Part 26 (2/2)

”Here.”

Nigel is in the field beyond the hedge, which has broken out in beads of fog like sweat. However welcome Nigel's company is, Ross is cold enough without risking wet feet. What are you doing there?” he calls.

”See.”

He must be impatient if he has so few words at his disposal. Perhaps he's as eager not to be alone as Ross, who 332 332.

jogs across the deserted road to search for a gap in the hedge. Its countless beads have begun to remind him of dull yet watchful eyes. He's behind the diner when he finds a stile half overgrown by the bushes on either side. He takes hold of the right-hand post and steps on the lower rung. The wood feels spongy and slippery, and his handful of it exudes moisture as chill as the fog. Resentment close to disgust makes him shout ”I've lost you. Where have you got to?”

”Here.”

Nigel's somewhere on or near the muddy glistening path that extends out of the blanket of shadow draped across the hedge, impaled on it. As Ross clambers over the stile his silhouette appears to lift its head above the roof of the diner before flinching out of sight like a soldier ducking into a trench. He pretends he didn't see that or feel it was in any way appropriate as he plants one foot on the earth.

Under the lush sodden gra.s.s it's even less firm than he expected. His heel slithers over it before sinking at least an inch, and he glimpses moisture swelling up around his shoe. Surely the terrain has to be more solid farther on for Nigel to sound so unconcerned about wherever he's waiting. Ross lowers his other foot and attempts to steady himself before he relinquishes his grip on the oozing stile. As he plods cautiously forward his shadow hauls itself with a series of jerks out of the trench it's part of and begins to merge with the darkening earth. He's out of the darkness cast by the diner, but with every squelching pace he takes the fog around and behind him grows dirtier, as though it's sucking up mud. He hasn't progressed more than a few hundred yards along the flattened slimy trail when he finds he can barely distinguish it from the rest of the soaked field. ”How much further?” he protests.

”Here.”

Nigel sounds close. The question is whether the last of 333 the glow from the retail park will have fallen short by the time Ross finds him. He must be able to see, otherwise how can he show Ross what's there? Perhaps that's it ahead, a low mound about six feet long over which the hem of the fog is trailing. No, it's a man stretched flat on the earth to peer into some kind of burrow. It's Nigel. ”What are you doing?” Ross blurts.

Nigel doesn't answer. He's so engrossed in his discovery that he doesn't even move. What could be so fascinating it would make him lie in the mud? Ross hurries to him, but his haste is worse than useless; his vision has to catch up with the thick s.h.i.+fting gloom, and he can't separate the hollow Nigel is examining from the overgrown earth around it. He crouches, gripping his knees so their s.h.i.+vering won't topple him over, and ducks his head as near to Nigel's as he can without losing his balance.

His eyes still aren't equal to the dimness. He won't even consider what he appears to be seeing. With a grimace he rests one hand on the earth, which seems to s.h.i.+ft to greet it, and brings his head almost level with Nigel's. The choked glow from the retail park begins to settle faintly on it--that is, his vision starts to grasp what's in front of him. He struggles to believe he's mistaken, but the sight is just too clear to be illusory. There's no hollow around Nigel's head. His face is buried so deep in the soil that it covers his ears.

How long has it been since he spoke? Surely not long enough for him to have stopped breathing. Ross stays more or less in his crouch as he shuffles frantically to grab Nigel's shoulders from in front. Has Nigel already tried to raise himself? Every joint of his thumbs and every inch of his fingers are buried in the earth at the ends of his arms flung wide. Ross heaves at Nigel's shoulders while he labours to stand up, but Nigel won't budge. In desperation Ross thrusts his fingertips into the mud, squeezing it under his nails, and locates Nigel's cheekbones. When he tugs at 334 them Nigel's head wobbles up on its stiffening neck as the ground that was moulded to his face emits a s...o...b..ry gasp. Tears of relief or grat.i.tude stream down his blackened cheeks, and then Ross sees the liquid is part of the mud that coats not only Nigel's face but also his eyes, which would otherwise be staring blindly. It has plugged his nostrils too, and appears to have forced his jaws to gape their widest so that it can fill his mouth.

