought at the back of his mind that Turbury lake might dry up altogether. Something was odd about the reservoir. The water should not have gone down as fast as it had done; a few inches a week was only to be expected at the start of a drought but … Christ, the village, out in the middle was almost dear of the water!

He knew there must be a seepage somewhere, a bad leak. A fault in design or construction perhaps. He stood on the roadway, a forlorn figure in a deserted landscape, focusing his binoculars on the ruined village. It was creepy, frightening, as though it had risen from its watery grave and was the same as it had always been. The church stood proudly awaiting its congregation, the shop seemed as though it was preparing to open for business as normal. The village of the dead had risen up. Aden started. There was a movement out there, something shifting, crawling on the waterlogged ground. A human being!

He tried to convince himself that it was an optical illusion perhaps a bush or an old sack shifting in the breeze. Or a mirage. In the end he realised it was a living person and, by. their dragging movements, they were in some kind of trouble – injured maybe.

Aden knew he would have to go out there; there was nobody else to help. He fought off a momentary sense of helplessness. He had once been commended for rescuing an elderly woman from the foaming torrent of the flooded river Severn, and here there was no problem. He’d have to walk out perhaps a quarter of a mile and play it from there. It all depended upon how badly hurt the person was. It might the a case of going and phoning for an ambulance, a stretcher job.

His wellington boots squelched on the soggy ground. A few more days and the earth would be baked like clay, he thought. It was an eerie feeling, walking on land which only short time ago had been under deep water. He had a lurking fear that it might come rushing back and drown him for trespassing on its domain.

A flock of rooks which had been feeding on exposed worms rose noisily, cawing their displeasure. They circled but kept their distance. He did not seem to be making much progress, as in those dreams where you walked and walked but got nowhere.

The sun was just topping a line of trees to the east, a deep red orb threatening to burn up the entire landscape. Nature’s moods changed quickly, he mused; only three months ago there had been a whole week of torrential rain, flooding everywhere. The elements these days seemed bent on extremes.

A hundred yards to go, and the ground was becoming very boggy, sucking at his boots like a quagmire; perhaps there were hidden quicksands. Now you really are being stupid, all this was firm ground before they flooded it, people walked on it, farmed it. Aden knew he had to get his nerves under control.

Fifty yards, and he was floundering. He could see the figure plainly now. A man with a bushy beard was lying here as though he was resting, and did not seem to be in any undue pain. If this is some kind of joke, Aden thought, then he’s going to get the rough edge of my tongue!

‘Hallo there.’ Aden was breathing heavily. He stood only a yard away, realising the impossibility of carrying the man to safety. ‘What’s the trouble?’

A smile stretched the lips above an unkempt mass of beard. The two men might have been meeting on the road at midday, casually acknowledging each other. They gave no sign of surprise, as if it was perfectly normal to meet out here.

‘Nothing’s the matter.’ The soft, unhurried words sent a chill down the water bailiff s spine.

‘There is. Your legs …’ They were like the legs of a cripple, useless limbs that hindered the rest of the body. A wheelchair case. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘I’ve been to the village.’ The man did not appear to have heard Aden. ‘A beautiful village, I used to live there once. Then they drove me out, but nothing much has changed. Mrs Corley still keeps the shop but she’s closed today. The bank’s open, though, and there are people in the church. I don’t go to church.’

Aden stepped back a pace. The fellow was clearly crazy, although he looked harmless enough. All the same, he had to get him back to dry land, and it wasn’t going to be easy. In all probability the man would refuse to go.

‘I’d better give you a hand.’ It was a half-hearted gesture. He was watching carefully all the time. ‘Maybe if I can get you up on to your feet you can lean on me and let me take the weight. It won’t be easy, it’s very sticky, but if we take it slowly we’ll be all right. ’

‘Let’s go back to the village and I’ll show you where I used to live.’ The man on the ground tried to struggle up, then flopped back again. ‘And perhaps we can have a drink in the Buffalo while we’re there.’

‘What’s your name?’

There was a pause. The man closed his eyes, as if he was making a concerted attempt to recall his identity. Then he said, ‘Laurence. Laurence Benson. Call me Larry.’

‘All right, Larry. Let me help you up and then we’ll go and see where you used to live, and have a quick half at the Buffalo afterwards.’ Just let me get him up, Aden thought, and there’s only one direction we’re going!

Aden gripped the outstretched hand and took the strain. he leaned back and pulled. Laurence was beginning to come up but would have fallen back if he had not slid an arm round him. Christ Alive, his legs are broken and he isn't even in any pain!

Aden swayed, sweating under the weight. No way was he going to be able to move him, but he could not leave him here. ‘Can you walk a little?’ But of course he knew the man couldn’t.

‘I’m just tired, I’ve been walking for hours, exploring the village. But it was worth it.’

Liar, crazy, hallucinating, liar.

‘Did you hear the bell?’ Suddenly the apathy was gone from Benson’s voice, an urgency replacing it.

‘The bell?’ Aden felt the sweat chill on his body.

‘Yes, the bell! You must have heard it. I did.’

‘Well I didn’t.’

‘They can’t stop the bell.’ He gave a short laugh, his head jerked to one side in a listening posture. ‘Nobody can stop the bell. That’s why everybody’s come back to the village. It’s called them, summoned them to return.’

‘Well I don’t see anybody else around.’

‘They’re here. Come on, let’s go and find them.’

Aden took the strain and lifted rather than dragged. A yard, two, then he was forced to rest. It was no good, he was going to have to leave Benson and go for help. Suddenly his companion clawed at him, gripped and pinched is skin so that the bailiff almost cried out.

‘We’re going the wrong way!’

‘No.’ Aden realised the madman wasn’t going to be fooled after all. ‘We’re going back to dry land and then I’m going to get you to hospital. You’re hurt badly.’

‘Let go of me!’ His bearded face was a mask of fury. He sounded like a child that had been thwarted and was determined to have its own way.

‘All right, if that’s the way you want it!’ Aden loosed his hold, stepped clear and saw Laurence Benson crumple back down to the ground and sprawl in the mud. With obscene cursings, he was trying to get up, but the most he could manage was to raise himself up on to an elbow. He spat, then cursed again.

‘Take me back to the village, damn you!’

‘Not likely.’ Aden Darrell was grim-faced, trembling from his exertions. ‘You are going to stop right here, Mr Benson …’

‘Larry.’

‘All right, Larry then. You are going to stay here. You don’t have any hope of going anywhere else. And I’m going to go and phone for an ambulance. You’ll be taken back on a stretcher.’

‘No, please!’ His mood had changed suddenly. The fury was gone, to be replaced by pleading, cringing. ‘Don’t leave me. They might come back for me!’

‘I thought you liked them, whoever they are?’

Benson’s eyes glazed. A film covered the dark orbs, then cleared. And now there was no mistaking the terror, the look of a man who had awoken from a terrible nightmare. Glancing, from side to side, he was trying to look behind him, as though he feared lest the horrors from his fevered dreams lurked close by. His arms were flailing, and he; pressed his hands to his head as though he was in sudden pain. His lips were moving soundlessly.

‘What …?’ For a moment Aden thought that Benson was having a fit of some kind, a seizure.

‘The … bell!’ Benson got the word out and gave a low moan of terror.

‘Whatever are you talking about? There’s no bell.’

But Laurence Benson had heard it again, a shuddering clanging vibration that filled his brain and pummelled his head as though trying to escape from his skull. His body convulsed, tremors shook him, and the pitiful legs doubled under him were beginning to twitch. The feet came free, the thighs braced and took the strain. And as Aden Darrell watched in disbelief the man stumbled to his feet, staggered forward a couple of paces and stood upright.

It was impossible! Aden backed away. A man with two shattered legs was not only upright but walking, impervious to pain. He was trying to get his bearings, muttering unintelligibly. Turning, he faced the deserted village, then shambled away towards it. An urgency, some kind of calling, transcended human frailty. He was a robot obeying an unseen and unheard command.

Aden didn’t shout ‘come back’ because he did not want Benson to return. The man was crazy, let him go and good riddance to him, he thought. Aden stood there and watched the distant figure growing smaller, tottering as he walked but somehow not falling. A speck which became lost amidst the resurrected ruins of Turbury village.

The bailiff’s heart was pounding, the sweat which had run from his pores was cooling, chilling him. He shivered in the early morning sunlight. Then he turned away and began the sticky trek back to dry land, glancing over his shoulder every now and then, but there was no sign of Laurence Benson.

Aden tried to listen through the roaring in his ears, fearful of hearing a resonant clang, the ringing of the cursed bell, afraid what it might do to him too. He dragged his feet through the mud in his desperation to be away from this place. He knew that he had to phone for help, try and convince a sceptical emergency switchboard operator that a man with two broken legs had got up and walked.

On firm ground at last, he sank down for a brief respite. He decided he would go on up to Vicki Mason’s bungalow to use the phone – a legitimate excuse to call on her. Right now he needed her more than he needed anybody.

Vicki had gone back to bed and lain there with the light on, flipping through the pages of a magazine but not seeing them. It would be daylight in an hour or two, she thought. Perhaps then she would be able to sleep.

The Thomas boy was all right; she told herself that over and over again until she almost believed it. He had just had as much as he could stand of his father, then cracked. Anywhere else she would have accepted that explanation but not here. Not in Turbury, where the Deathbell commanded people’s lives, turned normal folk into crazed beasts. Which was why she feared for Frankie Thomas’s safety.

After a time she felt drowsy. The magazine slipped from her grasp and slid to the floor, startling her with its fluttering bump. She reached out, pulled the light switch and plunged the room into darkness. She listened, but there was only silence.

Time passed and then something woke her. Already the dawn light was starting to creep in through the windows, a welcoming greyness that meant the night was over. She lay there and wondered what it was that had disturbed her – probably nothing, just her own uneasiness rejecting sleep. Please don’t let me hear the bell ring again.

The she heard a scraping and crunching of gravel outside. Vicki tensed as the slow footfalls went round the other side of the bungalow. There’s somebody out there … She held her breath and at last let it out slowly. Any moment they’ll knock or ring the doorbell, she thought. It was probably Wilf Thomas returning to say they’d found Frankie. No, he wouldn’t bother to tell her, no more than he ever phoned back to let her know that the water supply was working again. And if it was the farmer outside then why hadn’t he knocked or rung, instead of walking all the way round the building? Her uneasiness returned. Should she get up and go and look through the curtains – a discreet peep – and see who it was? No, I don’t want to know. Perhaps they’ll go away.

She anticipated the knock on the door seconds before it came and had braced herself for it. It was not heavy hammering like before, almost a timid tap but loud enough for her to hear, strong enough to have her pressing herself back against the headboard of the bed. Go away whoever you are, she pleaded silently.

Another knock, this time on the glass panel, sharper, insistent. She knew she would have to answer it. She was shaking as she slid out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown; this was becoming too much of a habit. She eased open the door into the hallway and peered round.

The silhouette was clear against the grey of the morning outside. Even through the opaque glass she knew it wasn’t Wilf Thomas. The build was wrong, too slight, but the light was too poor to discern detail. The wraith moved, raising its hand to knock again.

Vicki crept through the gloom of the hall. The telephone shone white in the half-darkness as though trying to warn her to use it, to ring for help before it was too late. She shrugged off the temptation; she had to ascertain who the caller was before she went and made a fool of herself.

It was too early for forestry workers to be about. She reached the door and silently slipped the security chain back on. She was aware that just a sheet of glass separated her from whoever it was out there, one kick of a heavy working boot would shatter it, smashing her defences. The lock was pointless, just a psychological barrier to keep out casual thieves.

Her trembling fingers closed over the Yale catch. Shall I or shan’t I? She had to. It clicked softly; the door came inwards and rested on the taut length of chain. Peering through the narrow gap, she saw features that were a blur of whiteness. Focusing, she recognised them. Frankie Thomas!

In sheer relief, Vicki leaned against the door for support. So he was all right after all, thank God! Or was he? Why had he come here instead of going home? It was that tiny lingering doubt which stopped her from sliding off the chain and throwing the door open; she needed to be sure.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked. ‘Your father is out looking for you, perhaps you’ve already seen him.’

‘I seen ’im.’ He whispered, glancing around as though he was afraid of being overheard. Turning back, he thrust his face close to the gap in the doorway, eyes narrowing. Vicki found herself moving back a pace; she wanted to slam the door shut again. His expression, she thought, it wasn’t … normal. A sort of animal cunning, a smile that was a leer, and his hands were clenching and unclenching. Breathing heavily, he thrust his head forward; she smelled his stale breath and recoiled.

‘Open the door then,’ he hissed.

‘I … your father’s out looking for you. You’d best go home.’ She tried to close the door but his foot was against it, determined and unyielding.

‘I know, ’e … found me.’

‘Oh … I see.’ She didn’t and she was becoming increasingly alarmed. There was something strange about the youth, he was no longer the shy farm boy who kept his distance and only spoke when he was spoken to.

‘I want to come inside,’ he said.

‘What for?’

He paused as though he did not have a reason, at least not one which he wanted to voice. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Well, you can talk to me here.’

‘No, I can’t.’ He kicked against the door petulantly. ‘Look, just let me in.’

‘If you don’t go away I shall phone the police.’

He laughed nastily and she only just moved back in time as his hand slid through the open space. ‘Don’t you dare do that!’ She was near to screaming.

‘I’ll bet you got nothin’ on under that.’ He pressed on the door with his shoulder and the chain creaked. ‘I want to see you with nothin’ on, miss.’

Her mind reeled. His intentions were only too obvious. She glanced back at the phone. Would there be time?

The door pane shattered. Glass fell in, tinkling on the floor. A jagged hole, star-shaped, framed a malevolent face. ‘Now don’t you be stupid, miss. I won’t hurt you if you don’t make a fuss.’

He punched at the glass again, knocking out more shards, reached inside and groped for the obstructing chain. He grunted his annoyance; he didn’t seem to realise that he could only slip it off when the door was shut. Pulling and pushing, he banged it against the short chain, which miraculously withstood his onslaught.

Vicki retreated a few yards and stood, debating. There was no lock on the bedroom door, nor the living room. And even if there had been this fiend had only to go back outside and smash a window to get to her. She had no time to use the phone, he would be inside in a few seconds. He had given up trying to undo the chain and was breaking the rest of the door glass. Then it would be a simple matter to walk straight inside. Trapped, on the verge of panic, she looked wildly about her for a weapon.

And then her eyes alighted on the partly open door next to the second bedroom with a surge of hope. She realised it was little more than a reprieve, a delaying tactic, but she remembered the old maxim that whilst there was life there was hope. The bathroom was the only room in the house that had a locking door!

Even as she turned away she heard Frankie Thomas coming in through the open glass, punching away the remaining shards, one foot already through. Seeing her and laughing, he was ripping his jacket in his eagerness to get to her. ‘Now, come ’ere, you!’

Vicki fled into the bathroom, slammed the door and shot the bolt, then leaned against the wall trembling in the half-darkness. She wondered how strong the woodwork was; it was designed for privacy rather than security. She looked up at the window, small and high up with frosted double panes, and tried to visualise how far off the ground it was from outside. There was just flat lawn, thankfully, no bank or tree up which to clamber and secure a foothold. Certainly it was a means of entry, but not an easy one.

The bathroom door shuddered and vibrated beneath pounding fists and kicking boots. It bowed a little but held. In a frenzy on the other side, the human battering ram was grunting obscenities. Then she heard just laboured breathing. He was clearly waiting, trying to work out a plan of attack.

It was becoming lighter all the time. She wished she had a watch so she could check the time. Not that it mattered, she thought; nobody came up here. A few forestry workers might travel the road, but even if they glanced this way it was doubtful whether they would notice anything amiss. And even if they saw the broken front door they probably would not be suspicious; they’d think the teacher had had an accident and was probably waiting for the carpenter to come and fix a new pane. Vicki groaned her hopelessness aloud. She was trapped, at the mercy of a sex maniac.

‘Miss?’ The tone had changed, there was no trace of lust or anger now. ‘You there, miss?’

‘Unfortunately.’ She wished she had not replied; silence might have been preferable.

‘Look, miss, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it? You’ve forced an entry into my home, damaged my property. You could go to prison for that, Frankie.’

‘I know.’ It sounded like genuine remorse. ‘Like I said, I’m sorry. I’ll mend the door for you, fit a new piece of glass … if you won’t report me. ’

She didn’t reply. Blackmail; she wasn’t worried about the glass, just wanted him out of the bungalow. And she certainly did not want him returning to do a repair job. If he would just go she would forget the damage.

