“And then…oh God!…and then…Dan’s yelling turned to screaming! He’d started to run, stumbling toward me, but…
“Out the corner of my eye I saw them hit him, knocking him down. Just two of them, and Dan a big lad and strong. But despite that they look thin and wispy as smoke, these creatures have this amazing, terrible strength! They held him down, their jaws extended, going at him where he kicked and jerked in the deepening mist. I wanted desperately to divert my fire from the front, to strike at these things that were sucking on Dan; but Ned and me, we already had all we could handle. And anyway, I knew that Dan was done for. Between howling bursts of fire from Ned’s big gun and the crack of single shots from my rifle, I even fancied I could hear the sound of siphoning as they sucked him dry!
“And so I kept on firing—kept missing, too, the way those monsters wove and warped—but it seemed Ned was doing okay: I saw two, maybe three fly-by-nights shredded, blown apart in his sleeting fire! And Ned was stamping his feet, shouting at them, mouthing senseless rubbish and cursing them to every hell where they were weaving, closing in on us!
“Then I saw that my original count had been wrong, or maybe more of the things had been following on close behind the first batch. Despite that we’d taken a few of them out there were now at least nine or ten, plus the two that were feeding on Dan—
“—Except they’d finished with Dan and were now coming for me!
“I prayed God my ammo stayed good, reloaded, turned my fire on Dan’s murderers. I was protecting myself, yes, but these two were the closest, the most dangerous, and surely Ned’s machine gun would take care of the rest. All he need do was stand there and let rip as they got even closer.
“Fuelled by Dan’s blood, but full of lust, too, the eyes of my two flared like lamps as they came on; and it was their eyes I aimed at. These creatures are crazed, maniacal at the best of times, and maybe their bloodlust—their success with poor Dan—had made them even more so. It seemed they just didn’t give a damn, the way they flew at me! Which was all to my benefit.
“No more than ten feet away, the head of the first fly-by-night flew apart, and the other simply shouldered the crumpling corpse aside as it came on. Its jaws gaped wide, dripping Dan’s blood, and its claw hands reached for me as I triggered off one last shot to take its head off. My last shot, yes, because that was when my rifle jammed! That bloody ammo! Dan Coulter and me, we’d both loaded up with ammo from the same batch!
“There was nothing more I could do—but I didn’t just run. Anyway, I don’t think my legs would have let me run! So instead I looked to Ned Singer to see how he was doing. And he had been doing just fine: there were a lot of heaped shapes sprawled out in the ground mist that hadn’t been there before. But even as I watched him Ned’s weapon stopped its deafening howling, and for all that he shook it this way and that—clawing at the working parts which weren’t working, cursing and yanking desperately on the trigger—still that treacherous gun stayed silent!
“Bad ammunition again? Maybe, though his was of a different caliber to mine. Or perhaps Ned’s gun had overheated, or simply jammed? Any and all such failures weren’t at all unlikely—but in his situation each of them was deadly!
“Four fly-by-nights remained, for a moment coming to a halt and as before standing stock still. But then, as Ned turned to run, they seemed to merge, flowing over him like so much vile, evil filth! Except…they weren’t going at him as the others had gone at Dan; they didn’t appear to be sucking on him, siphoning off his blood. No, they were lifting him up, one creature to each of his limbs. And big man that Ned is—that he was—they carried him away, drifting off with him into the darkness. But you know, he didn’t go easily, not Ned Singer.
“Minutes later—when my legs came back to life and I could finally stumble out of there—I could still hear him screaming however faintly, distantly. By then too most of the gunfire and other sounds of battle had ceased, and armed wild-eyed men were beginning to arrive on the scene with breathless questions that I didn’t have the strength to answer, not just then…”
As Halbstein came to the end of his report, so another man stepped forward: the sly, unpopular, scar-faced Arthur Robeson, attending the meeting only by reason of the weapon he was bearing: Ned Singer’s machine gun. “I was one of the men who went to help on the perimeter when things had quietened down a bit,” he said.