The sound that escapes Ross as he flounders backwards leaves its words behind. Nigel's face slaps the earth, which sets about reclaiming it at once. Ross sprawls full length on his back and jackknifes upwards, terrified that the mud will swallow him. He's unable to think or to orient himself. Although he seems to remember approaching Nigel from the far side, the glow from the retail park is behind Ross now. As he staggers upright it's strong enough to spill his faint shadow over the mound of hair, all that remains visible of Nigel's engulfed head. It looks as though one of the tufts of muddy gra.s.s has been mounted on his neck. Ross strives to clear his mind of the sight as he flees, s.h.i.+vering with his entire body and maddened by the icy wetness that clings to the whole of the back of him, towards the retail park.

Yet another reason why he's close to panic is that the fog is thickening. That has to be why the light appears to be retreating into it, matching his pace. Shouldn't he have reached the stile or at least the hedge by now? He risks looking away from the glimmering track long enough to glance over his shoulder in case he can judge how far he has progressed. Nigel has been erased by the fog into which Ross's footprints trail, an irregular series of depressions in the flattened path. He faces forward, only to wonder what he overlooked. His head throbs with the effort and then with realising. There was just one set of his footprints behind him; there are none ahead. At this moment the glow he's following ceases to hover. From sailing as 335 high as a floodlight it sinks through the fog into the earth, abandoning Ross to the dark.

He stumbles to a halt, or at least as much of one as his s.h.i.+vers will permit, and glares at the suffocating blackness. His eyes are so parched of sleep that they're dreaming of light, shapeless waves of it that drain away and reappear in time with his pounding heartbeat. Though his vision is useless, he should still be able to find his way back. He only needs to turn the way he came, and surely he'll be able to discern enough not to trip over Nigel by the time he reaches him. He inches his left foot around until it's more or less at right angles to the other. His stance feels unstable even when he presses his feet together, but he simply has to repeat the manoeuvre and he should be ready to walk. He's edging his left foot away once more when behind him Nigel speaks his name.

Ross spins around without thinking. His feet skid on marshy ground, and he's terrified of losing his balance. He flails at the clinging invisible fog with both arms and manages to remain standing, but now he has absolutely no idea where he is in relation to the shops. He's turning his head as gradually as his latest fit of shakes will allow, and narrowing his eyes in the hope that may help him identify some hint of light, when Nigel calls out again. His voice is at the level of Ross's waist and sounds close enough for Ross to touch him.

Ross shrinks away. His fingers dig into his palms rather than risk brus.h.i.+ng against Nigel's face stuffed with mud. He finds himself striving to recall anything his father has told him that can help, but his skull is cluttered with sayings of his father's like chunks of useless rubble sticking out of murk: be yourself, do what you have to, don't drive tomorrow unless you're sure you're awake... How can Nigel speak when his mouth is packed with earth? But he does, this time from the direction Ross recoiled in. Ross hurls himself forward with no thought except to dodge out 336 of range. He no longer cares where he's treading, but he should. The ground slides his feet from under him, pitching him into blackness.

He thrusts his hands out just in time for them to sink into unseen mud, taking his wrists with them. As he props himself on his quivering arms, Nigel's voice addresses him. ”Ross see here,” it chortles sluggishly, and before it has finished speaking it echoes itself from the other side of him: ”Ross see here.” He hears the pair of mimics take shapeless shuffling paces towards him, but all he's able to think is how pointless the whole game has been; why bother enticing him into the dark when he was helpless once he fell beside Nigel? At once he's almost throttled by a sense of vast resentment of his ability still to think--a sense of malevolence with a solitary purpose as primitive as itself: to reduce him to its own mindless state. As though aroused by his understanding, it fills his nostrils with an exhalation that smells like water stale beyond words, like the breath of an ancient toothless mouth--the mouth that gulps his arms up to the shoulders. Before it closes over all of him it gives him time to experience how it's composed not quite of mud, not quite of gelatinous flesh, but worse than both. 337

JAKE.

He 'so so on edge with straining his eyes for Ross or headlights 'so so on edge with straining his eyes for Ross or headlights every time he thinks he glimpses movement of something more solid than fog that Woody's giant voice almost makes him drop a book. ”Hey, I'm the only one around here that needs to wait. Any idea how I can help all of you work?”

Jake's first reaction is to duck guiltily to find the right location for the book or at least pretend he has, but he can't resist watching Connie frown at Greg in case he presumes to respond. The only aspect of the present situation that gives Jake any pleasure is how Greg has started to annoy people besides him. Greg is either unaware of Connie's feelings or ignoring them. He raises his face as though catching more of the slimy light may help him think, unless he's miming thought for Woody's benefit. As Connie emits a compressed breath like the reverse of a sniff, Mad says ”What's that?”