‘Did you hear what I said, miss?’

‘I heard, Frankie. I suppose I won’t report you, probably because you’re an ex-pupil of mine, but I don’t want you repairing the damage. All I want you to do is to leave my house.’

Silence. She visualised him fidgeting – he had fidgeted all through his school days. Academically he wasn’t very bright but he was a good stockman and in this part of the world that counted for more than certificates. He had never given her any trouble in class, he was just a slow learner.

‘You promise you won’t report me, miss?’

‘All right, I promise. Provided you leave right now and don’t come back. Do you understand?’

‘That’s very good of you, miss. And I’m sorry about what I did. Are you sure I can’t repair the door?’

‘Absolutely certain, Frankie. Now, off you go.’

She heard him moving about, his heavy footsteps going back down the hall, another chunk of glass falling out of the door as he squeezed through. The sound of loose gravel. Then silence.

Vicki sat on the edge of the bath. She felt physically sick and mentally drained. So that was how Frankie Thomas had turned out. A schizophrenic, a danger to the community. She had had a narrow escape. The bolt on the bathroom door had saved her from rape, possibly worse, by giving her those few minutes during which her attacker had had a change of mind.

She decided a bath would be a good idea. She felt as though her body needed cleansing after her trauma, and it was a chance to relax, to pull herself together. After that she would decide what she was going to do. She had promised not to report Frankie to the police but most certainly she was going to have a word with his parents about him. She had a responsibility to others living in this scattered community.

Vicki turned on the taps, tipped some bubble bath into the water and watched it foam. She was tense, she could not shake off that lingering unease. She supposed it was a natural reaction, that it might take days before she was herself again. She stepped out of her housecoat, slid into the frothy water, lay there and did her best to relax. It was impossible, she found herself straining her ears, listening again.

Outside, the birds were singing, rooks were cawing. A summer’s morning, no different from any other, except to her. She wondered again about the Deathbell and remembered Donald Hughes, the deaf mute, and what it had done to him. A harmless boy had been transformed into a manic rapist. Like Frankie! Oh, God! And yet Frankie seemed to have clawed his way back to sanity. But there was no way of knowing.

She thought she heard a movement. An awareness, a sixth sense warned her. A floorboard might have creaked somewhere, or she expected one to. Night-time wasn’t going to be easy after this, she thought. Later on she would go in search of Aden. It was a comforting thought.

And then the door handle clicked and the woodwork strained against the bolt.

For Vicki Mason the bathwater had suddenly gone cold and frozen her body. Every nerve was rigid and when she finally called out ‘Who’s there?’ she barely recognised her own voice. Oh, Christ, who was there?

No answer, but she could hear whoever it was breathing, leaning against the door. He was threatening her by his silence, wanting to get to her because she was naked and defenceless.

‘It’s me!’ A cracked manic laugh was followed by a kick that shook the door.

‘Frankie!’ His very name was repulsive to her but she knew she had to try to talk him out of this. ‘I promised that if you went away and didn’t come back I wouldn’t report you to the police. ’

A throaty laugh. ‘But if you’m dead, miss, you can’t report me anyway!’

Her vision swam for a moment and there seemed to be a tight obstruction in her stomach. Back to square one, she thought, this could go on all day. Or until Frankie Thomas broke the bathroom door down. ‘Don’t be silly, Frankie. One more chance, go whilst you still can.’

‘I never went in the first place.’ He was bragging, gloating. ‘All I did was to walk outside and then creep back and I’ve been here all the time. I’d love to see you in the bath, miss.’

‘Well, you’re not going to, I can assure you of that, Frankie. ’ She got out, pulled a towel off the rail and began to dry herself. ‘You’re being very stupid.’

‘Let me in!’ The door bowed, straining at its hinges as a heavy weight slammed against it, a shoulder charge followed by a kick. One of the lower panels split, showering tiny fragments of paint on to the floor.

Vicki glanced about her for a weapon. There was none, nothing more offensive than a cudgel-like loofah and a bath sponge. She searched for a means of escape but there was only the small window. She wondered if she could struggle through it, but knew he would hear her and be outside waiting for her by the time she had opened it and squeezed through. Or else he would use it to gain entry.

‘Come on, miss, or I’ll ’ave to break the door down and there’s no sense in causin’ more damage, is there? I’ll get to you one way or the other!’

‘Frankie.’ She tried to keep the tremor of fear out of her voice. ‘Listen to me. Your father and mother will be very angry with you when they find out about this.’

He answered her with high-pitched peals of laughter. The sound made her cringe against the far wall. ‘My father and mother? They won’t know anything because they’re both dead. They got what was comin’ to ’em. And I killed ’em!’

Vicki thought she was going to faint. She clung on to the towel rail, Frankie Thomas’s words reverberating in her brain. Boastful tones, but they rang true – she didn’t doubt him for a second.

‘Did you hear what I said, miss? I bloody well killed ’em. My old man’s lying in your reservoir, floatin’ in the water with ’is ’ead torn off, so when you next ’ave a drink just think what you’ll be drinkin’.’ He had another fit of crazed mirth and had to wait until he got his voice back under control before he spoke again. ‘And as for my mother, she’s lyin’ on the hillside back there. I carved ’er up, slit ’er open like a gutted rabbit so the crows could ’ave a good feed. And you’ll be next … but first I’ve got things to do to you!’

He rained kicks on the door. Wood splintered, the damaged panel cracked open and a working boot appeared, wrenching and twisting to open up a gap. The door finally capitulated under the frantic assault and burst open, the bolt dangling and swinging by a single screw.

And that was when Vicki Mason finally fainted.

9 - ‘DESTROY THE DEATHBELL!’

It was the thought of Vicki Mason which spurred Aden Darrell on when he might have flagged and rested awhile. The trip on to the dried-up reservoir had been physically exhausting, his experience out there mentally drained him. The prospect of seeing Vicki again was his reward, he told himself.

Of course she would still be in bed – he would have to knock her up. He could have saved her the disturbance but he knew she would not mind.

It was a relief to walk on tarmac again, to have puffs of dust rising beneath his boots. He slowed and took one last look back toward the old village, now a patch of shadow on an early morning sunlit landscape, a sinister dark blob. He shivered uncontrollably and hurried on.

The uphill stretch of road seemed endless, steeper than the last time he had climbed it. A red rooftop was visible on the summit. A hundred yards further on, and he saw the whitewashed walls gleaming like a legionnaire outpost in a barren desert. Over the sun-scorched mountainsides beyond, a lone buzzard was wheeling and soaring effortlessly like a vulture that had spotted a prospective meal and was waiting for it to die.

It was so still, not a breath of wind, he reckoned it was going to be hotter than ever today. He came to the driveway gate, an aluminium farm gate painted white to match the bungalow, standing open. His feet scuffed on the gravel, sending up more dust clouds. Then he came to a halt and stared in disbelief at the front door.

The glass pane was shattered, broken glass spilling all over the porch and down to the small patio. Despite a sudden ominous feeling, he tried to tell himself that everything was all right, it was just a minor accident – Vicki had slammed the door too hard, or left it ajar and the wind had caught it. He broke into a run, then pulled up in front of the jagged gaping hole. Oh, Jesus, the chain was still on! Whoever had smashed the panel had gone inside through it!

He stepped in through the hole, stood in the hallway, and called out ‘Vicki!’ His hoarse cry hung in the empty hall, whispering around him like a swarm of summer flies. Vicki … Vicki …

He moved forward, afraid not for himself but of what he might find. The bedroom door was open, showing him a rumpled bed as though the occupant had risen hurriedly and had not returned. A magazine was lying on the carpet.

His gaze shifted. He saw the broken bathroom door swinging open, creaking where it hung crazily on one hinge, the bolt keeping time with it. And then he saw the blood, thick rivulets trickling down the lavender tiles like a giant map of arterial intersecting roads, forming a pool in the corner behind the toilet. And the slumped bodies. The youth with blood-soaked clothing, his head twisted backwards, was staring at him with wide, unseeing, crazy eyes. The girl was beneath him, naked, a bloody towel clutched in her outstretched hand, her shapely naked body a mass of sticky crimson.

Aden Darrell stood transfixed, his sanity at breaking point. He wanted to scream hysterically, wanted those beautiful features to change so that it wasn’t Vicki Mason who lay there. Shock was followed by fury. He crouched down and grasped the dead man by the neck, exerting every ounce of strength to drag him free of that vile simulated coital position. The head hit the washstand with a clunk of bone on porcelain; banging it again in his hate, he wished the bastard wasn’t dead so that he could kill him.

Freeing Vicki, he dropped on to his knees by her side, wiping the blood away with his fingers, cradling her head, wanting to kiss her still lips, to tell her for the first and last time that he loved her. Choking back his tears, he wished that he was dead too.

And suddenly her lips moved and her eyelids flickered open. Aden almost dropped her. He felt a surge of unbelievable relief, then the dread that it was some trick of the body, nerves quivering after life had gone like a dead turkey fluttering on a hook in the slaughter shed. Almost afraid to look, he was praying.

‘Aden!’ The whisper was clear. The dark eyes were searching him out, her fingers clutching at him as if to reassure herself that it really was him and not her attacker. She was trying to smile but there was no mistaking the marks of terror on her face amidst the blood.

‘Vicki!’ Stroking her body, he was trying to find a wound under the slippery blood so that he could plug it, bandage it. Blood dripped stickily to the floor with terrifying regularity from the ceiling. The bathroom was an abattoir, there was even blood on the lampshade.

‘I’m okay.’ She managed a smile and spoke through quivering lips. ‘At least, I think so.’

‘You’re not.’ He still had not located the wound. ‘You’re injured, bleeding …’

‘I don’t think so.’ She sat up, averting her gaze from the crumpled body on the floor. ‘That blood is his. Frankie Thomas’s. He broke in, and he must have severed an artery. God, you should have seen him, charging in here, spurting blood all over the place. Even then he did not seem to notice, was determined to …’

‘He didn’t …?’

‘No, I’m sure he didn’t. He bore me to the floor and did his best but I’d already fainted. Then I find I’m alive and he’s dead and now you’re here …’ She was having to fight her tears back.

‘Look, take it easy, I’m going to call an ambulance.’

‘Not for me you aren’t.’ She grabbed the side of the bath to pull herself up. ‘But you’d better call one, just the same. This boy, according to what he boasted, has killed his parents. His father’s dead in the reservoir and his mother’s lying somewhere up on the hillside knifed to death.’

‘Christ!’ Aden turned the taps on in the washbasin and let the water run. ‘And now he’s dead, and just to round the events off there’s a lunatic out at the old village walking around on two very badly broken legs!’

‘It’s the Deathbell again.’ She began rinsing her hands, then squeezed out a sponge. ‘It’s back, and the killings have started all over again. We have to get away from here, Aden. Both of us.’

‘Maybe you’d be better washing in the kitchen.’ He steered her round the corpse. ‘And in the meantime I’ll make that call. The police are going to have a very busy day.’

Vicki leaned on his arm. His closeness was comforting. Without him she would probably have gone mad, as everybody else appeared to have done. A sudden thought in the midst of the trauma brought a smile to her trembling lips. Good God, we’ve only known each other a day and he’s already seen me in the nude!

‘Well, I suppose we’d better go and look for this Benson fellow now.’ Sergeant Davies was far from enthusiastic. He remembered only too well his last visit to Turbury, when the cemetery had resembled a battlefield and they had found old Tom Williamson in the belfry of Caelogy Hall with his head crushed to pulp. ‘Walking on broken legs you say, Mr Darrell?’

Aden nodded, and felt foolish. Here in the hot midday sunlight it seemed like one of last night’s bad dreams, frightening at the time but embarrassing to relate to anybody. Good for a laugh in the pub – with the exception of the Buffalo, of course.

PC Tony Howells was prepared to believe almost anything after the last time. Trust him to get lumbered with the job of going out to the old village. That was Inspector Maskell’s doing; at heart the chief was a sadistic bully. Well, at least Maskell had a couple of gory corpses to contend with up on the hillside, and that bloody youth in the bungalow as well. It might be a relief to get away for an hour or so.

‘We know Benson, all right,’ Davies said as they traversed the sticky mud. ‘Attempted suicide, and done for having heroin in his possession. A nutcase into the bargain, but I’d love to see him walking on broken legs. I suppose he didn’t walk on the water as well?’

‘There isn’t any.’ Aden pointed ahead of them. ‘All gone out of this part of the reservoir, and it’s too much to believe that it has evaporated within a few weeks. There’s a leak somewhere, you can bet your life.’

The policeman said something but the bailiff wasn’t listening; his thoughts had returned to Vicki Mason. He wondered how she was standing up to the police questioning after her ordeal. Surely she wouldn’t stop in the bungalow alone tonight? If so, then he would stay with her. Otherwise he would take her back to his caravan. He did not expect her to object to his company, either way. And the ironic thing was he hadn’t even kissed her yet. He almost burst out laughing at the thought. Everything was moving too fast.

‘Where are we going to start, sarge?’ Tony Howells knew they would go to the Caelogy chapel first. If they did not, then they would surely go there later.

‘We’ll check the chapel,’ Davies replied abruptly. ‘It looks like it’s clouding up a bit over to the west.’

Aden stared, shielding his eyes. The sky certainly was darker on the horizon. Ominous. ‘Maybe we’ll get a storm,’ he said. ‘There’s a good chance, according to the farmers’ weather forecast last Sunday. Scattered thundery showers in the middle of the week, they said. Like in seventy-six, when the whole countryside was scorched up – they were always telling us there was a chance of thunderstorms. I never saw one, although there were periods of heavy cloud, days when you scarcely saw the sun at all.’ He listened, trying to pick up a distant peal of thunder, but there was nothing.

‘It’s certainly gone very close.’ The sergeant dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘Let’s hope the storm keeps off until we get back. God, we’d be like drowned rats if we got caught out here in the open.’

Turbury village loomed up in front of them, a silent, forbidding place. Waterlogged undergrowth was beginning to dry out. Cottages were windowless, where the flood water had floated rotten frames away. And there were signs of structural damage to older buildings: a cottage in the main street had collapsed under the weight of the water.

It was eerie walking down the street of the dead, Aden thought, passing a boarded-up bank, noting a Player’s Navy Cut sign on the gable end of the village shop.

The door of the bank hung open. Some of the boardings had been wrenched free and floated away. It seemed open for business, inviting him to come inside and open an account – competitive loans available. Aden shivered. In its own way Turbury had come alive again; he could feel the presence of invisible beings watching him, resenting his being here. That was damned silly, he thought.

Caelogy Hall. All the windows had gone; there were just empty eye sockets, black and evil. Sergeant Davies told himself that they weren’t going inside there again. If Benson was anywhere he would be in the chapel, and that feeling had nothing to do with a policeman’s intuition.

All three of them stood on the threshold of the small chapel. The entrance yawned. There were still traces of where the fire ten years ago had charred this small place of worship. Standing there, each wished that one of the others would lead the way. In the end it was the sergeant who went first, the other two pressing close on his heels.

All eyes were on the bell. Frightened, not knowing what to expect, they were scared all the same. It did not look any different from when the policemen had last seen it, gleaming, silent, the heavy clapper motionless. Did it move, or was it a trick of the light? A gathering of momentum ready to swing, to give forth a mind-shattering, ear-blasting peal? It remained still, a trickster mocking them.

Laurence Benson was there, as they had expected him to be. He sat cross-legged at the foot of the belfry, his body swaying to and fro as if keeping time with inaudible peals from above. Smiling serenely, his eyes fixed on them, but gave no sign that he was aware of their presence.

Sergeant Davies swallowed, playing with a button on his uniform. He knew they had to get this fellow back, so what were they waiting for? Why the hell didn’t the constable go forward, check him out and say something.

‘Are you all right, Benson?’ At last the officer found the words, but it was a stupid question because it was blatantly obvious that the man squatting before them was not all right. Howells just hoped that he would nod and get to his feet, and then they could all walk out of here together.

But Benson did not reply, gave no indication that he had heard. Mud-spattered and bedraggled, he continued to sit there as though deep in some kind of meditation.

‘Did you hear me, Benson?’ The sharp tones gave away the sergeant’s nervousness. ‘There’s something wrong with him.’

Of course there bloody is, Aden thought. We can stand here all day and get no further. He stepped forward, approached Benson and dropped down into a crouch. The eyeball to eyeball confrontation was disconcerting, frightening. Benson’s lips moved but no sound came from them, then the inane smile came back.

