Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates: and Other Tales from the Lost Years (12 page)

Even though Forester couldn’t see him, Harry found himself shaking his head. “There are no blackberry blossoms—or crabapples, for that matter—not this early in the year,” he said. “In another two or three weeks, then maybe. But not just yet.”

Harry sensed the other’s shrug—and that it was an uneasy shrug—more like an itch that the constable couldn’t get at to scratch. “Then it must be like I’ve said,” Forester said. “Just honeysuckle and shit.”

“I suppose so.” The Necroscope nodded, if only to himself. And echoing the constable: “Well, probably.” At which:

“Careful Harry,” said Forester. “Or you’ll wake up one day as crazy as Greg Miller.” With which he put the phone down. . . .

And now it was time.

Harry went back out into the garden and gazed west—seemingly at a solid brick wall but in fact through it, in order to “see” beyond it—then shuttered his eyes and used a deadspeak probe to scan afar.
For one brief moment he found himself focussing upon a babble of faint, frightened voices in a pitch-black room . . .
which in the next moment was gone, voices and parapsychologically conjured “room” alike, as the darkness in his mind withdrew and he opened his eyes to a bright summer morning. And Harry believed he knew what had happened.

Whatever the connection was between the forest thing and a number of dismayed dead people—whether it was their custodian or jailer, though the Necroscope was sure it was the latter—and whatever its physical shape might be and however strong its metaphysical abilities, it was certainly
aware
of him and since yesterday evening at the latest had made ready to shield itself and shroud its prisoners’ voices at the slightest indication of his presence!

As for Harry’s convictions with regard to its nature: the briefest
of brief contacts on this occasion had been sufficient to reinforce any previous, half-formed suspicions into the sure knowledge that it was evil. For in the instant of its departure he had felt that a switch had been thrown and a light turned on that dispelled the darkness and temporarily cleansed the psychic atmosphere of something alien and rotten.

And if that unknown “something” wasn’t evil, then the Necroscope simply didn’t know what was. . . .

Once again Harry’s intention had been to locate the source of the dead voices, and if they had been calling to him in person and not just crying out in some kind of psychic wilderness, he would have achieved his goal. In the Möbius Continuum he would have traced the voices to their co-ordinates as easily as finding a lost child crying in a room in a sprawling mansion. As it was, however, Harry now knew the direction—the latest direction—of the voices and their tormentor, but not the distance. Gauging that would have to be an effort of trial and error.

Leaving the garden by the back gate and making a series of line-of-sight Möbius jumps, he moved to the cover of a hedgerow some hundred yards south of the derelict Bellingham’s Farm and there paused to consider his options. The comparative “silence” of the metaphysical atmosphere by no means indicated a lack of activity on the part of the living; there could be couples out walking, picnickers in the fields, perhaps a gamekeeper in the vicinity. And as usual Harry’s need to keep his talents secure from public knowledge was uppermost.

So perhaps it was time he employed the Möbius Continuum in a new if somewhat alarming way that he had been considering for some time. For after all, what better way to observe the lie of the land than from a bird’s-eye viewpoint? And if by some freak of chance a ground-based observer should happen to glance up at the sky, and if Harry didn’t linger on high for too long—not that the latter was likely; the branch of physics that governed gravity
wasn’t about to ignore his physical presence—he might even be taken for a bird or a kite broken free of its string.

And without more ado he chose a spot in the sky—in fact one occupied by the tiny speck of a hovering skylark—and used the Möbius Continuum to go there.

For a moment the Necroscope stood still on the air, scanning the land below, his gaze sweeping north and south along the eastern edge of Hazeldene. And attracted by movement, the first thing he spied was Jack Forester’s police vehicle bumping along a farmland track. That told him what else to look for, and the next thing he saw—a little less than two hundred yards ahead of the constable’s car and much closer to the ominous green of the forest, in a field where the track petered out at the edge of a deep ditch—was a lone figure with the sling of a holdall over one shoulder!

Greg Miller? It could well be.

These things Harry saw and then he was falling, with the rush of his descent belling his trousers, tugging at his shirt, and filling his eyes with tears. At that moment, any other man would have been fearfully aware of Death’s rapid approach; but the Necroscope wasn’t like any other man. And concentrating on the mutating equations of exotic Möbius formulae, he used them to conjure a door directly beneath his hurtling figure and let himself fall through it. . . .

And in the next moment, steadying himself, he stepped from the Continuum into the co-ordinates of his previous location by the hedgerow. In all, it had been a flight of just two or three seconds’ duration; but in that time Harry had seen everything he could have hoped for, at least for now, and his unique mind had recorded several new co-ordinates.

He could now afford to take a moment or two and let Miller enter the woods, then follow close behind him in a Möbius jump. He would be well ahead of Jack Forester, with his vehicle stuck at the ditch, and hot on the heels of Miller, still heading in the direction of his brief contact with his unknown quarry. In fact it now appeared likely that Miller was following the same trail, albeit by some means unknown to the Necroscope. Perhaps the man had
developed some kind of rapport with the forest entity, evidence of which Harry had witnessed when first he became aware of this dark alien incursion. Or then again, Miller might simply be following—

—Following his nose?!

