The Lurkers Read online

  'A pint of bitter, a gin and lemonade and an orange juice.' Peter glanced casually around the room. Four old men clad in Sunday suits that had probably belonged to their fathers before them were engrossed in a game of dominoes in the far corner. Two younger men, maybe in their early forties, sat stoically regarding the. newcomers across pint mugs of ale. Farmworkers, probably, still wearing their rough working clothes. Peter decided. Rugged, resenting this sudden intrusion upon their pub routine. Fingers gnarled and thickened. One man had an unruly shock of greying hair that would resist the efforts of the strongest comb; the other was balding round the crown, and had a nose that had once been broken and not set. As primitive as their peasant forefathers.

  Eli Lewis took his time, deliberately blowing dust off the small glass before he tipped the contents of a bottle of concentrated orange juice into it. He eyed Janie as though challenging her to comment upon the lack of hygiene.

  She glanced away, wishing the two men on the other side of the room wouldn't keep staring. They gave her the same feeling as the woods and fields bordering Hodre. It was unnerving, a mingling of guilt and fear that made her want to flee, that she had no right to be here.

  'Cheers.' Peter put their drinks down on the rickety table. 'Here's to the first of many pints at the Cat.'

  Peter lowered himself on to a stool. Gavin was playing with a beermat and Janie was meticulously checking on the manicuring of her fingernails. Somebody had to say something soon to break the heavy silence, and the onus was on him.

  'Nice little pub you've got here.' His remark was addressed to Eli Lewis, who appeared to have a sudden urge to wipe the dust from his shelves of glasses and tankards. 'I expect you get packed out in the summer months.'

  'No.' Eli's voice reminded Peter of rusty hinges being forced back. 'We don't and we're not going to encourage tourists. Woodside is one village that's going to keep its dignity. We don't take to outsiders.'

  'Including us?' Peter's question was tinged with a sudden bitterness and anger. If these people wanted to force an issue then he'd take it up.

  'Not just you.' The landlord of the Cat continued with his dusting. 'Outsiders generally. That fellow Blackstone who owns Hodre, what right has he buying up our land and then not even living in the place, letting it go to rack and ruin, hiring it out to townles every year?'

  'It was up for sale for months before he bought it,' Peter snapped. The locals had every chance to buy it.'

  "That's not the point. It shouldn't've been sold outside the village.'

  'Well, I wouldna' live there, rent free.' One of the two men sitting in close proximity to the Foggs' table suddenly spoke, in a whining voice. 'Not me. And neither would Don here, 'cause he knows the place as well as I do. Don't you, Don?'

  'That I do.' The one called Don was staring intently into his beer. 'Wouldna' go there at night would we, Mick?'

  'No, we wouldn'a, Don.' Obviously their conversation consisted of a string of approval-seeking questions, Peter decided. 'No, we wouldna' go anywhere near Hodre, I doubt we would. Not after what happened to the Beddoes. Would we, Mick?'

  'No.' A stoic silence followed. Peter felt his nerves starting to tingle. Jesus, these berks were giving him the creeps. "The boy first. A riding accident. That 'orse was crazy, you'd only got to look at its eyes to see that. They never oughta let the kid get anywhere near it. Threw 'im, dragged 'im right down the field afore it split 'is 'ead open on the bottom o' those granary steps. Folks reckon you can still see the bloodstains on the bottom step if you look close enough. Don't they, Don?'

  'Aye, if anybody's foolish enough to go up there. Gives you the creeps in the daytime, but you'd go stark ravin' mad in the dark. Not as we'd go there anytime, would we, Mick?'

  'Naw. But the Beddoes woman wasn't long followin' the boy, was'er, Don?'

  'S'right. Cancer they said. Natural causes. But there's nothin' natural at Hodre. Fair ate 'er away, so they say, and when the end was near even the drugs they gave 'er couldn't stop 'er from screamin'. Some say if you go up there after dark you can still hear 'er, but I'd say them screams were comin' from that stone circle, wouldna' you, Mick?'

  'Could well be. After all screams do come from the circle so they say. But me, I wouldna' want to go up there to find out. The Beddoes woman, they reckon they 'ad to cremate 'er to burn whatever it was that ate 'er up. The old man should never've stopped there on 'is own and it wasn't just because've what'd 'appened to the boy and 'is missus that 'e did what 'e did, was it, Don?'