“When it was all over, you mean!” Peder Halbstein spat the words out. “I remember that, all right: that you were among the last—that in fact you were the last—of the men who showed up! You didn’t seem concerned about poor Dan Coulter, or me for that matter; you only asked after your old friend Ned. And when a handful of the men ventured forward to see if they could find any sign of him you followed them—at least far enough to pick up his fallen weapon!”
“Are you accusing me of something?” Robeson snapped, driven back a pace.
“Nothing!” said Halbstein. “Which is all I’ve ever seen you do—nothing—except maybe grease around Ned Singer, and run his errands!”
“Huh!” the other exclaimed, and: “Man, you’re babbling! And anyway, I didn’t come here to be insulted. Only to explain what killed Ned. A bullet was stuck in the loading mechanism, and it appears he never had a chance to clear it. Perhaps if he’d had some decent back-up…”
“Why you—!” Halbstein moved to face him at close quarters, but Big Jon got in his way.
“Now hold!” the leader roared. “Enough of that! Everybody’s nerves are frazzled, including mine, shot to pieces by the worst fly-by-night attack we’ve yet experienced—but not necessarily the last. We lost seven men last night, and Ned Singer was just one of them. Well, from all I’ve heard he accounted well for himself and for the clan. He wasn’t everyone’s favourite personality, but by God he knew how to fight fly-by-nights! And in that respect we’ll surely miss him. Let nothing detract from that.”
“Ned was one of the strongest, one of the best!” said Robeson. At which Garth’s father rounded on him as quick as Peder Halbstein had done only moments earlier:
“Oh really, one of the best was he? And just how would you know that, Arthur Robeson? Did you ever scav with him—or with anybody else for that matter? Have you ever ventured out in the night with a gun in your hand and a lump in your throat to face and perhaps kill a fly-by-night or two? No? Huh! I didn’t think so!”
“No, I never scavenged!” the other protested. “But I had a job, back in the Southern Refuge. I…I sorted precious salvage, and I…I helped out in the farms!”
“Aye,” Big Jon nodded wisely. “And always found good reason to stay close to home, as I recall. Well, no shame in that, not when there was work to be done down in the guts of the old labyrinth. Ah, but that was then and this is now; and there’s nothing of salvage now, and no farms along the way of the trek! But we are going to be in need of seven new outriders and watchmen; which means I’ll be looking for volunteers. So maybe you’d best hang on to Ned’s big weapon, Arthur, and get it in good working order. And I’ll thank you now for being the first to offer your services!”
“What?” Robeson barely whispered the word, but he knew well enough Big Jon’s meaning, and his scar stood out like a gash on his suddenly pale face. The leader had already turned away from him, however, and was addressing the rest of the group:
“So then, is there any more business? No? But there is work to be done and plenty of it, for we must be out of here well in advance of nightfall. One night like the last was one too many, and if we stay on here those monsters are sure to be back…”
Heading back toward the car park as the morning air brightened, Garth spoke to his father:
“Weren’t you and Big Jon Lamon being a bit hard on Robeson? It’s not as if everyone has what it takes to be a scav. I mean, it’s hardly the right kind of work for someone with bad nerves, any man who is easily frightened, or a man who—”
“—Who isn’t a man at all?” Zach cut him short. “Peder Halbstein was
right, and Big Jon too. As long as I’ve known Robeson he’s only been good at one thing, or maybe two: sneaking around and doing as little as he can get away with! Until this morning I had wondered if I was of that opinion simply because I didn’t much care for the man’s looks, but now it seems Big Jon is of a like mind. And you know, Jon Lamon is a damn good judge of character. Anyway, the hell with all that! Any friend of Singer’s—dead or alive—is no friend of ours!”
Inclined to agree, Garth nodded, and after a moment’s pause said: “You and Big Jon have always been good friends, right?”
“We grew up and were scavs together,” Zach replied. “Why do you ask about something that should seem obvious to you?”
“Because back there at the meeting in the church, there was that moment when I thought you were about to argue with him, or at least talk back to him.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, it was when he said that nothing good comes of speaking ill of the dead. I somehow had the feeling you didn’t much go along with that, and I wondered why.”
