The Watchers Page 14

  ‘Calm down, everyone! At the moment there is absolutely no reason to think that we are in any danger,’ said Father O’Riorden. ‘The RAF has assured the council—’

  ‘Where is the RAF? Why aren’t they here then?’ someone interrupted. A voice I recognized immediately.

  All heads turned to the man who had spoken, and the hall grew completely silent.

  ‘Frank Frobisher, with the Western Telegraph,’ he said. ‘Father, it is my considered opinion that the military do know more than they are telling us about these sightings – that they may not have our best interests at heart.’

  ‘Isn’t that a little paranoid?

  Frobisher frowned. ‘It’s strange that you of all people—’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That you of all people mistake curiosity as paranoia.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Father O’Riorden, it’s people like you who made me want to be a journalist in the first place.’

  That caught my attention. Was there was something in O’Riorden’s past that had invited Frobisher’s barbed comment? Something shameful? No, that was unlikely. Surely the Havens were too close-knit a community to be unaware of anything of that nature.

  Frobisher was silent a moment longer, then turned back to the crowd. ‘Look, I cannot take the safety of our community on faith alone. I need facts. The American facility at Brawdy is just ten miles from here. So when the children reported the object in the field behind this school, I called the base.’

  ‘I doubt they were much help,’ Father O’Riorden said. ‘It’s an oceanographic research station. Nothing more.’

  Frobisher cocked his head. ‘If you’ll forgive my scepticism, Father, the base answered my telephone call with, “US Naval Facility Brawdy, this is not a secure line.” Why the hell are they worried about secure lines if it’s just an oceanographic research station?’

  A murmur of reflection from the crowd.

  Frobisher began pacing back and forth at the front of the hall as the wind moaned about the school.

  ‘Now let’s be honest: do any of us really know what the mili­tary is doing here?’ he asked. ‘These rumblings we’ve been hearing, what are they? Sonic booms? Explosions under the sea? Drilling? I also spoke to a young man in the military police over at RAF Brawdy. And he told me that he had been told that if there was a chance of bringing any of them down, they were to open fire, but they were all warned not to tell anyone about this.

  ‘Now, you’ve all heard what the children have said,’ the journalist continued. ‘Something very bloody strange came out of the skies last week and landed in the field behind this school. And until someone can tell us what it is, the parish council should do the only sensible thing and close the school.’

  More murmurs.

  The journalist studied us, nodding his head. ‘We have no idea what we’re dealing with here. What if the kids saw some sort of secret government exercise gone wrong? What if that object didn’t land, but crashed? The fact is that we don’t know the first thing about these phenomena.’ He hesitated. ‘More importantly, we don’t know anything about their capabilities, what they might do to us.’

  ‘You’re saying they could be dangerous?’ a young mother demanded.

  Another reaction from the audience.

  ‘I’ve read reports from all over the world,’ Frobisher said. ‘Other machines of the same description can give off blinding light, crippling rays and sometimes beams that immobilize people. Now, these incidents are rare, but even so—’

  ‘Excuse me, but I have something to say.’

  The weight of the crowd’s gaze was hardly reassuring as I stood up, but Father O’Riorden gave an encouraging smile and gestured me to speak.

  At that moment I felt closer to my mother’s mission than ever. I wondered if anyone in the hall dreamed that their community could be a strike target for the Russians, that tactical nuclear weapons were likely stored just a few miles away. But the last thing these people needed now was to panic. If secret American aircraft – or other dangerous experiments – were to blame it was vital I attempted to prevent panic from setting in. Nothing was more certain to exacerbate the risk of an inter­national incident with the Soviets.

  ‘Um, hello, everyone. I don’t think many of you know me, but this used to be my home, and I hate seeing everyone so distressed at something that is bound to have a sensible explanation.’

  Silence.