Aden Darrell stood up and turned to face the two policemen. ‘He’s deaf and dumb,’ he whispered, confirming their mutual suspicions. ‘He’s a deaf mute!’

The others moved back in visible revulsion, fearing one who was not as they were, a freak.

‘His legs are broken, all right.’ Aden pointed towards the useless limbs. They saw how they were twisted at an unnatural angle. ‘But he managed to walk on them, sergeant.’ He knew they had to believe him because Benson couldn’t have got there any other way. ‘We should have brought a stretcher with us.’ But he was thankful they hadn’t because now they could leave it to the ambulancemen.

Tony Howells feared lest his superior might say, ‘You’d better stay here and keep an eye on him, constable, until we get the ambulancemen to bring him in’. But he didn’t – not because of any compassion towards his subordinate but because it never crossed his mind.

They filed out of the chapel, not once glancing back, because they knew that Laurence Benson would remain in that Buddhist posture for ever unless someone disturbed him. A victim of the terrible Deathbell, he was the latest initiate to the legendary Tibetan cult known as the Seekers of Silence. The forces had taken him into their world and removed him from a conventional existence. They had left a shell of broken flesh and bone, a casket to hold yet another symbolic manifestation of the power engendered by the Deathbell.

The Pole had doubled its turnover since the evacuation of the villagers from Turbury. The small wayside pub, basically a bar and snug which the occupants of the cottage had incorporated into their two front rooms, had existed on its summer trade since before the war. A beer house which sold crisps and ice cream and provided a sandwich lunch on request, it was now packed every night. Farmers who had once frequented the Buffalo came down from the hills and settled for second best. The only alternative was to drive into Bryncalid and rub shoulders with townies and trendy teenagers with their hair dyed every imaginable colour.

The Pole was the lesser of the two evils. Its name was derived from the steep hill beyond it. The narrow road was impassable to motorists in snow and ice. A couple of hundred years ago a farmer had built a workman’s stone cottage here; the shepherd had died, there had been no other tenant and the building had fallen into disuse, except as a shelter for sheep from the bitter winds and rain during the winter. Then at the beginning of the twentieth century it had been renovated and sold. A succession of owners had lived there up until the early 1930s, when it was again converted to incorporate a small alehouse.

The present landlords, John Williams and his wife Elsie, had continued the licensed trade to supplement the income from their smallholding at the rear. It was no trouble, more like a few friends dropping in for an occasional drink, and during the summer if they put the ice cream sign out they could be fairly busy at weekends. It was the sort of business they could pick up and put down as they wanted. Until the evacuation of Turbury.

John Williams was short and thickset, with a drooping moustache which gave him a mournful expression, hid his upper lip and masked his occasional smile. A depressive, he regarded the increase in business as an intrusion upon his private life. Previously he had only opened on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays; now the trade was there for the taking every night. These bloody farmers were just using him, he repeatedly told Elsie, they hadn’t put their heads inside the door until they had their beloved Buffalo whipped from under their noses. He did not agree with her that it was an ill wind blew nobody any good, because they were now both slaves chained to the bar. The licence was due for renewal next March and maybe he wouldn’t bother.

In the meantime he suffered the inconvenience, put a couple of pence on the price of bitter to compensate and made the best of a bad job. Which meant moaning beneath his breath from opening until closing time.

Tonight the bar was more crowded than ever before. Not just thirsty farmers calling in for a welcome drink after a day in the scorching sunshine, but almost every resident within a radius of five miles of the Pole. Some John Williams did not even recognise, non-drinkers who were fast depleting his supply of fruit juices. What the hell was going on, he wondered?

‘It’s a meeting of some sort,’ he muttered to Elsie through his thick moustache. ‘Bloody cheek, they should be paying for the use of the premises!’

Customers were clustered into groups, talking in low voices, glancing round as though they were afraid of being overheard. A subversive plot, a kind of rural uprising and it appeared that Richard Lee, the tall bespectacled figure with a deerstalker hat hiding his thinning grey hair, was a modern-day Wat Tyler.

John Williams tried to pick up the thread of the buzz of conversation.

‘It’s happening all over again and we’ve got to stop it right now.’ Lee was insistent, gesticulating, slopping Export on the floor, it’s up to us, nobody else will do it for us. It’s as bad now as when the Hamiltons first brought it here ten years ago. I tell you, none of us are safe. It got old Tom, wiped out the Thomas family at one fell swoop, and they tell me that fellow Benson was found out there today, mad and deaf. The bell will ring again and any one of us could be its next victim. We have got to do something about it now. Tonight!’

Lee’s on his soapbox again, John Williams thought, clicking his tongue, and tipped the froth off another pint of bitter. He’d have to go down and put another barrel on before long. A bloody rabble-rouser was Richard Lee, and he was not having it in his pub! He glanced up at the clock over the fireplace: two hours to go until closing time, Jesus Christ!

The groups had split up and were all thronging around Richard Lee. The retired industrialist had led most of the losing battles on behalf of the Turbury villagers. He had fought for the church, the school, the village itself. A loser every time, but these people still looked to him to lead them. Because there was nobody else.

Stupid bugger, the landlord thought as the beer tap started to fizz and froth and he knew he could not delay the installation of a fresh barrel any longer. He’s whipping ’em up into a frenzy, ought to have been a bleedin’ shop steward not the boss of an industrial company. People were moving towards the door, others were getting up from the tables, draining their glasses, in a general exodus. They had found a leader to shepherd them wherever they were going. And bloody good riddance to ’em!’

‘Where’s everybody going?’ Elsie’s high-pitched voice followed him down the cellar steps.

‘How should I bloody know?’ he called back.

‘I heard them saying something about going out to the old village.’

‘Well, why are you bloody asking me where they’re going then?’ Bleeding stupid woman, John Williams thought, wiping the sweat from his brow. It was close tonight. Sticky, like there was going to be a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms always made him edgy; Elsie got on his nerves more than usual then. She could not make up her own mind on anything, was always approval-seeking in the most trivial of matters, and had to hear it all from his own lips before she would accept it. All right, they were going out to the village in the middle of the lake and that was their business, none of his. And when March came round he definitely would not be applying for a renewal of the Pole licence. They could go and hold their meetings somewhere else.

Outside, the sky was heavily overcast, dark grey clouds threatening to bring an early dusk. Richard Lee consulted his watch. They should have made a move earlier but some of the others needed convincing, and they needed a few drinks inside them before they would bunch together and follow his leadership. Because they were scared, like himself. Courage in drink and in numbers, he smiled cynically. The end justified the means.

‘It’s getting a bit late isn’t it, Mr Lee.’ A tall youth approached him, an attractive girl hanging on to his arm as though still trying to dissuade her boyfriend from embarking upon this mission. ‘Maybe we ought to leave it until tomorrow.’

‘Dare we, though?’ Lee cupped his hands to light a cigarette, sheltering the flame from the strong breeze which was sweeping in off the lake bed like a warm wind off an arid desert. ‘There is time if we hurry, and God knows what might happen if we hold back for another night!’

‘I guess you’re right.’ The youth turned away and headed towards his car, his companion dragging reluctantly at his heels, determined not to let him out of her sight.

The line of parked vehicles numbered maybe twenty in all. They were all colours and makes: clapped-out bangers, a red Subaru pickup, two battered canvas-topped Land Rovers, a brand new shiny Volvo estate. The inhabitants of the surrounding district had banded together, a raggle-taggle army of farmers and labourers, commuters and unemployed. Angry because they had been driven from their homes, terrified of the bell and what it might do to them, they had found a leader and they were ready for battle.

Richard Lee unlocked the door of his blue Polo and looked back at his followers. Engines were ticking over; the sultry air was heavy with petrol and diesel fumes. Their minds were made up, he knew nothing would hold them back now.

‘Everybody ready?’ he shouted, holding up a hand in a kind of salute. ‘Then follow me. We’ll park up by the Rock of Turbury and walk out from there.’

Some of the youths cheered, a motorbike engine revved loudly then died down, and its helmet-clad rider stood up in the saddle like an avenging hell’s angel bent on a mission of violence.

‘Lead on, Mr Lee.’ He voiced the thoughts of all of them and fired their smouldering hatred. ‘Let’s go. Destroy the Deathbell!’

10 - DEATH FROM THE SKIES

‘I’ve always wanted to live in a caravan,’ Vicki Mason said. ‘I suppose it’s some deep-rooted gypsy instinct in me coming out.’

‘It’s scruffy.’ Aden had been mentally apologising to her since her arrival two hours ago. He felt a sense of personal embarrassment because he had not had time to tidy up and clean the van out. A tin box on two wheels, its faded cream paint scarred by rust, it was a typical tinker-type dwelling, and whenever he hung his washing outside to dry he expected a visit from a council official with an eviction order. But it belonged to the water board, and if they had the power to dictate to the public over fluoride in the water supply, he was sure they had the county council where they wanted them. That’s our man’s home, it’s basic and unsightly but that’s his misfortune, he should feel privileged to live amidst panoramic scenery, you can’t have everything in life. And one day we might build him a dwelling but don’t hurry passing the plans because it isn’t important.

‘You’re supposed to rest up,’ Aden admonished her as she slid open the food cupboard and turned the Calor gas cooker on.

‘I am resting.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘It’s like a camping holiday, great fun to make scratch meals and laze about in the sunshine, which is exactly what I’m doing. I could stand this for weeks on end.’

‘Well, if you feel up to it then it’s fine by me.’ He was standing on the step watching the dark purple of a formation of approaching thunderheads. ‘Looks like we might get a storm before long though.’

‘It’ll make a nice change, freshen the countryside up a bit.’ She tipped the contents of a can of spaghetti into a saucepan and placed it on the cooker. ‘I rang Mr Makepeace, the odd-jobber in Bryncalid, and asked him to clean the bungalow up for me and put a couple of new doors on. He’s also going to drain the reservoir, clean it out and refill it.’ She winced at the thought; it would be a long time before she would be able to bring herself to drink the water again.

‘You’ll be moving back home then?’ He could not keep the disappointment out of his voice.

‘If you kick me out.’ She smiled, came across to him and slipped her hand into his.

‘No chance of that.’ He was trembling as he pulled her to him and saw her upturned lips waiting for his own. The few seconds of sheer bliss wiped away the awful memories of the past few hours. ‘You can stay here just as long as you want, Vicki.’

‘I could well take you up on that,’ she murmured, ‘and when winter comes perhaps you’d like to move back to the bungalow with me.’ She blushed. Christ, she thought, I’m going too fast. A distant rumble echoed against the mountains, making a cock pheasant call out in the wood behind. ‘Well, there’s your first clap of thunder.’

‘Yes, it’s going to chuck it down in a bit. By the way, the rain makes a devil of a row on this tin roof, like buckshot dropping out of the sky. You won’t get any sleep.’

‘I might not get any, rain or no rain.’ She laughed, and kissed him again. It had not escaped her notice that there was only one bed in the caravan and nowhere to make up a second. ‘Come on, let’s go back inside, I’ve got a saucepan on the ring and I don’t want to make a hash of the first meal I cook for you!’

He was relieved to see her eat heartily; her ordeal did not seem to have done her any permanent harm. He prayed that there would be no delayed shock. He would keep a careful watch over her.

They left the washing-up, went outside and sat on the step. The atmosphere was heavy, tense; the thunder was rolling all about them. Further away a vivid flash of lightning lit up the lowering sky, dazzling them. ‘I reckon in about twenty minutes the heavens are going to open,’ he said, ‘and believe me, we can use a drop of rain. This new reservoir’s drying up daily. There must be a fault somewhere. I phoned the water authority today; apparently they are aware there is a problem, and there’s a chap coming out tomorrow to look at it. Someone with maps and drawings and a host of theories, no doubt, who will submit a written report and in about three months’ time somebody will do something about it. By which time the lake will be bone dry, the trout will be dead and I won’t have a job. An inch or two of rain in the meantime might save the day.’ He felt a cold wet rainspot hit the side of his face, as though the elements had heard him and were sympathising.

‘There’s a lot of cars over on the rock.’ She pointed away to their right where the Rock of Turbury jutted out over the lake bed, a solitary plateau on which a variety of vehicles were parked. Tiny dots of people were moving about amongst the cars, busy ants swarming, a mass of activity.

‘You’re right. ’ He got up, went into the caravan and came back out with his binoculars. ‘What’s going on? There’s only an hour or so until darkness, and it’ll probably be early tonight with all this cloud. Not to mention the almost certainty of a thunderstorm.’

He focused his lenses and watched. He counted twenty-two vehicles, including some motorcycles. People were donning wellington boots. A brief meeting, and then a tall figure wearing what appeared to be a deerstalker hat took the lead. The rest followed him across the rock to where a steep path led down to the dried-up lake below. Single file, hurrying now, they went over the brow and were lost to sight. Aden lowered his glasses and there was a pensive expression on his face.

‘What is it?’ Vicki asked.

‘Well.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘They appear to be walking out across the bed of the lake, and from that direction there’s only one place they can be going – Turbury village!’

‘My God!’ She stood up and took the binoculars from him but there was nothing left to see, everybody had vanished from view, screened by the big rock. ‘Whatever do they want to go out there for?’ The very thought gave her legs a wobbly sensation; the village should have been dead and gone, but by some freak of Nature it had risen from the dead, the bell with it.

‘They’re probably sight-seeing ghouls.’ It was the only explanation he could think of, and there was undisguised contempt in his tone. ‘The kind who congregate at the scene of a road accident, jostling one another for a glimpse of the carnage. No doubt today’s events have made the radio and television, certainly the Evening Sentinel, so these creeps bolt their evening meal down, pile into their cars and drive out here in case there’s anything to see. And while they’re here, they’ll go and have a look at this Deathbell, see if it really exists.’

‘What an awful mentality to have.’ She felt some more rainspots hit her. ‘I think we’d best turn in for the evening, Aden.’

‘I suppose I ought to go and warn ’em off.’ He spoke half-heartedly. ‘They’re trespassing on the water board’s property.’

‘No chance.’ Her grip on his arm was firm as she tugged him towards the doorway. ‘Over my dead body. From now on you’re not going anywhere near the bell!’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t be,’ he promised. He felt a sudden surge of nervousness. Now that the day’s traumas were over he had time to appreciate the situation which had swamped him; a few hours ago he had been a single man with just a humble caravan home and nobody to share it with. Now he had a mate and tonight was their honeymoon, a time of unparalleled bliss when everything else had to take second place. He closed the door and latched it. Shut everything else out, he thought – the storm, the Deathbell.

As if in a sudden burst of frustrated anger, the wind buffeted the caravan and rocked it. Heavy rain pelted down on the roof. The tinny, almost deafening noise was incessant, raging at this couple because they had thwarted the elements and were defying the terrors of the dark hours. Lightning zigzagged and vividly lit up the interior of the small dwelling – a warning from the ancient gods who still ruled the skies, a threat of instant electric death. Deadlier even than the bell out there in Caelogy chapel.

A roar of fury from the thunderclouds made the flimsy table rattle. Another gust of wind was trying to get to them. Aden held Vicki close and steered her towards the divan which served as a bed. As he lowered her down he spared a fleeting thought for those foolhardy people who had trekked out from the rock and were doubtless caught in the storm, at the mercy of an angry, malevolent night.

Richard Lee was doubting the wisdom of his venture by the time the cavalcade of cars pulled on to the rock; the pending storm was a certainty. He had clung to the hope earlier that it might veer off, miss Turbury and head for Bryncalid. Now that possibility existed no longer. Unending rolling clouds were darkening the countryside before them, tinged with viperous yellow, deluging cold rain as they fled before the strengthening wind.

He zipped up his windcheater and wished that he had brought his thornproof full-length waxed coat. Some of the others had no outer garments with them at all; only the motorcyclists were truly stormproofed. A girl with delectable breasts was wearing a low-necked summer dress, farmers were in their shirt sleeves. One man actually had a suit on; doubtless he had come direct from his office. At least they all had suitable footwear, he noted, that was one consolation. Nobody had believed it would ever rain again. Their confidence was soon to be rudely shattered.

‘Looks like we might get a storm, Mr Lee,’ the motorcyclist remarked.

‘No “might” about it.’ Lee toyed with the ribbons on his deerstalker flaps, but decided to leave pulling them down until it actually began to rain. The crowd had gathered around him, a score of individuals in search of a leader.

He stared out across the dry bed of the reservoir. The ruins of the village stood out starkly, bathed in a last ray of sunshine before the clouds blotted it out. Beckoning, taunting them to come on, if they dared, the village was a good quarter of a mile away, and the terrain was muddy. They wouldn’t make it in under twenty minutes, he reckoned. Ten minutes to do what they had to do and then another twenty minutes back to the cars. Say an hour in all. They were going to get very wet.

