Cabal. Clive Barker

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СКАЧАТЬ was close to dusk by the time the last of his rides dropped him a mile or so shy of Dwyer. He watched the truck take a gravel road off into the deepening blue, then began to walk the short distance to the town. A night of sleeping rough, and travelling in farm vehicles on roads that had seen better days, had taken its toll on his already battered system. It took him an hour to come within sight of the outskirts of Dwyer, by which time night had fallen completely. Fate was once again on his side. Without the darkness he might not have seen the lights flashing ahead; not in welcome but in warning.

      The police were here before him; three or four cars he judged. It was possible they were in pursuit of someone else entirely but he doubted it. More likely Narcisse, lost to himself, had told the law what he’d told Boone. In which case this was a reception committee. They were probably already searching for him, house to house. And if here, in Shere Neck too. He was expected.

      Thankful for the cover of the night, he made his way off the road and into the middle of a rape seed field, where he could lie and think through his next move. There was certainly no wisdom in trying to go into Dwyer. Better he set off for Midian now, putting his hunger and weariness aside and trusting to the stars and his instinct to give him directions.

      He got up, smelling of earth, and headed off in what he judged to be a northerly direction. He knew very well he might miss his destination by miles with such rough bearings to travel by, or just as easily fail to see it in the darkness. No matter; he had no other choice, which was a kind of comfort to him.

      In his five minute spree as thief he’d not found a watch to steal, so the only sense he had of time passing was the slow progression of the constellations overhead. The air became cold, then bitter, but he kept up his painful pace, avoiding the roads wherever possible, though they would have been easier to walk than the ploughed and seeded ground. This caution proved well founded at one point when two police vehicles, book-ending a black limousine, slid all but silently down a road he had a minute ago crossed. He had no evidence whatsoever for the feeling that seized him as the cars passed by, but he sensed more than strongly that the limo’s passenger was Decker, the good doctor, still in pursuit of understanding.

      4

      Then, Midian.

      Out of nowhere, Midian. One moment the night ahead was featureless darkness, the next there was a cluster of buildings on the horizon, their painted walls glimmering grey blue in the starlight. Boone stood for several minutes and studied the scene. There was no light burning in any window, or on any porch. By now it was surely well after midnight, and the men and women of the town, with work to rise to the following morning, would be in bed. But not one single light? That struck him as strange. Small Midian might be – forgotten by map-makers and signpost writers alike – but did it not lay claim to one insomniac?; or a child who needed the comfort of a lamp burning through the night hours? More probably they were in wait for him – Decker and the law – concealed in the shadows until he was foolish enough to step into the trap. The simplest solution would be to turn tail and leave them to their vigil, but he had little enough energy left. If he retreated now how long would he have to wait before attempting a return, every hour making recognition and a rest more likely?

      He decided to skirt the edge of the town and get some sense of the lie of the land. If he could find no evidence of a police presence then he’d enter, and take the consequences. He hadn’t come all this way to turn back.

      Midian revealed nothing of itself as he moved around its south eastern flank, except perhaps its emptiness. Not only could he see no sign of police vehicles in the streets, or secreted between the houses, he could see no automobile of any kind: no truck, no farm vehicle. He began to wonder if the town was one of those religious communities he’d read of, whose dogmas denied them electricity or the combustion engine.

      But as he climbed toward the spine of a small hill on the summit of which Midian stood, a second and plainer explanation occurred. There was nobody in Midian. The thought stopped him in his tracks. He stared across at the houses, searching for some evidence of decay, but he could see none. The roofs were intact, as far as he could make out, there were no buildings that appeared on the verge of collapse. Yet, with the night so quiet he could hear the whoosh of falling stars overhead, he could hear nothing from the town. If somebody in Midian had moaned in their sleep the night would have brought the sound his way, but there was only silence.

      Midian was a ghost town.

      Never in his life had he felt such desolation. He stood like a dog returned home to find its masters gone, not knowing what his life now meant or would ever mean again.

      It took him several minutes to uproot himself and continue his circuit of the town. Twenty yards on from where he’d stood, however, the height of the hill gave him sight of a scene more mysterious even than the vacant Midian.

      On the far side of the town lay a cemetery. His vantage point gave him an uninterrupted view of it, despite the high walls that bounded the place. Presumably it had been built to serve the entire region, for it was massively larger than a town Midian’s size could ever have required. Many of the mausoleums were of impressive scale, that much was clear even from a distance, the layout of avenues, trees and tombs lending the cemetery the appearance of a small city.

      Boone began down the slope of the hill towards it, his route still taking him well clear of the town itself. After the adrenalin rush of finding and approaching Midian he felt his reserves of strength failing fast; the pain and exhaustion that expectation had numbed now returned with a vengeance. It could not be long, he knew, before his muscles gave out completely and he collapsed. Perhaps behind the cemetery’s walls he’d be able to find a niche to conceal himself from his pursuers and rest his bones.

      There were two means of access. A small gate in the side wall, and large double gates that faced towards the town. He chose the former. It was latched but not locked. He gently pushed it open, and stepped inside. The impression he’d had from the hill, of the cemetery as city, was here confirmed, the mausoleums rising house-high around him. Their scale, and, now that he could study them close up, their elaboration, puzzled him. What great families had occupied the town or its surrounds, moneyed enough to bury their dead in such splendour? The small communities of the prairie clung to the land as their sustenance, but it seldom made them rich; and on the few occasions when it did, with oil or gold, never in such numbers. Yet here were magnificent tombs, avenue upon avenue of them, built in all manner of styles from the classical to the baroque, and marked – though he was not certain his fatigued senses were telling him the truth – with motifs from warring theologies.

      It was beyond him. He needed sleep. The tombs had been standing a century or more; the puzzle would still be there at dawn.

      He found himself a bed out of sight between two graves and laid his head down. The spring growth of grass smelt sweet. He’d slept on far worse pillows, and would again.

       V A Different Ape

      The sound of an animal woke him, its growls finding their way into floating dreams and calling him down to earth. He opened his eyes, and sat up. He couldn’t see the dog, but he heard it still. Was it behind him?; the proximity of the tombs threw echoes back and forth. Very slowly, he turned to look over his shoulder. The darkness was deep, but did not quite conceal a large beast, its species impossible to read. There was no misinterpreting the threat from its throat however. It didn’t like his scrutiny, to judge by the tenor of its growls.

      ‘Hey, boy …’ he said softly, ‘it’s OK.’

      Ligaments СКАЧАТЬ