  God, I really was an awful public speaker! Always had been. I could hear that my Welsh accent, which had rubbed off a little in London, had deepened, and I cringed when I admitted I had worked for Paul Bestford. No one trusted politicians, especially ones with ruddy faces who rarely showed up in their constituencies, but they needed to know who I was. They needed to know they could trust me. ‘We need to keep this in perspective. The last thing we want are more TV camera crews and reporters here. I’ve learned a bit about the advancement of military technology. Super-speed aircraft.’

  More silence. Expectant eyes on me.

  But how could I tell them about what was really motivating me now: about the attack on Parliament, Selina and the peculiar drawing passed to her by Colonel Corso.

  ‘I can visit the American facility, and I am reasonably certain, given my background, I can convince them to agree to a meeting. Let me find out more before we give in to panic and speculation.’

  Father O’Riorden let out a long breath. ‘I think that sounds eminently sensible, Mr Wilding.’

  I looked at Frank Frobisher, then into the headmaster’s pinched face and said in a calm voice, ‘There’s got to be a rational explanation for these events, and I’m determined to find out what that is. In the meantime, shutting the school is unnecessary. It will only create panic.’

  Mr Cooper paused for just a moment too long. And I knew that I had failed. ‘If these phenomena are indeed harmful to our health, until we can explain what our children saw and can guarantee their safety, I can see no other option.’ He nodded decisively. ‘Close the school. Nobody is safe.’

  – 19 –

  The assembly hall erupted. ‘We must organize a sky watch,’ someone was shouting. Ethel Dunwoody, the postmistress. ‘We must know the truth. Investigate for ourselves, set up an observation point with cameras.’

  ‘Perfect!’ said the headmaster. He had pounced on the suggestion as if he had been praying for it. ‘It’s the only way to keep our town safe. When?’

  ‘How about Tuesday night?’

  The suggestion came from the landlord of the Ram Inn and was met with a murmur of agreement.

  Why Tuesday? That’s five days from now. Was it a special day? Were sightings of UFOs more likely on a Tuesday? Or was it simply an arbitrary date plucked from the confusion? I opened my mouth to ask, only to hear the headmaster answer my question first.

  ‘Tuesday’s the night of the lunar eclipse, isn’t it? The eyes of the nation will be on the skies.’

  There were cheers and cries of dissent. I could barely make out who was saying what until the door into the hall banged open behind us with startling force.

  Everyone stared.

  The man advancing towards the front of the hall was swinging a substantial handbell loudly and with purpose. I felt a sickening drop in my stomach. It was my grandfather.

  Wearing a stained and shabby long coat, Randall possessed the dark gritty presence of a warrior. He was carrying something slung over his left shoulder, something I couldn’t quite make out.

  ‘Mr Pritchard?’ Father O’Riorden hesitated. ‘Please.’

  But Randall, face twisted, mouth tight, only swung the bell harder, and as the clanging reverberated around the hall some of the younger children pressed their hands to their ears. My grandfather paced to the front of the hall, swinging the bell with all the passion of an aggravated headmaster at the end of the lunch hour. It was embarrassing and startling to see m
y only surviving relative behaving so outlandishly, but also oddly arresting. Every eye was on him.

  ‘Be sober-minded, be watchful,’ he shouted, and wheeled on the crowd raising his chin defiantly. ‘It says so in the Lord’s book! Oh yes, my friends, your adversary the devil prowls like a lion, seeking someone to devour. The Lawless One will arrive with all power, signs and lying wonders. You all speak of finding truth, but when you see it, you may wish you had never looked.’

  A sea of suspicious eyes watched him. Whispers rose. I shook my head to regain clarity and focused. Then saw the scar on his left cheek, the scar like a crooked smile.

  I was relieved he hadn’t spotted me yet, but I had worked out what was slung over his left shoulder – a tattered brown sack. Those nearest shrank away from it, covering their noses with their sleeves. That sack was full of something, shapes impossible to make out. Until he held the sack aloft and dumped its contents onto the parquet floor with a repulsive wet thud.

  I recognized the stench of death immediately and gagged. How many dead rabbits were there? Easily five, maybe six.

  A woman shrieked.