‘The storm will catch us out in the open.’ He had to shout to make himself heard above the rising wind, ‘If anybody wants to call it off, speak now and we’ll meet again tomorrow.’

Heads bent together in muttered conversations. He could not hear what they were saying. He tried to will them to postpone it, but it was something he would never put into words.

Faces turned back towards him, white discs that blurred in the growing gloom. A spokesman, it was the biker again, was defiant. ‘We’re going with you, Mr Lee. Lead on and let’s put paid to that bloody bell once and for all!’

So be it. He turned and led the way from the cars across the flat rock towards where a steep track descended sharply to the ground below, a modern Moses leading his people across the dried-up watercourse where the lake had rolled back to allow them access to the village.

Walking quickly, at first, they had to slow as soon as they reached the mud. Lee used his stick to lean on as he extricated one foot, then sank another. Squelching, the mud gurgled back to fill the foothole, then opened up again. He caught snatches of conversation in the wind; that girl was complaining, wanting to turn back, but her boyfriend refused. So they carried on. Somebody was swearing vengeance on the bell: ‘We’ll smash the fucker to bits.’

No chance of that, the retired industrialist smiled wryly to himself. The most we can do is cut it down, take the clapper off and bring it back with us so there’s no chance of it ever ringing again. A mission of necessity, not of vengeance. We know what we’ll have to do to stop it.

‘Hey, it’s raining!’ The cry of dismay sounded like the office worker in the suit, surprised that it was actually going to rain, perhaps believing the worst for the first time.

The wind increased to gale force and tore at the party, making garments billow like anchored parachutes. Lee could not hear the voices of the others now, he just left it up to them to follow and bowed his head as he fought against the wind.

A rush of stinging missiles like grapeshot, pea-sized hail stones, formed a white carpet on the mud, then melted almost instantly. He turned his back and begged for the pellets to turn to rain. His prayer was answered: lashing, slanting rain saturated his clothing within a matter of seconds. Did anybody want to call it off now, he wondered? If they did it was impossible to communicate with the faint hearts because the storm stole his words, whipped them off his lips.

A temporary lull. Breathless, they herded together for shelter and courage, looking up at the lowering sky, a dark purple ceiling that suddenly split open in a jagged fiery earthbound gash. One of the girls screamed but the explosion of thunder cut her cry off. The ground seemed to heave and vibrate. The first blow had been struck, the killer punch would follow.

Brightness turned back to darkness. The wrath of the skies was massing in an oppressive ceiling of swirling cloud as though some awful entity was about to manifest itself. The rain was a deluging waterfall and the soft ground could not absorb it. Rivulets were running and forming puddles, inches deep in the hollows, and spreading. The girl in the yellow dress was screaming at her boyfriend, trying to tug him away, yelling that the reservoir was going to fill up and drown them all. Wet clothing clung to bodies, feet were sinking in the mire.

Richard Lee’s deerstalker poured water from its peak and obscured his vision. He tugged at the ribbon and released it, then pushed it back on his head. It was darker than dusk now. Those around him were just shapes that floundered in the marsh. It was no good, they would have to call this whole thing off, he decided, and get back to dry land.

He shouted but nobody heard him; everybody was shouting. He glimpsed a couple of retreating figures – maybe the rest would follow, he thought. One of his wellingtons became stuck firmly in the mud. He pulled, and his stockinged foot came free, leaving the boot behind. Hopping, limping as though he was injured, he was having difficulty in keeping his balance. ‘Everybody back to the cars!’

A sudden flashing light, a fork of fire ripping the clouds asunder in search of an earth blinded him. The explosion of flames threw him to the ground and he felt the electricity coursing through his body. Sightless, he thanked God that he was still alive, even if he could not see. In a kaleidoscope of brilliant lights, he clawed the mud, dragging himself back into the darkness.

There were screams everywhere. The stench of burning cloyed his nostrils, making him retch. He had lost his stick, but it didn’t matter, he had to get back to the rock any way he could. It was everybody for themselves.

A hand closed over his arm, tightened and pulled. A white face was screaming at him behind a curtain of falling rain. His ears were roaring, he had to lean closer to hear the watery words. It was the youth whose girlfriend had been trying to change his mind ever since they had set out. In panic, uttering staccato, meaningless words, he was pointing with a shaking hand.

Richard Lee saw something on the ground but could not make out what it was – a heap of blackness which smouldered and smelled like a Sunday joint that had been forgotten and left in the oven. The stench was overpowering as the burning meat sizzled in the rain, and the pool of water in which it lay boiled and gave off steam.

It took him several seconds to realise … and even then he looked for an alternative and tried to count the scattered party, a roll call. Twenty … twenty-one … no, he thought, I must have miscounted, we’re all here, safe but wet, everything’s all right. No, it isn’t. That burned-up mass on the ground is the girl in the yellow dress, what’s left of her, anyway!

‘Don’t touch her!’ One of the farmers barred the youth’s path, restrained him and wrestled with him. ‘Touch her and you’re a goner too.’

Richard Lee forced his brain to work again, like a clockwork motor that needed winding up. It whirred and clicked, then he was in action once more. The young man had ceased struggling and slumped against the others. He had to be held upright. Lee held back his words of sympathy, knowing this was neither the time nor the place. Everybody’s life was at risk. The thunder rumbled again as the storm made ready for another strike.

Numbed and exhausted people were turning away, two of them supporting the distraught youth, sobbing with him. They realised they had to leave the body; it was no good to anybody now, and they must look after the living.

Lee brought up the rear, a bowed and broken man who turned just once to look back towards the village. Indiscernible, it was just a black mass that could have been anything, a heap of rubble ploughed up by the diggers. But the squatting evil shape pulsed with unholy life, a bloated monster that had fed on human flesh and was satisfied.

Richard Lee broke into a shambling run in an attempt to catch up with the others. The rout was complete, evil had won the day. The Deathbell had summoned the dark forces to protect it. It was invincible. And before long it would ring again and there would be further madness and death.

11 - THE DEAD LAKE

There was no mistaking the man from the water board even before he climbed out of his car. His air of confidence bordered on arrogance, his wavy hair was just too perfect to be natural, with no trace of grey even though he was surely in his mid-fifties. He flicked a speck of dust from the sleeve of his dark suit, an affectation which had become a habit. A little overweight, but that bespoke affluence or perhaps a façade which was intended to impress. A polished briefcase matched the shine on his shoes; his wellingtons would be in the boot of the Granada for use as a last resort.

His walk was a swagger, his expression condescending – he was not in the habit of calling on caravan dwellers. His gaze took in the caravan and focused on Aden Darrell standing by the steps.

‘You’re Darrell.’ He stated the obvious, without proffering a hand.

‘That’s me.’ Aden was determined not to be subservient but he could not help a slight feeling of unease. Superiors could always make trouble for you if they wanted to.

He left his hands on his hips. Inside the caravan he could hear Vicki moving about. She dropped an aluminium saucepan which bounced and rolled. The newcomer exaggerated a flinch.

‘I thought you lived alone here?’ He was prying, direct and to the point.

‘I do, but I’ve got a friend staying at the moment.’ If it’s any of your damned business, he thought.

‘I see. I’m Johnson-Walker, area supervisor.’ He was ex-public school, had a degree in physics, and was president of Bryncalid golf club and a sidesman at the church. Everybody was supposed to be aware of all that, it had been in the local papers often enough. One day, he was sure, he would be in the Queen’s honours list.

‘I thought you might call by, that was why I hung around at home,’ Aden replied. Just in case you think I’m skiving, he added silently.

‘I understand there was some trouble here last night.’ The dark eyes narrowed.

‘Yes. A girl got struck by lightning.’

‘Out on the bed of the lake, I understand. She shouldn’t have been there, trespassing on water board property. Where were you, Darrell?’ It was an accusation.

‘I was having my evening meal, as a matter of fact.’ The bailiff couldn’t keep an edge out of his tone. ‘About two hours later than usual. And I hadn’t had any lunch, either, because there were three deaths here yesterday, apart from the lightning victim, and I spent a lot of time being questioned by the police. I can’t be everywhere at once.’ He deliberately did not add ‘sir’, and Johnson-Walker was too much of a mouthful. In any case, he hadn’t been called Mr Darrell.

‘I see.’ Johnson-Walker turned and stared out across the dry bed of Turbury reservoir. ‘You’re certainly in an elevated position here. I should have thought you would have seen this mob trooping out there.’

‘Not from here. They went out from the other side of the rock over there.’

‘We’ve got to find out where this water has gone to.’ Johnson-Walker changed the subject but Aden knew it was all filed away in his official mind for future reference. ‘I think we had better both go out there. I can see I shall need my wellingtons.’ Pools of rainwater flashed in the bright sunlight, a veritable quagmire after the storm.

Aden felt a twinge of guilt. He had promised Vicki that he would not go near the village again, and within a few hours of giving his word that was exactly where he was headed. He watched the official don a pair of rubber boots, folding his trouser legs carefully inside them so that the creases would be preserved. This was going to be an edgy day in more ways than one.

‘It seems as if the water has drained away in the area around the village itself.’ Johnson-Walker broke the lengthy silence. He was out of breath and trying not to show it. The muddy crossing was proving exceedingly hard going this morning after the rain. ‘We’d better look there first.’

Aden was tense, his fingernails gouging the palms of his sweaty hands, his working shirt clinging to his body. His face was shiny with perspiration. He tried to encourage his thoughts to wander back to last night in a badly-needed diversion.

For a while things had been strained between Vicki and himself. When you had only known a woman a couple of days and suddenly you were going to climb into bed together, he realised, it could be a daunting prospect. For once their age difference seemed to yawn between them like a bottomless chasm. She had a bonus of a decade of experience on her side – at least he hoped so. God, she couldn’t be a virgin at nearly forty. His brief marriage, which should never have taken place because it – was all wrong from the start, had lasted a year – six months, in fact, because that was when it had started to go downhill. The divorce was a scar that would remain forever, his skeleton in the cupboard. Vicki had to know about it some time, and until she did, for him it would be a barrier between them.

‘By the way, I was married once.’ He tried to make it sound casual. ‘A disaster from the word go. I’ve been divorced for six years. I thought you ought to know.’

‘Thanks, but it doesn’t really matter to me. You can tell me about it if it helps …’ She had her blouse undone and he could see a scanty blue bra.

‘There’s nothing to tell. I’ve been trying to forget it but I suppose that’s impossible. There aren’t any children. Divorced on the grounds of incompatibility.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She wasn’t, she was glad because otherwise she would not have been here with him tonight. She shrugged off her blouse and debated whether to remove her bra or unfasten the waistband of her jeans first. She was embarrassed, but she did not show it, because she realised her lover certainly was. Tonight could be a disaster if it wasn’t played right.

‘I’ve been around.’ She tried not to make it sound like a confession. ‘In case you hadn’t guessed.’

‘Me, too.’ He thought perhaps he was blushing slightly. ‘A few girls in my teens, then my marriage. Afterwards one or two affairs, mostly other men’s wives.’

‘Naturally,’ she laughed, letting her bra fall to the floor. ‘I always seemed to get involved with other women’s husbands latterly. No ties, I suppose.’ But that wasn’t how she wanted it now. ‘Funny thing is, I always wanted a baby – but I suppose I’ve left it too late now.’

‘I know a woman of forty-four who had a baby,’ he answered. Just a mite too quickly, he added, ‘It all depends what you want. I wanted children, too, but it’s not the end of the world if I don’t get them.’ He left that one open-ended. He struggled out of his jeans and sat there on the edge of the bed in pants and T-shirt. Christ, he’d never been further from arousal. Treat me as your toy-boy, seduce me, play with me, he thought. But it wasn’t going to happen that way, it had to be mutual.

The rain was hammering on the tin roof and gushing off at the other end in a miniature waterfall. If electric storms were a turn-on, he couldn’t pick up the aggressive, dominating mood.

‘Would you prefer the light out?’ Vicki was blushing. All she had on was a pair of blue panties that matched the bra on the floor.

‘Would you?’

He was passing the buck, putting the ball in her court. Whichever cliché he used it all came down to shyness because they had not gone through a gradual courting period, had been thrust together. By the Deathbell!

‘I’m perfectly happy either way.’ She slid her briefs off and lay back on the bed, her thighs parted just a little, tempting him.

He was naked now, trying to will an erection, feeling as though he had suddenly been rendered impotent. Trying too hard. Relax, let things happen and don’t try to force them, he told himself.

In the end it had been the most wonderful night of his life. In a way he had been her toy-boy because he had let her take, over, responding to whatever she wanted to do, and they had curled up in a final embrace just as the early-morning light was beginning to creep through the windows. His last conscious thought was that it had stopped raining; he had no idea how long it was since the storm had passed on.

Johnson-Walker had mud-splashed his trousers and was now attempting to wipe off the offending brown stains with a handkerchief, but only succeeded in creating ever larger smears. Aden tried to hide his smug smile. Maybe on the way back this stupid prig would fall headlong in a bog, he thought. Or be struck deaf and dumb and … no, he couldn’t wish that on him, not on his worst enemy. They wouldn’t be going near the old chapel, he’d see to that.

‘Hmmm.’ Johnson-Walker was poking into soft mud with some kind of collapsible rod, then withdrawing it, checking a marking and wiping it clean on a tissue. He gave no explanation, but Aden didn’t expect any – nor did he offer any help. If his companion needed any, he considered it was up to him to ask. ‘Strange, decidedly strange.’

Everything in Turbury was strange, Aden thought. They walked on. On their left was the gateway to Caelogy Hall. Aden forced himself to look in the opposite direction, like a sulky schoolboy refusing to acknowledge a colleague on the other side of the street.

‘Do you know if there are any wells in or around the hall?’ Johnson-Walker had stopped abruptly.

‘No, there aren’t.’ Just too much off the cuff, it didn’t ring true. Aden had no idea whether or not there was a well in Caelogy Hall. In all probability there was.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Almost certain.’

‘Well, we’d better be absolutely certain!’ It was a command. Turning towards the gates, he forced the bailiff to follow, and see the old iron structures lying on their sides.

‘I’ll wait here for you.’ Because I promised Vicki and I’ve damned near broken my word already.

Johnson-Walker had an expression of incredulity on his bland features. It was the haughtiness of an officer on parade who had been cheeked by a junior NCO. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘That I’ll wait here for you. You go on in there if you want to.’

The atmosphere was tense, as if last night’s storm had suddenly rolled back and filled the air with electricity. It was a mute confrontation, a battle of wills.

‘A frightened bloody peasant!’ Johnson-Walker hissed. He seemed to tower above the bailiff, his cheeks puffing out, his face suffused with blood. ‘A grown man scared of local legends. I suppose it’s all to do with this damned bell!’

‘Some bad things have happened here.’ Aden spoke softly. ‘A lot of people have died or gone mad. I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, Mr Johnson-Walker.’ He used the man’s name for the first time – he didn’t know why.

‘You poor simple fool.’ He gave an open sneer, the laugh grating in his throat. ‘I could order you to accompany me’ – a deliberate pause for effect – ‘and if you still refused I could have you sacked.’

‘I’d take you to an industrial tribunal. The union would back me up.’ It was threat and counter-threat.

Johnson-Walker was fighting to control his anger. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. ‘Well, I’m not going to make you come with me, but I won’t forget this, I can promise you.’ He turned abruptly, awkwardly because of his muddy rubber boots, and stalked up the driveway, slopping through water-logged slimy weed growth.

Aden Darrell watched him go. He threw off the feeling of guilt and grew angry. The man was an arrogant stubborn fool, he thought, out here in this dead lake rank counted for nothing. He hoped Johnson-Walker would be all right, that he would return with an I-told-you-there-was-nothing-to-be-scared-of attitude. That would be fine, he could ride the sarcasm, and didn’t give a damn who might hear about it. But he owed it to Vicki not to accompany him, and that was all that mattered.

Time passed. He walked up and down the watery road, trying not to pace. He was thirsty; through the broken window of the old shop he could see a Coke sign, which seemed to be trying to lure him inside. He checked his watch again: Johnson-Walker had been gone nearly half an hour. That wasn’t an unreasonable time when you were looking for wells, he told himself, because there might not be any.

What if he doesn’t show up? It was a disturbing thought, and the sun on his back suddenly wasn’t warm any more. He knew he would have to go and look for him and in all probability he would find him in the chapel like Laurence Benson. And this time Aden did not have two policemen for company. Jesus Christ, hurry up, you stupid bugger because I don’t want to have to go in there!

