The Walking Dead (Sucking Pit Series) Page 4

  ‘A reporter, eh!’

  ‘I'm ringing you about the Sucking Pit, sir.’

  ‘The Sucking Pit? I haven't a clue what you're talking about.’

  ‘Oh … but you must have, sir. The old legend, and the happenings of some ten years ago when …’

  ‘You're talking bullshit.’

  ‘There was a man killed there today. The ground gave way, buried an entire JCB.’

  ‘Listen.’ Grafton's hand shook slightly; he saw again in his mind that dead driver's face, the bluish complexion, the terror in those inflated eyes, the mouth twisted into a scream of fear that had never finished. ‘I'm not going to stand for you lot making up a far-fetched yarn over this. What happened was perfectly explicable. When the bog, or whatever it was, was filled in, whoever did it didn't make a very good job of it. Rubble on mud causes subsidence, any fool knows that. The weight of the JCB caused it to sink and …’

  ‘You know, of course, that that site is an ancient Romany burial ground, sir. It was full of skeletons when it was partly drained and …’

  ‘Bollocks!’ Grafton snarled, and experienced a sudden urge to pick the instrument up and fling it at the wall. ‘That was a load of rubbish invented by the press to sell their papers. I am giving you the facts and if you print anything else I'll be taking legal action. The accident was due purely to subsidence. The place will be drained, filled in properly and levelled. Get it?’

  ‘I see, sir. Thank you for your help.’ There was a click followed by the dialling tone as the caller replaced his receiver.

  Grafton stood there staring at the wall, subconsciously tracing a maze of cracks in the plaster with his narrowed eyes, saw the lines merge, take shape. A face; a bloated, terror-stricken one. And he knew damned well that the papers would dig up that old gypsy legend.

  He forgot all about phoning Lynette.

  It was after eleven o'clock when Ralph Grafton left the Little Barrow hotel in Lichfield. A balmy night, it had him sweating, so he loosened his tie. First thing in the morning he must ring Claude Minworth, the Planning Officer; check that there were no snags. That hole could be filled in properly, no sweat over that. But the surveyors would doubtless want to check it over and that could take time. Two weeks, a month, written reports, further tests. Oh Christ, bureaucracy was designed to stifle anybody with any initiative. Maybe Minworth could get things moving.

  As soon as he got back to the Woodhouse he must ring Lynette. He hated leaving her; had nagging doubts that were all his own imagination. She was getting pissed off but she wouldn't come up here and live in a house in that state. Don't worry, darling, I'm kicking a few asses right now and within a month it'll be a palace. It won't be a lonely remote spot for long because I'm building lots of houses round it, executive-style dwellings for people like us. You'll soon have plenty of company. I know it's been a drag but it'll have been well worth it. And I'll pop down next weekend.

  She wouldn't swallow the sweet talk for much longer, and he couldn't blame her. There was only one way to get things moving: kick those asses so hard that people were shit-scared of you.

  He slid behind the wheel of his Range Rover, eased it off the car park. A police patrol car hurtled by and he waited a few moments. It would be just his luck to get stopped. And then he would begin believing in that gypsy curse.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he turned off the A51, bumped on to the winding cinder track that led up to the Woodhouse. The Lady Walk forked off to the left. Jesus, he didn't want to go down there. Don't be so fucking stupid, Ralph Grafton, there's nothing down there to worry about, just a dangerous bog that somebody made a balls-up of trying to bury, but next time it'll be done properly. It would cease to exist.

  A single line of tall Corsican pines stood on either side of the track, survivors from the felling programme. A patch of dense rhododendrons had also escaped the wholesale devastation.

  A movement. Grafton instinctively eased his foot off the accelerator, slowed. Nothing. The powerful headlights were playing tricks: it could have been a fox, even a rabbit. Anything that was capable of making the foliage spring back, quiver when there was no wind. The vehicle picked up speed again and a couple of minutes later was swinging into the weed-covered, horseshoe-shaped drive in front of the big house.