Zach looked taken aback. “You thought I didn’t respect the dead?” he answered. “Well then, you were wrong. I’ve got nothing against the dead; I was speaking of Ned Singer’s character when he was alive! The way he was treating you.”
Which sounded a little like sophistry to Garth, who frowned and began to comment: “But—”
“No buts about it!” his father growled. “Listen: the fly-by-nights took him away alive, it’s true; probably to drain him of his blood at their leisure, then to eat his flesh. We must hope it’s so! Ah, but I see a certain look on your face! What, shock is it? Well, don’t you worry, for I didn’t hate him that much—I could never hate any man that much! But son, between life and death as we understand such conditions, there’s another kind of existence known only to the fly-by-nights, by which they ‘live’ and ‘reproduce,’ if such words make any sense at all when speaking of them! And frankly that’s why I prefer Ned Singer dead. By which I mean truly dead, very definitely dead, and gone forever!”
And finally, as understanding dawned, Garth said no more…
During the following handful of days life was scarcely idyllic; not even for recently wedded Garth and Layla Slattery, for whom true happiness remained far distant in a longed-for Eden beyond the northern horizon. However, their new-found joy in each other never faltered, and the few rare occasions when they could sleep in each other’s arms they sometimes dreamed of that northern Eden.
Less agreeably but more often, they also nightmared, as did the majority of the clanfolk: both the younger and less experienced members and the older, more hardened travellers alike; in particular the outriders and the men of the night-watch. And as the disparate makeshift vehicles and trailers had gone creaking and groaning along—not only during night hours but almost as frequently in daylight too, now that the blazing sun posed less of a threat—there had rarely been a lack of things to nightmare and worry about.
For one thing the trek had no sooner got underway again—heading due north as before, on a route determined by Big Jon’s tattered handful of ancient maps and faded notes, the legacy of long-dead forebears—when on the fourth evening, as the convoy made camp in woods shaded by sheer cliffs, unassuming head tech Andrew Fielding regretfully informed the leader of an inexplicable increase in background radiation.
“That town back there,” he had said, giving his head a bewildered shake, “I don’t know: maybe it was the exception that proves the rule? Surrounded by low hills like that, it’s possible that after those mercifully brief hours of insane nuclear warfare so long ago those hills were effective in deflecting or containing a lot of the fallout. As for the well in the churchyard: it was probably sourced by an aquifer so deep underground that surface radiation never found its way down there to poison the water.”
“But that was then and this is now,” Big Jon had answered, his broad shoulders sagging a little. “Are you telling me that after barely four days we’re back to square one with the radiation and what all?”
“Well, perhaps it’s not quite that bad,” Fielding had answered, making as light as he could of the situation. “But it’s definitely not as good as we were hoping.”
“And the ozone layer?” queried the leader, obviously sorely disappointed. “What of that? Or was it just wishful thinking?”
“No, not really. There has been something of an upsurge in solar or ultraviolet radiation, but even when the sky is cloudless from horizon to horizon, still the levels constantly fluctuate. Even at their worst, however, they’re still weaker than any readings I ever recorded outside the Southern Refuge. Thus it would seem that in this latitude the ozone layer is forever shifting, waxing and waning. Or perhaps the changes are due to sunspots? I’m sorry but I just don’t know! Maybe if I had made a greater effort to study surface conditions down south in the old times…if I had spent more time above ground? But no, I had my work cut out for me in the refuge…” With which he had offered his customary, apologetic shrug.
“Hmm! Well, to my mind you’ve already done far too much of that!” Big Jon had told him. “Going out to take your readings, I mean; out there in the sunlight, without a decent radiation suit. Oh, I’ve seen you often enough! Just make sure you don’t do it once too often, my friend, for we certainly can’t afford to lose such as you.”
“Thank you for that,” the head tech had gratefully replied, “but it’s my job—it’s what I do—and if I don’t keep an eye on it, then who will? Anyway, I find I always sleep much better knowing exactly how strong our enemy is!”
