dashboard lights, it had to be. Even so he didn't look like she had at first thought. Rugged certainly, but something else — ruthless, vicious. She shivered, was reminded how Carol must have felt. But I'm not Carol, I'm Thelma Brown, and this isn't real. It's a mock-up, an act. This man's a policeman, he'll look after me. But the expression in his eyes said different.
'My boyfriend will come looking for me,' she said. 'He didn't like me coming in the first place.'
'You've got a boyfriend!' He seemed surprised, excited.
'Yes.' What else was there to say?
'I'll bet you're not a virgin then.' Thelma sensed rather than saw the leer. Fear and embarrassment blended and those words on the wall of that dingy ladies' room back at the village hall flashed before her eyes. Blushing, shuddering, knowing that she had to answer him.
'No, I'm not a virgin.' His lips were coming after her again, the smell of peppermint almost overpowering. She tried to struggle but his grip tightened, brought a cry of pain from her. 'Stop it, you're hurting me.'
But he didn't stop, pressing her back in the seat, crushing his mouth against hers, his tongue pushing at her until she opened up to let him push it into her in a simulation of the sex act. Rape!
Thelma was on the verge of tears now, gasping for breath when he withdrew, seeing those lusting eyes boring into her own, seeming to read her thoughts. She wanted to scream, to yell 'How dare you, I'm going to report you to Sergeant Fillery' but she didn't. For the same reasons that Carol Embleton hadn't screamed in the car a few nights ago.
'I don't want you to,' she sobbed.
'But I want to.' His voice was a deep whisper, a very purposeful frightening one. Somehow her sheepskin coat had come unbuttoned and now the fingers of his free hand were smoothing over her blouse, dwelling on the soft curves of her breasts. 'We've got a whole night ahead of us, darling.'
Too scared to resist, moving her body so that he could slide her clothes off, trembling as he fondled her. Watching as he undressed himself, knowing that there was no way she could make a dash for freedom, aware of that awful fog drifting across the windows like some perverted voyeur. He lifted her into a kneeling position, head and shoulders drooped over the back of the passenger seat, staring down at the well of the rear seat, a black abyss that seemed to beckon her. Crying, her body screaming protests as this stranger took her from behind, satisfied his lust. Slowly it dawned on her that no longer were they coupled, that he was sprawled back in the driving seat, breathing heavily as though he had undergone a terrific physical strain. She moved, her thighs caught against something hard that clicked, creaked-The door handle, the door was swinging back on its hinges, the fog coming in at her in wisps of icy vapour. Impulsively, instinctively, she jumped backwards, felt mud beneath her feet and wan moonlight eerily penetrating the dense fog.
'Hey, what the hell d'you think you're doing?' A yell of rage from the car, strangely muffled.
Thelma Brown broke into a blind run, heedless of direction, only one thought in her mind and that was to get as far away as possible from the man who had done this to her. He might even kill her if he caught her. She was aware of thick mire and splashing water, rushes that stood vertically like inverted assegais, mist that blotted out her surroundings. Trees that sprouted grotesquely, multi-armed ogres trying to bar her way as she ran between them, plucking at her, scraping her naked flesh. Panicking, running until she could run no more, lying beneath one of the stunted trees and trying to listen above the noise of her thumping heart. A movement to her left as though somebody threshed blindly in a deep bog? She could not be sure.
Distant thunder… no, it was continuous, not the right volume, more like a series of explosions that went on and on. And on. The moon was brighter, casting weird shadows, yet again the light was not right, instead of silvery it was orange-tinted like the reflection of leaping flames or a stormy sunset. Staring skywards she had the impression that the sun was rising, spreading an aura of fire across the whole sky behind a smoky haze. Cowering, not wanting to look any more but knowing that she had to, a kind of hypnotism. And then, louder by the second, she heard the sound of an approaching aircraft, a heavy lumbering mechanical bird that vibrated the air until it was painful to the ears.
