Strangers in the Night (23 page)

All his attention had been fixed upon listening out for the
croaks
.

But there would be no more
croaks
that night.

The creatures, for whatever reason governed them, decided against coming that night.

Mitts heard screams for help.

Down by the shore.

He recalled leaving his position. The first to do so.

He had launched himself down the slope.

Knowing there wasn’t a second to waste.

At one point, he lost his balance and fell into the water.

As he drew closer, approaching the screams, he felt the mist moving in around them.

A quiver ran through his stomach.

He was afraid of what he would find.

Mitts had seen Dag first. Had seen the blood pouring down from his left eye.

He was lying on his side.

His rifle nowhere to be seen.

Despite Dag’s state, Mitts had moved quickly.

He demanded to know where Samantha was.

Dag had pointed off in the direction of the water.

Mitts had glanced back over his shoulder. Seen Luca there. Standing open-mouthed.

With no time to think, Mitts dumped his rifle and threw himself into the water.

He had never had much practice at swimming.

It was forbidden for any inhabitant of the Village to swim because of the creatures.

Despite that, though, Mitts had kept himself afloat.

He had pushed himself into a doggy-paddle.

Once he’d got ten, fifteen metres out, he had glanced around.

Trying to see something—
anything
.

He had seen a string of bubbles.

He had dived down.

Even now, pacing out on the muddied earth two years later, he could still feel the sharp pain—
agony
—which had accompanied his dive.

He shook his head at the pain and stared off into the mists.

He felt a gentle, warm drizzle falling against his cheeks.

A throbbing sensation passed through his gut.

It pulsated upward, almost inevitably directed for his skull.

He breathed in deeply.

The way he did when he woke from nightmares.

He swallowed the sensation back down.

Turned his attention back to the mist.

They would be coming soon.

And he had to be ready.

Otherwise he would put everyone in danger.

The day after the Incident, as they’d come to refer to it, Mitts had led the search for Samantha.

They had all trod through the water, looking for her.

But there had been no trace.

The night of the Incident, a doctor had gone to work on Dag.

Between winces of pain, and screwed-up eyes, as the doctor worked at his bloodied leg and eye, Dag had filled him in on the details.

About how Samantha had come out of the dark at him.

How she had shot him in the leg.

He had only defended himself, bringing his rifle butt up.

Slamming it into the side of her head.

She had stumbled back.

Into the water.

Gone under.

The following day, when they’d gone in search of her body, they had only uncovered her boots.

Washed up on the shore.

Mitts had stayed there, at the water’s edge, for so long.

But he had seen nothing at all.

It seemed he would be forever haunted by her ghost.

* * *

“Incoming!” someone called out.

Mitts glanced down.

Saw where the man’s finger was pointing.

Into the mist.

Mitts steeled himself. Propped his gun up.

Prepared.

Something was wrong—the
air
was wrong.

Mitts wondered if he was getting a cold.

If his nose was blocked.

He couldn’t smell their
sulphur
scent.

He felt a tingle in his gut.

The feeling that
something
wasn’t right.

His men began to fire.

Their bullets pelted through the mist.

Into the night.

Mitts held still.

He didn’t squeeze his own trigger.

He raised his arm.

His men ceased fire.

They stilled.

Down on one knee.

Guns pointed out into the mist.

Mitts listened closely. It wasn’t
croaking
.

Finally his mind wrapped around the sound.

An
engine
.

That was what it was.

He peered long and hard into the mist, trying to make it out.

But he couldn’t see a thing.

At first he mistook it for moonlight.

Then he realised what it was.

A spotlight.

Yellow, and bright, and sweeping through the mist.

Mitts rose up.

He trudged down the soggy earth. To the shore.

He shouldered his rifle—for which he would’ve scolded a younger member of the Patrol.

He could make out its shape now.

A
boat
.

At first it looked enormous. Too large to even contemplate.

But then it became smaller.

The mist swirled away from the craft.

The spotlight beamed across the shore.

Mitts shielded his eyes with his hand.

He could hear voices from the boat.

Shouting.

His men closed around him.

All of them staring at the sight.

At the
boat
.

The boat came to rest. Its engine clicked off. It moored a little way off shore.

Some of his men waded out into the waist-high water.

Their rifles forgotten.

Mitts held back.

He wanted the high ground.

Where he could see
everything
.

Where he had a
complete
view of the situation.

He knew nothing about these people.

They could be aggressive. They could be a
threat
. . .

They could be—

She clambered over the side of the ship.

Into a dinghy.

He saw her just as clearly as he had seen her the night of the Mid-Summer Blowout.

A ghost.

Samantha’s ghost.

A light blinks on.

Darkness recedes.

Shadows scurry for the corners.

Dozens of glass capsules. Lined up in a row.

Their metal fixings glare in the light.

The scientist treads over to one of the glass capsules.

She reaches out.

Presses a button.

A
hiss
of escaping air.

The capsule’s glass steams up.

It renders the contents of the capsule impossible to see.