  Dereliction frowned down on Ralph Grafton once more, a shabby edifice scowling its hate for those who had neglected it and those who were going to alter it out of all recognition, destroying not just bricks and mortar but an era. Grafton sensed the foreboding, felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle; a sure sign that he'd had too much to drink.

  The front door slammed behind him, its hollow echoes ringing through the house as he flicked at the light switch with undue haste. Primitive man's fear of the dark hours. He glanced at the phone, half expected it to ring. But it didn't.

  Nights were the worst time. Boring, essentially. Grafton's sleep requirements were a basic six hours, often less. He glanced at his watch. 11.25. He half-considered a trip into Birmingham, a nightclub to pass away the nocturnal hours. Maybe a woman. He had his women where he found them, left them there. That way he wasn't really being unfaithful to Lynette, not that that worried him unduly. Blessed was the man without a conscience, he once told an acquaintance. Consciences were self-made and served no useful purpose.

  Yet tonight he wasn't in the mood, either for clubs or women and, anyway, he had drunk too much to drive safely into the city. That meant staying here. He grimaced, went into the bare kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. Strong black coffee. God, you missed curtains in an empty house, gave you a feeling of being watched. Vulnerable. All in the mind, like consciences. He tried to shrug the feeling off but it persisted.

  He carried a steaming mug of coffee through into the hall, saw the telephone again, conspicuous because the small table on which it stood was the only item of furniture. A sudden impulse had him changing course towards it; he'd ring Lynette now, somebody to talk to. He should have done it earlier.

  He set his coffee down, dialled the number, heard the connection click through and start to ring out at the other end. At least the front door had an opaque pane, so if there was anybody out there they couldn't see you, only your outline. Stop it, you're getting jumpy.

  He found himself counting the rings, eight … nine … ten … Perhaps Lynette had already gone to bed. On her own? Don't be stupid, she knows when she's well off. A lot of seemingly ‘respectable’ housewives get screwed when their husbands are away, one-night stands that don't do anybody any harm. Lynette wouldn't need to, she uses a vibrator, openly confesses to enjoying masturbation. It's no substitute for the real thing, though. Not in Lynette's case; perhaps she's vibrating now, at this very moment, that battery-operated, plastic, phallic-shaped instrument giving her such ecstatic delight that it's to hell with the phone. Let it ring, she'll come when she's come. He laughed aloud at his own joke, a hollow nervous sound.

  Twenty-five rings. She'd have answered by now if she was at home. What was she doing out at this time of night on her own? Getting herself screwed? Grafton dropped the receiver back on to the cradle. Inside his head he still heard it ringing out. Brr … brr … brr …

  Another sound, one which took him several seconds to identify, a rapid scratching noise. Rats. He glanced round, tried to place where it was coming from. The kitchen. It was harsher than the usual rodent scraping, though, more like a hard sharp object on glass. The hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle again. He strode forward, flung open the intersecting door. He'd soon find out what it was, he had to.

  Staring around the sparsely furnished kitchen, his vision temporarily blurred as he strove desperately to find out what had been making the noise. There were few places for a rat to skulk. Surely it would have bolted at his approach, scuttled to the safety of its hole. Nothing moved.

  The sound came again, just once, loud and clear - from the uncurtained window! Ralph Grafton jumped visibly, thought he caught a glimpse of … so
mething. But all he saw now was a square of darkness behind the dirt-streaked pane, his own face partly reflected. Nothing.

  That tingling sensation spread right the way up into his scalp and his breathing quickened. On the verge of panic but drawing back in time, still trembling. It must've been a bird, he thought, some kind of nocturnal creature. Did owls tap on windows? Ralph Grafton was no ornithologist but he decided it was possible; always think positively and logically.

  He went back into the hall, closed the door behind him. That coffee was getting cold and he needed it. Two gulps and then he stiffened, slopping some of it on to the floor.

  Knock … knock. That rusted old front door knocker without a doubt. But who the hell could it be and why hadn't he heard their car approaching? Because they had come on foot, of course, half a mile from the main road.