And then he heard footsteps, clumsy bootfalls forcing their way through dense growth. He tensed, and the thought of flight crossed his mind. But it was the water board official and he looked perfectly normal, thank God! Flushed, out of condition, some dirt on his jacket – everything Aden would expect from someone who had been exploring a deserted dwelling that had been flooded and dried out again. Standing in the gateway, he was looking across at Aden, a contemptuous smirk on those ruddy features.

‘There is a well,’ Johnson-Walker said.

Aden did not reply. All right, one up to you but I don’t regret not accompanying you, he thought. Then he had a sudden feeling that something wasn’t quite right. If the other had been raving, a homicidal maniac frothing at the mouth or just smiling inanely, a deaf mute, then Aden would have known what he was up against. But Johnson-Walker was none of those, and that was the most disturbing factor. There was no sign, but an unsubstantiated warning prickled the bailiff’s scalp.

He told himself he was wrong, there was nothing amiss, the man was just gloating over a peasant coward, and would tell and retell the story in the golf club bar. That did not matter.

‘Are you finished?’ Aden asked.

He did not reply, just began to cross the road. And that was when Aden Darrell knew what was wrong. Johnson-Walker cast no shadow!

Aden almost fled. Possibly he would have done so had his limbs responded to his urge. In his blind, immobile panic he saw Johnson-Walker standing in front of him, smiling blandly. Mirthless, chilling, his face was like that of a corpse frozen by rigor mortis. His eyes seemed to have cataract coverings, and his head was thrust forward.

‘Turbury should never have been flooded.’ Johnson-Walker’s speech was toneless, a kind of recitation devoid of expression, ‘It was a mistake. We have to abandon the project. I must advise the board accordingly.’

‘Why?’ It was none of his business, and Aden did not expect an answer.

‘Because it was not meant to be.’ Johnson-Walker was looking at him but not seeing him, a churchgoer in a bored daze reciting a psalm by heart, his thoughts elsewhere. ‘It was never meant to be. They should have known. This lake is dead and it must be allowed to remain so; the village should come to life again if it so wishes. We must repent for what we have done or retribution will surely follow.’

‘Can we … go?’ Aden’s teeth chattered. He managed to move a pace away from the other, and knew that he could run now if he wanted to. A momentary spell had held him; now it had released him just as suddenly. But the terror was still there like a cancer growing inside him.

It was Johnson-Walker who forged ahead on the walk back across the boggy terrain, a figure that belied its own stamina as though new strength ran in the limbs; he took long, jerky strides, an automaton set on a direct course by a computer.

They reached the Rock of Turbury within a quarter of an hour and stood there on the small plateau looking back across the dead lake. The sun was hot again, the puddles were drying up. Within a few hours all traces of the thunderstorm would have vanished.

‘We were wrong.’ It was as though the water board official was talking to himself as his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the arid expanse. ‘Let us hope that the damage can be rectified, that we are not too late.’

And it was then that Aden Darrell experienced the same inexplicable sensation of creeping terror, an icy trickling warning travelling up his spine. One glance was enough. He recoiled, staring in disbelief. For Johnson-Walker’s shadow had returned.

‘Well?’ Vicki was waiting anxiously by the caravan steps. She watched the Granada move off, driven by the arrogant man from the water board, and saw Aden standing there in the road as though unwilling to return. She walked forward, knowing that something was wrong. He was ill at ease, refused to meet her searching gaze and looked pale beneath his suntan. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ He was playing for time, wondering how to explain it all to her. Like a husband whose infidelity has been discovered, he needed to piece his side of the story together.

‘You don’t look well.’ She slipped her arm into his. ‘You’ve been out there, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’ He kept his eyes on the ground. ‘I didn’t have any choice. But I didn’t go into the chapel, thank God!’

She waited, sure he would tell her in his own good time. She could feel him trembling against her. He might not have been to Caelogy chapel but he had had a bad experience, ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t look as if I’ll have a job much longer.’ He said as he took the mug of steaming coffee from her, looking at it as if the froth on the surface was the most important thing in his life.

‘In other words, you’ve upset the boss.’ She rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘And I don’t blame you one little bit. Ugh, what a horrible man, the nearest thing to a slimy human toad I’ve ever seen. I hope he never comes here again!’

‘It got to him.’

‘What are you talking about, Aden?’

‘The Deathbell. ’ She felt him tense. ‘My God, it’s more than just a harbinger of death and insanity, it’s a living evil force, it has intelligence and cunning!’

‘I don’t understand you.’ She was frightened nevertheless.

‘The forces need the village, it is their haven of evil,’ he went on. ‘The bell is just part of it, the focal point. The authorities buried the village beneath millions of gallons of water; they want it back. They had their chance today: Johnson-Walker, the most powerful man on the water board, the one whose reports and decisions the committee will act on, walked defenceless into Turbury. They could have killed him, driven him mad, but that would have served no purpose. So they took his mind over. They control him now. He will go back and advise his colleagues that the reservoir must be allowed to dry up and return to its former state, and the village remain uninhabited. Except, of course, by them! It’s their home. The fact that millions of pounds have been wasted in trying to create another water supply will not count. Turbury village will live again, the home of the undead!’

‘How on earth do you know?’

‘When he came out of the hall he cast no shadow in the sunlight. By the time we reached the rock his shadow was back again. They’ve got him all right. Evil has triumphed and won the day, and may God have mercy on the people who live in the surrounding countryside!’

12 - THE FESTIVAL OF MAGIC MUSHROOMS

August. The drought had continued, and apart from the forecast of a few scattered thunderstorms, which seldom materialised, there was still no sign of rain. Grass became hay without being cut or turned, water restrictions were imposed in every locality in Britain. Vegetable prices soared and most produce was imported from the continent, where there had been a brief flurry of wet weather. But the ‘magic mushrooms’ on Bryncalid Common had thrived, and masses of the hallucinatory fungi awaited the annual harvest.

Steve Houghton had been to the Festival two years in succession. Lanky, with long, straggling, thinning hair, he insisted vehemently that he was thirty-two; he had been thirty-two for the past five years and was reluctant to change his age. His home was an old 1960 ambulance, untaxed and uninsured, that served both as his home and his ‘business premises’. It amazed him that he was allowed to travel the country with apparent immunity from the highway laws. Indeed, the police were generally cooperative; that summer on Cannock Chase when the law had moved on five thousand hippies and their vehicles and evicted them forcibly, they had fitted the ambulance with a new clutch and thrown in five gallons of fuel as a bonus – just to get rid of him along with the others. That was fine by him; the ragbag cavalcade had meandered its unsightly way down to Worcestershire, and a few days later Steve had had his tank filled up for him again by a policeman who laughed and joked with him. The cops didn’t even look at the bogus road fund licence disc on the dusty windscreen; that was a minor default. Keep ’em moving at all costs, was the idea, with free maintenance and petrol for those who chugged to an unscheduled stop on the way, and everybody was happy except the ratepayers.

Steve described himself as a mobile shopkeeper. There were greater privileges on the move than stationary: no rent or rates, no taxation, and his only overheads were purchase of stock – and if he was smart enough sometimes he didn’t have to pay for that either. But business was booming, shoplifting was time-consuming and one could only amass small quantities of provisions that way. The big time was just round the corner, so he needed to buy in bulk. He had done a deal with one of his ‘customers’, a parcel of food for a cash-and-carry card; Steve half-suspected that the discount ticket was a forgery but it had never been given more than a cursory glance at that particular chain of stores. Grocery brought in a useful few quid – the hippies never seemed short of money where necessities were concerned – but Steve’s main income lay stashed beneath the floorboards of his dilapidated old bus. He chose his customers carefully, didn’t openly advertise the fact that there was grass to be had if you had the cash. Steve sussed his clients out, and he prided himself in being a good judge of character, and it snowballed from there. By word of mouth, one contact led to two or three. And the Magic Mushroom Festival was worth a grand or two every year.

This year he had an assistant for everything that an attractive homeless twenty-year-old was prepared to do in return for pocket money, a roof over her head and enough heroin to satisfy her craving. He had picked Betty up on that wasted trip to Stonehenge. Well, not exactly wasted, he thought, just not as profitable as it might have been. He ought to have known better after last year but everybody else was headed that way and crowds meant trade.

The police had anticipated the coming of the hippies. They had erected barricades and sent an army of officers out, with riot gear and the threat of plastic bullets. Ride on out of here and keep going, was the clear message. It cost the ratepayers again, even though the nomads never got as far as Salisbury Plain, for petrol and repairs, not to mention the cost of the police operation. Steve acquired a new distributor and half a tank of petrol. As a bonus he set up shop whilst his vehicle was out of action and took £250. That was when he first set eyes on Betty.

She was both beautiful and pathetic, the genuine sackcloth and ashes girl, standing on the roadside verge with a pair of pretty bare feet and a canvas haversack slung over her shoulder. Dark-haired, dark-skinned, she claimed to have true Romany ancestry and Steve believed her. She had bought a bag of crisps, but was still there after the rush of customers had departed; it was obvious she wanted to talk to him.

‘What can I get you, darling?’ Steve dropped the counter flap and stood in the open rear doorway.

‘You can have me for a fiver.’ She smiled nervously. ‘And anything goes!’

He stroked his chin pensively. He did not pay for sex, on the camps he had it for free if he played his cards right. But by morning there wouldn’t be any camp and the next stop was Bryncalid, three weeks from now.

‘What about the guy you’re with, is he impotent or something?’ he laughed.

‘I’m not with anybody. I got ditched and I don’t have so much as a tent to sleep in. I need to buy grass, food doesn’t matter, and I can always sleep under the hedge.’

‘No need for that.’ He jerked his head in an invitation to her to step inside. ‘I got everything you need, sweetheart. Everything! Let’s talk it over.’

The partnership was a foregone conclusion. She was slipping out of her wet dress before he had finalised all the details. ‘Stick around with me, you’ll have to work for your keep, mind, but you won’t go short of nothin’, I can promise you that.’

She was good, very good. Steve’s only regret was that he had to break off in a hurry when the mechanic returned to fit the replacement distributor, but Betty had merely whetted his appetite for later. They were back on the road in an hour, leaving the main convoy at Stroud, and were parked up in the Cotswolds next morning. It was a week before a resident’s complaint was attended to and they moved on again. And they arrived at Bryncalid Common in time to set up shop and await the start of the Festival.

The police could have stopped it long before it started, the townspeople claimed at a meeting in the town hall, knowing that prevention was easier and better than cure. Now they had to wait for a high court injunction and suffer the nuisance for perhaps another fortnight. An alternative method would have been to spray the mushrooms with paraquat to destroy them once and for all, then the dropouts would have no reason to come to Bryncalid in future. There was plenty of talk but no action, and the Festival was in full swing.

The revellers came to town most days in a convoy of vans, a bus, an old laundry van and some motorbikes. Some tradesmen claimed the ‘invaders’ were good for business, others that they stole and vandalised, and were allowed to drive uninsured and untaxed vehicles with impunity, whereas the law-abiding citizen would have faced instant prosecution. There were fights in the pubs, a market stall was overturned and the vendor’s wares stolen in the melee. Local landowners whose farmland adjoined the common sought separate injunctions. The law could no longer turn a blind eye.

The police came to the camp on the common for the second time on that blistering hot Tuesday; a stolen car, an S-registered red Cortina, was parked in full view but the hippies erected a human barricade around it, armed with staves and bicycle chains, and threatened to set fire to the tinder-dry grass if the law made a move to wrest their latest acquisition from them. There was a verbal confrontation; the police, outnumbered by twenty to one, opted for a tactical withdrawal. They might or might not be back, it all depended upon the outcome of the high court hearing.

‘These kids are bloody stupid,’ Steve told Betty one night as he lay on top of her in the small bed in the back of the ambulance. ‘They could do real good for themselves, nobody would bother them if they didn’t provoke trouble. But every place they go to, they stir up the locals, and look what happened at Cannock Chase and Stonehenge. They’ll never get on there again and I’ve a feeling that here might be the last time too. In the end there’ll be no festivals, the dropouts will go back to the cities and go underground in the subways. And we won’t have a business.’

‘Suppose they search the vehicles and pull the old van to pieces?’ That had been her greatest fear ever since she had hitched up with her lover.

‘They won’t, all they want to do is to move us on somewhere else so that the next police force can have the job. But I reckon we’ll be travelling again soon.’

There was a mass meeting around the big fire on Wednesday night. Everybody sensed that the law would come in force soon, and perhaps bring the army with them. This was the last stronghold – it was too late in the season to trek on elsewhere. The weather would surely break soon; the week of the Fastnet Yacht Race was an uncertain climatic period.

‘I’ve been out doing some scouting,’ a big red-bearded man was saying in a voice that boomed through the whole assembly. ‘There’s a deserted village a few miles from here, stuck right out in the middle of a dried-up lake. Nobody goes there, it’s a scheme that flopped. I tell you there’s a whole village, buildings to sleep in. It could be made into a permanent camp and there’d be nobody to trouble us. Don’t just take my word for it, go and see for yourselves. And the bed of that lake’s baked hard like concrete, you could drive all the vehicles out there, no bother.’

‘That’ll be Turbury,’ Steve whispered to Betty. ‘A bad place if ever there was one. Spooked. Nobody goes there, ’cause they’re scared.’

‘Oh!’ she said and, refrained from telling him that she was scared of ghosts and hauntings. When you did not have a permanent home you put up with a lot of things. And, anyway, there would be hundreds of people about, it wasn’t like going on her own.

Friday morning. The police came again, fifty of them, and would have driven away the stolen Cortina except that it did not have a set of wheels now. A breakdown truck with a winch would be needed, and it was threatened for later in the day. A senior officer addressed the gathering through a loudhailer, told them that a high court injunction had now been obtained and gave them three days to move on. ‘Where to?’ somebody shouted.

‘Are you gonna move us on from there too?’ another asked, and invoked a roar of mirth from the audience.

The police withdrew with dignity, but within an hour some of the hippies were loading up their vehicles.

‘They’re going to start pulling out,’ Steve Houghton remarked to Betty as he slit open another carton of canned baked beans. ‘What did I tell you?’

‘They going to … what did you say the place was called?’

‘Turbury. I think so …’ He pursed his lips and sucked the back of his hand the way he always did when he was deep in thought. ‘Maybe it ain’t such a bad idea, after all.’

‘You said it was spooked, Stevie.’

‘Just a tale,’ he laughed, turning his head away so that she could not see his expression. ‘A tale to keep folks away, stop kids from goin’ out there playing and the likes of us from squatting. But there’ll be plenty of us, too many of us for any ghosts that might be hanging about, and it’ll be them that’ll move out!’ It was meant to be a joke but Betty did not laugh. If there had been a choice, an alternative way of life, she would have left there and then. But there wasn’t, so she stayed and helped Steve get ready to leave.

Access to the dead lake was far from easy. The road turned off within twenty yards of the shore and the only place of entry was a bridle path. A Bedford van broke its axle and had to be pulled out of the way before those following could get by. But they made it on to the level bed of the old lake; it was right what that fellow had said the other night, Steve thought, the ground was so hard that it took the weight of the vehicles easily.

Steve found it difficult to believe that the old village had once been totally submerged; the mind boggled at the suggestion that there had ever been a deep lake here. The place looked more as if it was the victim of dry rot!

There were ample dwelling places to accommodate the three hundred or so hippies who flocked to Turbury village. Many chose the hall – there was safety in numbers, and it was a ready-made commune waiting for occupants.

Steve Houghton, however, had other ideas. He parked the old ambulance in the road outside the shop and took a look inside. The fittings were still there: a warped counter and bowed shelves, cupboards whose doors did not close properly – but that could easily be rectified.

‘Bet.’ He walked to the door and beckoned the girl to join him. ‘We’ve found ourselves some shop premises at last. Just look at this, all fitted out, couldn’t have done better myself.’

Betty stood on the threshold, reluctant to enter, and wrinkled her nose at the stale musty smell which seeped out at her. God, she thought, what a bloody hole!

‘You can get set to get it cleaned up.’ Steve was eager to open for business, sure the place had real potential. ‘There’s a mop and bucket in the corner there.’

Betty could not suppress a shudder. She almost refused but thought better of it. If she walked out on Steve then her regular supply of heroin would come to an end; she had neither money nor a home. She shrugged. Perhaps it would be just another stopping-off place before they hit the road again. She decided to stick it out. But Christ, this village gave her the creeps, it was like a morgue. She felt the presence of the dead all around her. The others did not seem to notice; they were thick, insensitive.

