Under a Watchful Eye(40)

Beneath the lightening sky, the hedgerows and garrison fortifications formed the mounds that surrounded them. Elevated hundreds of feet above the sea, the atmosphere was thinner and colder.

Exposed to the vast sky and the expanse of the sea, the great spaces enlarged Seb’s fear until he doubted he’d ever felt as insignificant. He knelt in the grass. Moisture passed through his jeans and fired shivers across his back and neck. He’d grabbed shoes as he passed through the front door, but in his haste to escape he’d failed to tug a jacket free from the rack in the hallway.

Anxious at the movement of the nearest shrubs in the breeze, he stood up again, rubbing at the outside of his arms, and looked about himself.

Between his desperate inhalations of the cold air, Seb finally felt able to speak. ‘What was that? What was it? You brought that into my home . . . last night . . . that thing. Are we safe?’ The final question, and the way he’d said it, made him feel pitiful.

Ewan rolled onto his side. He sounded asthmatic, and was either sick or cleared his chest of phlegm. A shake of his tangled head served as a delayed response to Seb’s question. ‘Never,’ he gasped.

Sweat frosted in the runnel of Seb’s spine. ‘What? Is it here?’

‘No . . . Not yet, anyway.’

‘Not yet?’

‘I can’t feel it.’

Seb realized he couldn’t either, that nauseating apprehension and the onset of an unnatural scrutiny. He moved closer to Ewan and stood over him. ‘You bastard. You brought that . . . that thing into my bloody life!’

‘I didn’t think they . . .’ Ewan never finished. Instead, he said, ‘What did you see?’

‘See? Something that shouldn’t bloody exist!’

‘What did you see? Tell me.’

‘A . . . a shape. Long . . . like a shadow. An animal, a man, I don’t know this time. What did you do? What? To bring it here?’

‘I never.’ Ewan wheezed and then swallowed noisily. ‘Not intentionally. What do you mean, this time? You’ve seen it before?’

‘Before you showed up, never. You prick!’

‘But you’ve seen it? When?’

Seb recalled his dream, the one in which he’d been chased across the golf course, right before he’d heard something brushing itself down the side of the house. Becky had dreamed of it too and heard the same thing. Their walk in Marriage Wood had been interrupted by something just as unpleasant.

‘It was in the woods near here. Over there.’ Seb pointed towards the cliffs inland. ‘Something was in there, waiting for us. My girlfriend saw it too. The day after you appeared at the bloody window of that restaurant. It wasn’t right. Didn’t look right. Not normal. And I’ve dreamed of it. Because of you. You bastard.’

Ewan placed his long, dirt-smeared fingers over his face and shook his head without speaking.

‘I thought it was one of your tricks. Why can I see it? Tell me! Am I in danger?’

Ewan ignored him until Seb began shouting, ‘Am I in danger? You put me in danger! Am I in danger?’

Ewan took his hands off his face and spoke without looking at Seb. ‘You’re probably fucked. We both are.’

Seb wanted Ewan dead. Wanted to end the whole idea of Ewan by dragging the scarecrow body to the cliff edge and hurling it down to the rocks. He imagined the oily head breaking apart like a coconut shell. ‘Get rid of it! Just piss off and get rid of it!’

Ewan struggled to sit up. His mouth and beard glistened. ‘I’ve never seen it here. He must be involved. Oh, Christ.’

‘Here? Who? Who is involved?’

‘I was only told about those others. They were used as threats, in the past. But I’ve sensed them, when I projected . . . That one could be directed? I didn’t believe it . . .’

‘Who? Who are they? What do you mean directed?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘I bloody do!’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. And there isn’t time. It’s all got to go back. There’s been a misunderstanding.’ Ewan struggled to his feet while Seb tried to figure out what Ewan was saying. ‘It’s all got to go back today. You have a car.’

‘What?’ Seb grabbed Ewan by the collar of his anorak. ‘You’re going nowhere until you stop this. So fix it! Stop it!’

‘How do you get rid of what’s not there?’

‘They are . . .’ He didn’t know how to phrase the question. What kind of horror writer was he? ‘That thing . . . it’s leaving a body, yeah? Like you do?’

Ewan shook his head dismissively, even contemptuously, at Seb’s feeble comprehension. He tried to prise Seb’s bloodless hands from his collar, but ended up holding Seb’s wrists.

The subsequent grapple felt increasingly hopeless and pathetic the longer they stood there, Seb without a coat in a dawn wind that whipped off the bay.

‘You tell me,’ Seb roared at Ewan. ‘You tell me what that was!’

‘I have to go. It’s not safe. Get off me.’

‘Safe? What? Not safe for who? For you?’

Ewan pulled back and Seb went with him, barely staying on his feet. ‘Where are they?’ Spittle flew from his mouth and peppered Ewan’s face as he demanded the information he was also reluctant to receive. ‘The people who are projecting a malicious version of themselves, that’s what they are doing, isn’t it? Where are they, the bodies? Who are they? What has any of it got to do with me?’