  He tried to see through the frosted glass, attempting to discern an outline. It was impossible without a light the other side and that damned porch bulb had gone; he'd found that out a couple of nights ago and had not bothered to replace it. Now, just when he needed it most …

  Ralph Grafton was afraid of nobody. Nor anything, he told himself, as he crossed the length of the hall; his fingers rested for a moment on the Yale knob. Maybe whoever it was outside had been scratching on the kitchen window then darted round to the front door. But why? Why not try the knocker first?

  Slowly he eased the door open, his foot against it, waiting for his eyesight to adjust to the blackness outside. Peering, trying to make out a shape. Anything. But there was nothing; nothing visible, anyway.

  ‘Who's there?’ Grafton's voice was a hoarse whisper that he scarcely recognised, tones that vibrated with his inner fear.

  No answer.

  For fuck's sake who's there?

  There wasn't anybody. He threw the door wide and the light from the hall showed an empty porch, the darkness beyond seeming to hover threateningly as though any second it would close back in, bringing with it whatever nameless horrors it shielded. A warm summer breeze soughed through the trees, rustling the leaves.

  Grafton's nose wrinkled; a stench that was so familiar, a vileness that had come up out of the bowels of the earth, a rancid odour of putrefaction that was unmistakable. The Sucking Pit!

  He stepped back, slammed the door. Oh Christ, this was crazy, he was going mad. He pushed up the catch, locked the door, found himself looking behind him at the kitchen door.

  Trying not to listen. I don't want to hear, I bloody well don't want to hear!

  And at that very instant the telephone rang, a harsh jangling sound that stretched and jarred his nerves, had him cowering away. Answer it, answer that fucking phone! The hand that stretched out trembled so violently that the fingers were barely capable of holding the receiver.

  ‘Grafton speaking.’ His voice shook, tinged with the inner fear that was driving him back towards that brink of panic.

  It took him several seconds to realise what the sound was that buzzed in his ear like an angry bumble bee; the dialling tone. There was nobody on the other end of the line.

  He dropped the receiver. It fell, swung on the flex, bounced against the wall. Its momentum slowed, a steady knock-knock, the incessant dialling tone an echo of that inexplicable scratching sound a few moments ago.

  Oh God, I'm going mad! He ran into the lounge, the only furnished downstairs room, flooded it with light, at the same time slamming the door behind him.

  Those windows; rushing to them, pulling the curtains closed, catching brief glimpses of movements outside before he shut them out. Looking around. Nobody. The room was empty, thank God.

  Feverishly he switched on the stereo, set a tape going. Music, loud and discordant, causing the room to vibrate but it didn't matter. Any noise as long as it was sane, that he knew what was making it. Deafening so that it drowned echoes in his own brain.

  His body was drenched in sweat, his shirt sticking to his skin. He went to the cocktail cabinet, poured himself a large whisky, chipping the cut glass tumbler as he did so; a long gulp that scalded his throat, burned away that awful stench.

  Only then did he sink back into one of the deep leather-covered armchairs, pulling it round so that he faced towards the door. If they came then he wouldn't hear them, he didn't want to. He always boasted that he needed little sleep, tonight he would do without. He was staying right here, wide awake, until dawn came creeping through the curtains. And tomorrow …

  Chris Latimer read through the small item of news in his daily paper twice. His hands shook and his intestines seemed to flip one way, then the other. Not enough to make national headlines, just a page four filler. The print before his eyes blurred and icy fingers stroked his spine.

  Treadman; that had to be the fellow he had been talking with, the one who was going to level the … oh God, he hardly dared think the name of that accursed place. It must have happened soon after Latimer had left, maybe even before he had reached his car on the main road.

  Those greedy fools had opened up the Pit, freed the evil which had been trapped there for a decade or more. There was no way of knowing what the consequences would be.

  Latimer threw the paper down, closed his eyes and saw a lot of things he didn't want to see, shadows out of the past reaching for him, screeching their hate.