  ‘He’s mad!’ someone shouted. And, as if in agreement, a few people at the back stood and began to walk out, some shaking their heads, some looking back nervously.

  To his credit the headmaster was first to intervene. ‘Randall!’ he roared, stepping towards my grandfather, eyes furious, arms outstretched.

  Randall only raised his hand. ‘Listen to what I have to say! Then I’ll go.’

  He stooped, grabbed one of the dead rabbits and held it up for us all to see.

  ‘Please,’ Father O’Riorden said, ‘you’re frightening the children.’

  ‘That’s the point!’ Randall’s voice scraped as his glance swept the room. His nostrils flared, one finger pointed. ‘The lights in the sky, the strange sounds, the mysterious objects on the ground are all supposed to be frightening. They are supposed to make us doubt our sanity. They intend to bring us down!’

  My horrified eyes fell on the rabbit carcasses, then went to the one in Randall’s gnarled hand. The creature’s head wasn’t right somehow.

  ‘The things from the sky cloak themselves in deception,’ Randall shouted. ‘They preserve their identity through invisibility and mendacity. And they are responsible for this!’

  I could not tear my eyes from the rabbit hanging limp in Randall’s grip, the bright white bone on display. And then I realized.

  ‘They’re mutilated,’ I heard myself say as I tumbled back, sickeningly, into my childhood.

  *

  I think the worst sorts of memories are those we suppress. If we’re fortunate, they remain buried. But sometimes those memories can rise like cadavers clawing their way up through the earth – as mine did when I saw those mutilated animals.

  Thirteen years old at Ravenstone Farm. I had gone to bed after Sunday lunch, not feeling well, and woke late in the afternoon, abruptly. I lay on my bed, still in the grip of sleep, watching the wind sweep fresh snow across the yard and listening to the sea beyond the fields. Listening, also, to something banging downstairs, over and over.

  The kitchen door? Yes. Open, swinging back and forth in the wind. Grandfather must have forgotten to lock it.

  But he always locked it.

  Questions became doubt. Then fear. I dressed quickly. Downstairs snow drifted into the kitchen and the stinging wind drew me outside. It didn’t matter that the ground was thick with snow as I set off down the gloomy rutted track towards the fields. Why? To prove I wasn’t just a child? To tell him, in my own way, that I would never obey him, that in this way he could never replace my parents? Maybe. But as I hurried on past the cattle sheds, the low-hanging trees, hearing the crunch of my footsteps in the packed snow, I sensed a disquieting power in the air drawing me on, inside my head the restless beat of a thought: He left the door open.

  And where was Grandfather? No sign of him in the yard, or anywhere.

  I thought I heard Jasper barking. ‘Jasper!’ I called. I pictured him trapped somewhere, whining and shivering and alone.

  What was that? On the far side of the last field, nearest the coastal path, I had caught a glimpse of something glinting. Perhaps a boat out at sea?

  By the time I had crossed the field, the light had gone. I stood alone on the cliff edge in the rushing cold, and I knew that it wasn’t by chance that I was standing here. Something had brought me there. Something purposeful.

  The sea between the coastal path and Stack Rocks was rough, and from the waves a mournful melody sang to me. Somehow I just knew: it was this exact stretch of water that had claimed my parents.

  Another bark. Hope sprang within me and I ran. ‘Jasper!’

  I was already halfway into the next field – the one from which I was most strictly prohibited – when I saw the standing stones arranged in a circle. Thirteen in total. Grandfather had never mentioned them.

  Something made me turn. Not a noise. Not a movement. Just a palpable sense of something other. And I saw with dreadful clarity the wiry shape of a man in the drifting snow. I knew it wasn’t a farmer. I knew too the rumours about this stretch of coast. Burial mounds, earthworks, ghosts, smugglers and secret tunnels.

  I pulled my coat around me and took a step back. The figure was too far away for me to discern its features, even though it seemed to be facing me head on now – watching me. The shape of a brimmed hat coated with snow was clear, but little else. Only the points of light where his eyes should have been – like tiny flickering flames – and the grim certainty that I was in the presence of something sinister. Malevolent.