Seven
Andy Dark saw the rowing boat looming up out of the mist, its bows now only a few yards from the marshy shore. He stared, tried to make out what was happening through a curtain of swirling grey vapour. The boat grated on the bottom and a man leaped ashore, struggled to pull the cumbersome craft further up the beach; the others (there appeared to be four of them) threw a length of rope which he fastened to an old tree stump. They were all leaping out, talking in low voices, splashing to and fro in the water as they began unloading boxes, wooden crates which they supported on their shoulders with difficulty, stacking them on the soft grass, talking in low muttered voices, glancing furtively about them the whole time. Andy counted three men and a boy who could not have been more than thirteen, moving, bustling outlines, details hidden by the fog. And only yards away those men in their strange attire, their three-cornered hats pulled down over their faces, watched and waited. Deathly cold, not a breath of wind now, the light beginning to fail.
Andy Dark wished again that he had his watch; surely it could not be late afternoon already. He had the feeling that time was a commodity that existed only in irrational fragments in this place. These terrible mists were responsible for it in some inexplicable way. Suddenly the Droy legends were no longer wild tales to be dismissed lightly.
Andy crept forward another few yards, crouched down again behind a tussock of reeds. Now he could see the newcomers more clearly and his mouth went dry. Ragged clothing that had no place in the twentieth century outside museums or theatrical costumiers, patched coats and rough homespun shirts, breeches rolled up above the knees, wading barefooted in the water. Bearded features except for the boy who was emaciated, terrible to behold. Some disease, it could not be anything else, had eaten into the flesh on his face, a spreading malignant rash that exposed the bone in places. Barely able to lift the boxes yet struggling to do so as though he was afraid of what might happen to him if he shirked; cringing every time one of the others spoke to him. Gruff whispers which the fog seemed to magnify. Hurrying, all of them glancing about them fearfully, an obvious furtiveness, a haste to be finished and away. Andy's flesh crept. Smugglers without a doubt yet this was no highly organised trafficking. Had there been a motor launch moored close by, even a conventional boat of some kind, he could have accepted the situation. But this was like some dreadful nightmare, the product of a fevered brain. Suddenly the hidden men leaped into action, on their feet and cutting off the smugglers' retreat back to their boat. A scream; Andy thought it came from the boy. Shouts, curses. A muffled explosion; somebody had fired a pistol but the bullet appeared to have missed. A melee, struggling, fighting. The ambushers were armed with clubs, crude staves into which nails had been hammered, the points protruding wickedly.
A blow, one of the smugglers dropped and Andy saw the gaping head wound, a deep gash that split right into the skull, splintering the bone. Another was bent double, clutching at his groin, the third being held, screaming as his captors broke his legs with their cudgels. Brutal mutilation, and then came a realisation which had Andy wanting to burst into headlong panic-stricken flight. There was no blood, not a single trickle of sticky scarlet fluid from any one of the multitude of wounds!
Yet the sheer awfulness of the encounter held the conservation officer spellbound. These savage brutes who were undoubtedly some kind of Customs officers had turned on the boy. Two of them held him whilst a third raised a nail-spiked club. Andy's instinct was to rush to the other's aid. He could not stand by and witness a cowardly murder, but his legs refused to move. Whatever his feelings he was forced to watch, not even able to turn his head 'away, screaming mutely. For Christ's sake, you can't.
They had forced the boy's mouth open, were jamming the head of a narrow cudgel between the stretched lips, the rusted nails ripping the flesh, gouging and tearing at the skin. Twisting, pushing, muffling the cries of agony, shredding gums and tongue, raking the back of the throat, clawing for the tonsils. Withdrawing, a tongueless child mouthing silent pleas for mercy. But still there was no blood!
They had his arms pinioned behind him and were frogmarching him along with the other two smugglers; coming inshore — towards Andy Dark! And still Andy was struggling to move, transfixed like a wedding guest beholding the Ancient Mariner. Eddying fog, a breeze coming in off the sea, the mist no longer adequate cover for the lurking watcher.