  'No. They say that when they found 'im 'angin' from one o' them first up on the circle the crows 'ad eaten 'alf 'is face away and there was a swarm o' wasps inside 'im so that they 'ad to 'ose 'im down afore they took 'im to the mortuary. But even what'd fed on 'im couldn't 'ide that expression on 'is face. Sheer terror. Now you tell me, Mick, does a bloke whose lost everythin' 'es's lived for get scared to hell about 'angin' 'imself? And why go up to the circle when there's plenty o' beams in the granary?

  ' 'E don't that, Don. 'E don't care what 'e suffers so long as he dies.'

  'So old Beddoes saw somethin' afore 'e died. And you and me aren't gonna frighten ourselves so that we don't sleep tonight tryin' to figure out what it was.'

  'S'right. And that's why this feller Blackstone don't come and live up there. 'E knows, found out maybe too late after Vd bought the place and bein' as 'im and Ruskin are at each other's throats, and 'e's too bloody stubborn to sell, 'e gets round it by lettin' it out to outsiders and the like.'

  Peter's mouth had suddenly gone very dry. He took a long drink from his tankard; the beer tasted flat and stale. He glanced at Janie. She was white and her arm around Gavin was trembling slightly. Her eyes met his, sending a message that was predictably blaming him for having brought them here: Let's go, Peter, all this talk is scaring Gavin. He won't sleep tonight or any other night. We've got to get away from Hodre for good.

  This conversation has been set up for our benefit, Peter decided. For some reason those two fellers want us to get the hell outa here. Well, their little ruse isn't going to work. Is it just because we're outsiders, or is there something else at the back of it?

  Silence, just the clink of dominoes and the hissing of green wood in the fireplace, 'Well, I just don't happen to believe in ghosts and that sort of rubbish.' He hoped the tremor in his voice didn't show. 'In fact this whole string of disasters attached to the Beddoes family was probably all caused by distress; the mother got cancer because of it and when she died the father hadn't anything else left to live for so he committed suicided. Rumours spread from there.'

  'And what about the screams you 'ear up there at nights?' The one called Don fixed him with a penetrating glare. 'You explain that away, mister.'

  'Well, we haven't heard any screams,' Peter snapped.

  'Ah, not yet you 'aven't.' Mick gave a short mirthless laugh. 'But you've only been there a week or so, 'aven't you? T'ain't every night you 'ear screams, believe me. Just now and then. You wait till you 'ear 'em and let's 'ope it's not too late then!'

  Janie had drained her glass. Gavin's orange juice was still untouched. 'I think we'd better be making a move, Peter.' Her voice was a husky croak. 'It isn't Saturday night, you know. Gavin has to go to school tomorrow.'

  'In a minute.' He tried to sound casual. 'I haven't finished my drink yet.'

  Mick and Don were on their feet, the heavy working boots scraping the quarried floor, Pettr noted with surprise that both wore leather knee-caps and calf-length leggings, a legacy of the past probably inherited from their farmworking fathers. Woodside was that kind of place.

  'G'night, Eli.' They were both at the door now.

  'Goodnight lads, see you in the week maybe, but I suppose as the moon's full Tuesday we may not.' Eli grunted, his lips parting in the nearest he ever got to a smile.

  Janie stiffened. These people were mad, a race apart from civilisation as she knew it. What the dickens had a full moon to do with whether or not they visited the pub? Her skin prickled. Pet
er was taking his time. She could feel Gavin trembling against her. It was wrong of them to have brought him here. The silence settled back again, except for the dominoes and the logs on the fire. Eli Lewis was still dusting his glasses, glancing slyly at the newcomers every now and then, so that it got on Janie's nerves. God, why didn't he say something, even if it wasn't civil?

  Those Jads working night shift this week?' Peter hadn't meant his question to sound like common busybodying. But it did.

  'You could say that/ Eli spoke slowly, Jiis words flat and expressionless. 'And, on the other hand, you couldn't.'

  In other words, mind your own bloody business. Peter tensed and swallowed the remainder of his ale. It was flat, there was no doubt about that. Probably the Cat only got through a few kegs a month.