  Fear made me cover my eyes for one heartbeat, two, three. I peeped between my fingers. The figure was gone.

  It wasn’t safe out here. I had to go back. But not without Jasper. He was out here somewhere; I’d heard him bark. I was sure that if I searched, I would find him. I didn’t. The snow was too thick. Sobbing and scared I ran towards the house, hoping Jasper had made it back, that I’d imagined his barking and the diabolical figure in the snow.

  Back at the farmhouse Grandfather was waiting.

  He pounced on me as I entered the kitchen, dug his fingers into my arm so hard they left a bruise. I would never again defy him, he insisted. For the sake of my soul, I would kneel with him in prayer.

  Confusion turned to terror as he dragged me into his study. To pray.

  Jasper didn’t return home. The next day, and the next, I went back to the lower fields in secret. Checked over and over, just to be sure I hadn’t missed any vital clues. Nothing. Only on the third day, when the snow was beginning to melt, did I find my best friend. The morning was blazing white, and a bite in the air warned of trouble as I approached the coastal path. There was a strange odour like stinking sulphur. I took a few more steps.

  At first I thought the shape protruding through the melt was a fallen branch. It wasn’t. The snow wasn’t white, either. It was pink. I walked faster until I reached the thing, forced myself to look down.

  Not a branch, a leg. Jasper’s leg: stiff, matted fur.

  I dug him up. I dug him up with my bare hands. The flesh on his neck and head had been entirely sliced away, exposing clean white bone. Where his eyes had been, there were just two black holes. His tail and one ear were missing. And a small hole in the centre of his head showed – I learned afterwards – where the brain had been completely removed. No teeth marks. No clue.

  A surge of nausea rose in my throat. Then I heard the crows. Perched like sentinels on the branch of a nearby tree and eyeing Jasper’s carcass. Normally they would pick over the dead, but perhaps these scavengers knew better than to interfere with the work of something outside nature.

  Fear replaced grief. I ran until my legs were burning towards the relative safety of Ravenstone Farm, stalked by the memory of the sinister dark figure in the brimmed hat whose eyes had flickered
like fire.

  *

  ‘For God’s sake, restrain him!’ someone shouted, and I was pulled back from the memory of that horrendous day to the meeting at the school. Suddenly one of the parents near the front of the hall was lunging towards the man I hadn’t seen for ten years.

  Wait!’ I held up a hand against the stunned crowd. My gaze went again to the rabbit hanging from Randall’s gnarled fist. ‘Just wait.’

  Part of me was thinking of some way to deny what I was now seeing; most of me was thinking of what I was going to say to Randall when he recognized me.

  ‘He’s right,’ Randall said, looking my way. ‘Examine the rabb . . .’

  He looked at me with clear intensity, his expression unreadable.

  ‘Hello, boy.’ His voice was like dry leaves, a voice belonging to another time. The years had put vast cobwebs of lines around his eyes, but although his face was thinner he was still powerfully built for a man of his age. ‘You . . . you should not have come.’

  I felt all colour drain from my face. All I could think was, The kitchen door . . . the man in the snow.

  Ravenstone Farm, me, Randall.

  I thought back over the hundreds of times I had checked windows and doors, the number of pills I must have swallowed just to keep control of my nerves, and felt only hatred for the man who was supposed to have cared for me. No wonder I had turned out this way.

  I had to force myself to go nearer to him. I felt like I was walking through fog.

  The windows in the school hall were creaking under the rising wind as I knelt and examined the carcasses, feeling Randall’s hard gaze pressing against my back.

  ‘I forgot,’ I whispered as I reached out, daring to touch one of the rabbits.

  ‘Forgot?’ echoed the headmaster, looking on.

  My heart was weighing heavily in my chest. How could I have forgotten Jasper?

  A voice in my head replied, Except you forgot more than Jasper, didn’t you, Rob?

  ‘Those rabbits were killed by predators, surely?’ Father O’Riorden said.