legs suddenly trembling. He had seen a gap in the tangle, a way through.
It took him a long time to step forward. He could see that it was the hidden entrance to a path. It had been made since the perimeter of the village had become overgrown – since the village had been abandoned. The place was not deserted.
As he took one stumbling step forward, more to keep his balance than out of any wish to go on, a fragment of the undergrowth scuttled away from him. It was a chameleon that was turning into jungle. The shock brought him back to himself: he no longer felt he was sleepwalking. Isaac was fully aware of what he was doing, coming all this way for Alan, away from his wife and his bright-eyed daughters. If he could do so much for Alan, surely Alan could do what he must for his own family? Perhaps he could if he didn't think about it. He stepped forward and squeezed between the fat moist trunks of the trees that formed the gap.
They felt like sweaty flesh. Thick rubbery leaves stroked him, cold wet caresses. A mass of flies buzzed out of the knee-high undergrowth and crawled over his face and arms. Though the path was short, he was ready to tear his way through before he'd struggled to the end, to splinter the trees, anything to fight the silence, the congealing dimness, the flies that he hadn't room to beat off. By the time he reached the end of the path he was so desperate for freedom that he almost fell.
It was even dimmer here, and more oppressive. Though the trees and the undergrowth had been cut back, branches and dense foliage stooped overhead. He had to stand on the squelching grass while his eyes adjusted, and then he stood gazing. If he let himself feel anything, it would be relief. Thank God, this wasn't like his dream at all.
There were perhaps a dozen huts in the clearing, squat conical buildings, little more than a roof and a circular wall with an open doorway that faced into the compound. Some of the roofs had collapsed. As the huts took shape from the dimness they made him think of giant mushrooms, swollen by the climate, or by magic. They were grey with dimness and moisture, and seemed to glisten like snails. They looked as if they hadn't been lived in for years.
In that case, why was he afraid to go forward? It was only a primitive village, the trees were nothing but trees… Yet he already felt as if they were creeping forward to surround him. What was that clutter of thin whitish sticks in one hut? Were they bones? If he stepped forward he might see, but he felt as if something was waiting for him to move.
He mustn't be afraid, not now. There wasn't even a reason for him to be. Good God, what would he be like when there was? Fury made him step forward, a fury that left no room for thought, lie stopped halfway between the huts and the way through the trees, his head twisting back and forth as if he were a beast in a cage.
He was still trying to decide what the whitish sticks were when a sound behind him made him swing round, his empty hand snatching at the air as he realized that he had no weapon. The sound had only been Isaac, but as Alan turned, he saw what was wrong with the trees. A red shape had been painted on the trunk on each side of the gap.
He had to peer before he could make it out, and yet he felt as if he knew it. It was a thin crouching shape, the shape of a man – or almost a man. It had been painted in blood, which looked fresh. A man composed of blood, or covered in it – where had he encountered that before? He was struggling to think when Isaac whispered 'That's it. That is what they believed would hunt with them.'
Alan couldn't think. His inability to think, combined with the thickening gloom, maddened him. As he peered at one of the bloody paintings, he realized that the crouching shape was stirring, ready to leap at him. No, a mass of flies was crawling on it; that was why its limbs were squirming. He turned to Isaac to ask him to explain what he'd said. But Isaac was gazing beyond the huts. He was gazing as if he couldn't look away.
As he followed Isaac's gaze, Alan felt the nightmare closing in. He was scarcely aware that he was moving forward, and he couldn't have halted himself; there is no controlling a nightmare. He'd moved before he could even see what Isaac saw.
The first thing he saw through a gap between the huts was a cooking pot, a grey bulge in the dimness. It took him a few moments to realize what it was, from the pinkish glow of the fire smouldering beneath it. As he peered at the glow, a shape loomed at the edge of his vision, a thin shape against the trees at the far side of the clearing. He looked up and met the eyes that were watching him.
The dream had him now – the dream in which time was suspended, and from which he would never wake. He had seen that figure before, the thin crouching figure wrapped in its own limbs like a dried-up spider. Now he saw that its head was disproportionately small, which made it look even less human. The air about it seemed darker, swarming, and he thought of flies.
He was only peripherally aware of all this. All he could see were the eyes. If the body looked almost wasted away, the eyes were unnaturally bright with a kind of insane senile brightness. He could read their dreadful hunger all the way across the clearing. They were insatiable, and they were waiting for him.
He had forgotten Isaac until the translator took hold of his arm. 'He's alone,' Isaac murmured, as if that mattered. 'The others must be hunting. Stay here.'
He stepped forward, drawing the pistol. Perhaps he meant to give himself no time for second thoughts about what he had to do, but then it would be Alan's turn. At least the spidery eyes were watching Isaac now. That might give Alan a chance to prepare himself, but that thought was appalling too.
Now he could see more of the dried-up figure that was squatting amid its tangle of limbs. Its skin was like a mummy's, leathery and ancient; its mouth was a skull's mouth – too large for the head. It looked as if it had no right to be alive, and yet the eyes looked older than the body, the life in them did.
Isaac was moving more slowly. Perhaps he'd seen exactly what he was approaching. Alan had a sudden inkling that Isaac couldn't stop himself. The silence was a stagnant fluid in which they were drowning. It dragged at their limbs, it suffocated time. Isaac might take forever to reach the thing that was watching them – and then Alan realized that Isaac had found he couldn't shoot. Now that it came to the moment, he couldn't kill another human being, however nominal its humanity was, in cold blood.
Alan was suddenly afraid for him. He opened his mouth to call him back, but sourness choked his throat. He went after Isaac just as the crouching figure opened its enormous mouth, baring pointed brownish teeth. Even at that distance Alan could smell its breath, which stank of stale blood.
He made a grab for Isaac, but wasn't quick enough. Isaac must have seen what was coming, for he halted. Nevertheless neither of them could have believed that anything so old and withered could move with such speed.
Before Alan could reach Isaac, or Isaac could step back, the fleshless creature sprang from its crouch and came scuttling at Isaac on all fours.
Isaac stumbled backward, almost tripping himself. It wasn't enough. The dried-up man had the swiftness of a spider, and the method too. Before Isaac could kick out or retreat further the creature seized him, grabbing his ankles and swarming up him, wrapping its legs around his. As Isaac struggled desperately to free himself from the thing that was grinning mirthlessly up at him, he lost his balance and fell on his back in the squelching grass.
His arms were flailing helplessly. All the breath had been knocked out of him. The pistol had jerked from his hand and was trapped under his body. As he screamed, the fleshless man climbed onto his chest and crouched there, the wizened head darting to his throat.
Alan rushed at the creature to drag it away from Isaac, but the long brownish claws were already at Isaac's throat. They ripped open the jugular vein, releasing an appalling rush of blood. Isaac's convulsion uncovered the gun, and Alan snatched it up. Before he could use it Isaac's screams had choked off as the enormous mouth fastened on him and tore out a mouthful of his throat.
Isaac's outstretched hands clawed at the muddy earth, then they relaxed. He was dead. Alan's only thought was that he had brought Isaac here to his death. He was staring, dazed and unable to move, at Isaac's inverted face and blank eyes when the scrawny thing on Isaac's chest looked up, exposing the raw ruin of Isaac's throat. The ancient eyes gazed brightly at him until he understood what their expression meant. It was an invitation – an invitation to feast. He lifted the gun with a hand that was all at once steady and fired once, twice, blowing out those unbearable eyes.
Forty