She's peering down the aisle she's in and along the one that leads to the exit to the staffroom. ”What are you seeing?” Jill asks across the shelves. 338 ”Under the door.”

Jill cranes her neck and then ventures down her aisle to veer into the one Mad hasn't glanced away from. ”I can't see anything,” she admits.

”Me neither with you in the way.”

”Sorry,” Jill says, to some extent as though she is, and backs against the nearest shelves, only for Mad to complain ”Now I can't either. I could have sworn there was, I don't know, a big stain on the floor.”

Jill is following her frustrated gaze out of politeness when Woody demands ”What am I seeing now? Who called time out?”

”It's nothing,” Connie tells him. ”Just a mistake. I expect we're all getting tired.” Before Greg can raise the objection he's opened his mouth for, she adds ”Some of us, anyway.”

Mad takes the criticism to be aimed at her but seems uncertain whether to focus her resentment on Connie or Jill. As Connie tramps back to her shelving Jake returns to his. He's hoping it may conceal him from the tensions he feels gathering like a storm, but it offers no refuge. Once he has found s.p.a.ce for yet another of Jill's novels he has to retreat one shelf further from the window, and now he's unable to read the names on the packed spines except by pressing his neck against his shoulder and crouching like a hunchback within inches of the books. He straightens his head up and stoops lower to grab the next lump of cardboard and paper from the heap of them. Sweat collects behind his knees, clamminess encases him but keeps giving way to a chill, both of which make him feel so feverish he surely ought to be in bed. He wishes he were there with Sean and no fever except the kind they create between them. Since there's no possibility of that, he wants Sean to be peacefully asleep, not least so that he'll be ready to collect Jake if the sun ever rises. The dead glow through the window seems to have rendered time as inert as itself, and 339 Jake has to squint fiercely at his watch to be certain why it appears to have lost a hand. He's about to speak when Connie says with hardly any patience ”What now, Mad?”

”It mustn't be anything. You told Woody it wasn't. I expect it's just me being mad.”

”Don't be like that,” Jill says. ”If you--was ”Don't be childish like you think everyone else is, you mean?”

”You are,” says Connie, ”if you don't tell us if there's something you should tell.”

Mad stares towards her shelves along the rear wall and takes a long loud breath. ”I thought I saw someone on the floor. Go on, say it's me imagining someone's been messing with my section.”

Jake peers towards the alcoves, which are dim as the depths of the fog. For a moment he fancies he glimpses a head that inches around the end of an aisle and immediately shrinks or shrivels into hiding, but its owner would have to be on all fours or no taller than an infant. Nevertheless Jake is tempted to come to Mad's defence even before Greg remarks ”Either that or Agnes has got out.”

Incredible though Jake finds it, Greg apparently intends this as a joke. Jake is sure the girls would side with him if he attacked Greg for it, and has to force himself to concentrate on a more important issue. ”It's quarter past three, no, seventeen past. When did Ross leave?”

”Some of us were too busy to be watching the clock.”

”That isn't fair, Greg,” Jill objects. ”Jake wasn't. That's why he's asking.”

”He's been out there too long,” says Mad. ”All night, it feels like. Even longer.”

”I wouldn't put it past him to have sneaked off home,” Greg says. ”If we're expected to believe Nigel could have, Ross certainly could.”

Jake is delighted Greg can't have realised he has given him the cue to say ”Then someone else will have to go.” 340 ”So there'll be even more work for anyone who cares about the shop, you mean.”

”No,” Jill says, ”because Ross mightn't have thought of going more than one way.”

”That's clear as mud to me.”

”Maybe he won't have gone on the motorway if he forgot the phones up there will still be working. If he'd found a phone box on the other road someone would be here by now.”

”That's a.s.suming he bothered to try.”

”If he didn't,” Mad retorts so furiously she sounds close to abandoning language, ”that's all the more reason for someone else to, isn't it?”

Greg's face grows dull with understanding that he has trapped himself. He picks up a book and stares at it as though nothing else matters. ”So what plan is anyone suggesting?” Connie asks.

”Someone tries the motorway,” Jake says, ”and someone tries the bottom road in case there's a problem.”

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