Crybbe aka Curfew

Joe Powys would know. Or he wouldn't. Either way, it would be good to have him here. Not such a world-class crank after all, not when you listened to this bunch.

Fay walked among them, the night still alive with natural radio.

'He'll come back.' Graham Jarrett.

'What if he doesn't?' Hilary Ivory.

'I tried walking.' One of the lawyers, in tones of defeat. 'I kept on walking, looking for a light. I kept walking, and I just felt like I was fading out… fading away. Losing my physical resistance to the air, becoming absorbed in the atmosphere. I mean, it was very soporific, in a way. I think it'd be good to die like that. But not yet. I got scared. I thought, I've got to go back. And when I thought that, I was back. Like I hadn't been anywhere.'

'There's nowhere to go.' Oona Jopson. 'Accept it. Relish it. It's not likely to happen to you again.'

'Good.'

'Or maybe it will. Maybe we're being opened up to a permanent kind of cosmic consciousness, you know?'

She wondered what was happening outside the square. Was the church alight? Was Jimmy Preece alive? And what about Warren? Were the Crybbe people attending the meeting still inside the town hall? And what of their relatives in the town – had they any idea what was happening? Perhaps it had happened before, the town square sealing itself off in the past – a past which was always close to the surface of this town.

Not for the first time tonight, Fay genuinely wondered if this was some long and tortured dream. And, if it was not a dream, whether, when (if) it was over, it would have no more significance than if it had been.

Somebody was coughing very weakly, a thin scraping sound.

'Where's Colonel Croston?'

'I'm here. Who's that.'

'It's Dan Osborne, Colonel, I'm a homeopathic practitioner, but I have a medical qualification. There's a woman here in a bad way. Over here, just come towards my voice. I'm bending across her, you won't walk into her.'

'OK, I'm on my way. Do you know who she is?'

'She's wearing what feels like a silk blouse and… a fairly light skirt. She's got… thick hair, quite long I suppose.'

Guy said, 'is she wearing a thickish sort of necklace thing?'

'A torque, I think. Dear God, what's this…?'

'Jocasta! What's happened? Where are you?'

'She's… The bloody torque's been twisted into her neck. Please, Christ, just hold still…'

'OK, Mr Osborne, I'm here. Is she OK?'

'I don't know. She didn't bloody well do this to herself, did she? Somebody's tried to garrote her with her own…'

'OH GOD! GET ME OUT OF THIS!' The woman from the crafts shop hurling herself about the Crybbe vacuum bouncing off people. Somebody had to crack up, sooner or later.

Have one for me. Fay thought.

Col Croston sat down on the cobbles, cross-legged, and looked hard at the darkness. Held his own hand up in front of his face from six inches. He could see it. Just. Could tell it was a hand or was that because he knew it was a hand?

The woman would live. Her throat would be a mess, but she'd be OK. She'd tried to speak. 'Who did this?' he asked, but if she'd identified her attacker he hadn't been able to make out the name. Wouldn't be much use anyway; how could you go after anyone without light?

I am here, Col said silently, letting his eyes half-closed. I can sense myself. I can sense my toes (flexing them and then letting them relax), my calves (trying to tighten the muscles in his leg and letting them relax), my thighs… my stomach…

An exercise.

As a soldier (all his family were soldiers), Col had gravitated to the SAS not because of a need for action and physical stress but because he wanted to feel life and for that, he'd decided one needed to be out on the edge of something, always within sight of the abyss.

Rather thought he'd got over that stage now.

… chest (tighten, breath in, hold it… relax…

…shoulders…

Mind control. Expansion of the senses. Spent two weeks with a meditation expert learning techniques for dominating the body in tight spots. Optional course for officers; some of the chaps thought it was all crap. Not Col. He'd actually taken it further, after the course.

… neck… face (tensing the muscles in his cheeks and jaw, letting the tension go)…

At the end of this exercise – he'd done it many times over the past twenty or thirty years – there should be a moment of pure awareness. Awareness of oneself and one's situation. And sometimes…

… back of the head…

… one emerged from it and everything looked clearer.

And one knew precisely what to do next. Probably elements of yoga and meditation in there, so it was never wise to tell some of the chaps one was indulging in this sort of thing, or they'd be putting it round the Colonel talked to plants and things. Not a word to these New Age characters either, or they'd be recruiting him as an emblem.

Gradually, his breathing slowed and the voices around him in the void began to fade.

'Warm night, isn't it?'

'Hmm?'

'Stuffy. Humid.'

'Yes, it is really.'

Old chap in a T-shirt sitting in a doorway a few yards away.

'Colonel Croston, isn't it?'

'Col. Hey, just a minute…'

He could see this chap. It was still dark, but he could see him, could see his white beard and what it said on the front of his T-shirt. Didn't make any sense, half-faded, but he could…

'It's Canon Peters, isn't it? Seen you in the Cock.'

'Alex.'

Col turned around to look at the square. He could see the shapes of buildings, very dimly; he could hear the sound of people talking and possibly screaming although there was nothing immediate about this, no involvement; more like the sound of someone's TV set from a distance.

'Heard you talking to my daughter,' the old man said 'Young Fay.'

'Fay Morrison. Yes. I was. But you weren't… with us were you? You weren't in… in… Look, Canon, can you help me to understand this? When you heard us talking, could you, you know, see us?'

'No.'

Col sighed. 'Thought not. Started out thinking it was some sort of gas. Some leakage from somewhere. Or an MOD experiment, just the kind of place they'd choose. And now I'm inclined to think it's something psychological coming out. Some mass-psychosis thing. I can't begin to… I mean, what your daughter had to say was interesting in a purely academic sense but not… Frankly, I'm lost, Canon. Where does one start…?'

'Question I've been asking most of my life. Kept putting off having to answer it.'

Keep cool, Col instructed himself. Keep your head. And for God's sake, don't go back in there. (In where? And how did I get out?)

'Canon…'

'Alex.'

'Do you know what's happening?'

'Only the vaguest notion, old chap. But I believe I'm getting there.'

'It is something… psychological, isn't it? Damned if I'm going to use that other word.'

'Good Lord, no, old boy, never say that.'

'Well.' Col levered himself to his feet. He could actually see lamps in some of the houses on this side of the