A bloody hand was raised, pointing at him. Accusing. Words hammered into his brain: You killed me and now I've come for youl
He wanted to flee, to scream. But there was nowhere to run to and his vocal chords were paralysed. It wasn't possible, but it was happening before his eyes: the tattered, bloody corpse he'd left up in the big snowdrift was here, crawling in through his own doorway.
Don Peters, the Woodside poacher, had returned from the dead to exact a terrible revenge!
Peter had the shotgun loaded and cocked, yet for some reason he did not squeeze its double triggers. He just stared in disbelief, the barrels lowering until they were pointing down at the floor.
"Help me!
With that cracked, pathetic cry, the white-robed figure before him slumped down, breathing heavily, with a gurgling sound as though there was some obstructing fluid in the lungs. His head was raised, looking up, an expression of sheer terror on the blood-caked features. 'Help me, lock the door . . . They are out there!'
And in that instant reasoning came like a cooling wind across a parched desert, and Peter expelled his pent-up breath in one loud gasp of relief. The man who lay on the floor before him was not Don Peters; it was the dead man's poaching partner, Mick Bostock!
'Bostock!' he grunted. 'What's happening? What the hell are you doing here? And—'
'Close the door.' It was a croak of terror. "They are out there, I tell you.'
'They?' Peter reached the door, slammed it shut and shot the bolt. 'And who the hell are they?'
'My God, I wish I knew.' The poacher was close to breaking down. 'But they'll kill us both if they get us!'
Somehow Peter got Bostock into the kitchen chair, and by the light of his torch began to remove that snow-saturated, partly frozen bloodstained outer garment. It was a head wound of some kind, a gash above the left ear which had bled profusely before it congealed, and matted hair clung to the dried blood. Nasty but not dangerous.
'We'll have to wash this,' he murmured as he moved the kettle on to the wide Rayburn hotplate. 'Now, suppose you tell me what happened to you and your mate, eh.'
'Don—have you seen him?' Bostock gripped the sides of the chair and tried to sit upright, but immediately fell back again. 'For God's sake, where is he?'
Peter was trying to sort out some bandages from the meagre first-aid tin on the Welsh dresser. 'I've seen him but I'm afraid he's dead, a wound like a horse had kicked his head.'
'I knew it.' Bostock's voice trembled. 'I knew he'd never get out of that bloody wood alive.'
'Now suppose you stop talking in riddles and try and tell me what the hell is going on around here.' Peter found some rolled bandage and wondered how long it would take the kettle to boil. 'You and your mate were doing your best to try and frighten the life out of us in the Cat that night. Now it seems that all your bogeys have materialised.'
'We was poaching, Don and me.' Bostock's eyes widened as he began to relive the terrifying events which had led up to this meeting. 'Rabbits, mind you, nothin' else, no game or pheasants or the like. We was on Ruskin's land when we saw 'em. Christ, if only we'd seen 'em sooner we might've stood a chance, but the buggers were dressed like us, all in white. First we thought they was somebody else out after the rabbits but the way they started after us we knew then they was no warreners. We split up and took to the woods to try and shake 'em off. You could hear 'em all around looking for us, and then from afar off I heard Don's scream. Just one scream that was sorta cut off so sudden I knew he was dead. Then they was after me. I gave 'em a chase I can tell you, right out of the big wood on to Hodre ground. I reckon I might've made it down here but something hit me.' Bostock fingered his wound gingerly. 'Don't know what it was but it came with terrific force, and if it'd hit me fair and square I guess I'd've dropped there and then. It was a glancing blow and I staggered on somehow, bleeding like a stuck pig. How they never caught up with me I'll never know but eventually I found myself all alone with not a sound of anybody around.
That was when I passed out, and I guess I must've lain a whole night and a day out there in the snow. When I came round I knew there was no way back to Woodside; all the old tracks were drifted up since Don and I had set out. So I had to come here. You understand that don't you, Mr Fogg?'
'Yes.' The kettle had boiled and now Peter was trying to bathe the ugly wound, grimacing. 'But how do you know that—that they are out there now?'
'I saw 'em,' He winced. 'God strike me, I saw 'em, Mr Fogg, up on the slope above the Hodre Circle, four or five of 'em all dressed in white and heading here, sorta glidin' over the drifts!'
'I see.' Peter began winding the bandage round the poacher's head; the sooner the man saw a doctor, the better. 'But who are they?'
'I told you, I don't know. They ain't after the rabbits, that's for certain, even if they are dressed similar to how Don and me always dressed for snow poaching. If you ask me, there's something funny going on up at that old circle.'
Which was what Peter had thought in the first place: nutters who were out to offer up a human sacrifice to whatever entity they were trying to raise up.
'I think we'd better go upstairs if you can make it,' Peter said. 'I've got a gun and cartridges and maybe we can hold'em off.'
'I'll make it.' Bostock touched his bandaged head gingerly. 'God, I wish I knew what hit me. Some kind of catapult maybe.'
Somehow Peter managed to get Mick Bostock up the narrow flight of stairs. The poacher was weakening rapidly; possibly his wound and the hours of exposure to the elements had brought on pneumonia. His lungs were gurgling again.
'Let me take a look.' Bostock seemed to find renewed strength once they were in the bedroom and staggered across to the window and began to force it open. 'Maybe we'll be able to spot the bastards from here.'