  'We'll be on our way.' Much to Janie's relief, he put down his empty tankard and nodded to the landlord. 'Maybe next week we'll come on Saturday so we can stop longer.'

  Tm not sure about the boy.' Eli Lewis's eyes narrowed into an expession of sheer hostility. 'I know some of these townies' pubs let folks bring kids, but that's up to the landlord. Meself, I don't think it's a good thing, neither for the kids nor the trade. Kinda restricts the customer's conversation, if you see what I mean.'

  'Well it certainly didn't restrict that cheerful pair.' Peter felt Janie tugging at his sleeve. 'In fact they were doing their damnedest to put the wind up all of us.'

  'Not Mick Bostock and Don Peters,' Eli shook his head gravely. 'They wouldna' deliberately scare women and kids. On the other hand, they wouldna' be afraid, o' speakin' the truth, no matter.'

  'Well they certainly let their imaginations run away with them tonight.' Peter forced a laugh. 'Not that we mind listening to a few local rumours and taking them with a pinch o'salt.'

  'I'd forget the salt if I was you.' Eli gripped the edge of the bar, his wizened knuckles showing white. 'Them two aren't fanciful. Far from it. Matter o' fact boys like you'll go a long way to find the likes of them agin'. Don't take 'em as rumours, mister. Take my advice and heed 'em as—warnings.'

  Peter felt as though somebody had thrown the door wide and let in a gust of Arctic wind. 'We'll see you again, landlord.'

  'That's as it maybe, sir.' He picked up his cloth again. 'But as I said, not with the boy. I'm afraid you'll have to leave him at home. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.'

  'What a horrible depressing place.' They were back in the car before Janie spoke again. She was sitting in the back with Gavin, the boy leaning up against her and clutching her hand. 'We're not going there again. If you're desperate for a pint, Peter, I'm afraid you'll have to find somewhere else or go on your own. Every one of those men in there gave me the creeps.'

  'Typical country folk.' Peter seemed engrossed in negotiating the steep winding lane which led back up to Hodre. 'When you've lived in a remote village all your life and never gone anywhere else it becomes your own little world and you resent any intrusion, however harmless. It was just a not very clever way of trying to get us to pack up and go.'

  Janie sighed. She found herself wincing as she followed the glare of the powerful headlights, apprehensive of what they might reveal in their twin beams. Questions to which she had no answer hammered into her brain. What did that pair of ghouls, Bostock and Peters, find to do on moonlight nights? Were there really screams to be heard coming from the Hodre stone circle?

  Warnings.

  Oh God, she had to persuade Peter to leave. Those two had been right, she'd sensed it all week; there was definitely something inexplicably sinister about Hodre!

  4

  When Janie looked in Gavin's bedroom later that evening she knew that he was faking sleep again; his eyes were closed too tightly so that the lids trembled and his body was too taut, too tense for slumber. Gently she stepped back out on to the landing and closed the door. She must not let him see that she was afraid too. She had to keep her courage for a day or two and in the meantime persuade Peter to leave. And pray that they would be safe until then. Oh God, every minute was hell!

  She could hear the typewriter clacking in the front room as she came down the stairs. The sound made her angry; he didn't have any need to work on Sunday evening. It was as though he was doing it deliberately to shut himself off from herself and Gavin, a kind of subtle separation.

  Angrily she threw the door open. Her husband was sitting at his ancient Imperial 66 pounding at the keys, one hand half-raised, as if to silence her before she spoke.

  Peter!' She almost stamped her foot. 'Do you realise just how terrified Gavin is?'

  Annoyingly he finished a paragraph and read it through before slowly turning to face her. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'Maybe about the Wilsons but I'm going to have a discreet word with Hughes about that in the morning, anyway.'

  'I don't mean about the Wilsons.' She kicked the door closed behind her, stood with arms akimbo. 'I mean about tonight?

  That was all poppycock.' He grinned. Tm surprised at an intelligent girl like you taking any notice of it.'

  'You don't understand.' Her cheeks were becoming red. 'Because you're too immersed in this damned book of yours to realise what's going on around you.'

  'And what is going on around me?'