“Huh!” said Big Jon. “‘Our enemy’—even the golden sun—our enemy!” And then as an afterthought, with a sharp glance at the sky, which was beginning to lose some of its brightness, he had continued: “Aye, but by no means our only enemy…”
Having been called to attend Big Jon, Garth and his father had been present during this conversation, and since nightfall had been only an hour or two away they not only understood Big Jon’s comment but something else, possibly, of why he’d wanted to see them. And as the soft-spoken head tech had wandered off, still shaking his head, finally the leader had turned to father and son.
“Speaking of enemies,” he had said, “the shadows are already lengthening. Dusk in little over an hour, and an hour later the dark of night. Well, I’ve recruited or ‘volunteered’ some men to replace the ones we lost, but not yet enough. Fortunately these almost sheer cliffs, in some places overhanging, make easy work of guarding our western flank; why, they’ll do the job for us—for even fly-by-nights are subject to gravity! So then there’ll be plenty of men to guard the front and the rear of the convoy—‘the thin ends,’ as it were—but the most important flank by far is to the east, which is to say the sprawling length of the entire column.
“And now to the point. Garth, I would like a word with you, if I may. And your father should hear it, too, so that he knows my mind and what I’m asking of you.”
“Of course, sir,” Garth had answered, and nodded. And Zach had added:
“Go on then, Jon…what is it?”
“Lad—” Big Jon had begun, grasping Garth’s upper arm in a huge hand “—or perhaps ‘lad’ is more than a little demeaning, for I’ve had my eye on you and you’ve certainly proved yourself as worthy a man as any of the best of the clan’s men—but anyway: you’re just recently wed; what, all of three or four days? And you and Layla have scarcely been having the best time of it together. What with outriding when we move by night and patrols and night-watches when we’re camped up—as right now—well, it hasn’t been an ideal beginning for a young couple just starting out. I know there’s been one hell of a weight of responsibility on your young shoulders, and a whole world of worry, too; especially on Layla, when you’re out there in the dark guarding the convoy. And now here I go, proposing to add yet more weight and responsibility!”
Again Garth’s nod as Big Jon had paused, and: “Tell me what you want,” he said, “and whatever it is I?
??ll do the best I can as long as I’m able, just as long as it helps to keep Layla and the convoy safe.”
“Which is exactly how it should be!” The leader had at once replied. “But I’m about to ask a great deal of you, and you being so young and all—and if Zach Slattery’s good blood wasn’t running in your veins—then I wouldn’t dream of asking so much. Anyway, let me tell you what I’m talking about:
“You see, I’m far from happy with the way things stand, and there are changes I must make. For example, now that Ned Singer is gone we’re short of one scav boss…no, hold—let me try that again; for scavs as such are now things of the past. We’re short of one team boss, a man to patrol and control the outriders on the move, and the night-watch when we’re at a standstill. Singer had the biggest team; his crew worked very well together before your bust-up and I believe they should stay together. So it’s Ned’s old team that will be guarding the eastern flank tonight, and which will be performing most of the tougher jobs in future. So as a member of that team, what do you say to that?”
In answer to which Garth had offered a puzzled shrug, answering, “Well, it’s only what I expected, what I’ve been getting used to, and what’s best for the convoy and clan, I’m sure. And even after suffering that attack back in the ruined town, still I think the team has held together—but how best to put it?—as well as can be expected, maybe; and at the very least reasonably well, under Peder Halbstein.”
“Hmmm!” Big Jon had nodded thoughtfully. “Reasonably well, eh? Loyal to the last! But as for Peder Halbstein, well that’s something else. Are you saying you’ve seen no change in Peder? Ah, but no—you don’t need to answer that, Garth—for I sense that in this case the truth wouldn’t sit well with you. And the truth is that Peder Halbstein’s no longer the man for that kind of pressure. To be honest, he simply can’t handle it; he hasn’t fully recovered from the doings of that terrible night. And the few hours of sleep he gets, Peder nightmares, wakes up shouting, crying out to his old pal Dan Coulter. His hair is going white, and he’s rapidly losing weight; his face is grey and gaunt, and he gets the shakes, trembles and stutters. No, he’s been a scav, an outrider and night-watchman for too long; he’s done his fair share. So let me ask you once again—not only for the good of the clan, you understand, but also for Peder’s—are you really saying you’ve seen no change in him?”