Steve was already unloading, carrying in cartons of groceries, cigarettes, crates of fizzy drinks, filling the shelves. He couldn’t wait, and his enthusiasm disturbed her.

Roland had been with the roving hippy band for three years. Squat of build, a mass of red hair, uncouth, he was a frightening proposition when crossed. Which was why he held sway over these dropouts, forcing his personality upon them, the power of speech backed up by physical force if necessary. He had become their leader because none openly defied him; if they disagreed with him they moaned in secret, conversing in whispers in case he overheard them. They had always been leaderless, individuals and small groups who joined together and went their separate ways, then met up again on occasions such as the mushroom festival. Drifters, sometimes they were glad of a leader when the police harassed them; other times they put up with Roland. But they never went against him openly.

Some of them had been attempting to light a fire in one of the downstairs rooms of Caelogy Hall. The pile of kindling smoked and hissed. Smoke lifted lazily up the wide chimney and began to billow back in eye-smarting clouds. The wood was wet and the chimney could well have been blocked for years.

The smoke gathered, a venomous grey monster seeking a means of escape from these four walls and, finding a broken window, wriggled through and sped away in the fresh air.

Roland opened the door, then recoiled, coughing. ‘You bloody twits!’ he shouted at the vague shapes who waved their arms in an attempt to clear the atmosphere. ‘Fancy lighting a bleedin’ fire indoors! It’s stifling hot inside anyway.’

‘We wanted it to cook some food,’ a fair-haired girl answered him sullenly. The pile of sticks in the grate was still smouldering.

‘Well, try it outside,’ he retorted. ‘Des, Maurice, come with me, I’ve got something to show you.’

Two youths broke away from the group and slouched their feet across the floor, adding dust clouds to the thinning smoke. They weren’t really interested in whatever Roland had in mind but they had learned to go along with him. He was a pain in the arse most of the time but they realised they could not do without him. When it came to sorting out problems there was nobody to match the big feller.

They followed him outside and went through dense undergrowth that snapped beneath their feet but was showing faint signs of regrowth, the odd leaf beginning to turn green again.

‘What’s that place?’ Des asked because he felt he ought to, needing to assert himself in Roland’s presence. ‘Looks like an old church to me.’

‘It’s a chapel,’ Roland grunted.

‘Gettin’ religious then, are we?’

‘Don’t be a prick.’

They went inside. The smoke-blackened interior felt chill after the warm sunshine. A ruin, but awe-inspiring – the other two could not think why they had been brought here.

‘See!’ Roland pointed, and they looked up and saw the huge bell hanging there, gleaming in contrast to the dirt around it as though it was new and had been specially polished before being hung.

‘It’s a bell. Hey, that isn’t the …’

‘It is. And don’t get windy because it can’t do you any harm. That’s the thing these locals call the Deathbell. When they cleared out they left it behind.’

‘So what?’ Maurice stepped back involuntarily, wishing that he was outside in the sunlight. ‘What’s it got to do with us?’

‘A lot.’ Roland grinned. ‘How much d’you think it weighs?’

‘Christ, I’ve no idea. Half a ton, maybe. I know one thing, I shouldn’t like it to drop on me bloody ’ead!’ it won’t, not if we’re careful.’

‘What you got in mind, Roland?’ Maurice was suspicious.

‘Three, maybe four hundredweight,’ Roland was rolling a cigarette, taking his time, savouring his idea. ‘And solid brass, unless I miss my guess. Work that out in pound coins.’

‘Jeez!’ They did not need to calculate, the size and obvious weight added up to an awful lot of money. ‘But who’d want a bell like that except another church, Roland, and you know what bloody vicars are like – sommat for nothing. Take it round on a barrow and they’d expect you to put a quid in the box as well.’

‘Forget bells and churches and fucking sky pilots,’ Roland laughed, ‘just think of it in weight and metal. Remember what Trimbulls’ scrapyard paid out for that lead flashing we took off that old house last year. That was lead, this is brass, and a bleedin’ sight more of it!’

‘You’re a genius, Roland.’ Maurice whispered his admiration.

‘Yeah, a bloody genius,’ Des echoed. ‘We could all be rich.’

‘Not all!’ Roland closed an eye in a knowing wink and waited for his words to register with the other two. ‘They don’t know nothin’ about it, do they? Not yet, but if it’s left hanging up there they will before long.’

‘You mean …’ Maurice was never one to grasp a situation quickly.

‘Yeah.’ Roland drew on his cigarette and took the smoke deep down into his lungs. ‘We’re gonna take it down, load it up on to the old pickup truck and drive it out of here.’

‘How we goin’ to get it down?’ That was the part that was worrying Des.

‘Easy. You climb up those steps there, lean across and you’ll be able to reach it. Best to lift the clapper off first; we don’t want it ringing by accident and bringing everybody on the run, do we now? Then all we do is untie it from that bracket there and lower it down on its own rope, the same way as whoever it was got it up there. Nothing to it.’

‘When we going to do it, Roland?’

‘We’d better not hang about, you know how this nosy lot is likely to go explorin’ the place. Tonight. After dark. Meet me back here at ten o’clock. I’ll have the truck here ready.’

They gave the bell one last glance as they stepped out of the chapel. Majestic, glistening, it gave them the creeps just looking at it. But that was a small price to pay when they thought of it in terms of hard cash, and Trimbulls always paid top prices for metal scrap; cash in hand, no messing about.

Roland had backed the old Mazda pickup truck to the chapel doorway, a task that was far from easy over rough terrain, and even more difficult because he dared not use the lights. He had to keep getting out every two or three yards and checking that there were no solid obstructions behind. But in the end he made it, switched off the engine and rolled a cigarette. Come on, you two, he thought, the longer we take the more likely the others are to find us and then we’ll have to have a share-out all round.

He wished that he had not had to involve Des and Maurice but he could not have managed the job on his own. They were going to do all the heaving and lifting – he grinned to himself in the darkness – and he’d do the grunting and the directing. And maybe once he got the bell to Trimbulls he wouldn’t be coming back to Turbury! You suckers!

He heard them coming, brittle weed stems cracking beneath them as they walked. Ten to one the buggers were on a high, Roland thought; well, perhaps it was a good thing, they might have chickened out otherwise. They were scared of that bell, ready to run a mile in case it rang; they believed all the old stories. Legends were legends, but cash was more important. Without it the bell could bloody well stop where it was as far as he was concerned. He got out, leaving the door hanging open, subconsciously prepared for a quick getaway.

‘Right, let’s get it down.’ Roland shone his torch upwards. The beam glinted on polished metal. For one awful second he thought it might have disappeared. Now it’s you who’s getting jumpy, pull yourself together, he told himself. ‘Up you go, one of you, I don’t mind which.’

The other two hung back, glancing at each other. They had not given a thought until now who was going up those steps to lift the clapper off and untie the bell. They paled and swallowed. Maybe Roland would …

‘What the fuck are you waiting for?’ Roland shone the torch in their faces, dazzling them. ‘Jesus wept, do I have to fix every little detail? All right then, you go up there, Maurice. Des can give me a hand to lower it as soon as you’ve released it.’

Maurice moved reluctantly, one foot on the broken stone steps, a hand resting on the wall, going up sideways as though he feared to take his eyes off the other two.

‘What the fuck’s the matter with you, Maurice?’ Roland stabbed the torch angrily.

‘I … don’t like heights.’

‘You’re a right bloody wimp – don’t like this, don’t like that. But you like bleeding money, don’t you?’

The thought of money was possibly the only lure that would have taken Maurice up those steps. Crouched low, almost on all-fours, he felt giddy. Suppose I fall? Don’t look down, they always tell you that. Remember that western film years ago where the hero walked the tight rope remains of a rope bridge across a canyon? I don’t want to remember it. Don’t think about it, think of something else. Money. How much will we get for the Deathbell? What will my share be, fifty quid? You can’t trust Roland when it comes to cash.

He was on the top step, a small narrow platform level with the bell. Jerkily he straightened up, still holding on to the wall. There, I’ve made it.

‘Right, unhook the clapper first.’ Roland’s voice sounded as if it came up from the bottom of a very deep well. ‘Get on with it, don’t piss about.’

‘How do I … unhook it?’ He was talking for the sake of it, and holding on to the main beam. Christ, I hope it doesn’t snap! The torch flashed on him, making him wince and close his eyes.

‘How d’you bloody think you unhook it? You reach out, lift it off. Come on, we haven’t got all night!’

Holding on with one hand, extending the other, he was aware how it shook. So close to the bell, he could see the ornate workmanship, feel its power. It seemed to be alive, humming softly as though an electric current coursed through it. Don’t touch it, he told himself. I have to, I have to lift it up a little to get at the clapper. I daren’t.

Maurice’s fingers brushed against the brass rim. He snatched them away. The thing was alive, he could feel it throbbing!

‘What the fuck’s up now?’

‘It’s … it’s …’ He nearly said ‘it’s alive,’ but just checked himself in time, ‘It’s … all right.’

He forced his fingers to grip the lip; it was icy cold and horribly smooth. It didn’t seem heavy, being so perfectly balanced. The light from below was directed inside it, blinding him. He fought down his panic, grabbed for the clapper and caught it. Don’t let it ring! Got it … Oh, my Jesus!

Maurice gave a cry and almost fell. The heavy clapper was warm and sticky; his fingers adhered to it. And in the beam of light directed on to it he saw its colour … deep crimson, a coating of congealed blood!

‘There’s blood on it!’ He screamed, gripping the beam above his head, jerking his fingers free of the clapper, seeing how they were stained red.

‘Don’t be a prat!’

The clapper swung free. He had given it the momentum it needed as surely as if he had tolled it from below. Watching, transfixed, seeing it swing, up, back, up ... clang!

Maurice felt himself being thrown forcibly back, lost his hold on the beam, made a despairing grab for it and missed. His eardrums seemed to explode, a metallic hammer blow was splitting his skull in two. Airborne, he was being hurled against the wall, hitting it, crumpling. He was conscious only of the noise inside him, his body a human bell within which the clapper swung to and fro mercilessly, pounding him.

Des shrieked. Roland jumped back and almost dropped the torch, allowing the darkness to roll back in and cast a mantle over the bell. There was a sickening thud; Roland knew it was Maurice crashing to the ground. A wave of destructive sound found him, numbing his mind. Crazy with terror gone berserk, he wanted to flee but did not know how or where. A hand was clutching him, but he threw it off. He felt alone in the darkness; the other two forgotten.

His brain could not cope, his legs threw him to the ground. Sprawling, grovelling, he mumbled inarticulate pleadings. Primitive man was face to face with his god, the all-seeing eye burning him up, an earthquake shaking him until every bone in his body rattled. In a posture of blind worship, his face was pressed against the hard floor, his arms outspread. It was the ultimate in humility, offering his life and his soul, a creature of the shadows preparing itself for sacrifice.

Just the noise, soft and yet loud, jerked his body with each ring; he was a slave of the Deathbell.

Then it was light again, grey early morning, cold before the heat of the day. There was total silence.

Roland stirred and sat up but showed no surprise at his surroundings. A body lay sprawled on the steps, its skull smashed, dried blood obscuring the weak features. He knew that it was Maurice and regarded the corpse steadily. The sacrificial victim from the previous night; they had offered him and the bell had accepted, and roared its pleasure.

Des was sitting up with his back against the wall, smiling serenely. He, too, understood, accepted. Roland was afraid to look up but some invisible power lifted his chin and forced him to stare at the bell. A god in inanimate form, a shape of beauty and strength, still and silent, it saw and commanded. It was his place to be afraid, and to serve. Go forth, you know what you have to do. Gather your followers, bring them to this place of worship, for the Seekers of Silence are alive again.

Roland stood with bowed head and turned his gaze on Des. He spoke, but he only felt the words in his throat, he did not hear them – just vibrations. ‘Come on, we have work to do, we must bring the rest here to worship.’

Des followed him outside and hung on to his arm. They felt compelled to hurry, that there was no time to be lost. Forcing their way through rhododendron bushes that sprang back and whipped them, they were impervious to the lashing branches. Emerging into the open, they were still holding on to each other, breathless but not stopping.

Up the wide steps, feet slipping on the carpet of moss, they went into Caelogy Hall. Instinctively listening in an attempt to discern the whereabouts of the others, they heard only silence. After checking ground floor rooms and going on up the stairs, they found those they sought.

The large room was crowded. Hippies were sitting on the floor, watching the door with expectant faces as though they had been forewarned of the coming of their leader, with expressions of delight, of subservience. Their lips were forming words out of habit, but they knew that none could hear them. It was a gathering of deaf mutes, a cult of silence.

Understanding without words, they rose and formed an orderly file, scraping their feet on the rotting floorboards as they moved to follow their red-haired leader downstairs and out into the sunlit wilderness.

The pious procession crossed the desecrated grounds, winding their way along forgotten pathways, just as their predecessors, the lost Tibetan monks, had done when they forsook their god and turned to a new evil deity.

They filled the chapel to capacity; the stragglers were forced to throng the doorway, spilling outside. Wide-eyed, gazing with reverence upon the dome that shimmered and moved gently but did not ring, they were answering a calling; praying and waiting for the Word.

The daylong vigil lasted until early evening when the shadows returned, but they were oblivious to hunger and thirst – fasting. Darkness came, and only then were they aware, each and every one of them knowing. The Deathbell demands another human sacrifice, for only blood will appease it.

Faces were turned to one another. A question was asked but it went unanswered. Who shall be the next victim?

Who?

13 - HUMAN SACRIFICE

‘Well, that’s it!’ Aden Darrell tossed a sheet of typewritten paper on to the table. A pinkish-coloured cheque was clipped to it. ‘A month’s salary in lieu of notice. Four whole weeks doing nothing and getting paid for it.’ He tried to be flippant, but sounded strained instead.

‘You could take the board to an industrial tribunal.’ Vicki continued buttering toast and did not look up. ‘Unfair dismissal – the botch-up was all their doing.’

‘But there isn’t any botch-up!’ he snapped. ‘Christ, I’ve been out there, I’ve seen. For some reason the water has drained away in the area of the village. The Deathbell’s doing, I don’t know how or why, but there isn’t a logical explanation for the seepage. Johnson-Walker convinced the committee. What now? The hippies have moved in there from Bryncalid Common and everybody’s backing off. I suppose there’ll be a Land Rover round any day to tow this caravan away.’

‘We’ll move back to the bungalow,’ she said. ‘We’ve had our summer camping holiday.’

‘Can you stand it?’

‘I think so. If I can’t, we’ll put the place up for sale and move somewhere else. No problem.’

It was always ‘we’ these days. The relationship had grown, was established. Marriage had not been mentioned; that might spoil it all.

‘There’s one thing that clever Mr Johnson-Walker overlooked.’ Aden spread marmalade on his toast. ‘There’s a fault in the old dam, the one above Turbury. I’d say it’s due to subsidence, a slight landslip caused by the filling and draining of the new reservoir, combined with the hot summer that dried the lake bed out too quickly. I was looking at it yesterday. But that’s none of my business, I’m only … was only, the bailiff. My job’s to breed trout.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘Could be. If the inspectors are doing their job properly they’ll spot it. They may already have done so – who knows? But in any case it’ll be a costly repair job to add to the Turbury cock-up. If it isn’t repaired in time, the weight of the water in the top reservoir will burst the dam and Turbury lake will be flooded for a second time.’

‘Are you going to tell the board?’

‘No way. Not after this, and if we wake up one morning and look outside on to an expanse of water, I’ll need to spend the day in bed because I’ll be so weak from laughing!’

‘What about those hippies out there?’

‘That’s a point.’ He was suddenly serious again. ‘They’d get washed away in a tidal wave. I reckon I’ll go up and have a look at the dam again this week and make my mind up then. But even if I do warn the authority, I’ll probably get told to mind my own bloody business – and they’re stubborn enough to ignore my warning because I no longer work for them, and when I did I was only a bailiff. Maybe I could warn the hippies, though. Anyway, I’ll take another look and play it from there.’

‘Aden, I think I would like to move back home. Both of us, I mean. If you’ve no objection.’

‘Okay,’ he smiled, ‘we’ll make a start today. I might as well make use of the van whilst I’ve got it, because you can bet your life they won’t be letting me keep that for many more days!’

It was strange being back in the bungalow again. Different somehow. Of course, that was because she had Aden with her, Vicki thought. The start of a new chapter. That awful night seemed decades away, and perhaps it had never really happened – just the lingering memory of a bad childhood nightmare. Nothing more.