  And he knew now that he had to go back, break those vows he'd made only three days ago, resurrect the personal pain and memories. Because the people of Hopwas needed him: he was the only one who could save them from the vengeance of the Sucking Pit.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The youths had always gone to the sand quarries on Sunday afternoons, a kind of ritual which they had established to combat boredom. Nobody bothered them, not even when they rode in on their bikes, L-plates flapping. It was a good place for scrambling because the sand was soft and when you came off you didn't hurt yourself. Also, in dry weather the wheels threw up clouds of dust and that looked spectacular, professional.

  Soon the quarries would be filled in, the huge sand mounds levelled, houses built on them with residents who would complain about weekend biking. They were determined to make the most of the place whilst it was still there.

  It was 2.15 when they rode into Hopwas Wood and followed the snaking Lady Walk - a steady pace, but they were throwing up plenty of dust. Cautious. There could be police around after that business the other day. Or Grafton patrolling and he was a right bastard. He'd had a flare-up with the local Hunt during the last week of February, a real set-to that had made half a column in the local paper. Both sides were to blame: sheer pig-headedness by the MFH against Grafton's stubborn ruthlessness. Hounds and huntsmen had gone across Hopwas Wood lands, maybe a nostalgic trip; it could not be anything else because there wasn't so much as a gorse bush left in which a fox could hide. Possibly the hunt were testing out Grafton or else it was a deliberate pinprick because most of the huntsmen were locals and they resented what had happened to their landscape. They blamed Latimer for selling out to the sand and gravel firm, the latter for desecrating it the way they had, and Grafton for planning to turn it into a housing estate. The flashpoint came when Grafton's Range Rover intercepted the Hunt and the building magnate asked them in no uncertain terms what the hell they were up to trespassing on private land, and unless they cleared off he would be taking a civil action against them. The Hunt had retired ungraciously and another wound was left to fester in the side of the villagers. But Grafton, for some reason, did not appear concerned about motorcyclists using his land on Sunday afternoons. Maybe he hoped that the noise of the bikes would disturb the irate villagers on the Sabbath. Whatever the reason, the five youths were determined to take advantage of it but they were careful not to push their luck too far.

  They turned off the track, ploughed their way through loose sand, circling the steepest mound because they knew their machines wouldn't make it up the slope. A wide noisy detour that brought them on to the rise leading down to … the Sucking Pit!

  ‘That's it.’ Mule
Skinner sat astride his bike, caressed the CB radio which hung suspended from his neck. ‘That's the place where that guy got buried.’

  ‘Christ!’ Whisky Mac licked his lips. ‘It's turned into a bleedin' pool since we was 'ere last week. 'Ow deep d'you reckon it is?’

  ‘They used to say -’ the other adopted an expression of superior knowledge, a pursing of his lips. ‘- that it had no bottom. My dad remembers it in the days before it was first filled in. But it has to have a bottom, doesn't it, else the water would all run out the other end? See what I mean?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Tobacco Joe fished the makings out of his pseudo-leather jacket, began to roll a cigarette, taking his time, demonstrating his skill in front of the other four. ‘You're right there. Say, why don't we go take a closer look?’

  Hesitation. None of them wanted to go down there. But it was up to Mule Skinner; if he said go take a look, they'd go. If he said ‘no’ then that was the let-out they were hoping for.

  Mule Skinner didn't say anything, just revved his bike, began the gradual descent, the others following in the order of seniority which they had come to accept, an integral part of their adolescent gang ritual. Whisky Mac, Tobacco Joe, Gun-toter and, bringing up the rear, Cherokee.

  The sand petered out after a hundred yards or so and they felt firm ground beneath their wheels, rocks and rubble that merged with the furthest point of the latest excavation. Stopping again, the customary half-circle, so that everybody had an unrestricted view. There was no sign of the crack which had opened up to swallow Mick Treadman and his JCB, just a spreading sheet of still, silent black water, some fifteen or twenty yards in circumference. Just looking at it you got the feeling that it would spread further, reclaim the land for its own as the weakened ground around gave way to the subsidence. And deeper too; it wasn't hard to believe the old rumours about it being bottomless. The bikers shivered in spite of the heat.