The scientist works quickly, with
precision
.

She busies herself with the contents of the capsule, her hands tending to the body within as if it were as tender and delicate as a human baby.

As the steam clears, the contents of the capsule is revealed.

Grey-purple skin.

The texture of whale blubber.

Gleaning dully in the light.

The jaws.

The fangs.

All trace of life gone from the black, black eyes.

RESURRECTION

A
t breakfast the next day
, Mitts stared long and hard into his cup of black coffee.

He had just polished off his second cup and he could already feel the unpleasant sensation of caffeine overdose rippling through his bloodstream.

He stared at the browned dregs at the bottom of his cup.

He swilled them about, like tea leaves.

He tried to see something in them.

Wasn’t that the point of being psychic?

Of having visions?

Weren’t they supposed to . . . tell him
something
?

In an unthinking act of frustration, he gripped hold of his mug and hurled it hard against the kitchen wall.

The mug broke apart with a high-pitched
tinkle
of breaking porcelain.

Feeling his heart beating hard against his ribs, and the pull of his strained breathing, he stared at the broken pieces lying on the floor.

The brown splodge on the wall where the cup had made contact.

As he sat at the kitchen table, he heard Luca’s footfall on the staircase.

He didn’t turn his head when he sensed her standing in the doorway.

“I don’t want you in my house.”

Although her words were so clear, so gently delivered, they felt like knives rammed in beneath his shoulder blades.

The caffeine rattled through his body.

It caused him to shake.

He was afraid.

Never before had he shown any hint of aggression.

Not even while fighting the creatures.

And certainly not inside the Village . . . much less within Luca’s cottage.

He glanced to Luca now.

Standing in the doorway.

Her eyes were set on him. Her lips pursed.

She turned her back to him, heading up the staircase.

Her words floated to him over her shoulder.

“You have till nightfall,” she said.

For a long few moments, Mitts stared hard at the broken pieces of his coffee mug.

Then he shifted himself up from his seat.

Left the cottage behind for good.

* * *

The Village was alive with activity.

Today, everyone had forgotten their duties.

Nobody tended to the farmyard animals.

There was no one manning rations storage.

Not even a soul—apparently—staffing the Station.

And it was all because Samantha walked among them again.

A pair of men dressed in uniforms escorted her.

They wore uniforms from
before
.

Their uniforms were navy blue. Each had a silver tag pinned to the breast pocket.

A tag which Mitts couldn’t read.

Their trousers, also navy blue, had been neatly pressed.

Just like everyone else, Mitts found himself staring at them.

He was unable to believe these people were real.

They were fantasy creatures.

He examined their well-muscled arms. The semi-automatic rifles they carried.

Mitts took in the array of reactions from the inhabitants of the Village.

Some scowled. Others looked worried.

Others still smiled and laughed.

Shouldn’t they all have been smiling and laughing?

For what reason would Samantha have returned to them other than to bring them to safety?

To bring them some better life?

Mitts went about his duties. He, at least, was determined
not
to be distracted.

When he was quite certain nobody else was watching, he slipped out of the Village.

On his way out, he spotted Dag up on the rampart.

The two of them exchanged a salute.

He was pleased to see that at least one member of the Village hadn’t lost all sense of routine.

Mitts headed down to the water’s edge.

As he stood on the shore, he observed a pair of uniformed men standing on the boat.

They chatted casually to one another.

Mitts waved to them.

They waved back.

Mitts estimated the boat was just large enough for Samantha and the four men he’d so far counted. Anybody else and it would’ve been a real squeeze.

He trod along the water’s edge.

He stared across the surface of the lake.

He tried to make out something on the other side.

But there was nothing to make out.

After a while, finished with his sleuthing, Mitts just stood and stared across the water.

He allowed himself to think.

A thousand random thoughts and feelings washed over him.

But he found himself caught on a single track:

She’s back.

She’s really back.

* * *

Mitts must’ve been standing at the water’s edge for about half an hour before he heard the familiar voice behind him.

“At ease soldier.”

He turned to look.

Samantha.

It was so strange.

She looked like she hadn’t aged a day.

It was as if that fateful night had never happened.

She looked past Mitts. Out over the water. “Trying to work out where we came from?”

“Yeah,” Mitts replied.

She extended a long, slender finger.

Pointed.

“You see that hillside, the one which dips down into a sort of V-shape?”

Mitts looked to where she pointed.

He had to admit that his vision wasn’t the best.

Five years of night-time patrols hadn’t helped.

“Well,” Samantha continued, “if you follow the form of it downwards, about halfway to the water, you’ll see.”

Mitts squinted harder still.

He looked to where Samantha pointed.

The hillside.

The V-shape.

. . . And then he caught sight of it.

A dark object.

It might’ve been blue, or purple, or even green.

From here it was impossible to tell.

“What is it?” he said, turning back to her, breathing in a clean scent of lemon.

Wherever she’d come from there was, apparently, no end of scented soaps.

Samantha smiled. “You’ll have to wait and see. If you come along, that is.”