She was learning to sleep again, deep dreamless slumbers that left her refreshed and eager the next day. Only niggling uncertainties remained, because the village was exposed once more, but she knew that was the problem of those hippies out there; sometimes she caught a glimpse of tiny figures wandering about on the dry bed but they did not seem to come ashore.

She slept the sleep of the dead, stirred sometime after dawn, then let herself drift back. She did not have to hurry to get up, because it was Sunday. A low groan escaped her lips; she hated Sundays and she would have to get up. Her mind was confused with sleep. Sundays were a drag, her parents had seen to that ever since she was a small child. She had to dress in her best clothes, couldn’t go out to play as other children did. It was her father’s Victorian domination that ruled the day, her mother just went along with it.

Now Vicki was a teenager and things hadn’t changed. Most of her friends had a lie-in, woke around mid-morning and lay reading. They had a late lunch, a relaxed day doing whatever they fancied doing. But not her, she wasn’t allowed to please herself. She drifted back to sleep; Dad would come calling her about eight, banging on the bedroom door, telling her to get up or else they would be late for church. Sundays revolved around church, matins at 10.30, evensong at 6.30. She didn’t get much opportunity to do anything else in between. She ought to rebel, find herself a flat and be independent – she could not understand why she had not done so before. Possibly because Dad had brainwashed her from childhood. Emotional blackmail; if she defied him he adopted a sulky attitude of pending illness and sat there in the chair, with his eyes closed and his hand across his chest in a ridiculous simulation of the beginnings of a heart attack. A comic act, but it used to upset her mother. She would take Vicki on one side with a strained white face and whisper, ‘Go on, do as he says, for me, please.’ Always for Mother, but in reality she was doing it for Dad, and he exploited the situation time and time again. And he would do it again today because it was Sunday.

She was still semi-conscious, but awaiting the banging on her bedroom door, the bad-tempered tattoo of clenched fists, the commanding bellow, ‘Come on, it’s time you were up, we’ll be late for church!’ Flinching, bracing herself, she mentally defied him – a useless exercise. She would get up and scurry to the bathroom – and he would be waiting for her down in the hall. ‘You ought to have had some breakfast but it’s too late now.’ The car would be backed out of the garage, waiting, the engine running in cold weather.

But she savoured every last second in bed as she waited for the call, letting herself slide back into a doze.

Suddenly she was precipitated into wakefulness by a jarring sound that shuddered her in mind and body. Not the impatient thumping of her father’s fists on the flimsy door but the resonant ringing of a bell. Oh, Christ, the church bell’s ringing, I’m late! Her father was late too; wondering if he had inadvertently slept in, she listened for his heavy footsteps across the landing, the slamming and bolting of the bathroom door. It didn’t come. Another awful thought: he had gone to church without her and would already be sitting in their reserved front pew before the altar, glancing round towards the door, looking for her. Mother would be taking the brunt of his bad temper. Poor Mother, it would kill her in the end. Guiltily, Vicki scrambled out of bed and rummaged for her clothes. In her panic she barely noticed her strange surroundings: not the claustrophobic four walls of a small suburban semi, more like a bungalow, but she decided that wasn’t important. She had no time to worry about that, she had to get to church, and run all the way because the car would have gone. Then creep down the aisle, slide into the family pew, and hope that her father wouldn’t notice her lateness.

She struggled into her clothes, brushed her hair on the way to the door and dropped the hairbrush on the floor. Outside, there was an early morning greyness; the sun was not up yet. Perhaps it was winter, she thought – she was so disorientated. Running, walking fast when she was breathless, not really knowing the way, she relied on instinct. The bell was still calling her, insistent, angry like her father. Hurry up, you’re late!

She had a headache, which wasn’t surprising. She knew you should always rise gently in a morning; if you leaped straight out of bed on waking then it caused your blood pressure to rise – she had read an article about it somewhere. Well, her blood pressure had risen now, all right; her temples were pounding and there was a constricting vibration in her chest. Oh, hurry!

She was confused. Something wasn’t quite right, but she had difficulty in determining what. She decided it couldn’t be anything terribly important. She was daydreaming and hadn’t woken up properly yet – the way she used to be in the mornings when she was at school. Once she had caught the wrong bus and turned up at her former school, something she had never lived down.

There was a muzziness in her brain and the ringing of the bell didn’t help. It felt just like a bad hangover, but she hadn’t had a drink last night and she had turned in … no, she could not even remember going to bed. She shook her head and tried to clear it. It didn’t work.

Turbury; vaguely familiar, like a childhood holiday resort revisited after many years. Did she still teach here, she wondered? She must do, or she would not be here now.

There was the school up ahead of her. She quickened her step and paused in front of it. Oh, God, what had happened to it?

The playground was covered in green slime that had dried and adhered to the concrete. The windows were boarded up. Some of the planks had come loose and were hanging down, revealing broken panes behind them. Dark gaping windows – the emptiness came at her in a rush. In fear and sadness, she was struggling to remember. The education department had been trying to close the school down for years, and it looked as if they had succeeded at last. Overnight? She tried to recall when she had last taught there. If this was Sunday, and it must be because the church bell was ringing, then her last class was on Friday afternoon – unless it was the school holidays. She had lost her memory!

It was a frightening thought. She half-turned to go back the way she had come but the ringing of the bell stopped her, an invisible hand reaching out and grasping her. You can’t go home, you haven’t been to worship yet.

Vicki moved on a few yards. Mother and Dad were dead – of course they were, she realised. They had died the year before she was appointed to Turbury school. Lord, she had been living in the past. She would find out what had happened to the school later. Up ahead of her she saw a group of people and tried to recognise them. No, they certainly were not villagers, they were dressed in ragged denims and the girl with them wore a long crumpled dress and walked barefooted. They must be from the commune just outside the village, she thought, idealists devoted to an alternative lifestyle. Christ, I must be getting bloody old!

They were staring at her. The girl was pointing. Vicki tried to ignore them but could not help glancing out of the corner of her eye as she passed them. They were talking but … no words came from their mouths! Perhaps miming was the in thing with these people, she thought. She walked a little faster.

She felt their eyes on her and tried to ignore it, but in the end she turned her head to look back. The group were trailing after her, hanging back so that they did not catch her up. It was scary, she wanted to run. I’m running because I’m late for church. No, ignore them, here’s the church now.

She sensed the desolation before she reached the lychgate. The notice board had snapped off and was lying at an angle; the drawing pins stuck in it looked like tiny rusted eyes watching her. She stopped, aghast at the sight of the cemetery. It looked as though giant moles had been burrowing beneath it. Heaps of washed-down soil were trying to fill the gaping holes where formerly there had been graves. Everywhere was rutted and scarred. Vicki glanced back down the road again, those hippies were bunched together, watching her, talking soundlessly.

Shivers ran up and down her spine. They must have had something to do with this – it would have taken an army of vandals, she thought – perhaps the rest of them were lurking in the undergrowth. Where was the Reverend Pickersgill? Surely he wouldn’t let them get away with this. Yet the bell was still ringing, calling people to church. And there was nobody in sight! Her flesh went cold. This was too crazy for words, she thought. The school closed and boarded up, the churchyard desecrated, and yet nobody seemed to notice.

She knew it would be different inside the church, though. It always was. Perfect tranquillity; she could forget the outside world for an hour; even if she did not believe in God she could find peace inside His house. She moved forward to follow the path up to the church doors, but it was as though there was an invisible barrier halting her progress. The bell was deafening, pulling at her again … pulling her away!

Only then did she realise that it wasn’t the church bell which was clanging so insistently, jarring her mind and body. There was an open doorway with nothing beyond except blackness, a cave in the rock face which she was scared to explore in case the roof fell in on her.

She began to panic, and would have fled had she been able to – only she was like a puppet on a string, her actions controlled by somebody else. She wanted to go one way but they tugged her the other. Walk on, follow the bell!

Her mind was barely functioning at all now. The scene was like a television screen when she was too sleepy to follow the programme, a blur of unrelated movements, unrecognisable actors. She wanted to switch it off but somehow she couldn’t. She was forced to stay there, an unwilling spectator.

Then her legs were moving again. Her vision was impaired now, as though cataracts had rolled down over her eyes. I’m getting a migraine, a bad one, she thought, that’s what the matter is – if only I had an aspirin. Aspirins don’t work, your only chance is to lie in a darkened room. Somewhere dark …

A gateway, the gates broken and lying on their side, a big house in the background … she gave up trying to identify it, just let her legs take her wherever they wanted to.

Vicki thought at first she was going up those wide steps to the broken front door, but then she veered off to the right and followed a narrow track through grounds which had not been tended for years. Thorny creepers tried to ensnare her. They tore at her legs and ripped her tights, but she ignored them. The bell was driving her mad, it was so loud … Perhaps it wasn’t the bell after all, she decided, just her migraine. She was ill, she needed to see a doctor.

Then she saw the chapel and again she was powerless to halt her unwilling progress. Just as the church had rejected her, the chapel was drawing her on. She felt its pull as though her body was metal being drawn towards a magnet. A crowd of people had gathered outside the doorway; she thought perhaps this was the missing congregation, they had come here instead.

As she approached she saw their unkempt appearance, a motley-crowd who had almost certainly come from the commune. She knew that the others were following her. I’m trapped. What is going on?

She stopped, stood there in a patch of sunlight and waited for the sea of faces to steady. They were blurred, like people standing in low-lying mist, but the vapour was slowly clearing so that she could see their features. And when she did she screamed!

At least, she tried to scream; she was aware of her vocal chords filling up then releasing her cry of terror. But there was no sound, only the continual tolling of the bell. Her head felt as if it would burst and her skull split to spew her brains out in an attempt to rid her of the din inside her. Swaying, she thought she was going to faint. Oh please God, let me faint, because I can’t stand any more!

Her feet were moving against her will, tottering forward. The watchers parted and lined the entrance, forming an aisle for her to walk down. Lusting faces thrust within inches of her own on either side, fingers were groping her. She was running the gauntlet of terror, but there was nowhere to run except into that old chapel. She smelled the foulness, the fetid atmosphere, like the den of some unclean beast ready to devour her, or the stables awaiting the coming of Hercules.

Staggering on into the gloom, she wished it had been pitch darkness, for then she would not have been able to see the burnt-out shell that had crumbled but had not died, a place of worship that was now some kind of satanic temple. She sensed the evil all around her as the damp coldness chilled her, and knew that the crowd was following her in. She tried to close her eyes but they would not close, and she was forced to watch.

They clustered around her, touching her obscenely, their grotesque features masks of insane lust. Feeling her body through her clothing, fingers were probing – and squeezing when she tried to keep them out. They were pulling at her dress – she felt it slip from her shoulders – and dislodging her bra. The dress was shredded; the material was hanging from her, dragging on the dirt floor. They grasped it, pulled, and she felt it go, the coldness swooping in on her nakedness, followed by those hands.

At the height of her terror she was aware that the bell was no longer ringing, only the echoes were pummelling her crazed mind. Glancing up, she saw the gigantic brass dome above her, its mouth wide, its tongue flicking blood-red. Slowing, the clapper was falling short of the sides, the hungry beast was straining at its leash because it scented food.

They were pushing her towards the flight of stone steps against the wall. Once she slipped and would have fallen, except that there was a forest of hands waiting to catch her and push her upright. Half-carrying her, those in front were dragging her with them. Mouths opened, their lips curled and moved but no sound came from them.

‘What are you doing to me?’ This time she heard her own voice, a shriek that split the silence, but they seemed not to hear her.

A red-bearded man dragged her up the last few steps and signalled to two of the others to help him. One of them had a rope, rough hemp that grazed Vicki’s tender flesh as they looped it around her ankles and pulled it tight. She lost her balance and would have fallen, but again they were holding her, lifting her up …

The other end of the rope was thrown over the beam and coiled over the flame-scarred woodwork. Somebody reached out and knotted the loose end. It was the bearded one; now he was unhooking the giant clapper and lowering it back to the platform with all the reverence one would show to a fragile infant. Turning back to Vicki, he pointed up to the bell.

She tried not to understand the message, trying to convince herself she had got it wrong. It was some kind of misunderstanding, surely. But when they began to lift her off the ground feet foremost she knew only too well that she was not mistaken.

Their meaning was only too clear; they were going to lash her feet to the inside of the bell and hang her upside down. And when the bell was tolled her head would become the clapper, bashing from side to side, smashing the skull, pulping it on the solid brass!

14 - THE WATERS OF VENGEANCE

Aden Darrell stirred restlessly in his sleep, resisting a subconscious feeling that he ought to wake up. The alarm clock was ringing, the bell slow and loud, but to hell with it, he thought. If I’m late for work I don’t care. He pulled the sheets up and decided to let tomorrow take care of itself.

He fell asleep again. In his uneasy slumber dreams came and went before he could grasp them. And still the alarm was ringing, or perhaps it was only the echoes he heard. At last he opened his eyes.

He lay there, staring at the wall, trying to recollect his thoughts. First he had to determine where he was. The bungalow, of course. They had moved out of the caravan. It took time to adapt, like sleeping indoors again after a long camping holiday. He was so beautifully comfortable, he felt that he never wanted to get out of bed again. And as he did not have a job any longer there was no rush.

It was early, only just daylight. The change of home had obviously disturbed him – he would have to acclimatise. He turned over, and that was when he discovered that Vicki was not lying by his side.

He was surprised at first, but not concerned. She was probably in the bathroom, he thought. He found himself straining his ears to listen; damn it, he could still hear that bloody alarm bell. Now why the hell had it gone off at this unearthly hour? He hoped that Vicki was all right, just needed to relieve herself. Perhaps she wasn’t well – maybe he ought to go and check. Don’t be silly, he told himself, she’s okay. But something somewhere told him that she wasn’t.

He waited. Not a sound except the echoes in his mind, a distant, annoying clanging. Christ, she ought to be back by now! He slid his feet to the floor and padded silently to the bedroom door. He’d just give a quick check and be back in bed before she returned. In a masochistic way it was nice to have somebody to worry about, he thought.

Vicki was not in the bathroom. The door stood open and there was no sound of trickling water as the cistern refilled. It was a brief reminder of that morning he’d burst in here and found … no, don’t think about it. But would he ever forget?

His unease grew as he moved swiftly through to the kitchen. No, she wasn’t there. Oh, Christ, where? As he came back into the hall he saw the front door was wide open.

Shockwaves pounded him; he sought for a reason but could not find one. There was a kind of awful finality about that open door, he thought, a sort of ‘good bye, Aden, I won’t be coming back.’

He ran outside, staring at the thick mist which hung like a grey curtain across the lawn – a screen that had been lowered purposely so that he should not see beyond it. A barrier.

Aden felt physically sick. He shouted her name but the fog threw it back at him, as if to say, ‘Go back to bed, you won’t find her.’ He panicked momentarily and fought to get himself back under control. For some reason Vicki had crept out of bed and walked out into the open. And then he was reminded of that incessant noise inside his brain, the one he had attributed to the alarm clock. Holy Moses, the Deathbell!

He ran back into the bedroom and struggled into his clothes, and as he did so he saw Vicki’s nightdress lying on the floor. He felt as though his stomach had balled; he had an urge to dash into the bathroom but knew there wasn’t time. Oh, God, she might have been gone hours – he could be too late already! No, please God I'm in time!

As he dashed back into the hall he spied the old single-barrel 12-bore propped up in the comer. Water board property, the bailiff’s tool for destroying vermin harmful to the trout, it was a rusting BSA that had seen better days, cumbersome but deadly. He snatched it up, and felt a fleeting sense of comfort as he grabbed a handful of orange-cased shells from the open carton lying beside it. Gun and cartridges had been put there to hand back to whoever came to reclaim the van in a final severing of the tie between employer and employee. It was a weapon – it was only natural to take it – a means to revenge. By Christ, he would blast hell out of something!

He went out into the mist, walking quickly in the direction of the lake bed. There was only one way to go; Vicki would not have gone anywhere else – he did not question that. The bell had called her and she had gone meekly, a slave to the evil that controlled it.

The mist was patchy, thick in places, clear in others, with the first rays of the early morning sun attempting to disperse it. The ground was baked hard – dust was rising beneath his feet – a dead land in which there was no sound, not even the croaking of crows searching for something to scavenge. It was a world of total silence; even the echoes of the bell had stopped as though he was not meant to hear them. We have our victim, you have no business out here.

Aden pushed a cartridge into the old gun and clicked the breech shut, then a new fear assailed him. The mist had rolled in and obscured his surroundings, visibility was no more than twenty yards – and that incorporated dried-up mud and scorched undergrowth which looked the same in every direction. He realised he had temporarily lost his bearings.