One second the poacher was looking out of the open window, the next he was staggering back, trying to scream, but something was protruding from his throat and allowing him to make only a wheezing sound. A stream of thick wet fluid jetted upwards, splashed against the ceiling and began to drip steadily to the floor. And even as Peter stood watching in horrified silence, Mick Bostock crumpled on w the frayed carpet, still trying 10 jerk a length of steel arrow from his throat.
Peter watched it all in the beam of his torch, a shaft of shaking light that followed the spurting blood up to the ceiling and down again, then focused on the crumpled, bleeding form of Mick Bostock. It was quite obvious that the poacher was dead.
Peter felt his stomach knotting and wondered if he was going to throw up. If he did, it was going to make a mess on the bedroom floor. Jesus Christ, the carpet was already saturated with blood and the thick crimson fluid was oozing its way along the gaps between the floorboards like sluggish polluted rivers; probably dripping through into the room below—his study—spotting his manuscript, pages splashed with genuine human blood. A real-life horror novel!
With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and knelt down by the dead man. The weapon sticking out of Rostock's throat reminded him of a redskin arrow, a shaft of some sort of steel, a weapon so silent and deadly, bringing instant death without warning.
And then he remembered an advertisement he'd seen only a few weeks ago offering sportsmen a weapon that was efficient, silent, and needed no licence whatsoever. The crossbow: a device of death that had been used many centuries ago, now updated, made of steel, a hundred times more powerful than ever before. And they were outside armed with crossbows!
Peter began to sweat, knowing that Bostock's arrival on the scene had saved his own life. Had the poacher not gone to the window, then undoubtedly at some time he would have done so himself, and would now be lying dead on the floor with a steel bolt embedded in his throat. They were here; they were closing in for the kill!
Keeping low he reached the window, cautiously raised his eyes above the level of the sill and peered out. The landscape looked much the same as on the previous night: a steep expanse of frozen wasteland that reflected the light of millions of sparkling stars. So silent, so devoid of life. He could almost believe that the enemy had given up and gone home. But they were out there somewhere, all right.
Did they know Bostock had fled here, or were they under the impression that it was Peter himself they had felled with that devilish bolt? He wondered. They weren't making any move to close in. Perhaps they had gone away after all.
Seconds later Peter knew without any doubt that the enemy had not left. He felt the rush of cold air on his face and was aware of the passage of some kind of missile, but before his reflexes had him diving for cover he heard it strike the far bedroom wail amidst a shower of splintering plaster.
Cold steel glinted in the half-light, a shaft that quivered and hummed its vibration, angry that it had been denied a victim, embedded several inches in the far wall.
Without any doubt the enemy knew he was skulking in the bedroom and their intention was to kill him. Full realisation brought with it a new kind of terror. Previously the fear of the unknown had made him flinch from every patch of shadow. And he had been uncertain whether anybody really was lurking there. It might have been all in the mind.Now that doubt was removed. Out there was a flesh and blood enemy whose main objective was to remove him from the scene with brutal efficiency. The reason was beyond him, but it didn't matter. Now they had him in a corner; he must either fight or die. Or both.
God, he didn't know who the hell they were but he bloody well hated them, wanted to kill them, every single one of them. His smouldering fury fanned its own flames from dwindling fear. They'd scared him but not any longer. Because they were only human like himself, whoever they were, not spooks or druids or other intangible forces of evil. They had crossbolts; he had a shotgun. They wanted a fight and he'd bloody well give 'em one! It was as simple as that.
Suddenly he was on his feet, pulling on both triggers and lighting the hillside with orange stabs of flame.
He winced at the double report as he knelt to reload, and smelled the powder smoke. Its sharp odour gave him a heady sort of sensation, a feeling of satisfaction that made him want to sniff it deep down into his lungs. Because it was the smell of power; he was fighting back. He felt he could get hooked on it, like sniffing glue.
Except that there was no time. Even as the sound of the double blast was roiling into a roar that echoed across the hillside, Peter heard the glass in the open window shatter. Something glanced off the lead latticing and went singing with vibration into the night air. He flung himself sideways; flying glass smashed against the wall behind him and tinkled to the floor.
A shot for a shot; that was the way it was going to be. Like a B western movie, he grinned to himself—arrows thudding into the bunk-house, the defenders keeping the attackers at bay. That thought prompted him to check his ammunition. He'd have to go steady if the siege was going to be a long one, and it could well last until the snow had melted.
There followed a long period of silence. Once he thought he heard the sound of footsteps crunching on frozen snow, but it died away. Perhaps it was a ruse to tempt him to show himself again. The enemy had one big advantage over him—they had only to wait with their crossbows trained on one square of window; he had to search out his white-clad targets on a snowbound hillside. He licked his dry lips; he was the proverbial sitting duck. By the luminous dial of the alarm clock on the bedside table he saw that it was eleven-forty. Jesus Christ, the night had hardly begun!
An hour passed. He was cold and starting to fidget. He experienced an urge to show himself, to get it over and done with. He longed for somebody out there to curse, or even fire a few bolts at the house, to break the terrifying silence. He tried not to glance at Bostock's inert form. Death like that was unnerving because it was so unnecessary, so bloody brutal. And he knew he might end up that way himself . . .
Oh Jesus Christ, he could smell smoke!
He coughed as he scrambled up, keeping low so that he didn't pass in front of the window. Something was on fire somewhere. The Rayburn chimney maybe.
He burst out on to the tiny landing, then recoiled as a wall of creeping smoke met him, the acrid fumes searing his throat, making him step back into the bedroom to gulp some of the fresh air that came in through the open window.