  She had to get herself under control before she spoke. 'I don't know. All I know is that there is something here, something that has me looking over my shoulder most of the time, wanting to hide in the house, to lock the doors so that it can't get me. But you wouldn't notice because you're all wrapped up in this book of yours. If a bomb went off you wouldn't hear it.'

  'It's all in the mind.' He picked up the typewriter cover and draped it untidily over the machine, deciding to struggle with the chapter ending in the morning. 'The change from town to country We, the remoteness. The silence. It'll pass off and in a few weeks you'll feel as if you've never lived anywhere else/

  'In a few weeks!' Her voice rose to a pitch. 'Peter, for God's sake I can't stand it here any longer and neither can Gavin. He could've been killed yesterday. He's frightened out of his wits.'

  'He's just worried about the Wilsons.' Peter thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans as he stood up. 'We'll get that settled. Look, if there was anything here to be frightened of, d'you think I'd let you stay?'

  'You're stubborn enough to blind yourself to everything except your writing,' she sighed, 'and I can see I'm wasting my time with you. Another thing, that cat hasn't turned up. I last saw it on Friday morning.'

  'Cats often go off for days on end. Probably he's found himself an attractive she-cat somewhere.'

  And talking of sex, he thought, that's one commodity that's in very short supply at Hodre. Maybe Janie was brewing up for a period and that was the cause of her tenseness. He tried to work out the date, and realised then just how much he had cut himself off from Janie lately.

  Janie had abandoned all hope of sleep. Her mind, her body simply refused to relax so that slumber could take over. Tomorrow she would get to work on those new curtains for the bedroom window; at least it would shut out the moonlight. A full moon was almost as bright as daylight. She'd never really noticed it at Perrycroft; she had become accustomed to the all-night orange radiance of street-lighting filling the bedroom. Moonlight was more beautiful, certainly. But it was also more sinister.

  She found herself holding her breath so that she could listen, though she didn't want to listen, just close her eyes and go to sleep, to get away from this awful place for a few hours. It was like some compelling force; she had to look and listen in case something stole upon her. Like what? She didn't know. That was the trouble.

  Peter was asleep, breathing rhythmically. Damn him, he was so insensitive.

  Now she was listening for Gavin, afraid that he might get up and go outside again. No, he wouldn't do anything like that at night.

  A dog was barking somewhere. Probably a sheep dog from the Ruskin farm on the other side of the big forest. Somehow it didn't sound like a dog; son of—wild! A long mournf
ul howl that seemed to echo across the hills. She wondered if by any chance a wild animal could be loose. It wasn't out of the question. Only a year or so ago there had been some kind of huge feline creature on the loose (oh God, that was somewhere in Wales, too!), and a number of sheep had been killed by it. Like that puma in Surrey which was still supposed to be at large according to the press.

  There was something in those hills all right.

  Janie slipped into a fitful doze, still listening subconsciously.

  Then, suddenly, she heard a harsh long-drawn-out scream that jarred her brain with the force of an electric shock, juddering every nerve in her body and bringing her up to a sitting position before she was full awake. Her hands covered her ears in a futile attempt to shut it out. Waking, she tried to tell herself that it had been a dream, that the events and fears of this past week had combined and exploded in one mind-shattering nightmare.

  Trembling. Listening. The room seemed to vibrate with the hellish animal-like cry, and the moonlight dimmed as though even the silvery orb in the heavens feared to cast its ethereal glow upon whatever lurked in the wooded hills.

  For a few seconds she seemed—to be paralysed. She was unable to shout or to shake her sleeping husband, imprisoned by that same inexplicable force which had taunted her and terrified her ever since their arrival at Hodre.

  'Peterl' Now it was Janie who was screaming, her limbs freed so that she could grasp Peter's shoulder and dig her long fingernails deep as she shook him. 'Peter, for God's sake wake up!'

  'What the hell's the matter?' He rolled over and opened his eyes. 'Can't a feller get a good night's sleep without—'

  'Didn't you hear it? You must have!'

  'Hear what?' He struggled up on to an elbow.

  'That scream. Something out there's screaming. Listen.'

  Together they listened, but heard only the distant hooting of an owl. So peaceful. And so menacing.