The sun was totally blotted out. Again he experienced a wave of panic. Keep on walking and hope for the best, he told himself. But suppose I’m heading in the wrong direction? Sooner or later, he knew he would come to somewhere he recognised, but time was not on his side. Every second lost put Vicki’s life in danger; more than just her life, her soul!

He stood there, undecided, squinting into the swirling opaqueness, and then he detected a movement. The shape, at first unrecognisable, became a human figure, then a female silhouette with long flowing hair and a dress that floated around her ankles. She was running, coming this way. He tried to will it to be Vicki but he knew it wasn’t.

The girl came out of the mist like a marshland wraith, wild-eyed and mouthing silent curses, her head jerking from side to side. She saw him, halted and crouched, like a rabbit surprised by the hunter and making ready to bolt. A mute cry of fear came from her snarling lips.

‘Hold it!’ Instinctively he swung the gun on her but she did not appear to realise what it was. She stepped back and turned. Aden leaped forward, caught her by the shoulder with his free hand, spun her round and stared into a face that was sheer beauty yet awful in its terror. ‘Hold it, I want to talk to you.’

She struggled, frothing from the mouth with bubbly spittle that ran down her chin. She kicked, caught him on the shin with a bare foot and tried to claw his face with long dirty fingernails.

‘Damn you!’ Somehow he twisted her arm behind her back and held her in a full lock the way he had been taught to apprehend poachers. Suddenly she relaxed and gave up the fight, her slim body shaking with sobs of fear.

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ he grunted, ‘I just want some information. I’m looking for …’ His words tailed off as he stared aghast at her ears and saw the tiny trickles of blood seeping from them. He knew in that instant that his captive was both deaf and dumb. A victim of the Deathbell!

‘My God!’ He released his hold and stood back. ‘So it’s true what the bell does to people. Madness and deafness, those who die are the fortunate ones!’

She shook herself, looked past him into the mist and then began to move away. A human shell, just the body was left. The rest had been destroyed. Aden was trembling as he watched the mist swallow her up. Perhaps Vicki was like that now – the very thought almost snapped his mind. If she was … he looked down at the gun in his hand; that would be the kindest way, and afterwards there was nothing left for him to live for.

He moved on and found an unexpected patch of bright sunlight. He saw a dried-up watercourse where once the Turbury stream had run. It was a landmark to follow, he realised. It led to the main street and crossed it beneath an old stone bridge. He walked down into the shallow dusty bed and began to follow its erratic course. The village was not far now.

Turbury was enshrouded in thick fog, the houses ghostly shapes that loomed up threateningly. The village of the dead, not a sound to be heard. Vicki would be in the chapel, he was sure. It was the focal point of evil, the home of the Deathbell, the charnel house.

Aden left the watercourse, climbed up into the main street and stood listening. There were movements, sounds he could not identify. They seemed to be coming from the shop on the other side of the street.

Even as he watched he saw the man emerge from the doorway, a lean figure in ragged jeans carrying a box. He put it down, removed items from it, and began setting them out on the broken pavement like a child arranging toy soldiers for a mock battle. Brightly coloured canisters were stacked two high. One fell and rolled into the gutter but he did not appear to notice. He went back inside, then came out again, with boxes this time, stacking them one on top of the other.

Aden’s scalp prickled. Oh my Christ, he’s setting up shop, opening up for business as though this was a normal village and he was expecting customers! The shopkeeper shaded his eyes and looked up and down the road, then shuffled out into the middle. He had gaunt, grimed features, and stooped; Aden saw the cracked lips open, the adam’s apple move up and down. He was shouting soundlessly, totally unaware of his muteness, a word, a name, over and over again.

Aden was close enough to lip-read: ‘Betty … Betty.’The shopkeeper was clearly distraught. He had lost somebody and feared for her safety – just as Aden feared for Vicki’s. And then the other man saw him and stiffened, an expression of fear appearing on his haggard features.

Aden held the shotgun at the ready as the man approached. He noted with revulsion the bleeding ears, the frothy saliva seeping from the mouth. The shopkeeper was miming frantically, arms waving, mouth still calling for ‘Betty’.

Aden shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. The man pulled up, hollow eyes brimming with tears, dejected. Harmless, Aden decided, another victim of the bell, chained to his make-believe grocery business.

Steve Houghton leant against a van parked at the kerbside – one of its rear tyres was flat – and realised Betty was gone and she would not be returning. So he would stay here with his shop because he had nowhere else to go.

Aden pushed past him and walked on up the street, feeling like the gunfighter arriving in a ghost town, his eyes searching out every fog-shrouded building, expecting some kind of macabre ambush. But there was nobody else in sight – he knew they would all be at the chapel. Vicki too.

He entered the grounds of Caelogy Hall, listened to the steady drip of condensation from the dead rhododendron branches and trod through deep starling droppings which the flood water had silted on the ground. Squelchy, slippery, it sent up nauseating odours.

Aden was tense now because he could hear sounds from within the old chapel, and they were incomprehensible. Inhuman!

The whisper of voices was like the rasping of a multitude which had had their tongues cut out. Aden envisaged the bleeding ears, the frothing mouths, the eyes wide with lust and insanity. The hippies were the newborn Seekers of Silence, and God only knew what they were doing inside that dreaded place!

He could see them thronging the doorway, a milling mass trying to force their way inside. Some had slipped and fallen, and were being crushed by an army of bare feet which stood on them. They were being pushed back, then going forward again. The riot was a thousand times more terrifying because of the silence.

Aden knew he had to get inside; that was where Vicki was, and every second could mean the difference between life and death, sanity and madness. Dear God, there was only one way …

The gun came up to his shoulder, the steel barrel cold in his sweaty hands. His trembling finger brushed the trigger. It would be murder, mass murder! Shoot for their legs, he told himself. No, that was no good – in his mind he could see the wounded mass crawling over each other with bloody shot-blasted legs, dragging themselves into that temple of evil, a wriggling heap of human maggots. There was only one way …

The butt kicked against his shoulder, the rusted barrel jerked upwards. A reverberating explosion unleashed leaden death. Even the mist seemed to roll back at the report. There were bodies tumbling everywhere. Limbs were jerking and convulsing. The wounded were rolling and falling over the dead. Now there was instant carnage, where a second ago there had been multitudinous madness. Because they could not scream, they were hissing pain like ants that had had boiling water poured on their nest.

Aden opened the breech, heard the click of the ejector and saw the spent case bouncing on the ground. He reloaded and cocked the shotgun, then held it at hip-level. Oh, God, don’t let me have to shoot again!

The entrance was clear but he knew he would have to run the gauntlet of the dead and the dying. He stepped on soft bodies. Some were limp, others moved, their hands clawing at his ankles. Kicking them off, he scaled a living mountain and went down the other side.

The interior of the chapel was full to capacity. Hippies were standing shoulder to shoulder, staring ahead, totally oblivious of the slaughter only yards behind them. Transfixed, they were worshippers at the shrine of the Deathbell who were divorced from all else except the power of the great domed god of evil, the shining symbol of the dark powers.

Aden prayed that the bell would not ring. He looked up – and that was when his own mind almost snapped and plunged him down into the black abyss of madness. For hanging by her feet inside the bell was Vicki Mason!

For a few seconds everything stopped for Aden Darrell in a still that captured the horror of the film but was not going anywhere; they would all remain like that forever, frozen by the camera.

Then Vicki’s body began to twist. The rope was chafing her slender ankles. She was spinning slightly, waiting. Directly below her a squat, red-bearded man had the bell pull in his hands. He was caressing the hemp lovingly, tightening his grip, taking the strain. And looking round as though seeking a signal for the sacrifice to begin!

That was when Aden shot him – a close-range blast, a full charge of scattershot that did not have time to spread out, a ball of pelletted lead that devastated the red-haired skull. The bludgeoning decapitation splintered bone, shredded flesh, tearing through the neck so that the pulped skull flopped sideways, held only by bloody sinews. He was still standing upright, still holding on to the rope; then relaxing his grip and sinking to the ground.

A sea of incarnate faces turned towards Aden with the manic expressions of a crazed cult deprived of their blood sacrifice. Not a trace of fear, enraged, turning on him.

He reloaded, fired again and cut a swathe through them. And a second one, blasting features out of all recognition, spraying the blackened walls with blood and ribboned flesh. Hisses spewed from the constricted vocal chords as he jumped on to the slaughter heap and bounded for the steps.

He was up on to the platform. Some of them were coming up the stairway after him, and he sent them sprawling back with a low shot, in his haste, that disembowelled the leaders. Entrails like a nest of scarlet snakes wriggled in their own slime all the way down to ground level. Laying the gun aside, he reached out for the bell, gripped the lip and sensed the awful power that coursed through it in icy-cold electric shocks. Its smoothness threatened to squirm his grasp, but he held on, grabbed Vicki with one hand, supported her and unfastened the knot with the other. Lifting her tenderly, he did not know yet whether she lived or died as he lowered her to the stone platform.

Below him he heard the hum of the deaf mutes, the choking of the dying, and smelled death heavy in the atmosphere. But he ignored it all because only one life mattered to him.

‘Vicki?’

God be praised, her eyes fluttered open and stared up at him. And recognised him!

‘Aden!’

He had eyes only for her ears, and experienced near euphoria when he saw that they did not bleed. She could speak, too. The bell had not claimed her – yet. He glanced up and almost laughed out loud. Of course, the Deathbell had no clapper; its vile followers had removed it for their evil purpose, which was why she was spared.

‘We’ve got to get out of here.’ He picked up the gun again but the survivors down below were making no attempt to thwart him; they sat or stood, and stared uncomprehendingly, apparently unaware of the bloody killing, ‘I’ll have to carry you. I’ll help you up on to my back.’

But she was on her feet, wincing at the pins and needles as the blood began to flow once more, ‘I think I can … make it, Aden. Just let me hold on to your arm.’

Tottering uncertainly, she leaned her full weight upon him as they began the descent of the steps, treading on mangled corpses, trying not to look, kicking away ensnaring fingers. They climbed over the piles of dead, out into the mist. And rested for a moment. So far, so good, he thought, but there was a long way to go yet.

‘I’ll be all right,’ Vicki whispered. ‘Just keep going. Anything’s better than staying here.’

Their progress was slow, with Vicki having to rest for a few moments every twenty yards or so. Aden listened, but the silence was absolute. There would be no pursuit; the followers of the cult of the Deathbell were finished. He would have to inform the police, he realised. Perhaps they would charge him with murder; then he’d spend weeks of tension fearing the outcome, and be found guilty of manslaughter.

‘What’s that?’ Vicki stopped, and he felt her fingers digging into his arm.

‘What’s what?’

‘A sort of trembling in the ground. Can’t you feel it?’

Now he could. The vibrations beneath his boots were like a heavy lorry rumbling past on the road. Or a distant earthquake – he remembered that one in North Wales several years ago. Frightening at the time, but nobody had been hurt – there’d just been some slight structural damage. It was making his feet quiver, a decidedly unpleasant sensation.

‘It feels like earth tremors.’ He tried to sound casual. ‘Let’s get a move on.’

They emerged from the mist into an area of bright sunshine and saw another shifting grey wall beyond.

‘Look, water!’ Vicki pointed ahead of them to where the sun glinted on a patch of muddy water, a large puddle that grew and spread, fed by a trickling rivulet that wound its way down a slight incline. Moisture and mud had appeared where before there had been nothing but baked earth and dust. A spring, perhaps, that had found an outlet, Aden thought as he watched the hollow in the ground filling up, but he could not hide his apprehension. The surface beneath them was still shuddering, more violently now. And far away he heard a rushing noise like a river in full spate, the current dashing over rapids, cascading down a waterfall.

‘I can hear water. ’ He was dragging her along as he spoke, with an urgency now to reach the safety of the Rock of Turbury.

Into the mist again they went, thick mud pulling at them and slowing them up. They came upon more pools of water, ankle deep in places – old streams alive again, hurrying to reach their destination, flooding in their haste. With a rumbling like thunder in the mountains, the ground shook. Floodwater swirled and bubbled, seething its anger at the disturbance.

In sudden realisation, he flung down the useless shotgun and stooped to lift Vicki, wallowing in the sticky morass beneath her weight. Only the will to survive drove him on.

‘Aden, whatever is it?’

‘The dam.’ He floundered, then dragged himself free by sheer force. ‘The top dam has burst. Turbury is going to become a reservoir once again!’

He heard her catch her breath, but she did not ask the question that worried him most: Would they make it in time? Already the water was up to Aden’s knees, filling his wellingtons, and the gathering current threatened to sweep them away. He was trying not to panic, knowing if he did they were finished. He pressed on as fast as he could with his burden and prayed that they were heading in the right direction. There was a lurking fear at the back of his mind that Turbury village might loom up out of the mist in front of them to welcome them back to the place of the dead, the domain of the Deathbell.

The fog was thinning again. He tried to run, desperate to obtain a glimpse of their surroundings. Were they right or wrong? Was it life or death?

Brilliant sunshine welcomed and warmed them, shining on the flat rocky plateau, no more than fifty yards ahead of them, which towered majestically against the skyline.

‘We’ve made it.’ Aden waded the final stretch of muddy water and reached the track that led to safety. He was breathless, his chest was painful, but he would not stop until they reached the top, fearful even now that the bell might reach out and drag them back.

Collapsing on to the hard smooth rock, he pulled Vicki close to him. Both of them were staring in awe. The mist was low-lying, dispersing gradually as though it hesitated to reveal the awful secret it had hidden from human eyes. In the distance they saw the dam; it was no longer a symmetrical skyline, but a jagged broken wall that resembled the battlements of a ruined fortress. It had withstood a mighty watery siege for decades; now it had finally capitulated, and was pathetic in surrender.

The sloping hillside was awash. A mighty wave took everything in its path. Mature trees were floating, tossing like flotsam to be washed ashore somewhere for the beachcomber’s kindling. Roaring its wrath, the water was exulting in its freedom.

Spume flying as it hit the level ground, the wave seemed to explode, then gather a second momentum and race on. Now they saw the distant village, condemned and waiting. Aden and Vicki watched, holding their breath; the first time the flooding had been gentle, now it was a vicious destroyer who would spare none.

Turbury seemed to erupt. Buildings split asunder, timbers were tossed into the air. The seething cauldron seemed to have been the destination of the avenging escaping water, sent by some divine power to cleanse. It was all gone, just a few specks of debris rushed away with the current. The water was spreading out and the lake began to fill gently again, lapping at the shores, scintillating in the sunlight, the way it had been before the drought.

‘Well, that’s that.’ Aden rose to his feet and pulled Vicki up with him. ‘That water is here to stay, and old Johnson-Walker will have a large slice of humble pie to eat. But it solves a lot of problems for us. The bell and its followers are gone forever; not even the Deathbell will be resurrected out of that lot. Come on, let’s go home.’

Hand in hand they walked away from the rock, with just one last look back to make sure. All they saw was a large expanse of shimmering water. The evil was gone, its funeral was over.

Aden pulled Vicki close to him and kissed her. They were alive and that was all that mattered.

The End

Thank you for purchasing this ebook.
I hope you enjoyed the read!.
Guy.

This ebook is the forty-forth 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.

23. The Pluto Pact.

24. Entombed.

25. The Lurkers.

26. Sabat 1: The Graveyard Vultures.

27. Sabat 2: The Blood Merchants.

28. Sabat 3: Cannibal Cult.

29. Blood Circuit.

30. Accursed.

31. Sabat 4: The Druid Connection.

32. The Undead.

33. Crabs' Moon.

34. The Walking Dead.

35. Throwback.

36. The Wood.

37. The Neophyte.

38. Abomination.

39. Snakes.

40. Cannibals.

41. Alligators.

42. Bloodshow.

43. Thirst II: The Plague.

44. Demons.

The next book will be :

45. Crabs: The Human Sacrifice.

"The Girls Listened Intently. The wetlands were silver and shadow in the moonlight. The salt marsh grasses rustled. Out on the mudflats, curlews called mournfully. The Girl Shivered. The incoming tide trickled and lapped up hidden creeks. Soon the wildfowl would be winging down, the waders feeding and squabbling at the water's edge. The Girl Struggled. Despairingly, she pulled at the ropes that held her, naked and spreadeagled, a human sacrifice for the Crabs. Huge, eaten away by the mutating disease that doomed them, they were returning, dragging themselves out of the water, intent only on tearing apart and devouring their enemy: Man."

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.