For there it was again:
that smell, that indefinable odour that was more a melancholy feeling or perception, that reminded the Necroscope of . . . but of what? Of every sad thing that ever happened to him? Every worried, anxious, sleepless night he had ever spent? It felt as if a dark cloud had passed over the sun, and the entire weight of the universe was pressing down on him. Except this time Harry knew it was no coincidence, knew that it was connected to Greg Miller—definitely to Jack Forester and something in Hazeldene Forest—and now to himself. And he knew if he let it take over, take control, that he couldn’t say what it might make him do. Because his life seemed so utterly pointless with this great black cloud hanging over him.

What, on a bright summer day?

For deep down inside Harry knew that it was a lie; he knew that life wasn’t pointless, that he had purpose, especially now that he was so close to an answer to all of this. And he knew a place where he’d be safe and free of whatever was doing this to him, probably to Greg Miller, and most certainly to Jack Forester: a place called the Möbius Continuum, where whatever it was couldn’t possibly follow him, but from where he could pursue it to whatever end was waiting. . . .

The Necroscope conjured a door, toppled himself through it, and immediately felt an effect, or rather
twin
effects: one of negative gravity in the weightlessness of the Möbius Continuum, the other a sense of relief in his instantaneous freedom from alien pheromones whose message had been one of suicide. Then, growing angry as he wondered whom that weird biological miasma had been fashioned to target: himself, Forester, or Miller—or maybe all three of them?—Harry sped to the co-ordinates where he’d seen the latter entering the forest.

And there was Miller, frozen in an attitude of listening—or perhaps of sensing?—just a few paces ahead of him. But as Harry had stepped from the Continuum into the gloom of the forest, so the other had heard the crackle of twigs breaking under his feet. Crouching down, Miller spun in a half circle, causing his heavy hold-all to fly up and throw him off balance.

As Miller lurched, so the Necroscope grabbed the hold-all, yanking on it to keep the surprised man out of kilter. Also, he stuck his foot out to trip the other up, then fell to the leaf-mould floor with him. And with a hand clamped on Miller’s mouth to stop him from crying out, he whispered, “Quiet now! I’m here to help you. I believe what I know of your story, and I think I know what you’re trying to do. But we have to keep it quiet. We don’t know who or what is listening, and our mutual friend Jack Forester isn’t far behind us.”

Miller grabbed Harry’s hand and dragged it from his face. He shook his head and said, “No, you don’t know what I’m doing; you
can’t
know! All you’re doing is interfering, and I’ve never been as close as this before. So whoever you are—” He blinked rapidly, frowned, and looked puzzled. “—and however you’ve managed to follow me so quietly, don’t get in my way now! In fact, why don’t you just get the hell away from me?” But for all that his response was negative, still he’d kept his voice low, which at least told the Necroscope something of just how close Miller thought they must be.

“But close to what?” Harry wondered out loud, which simultaneously questioned both Miller’s cryptic comment and his own thoughts. And as the other shook his head again—this time in obvious frustration—he quickly added, “Because
I
can sense it too! I sense it, smell it, and I even know what it wants of me: that I should kill myself! But what the hell
is
it?”

At which Miller’s eyes widened; he’d read the truth in the Necroscope’s words, his voice. He grabbed Harry’s wrist, sat up, and reached for his hold-all. Its zipper had burst open when it hit
the ground and its contents were exposed: a vicious-looking chain saw, and a plastic container full of a liquid whose unmistakable smell lingered on from a recent filling. It was petrol, fuel for the chain saw.

Glaring at Harry, Miller repeated his question. “What the hell is it? This thing? Well
why
the hell do you think I’d need a chain saw, eh? I mean, what does one
do
with a chain saw?”

Harry shrugged, and answered, “You can cut wood, even soft metal if the saw has the right kind of teeth.”

“Metal, no,” said Miller, licking dry lips. “Wood, yes . . . except I don’t even know if it
is
wood! I mean, I can’t see how it can be, and yet it looks like . . . like a fucking tree! Maybe not quite right but close enough to fool you until you’re right on top of it . . . or maybe right
under
it! So who knows? Who can say? But Jesus—as crazy and impossible a thing as it is—
it eats human flesh
!”

“So you don’t know what it is,” said Harry, barely able to suppress a shudder as he got up, dusted himself down, and helped Miller to his feet. “But you do know
where
it is, right?”

Miller shook his head. “That’s the trouble, you can never be sure. It . . . it
moves
! It moves slowly, but it moves. I told them where it had killed Janet—where we’d fallen asleep after making love—and where I’d woken up, seen what it was doing to her. Then . . . it had knocked me aside, out of its reach, unconscious, and I had lain there all day. They found Janet’s clothing okay but not the thing. When I finally worked it out . . . by then it was too late. I was locked up and no one was ever going to believe me. But since getting out I’ve never stopped looking for it. Chain saws? I’ve buried half-a-dozen chain saws all round Hazeldene, so I’ll be close to one if or when I find the thing. Wood? Sure, they’ll cut wood. But when I find that bloody thing—which could well be today—you can
bet
I’ll be cutting something other than wood!”

Harry heard a car’s door being slammed. Turning and looking out into the open through smoky shadows pierced by shifting shafts of sunlight, he saw Jack Forester, hands on hips, standing beside his
car on the far side of the drainage ditch. Maybe one hundred and fifty yards away, the constable peered left and right up and down the ditch. He was looking for the easiest way across, obviously.

Miller had meanwhile taken the opportunity to pick up his hold-all and venture into the trees along a route that ran parallel with the forest’s border, where the open fields remained barely visible beyond the low branches and leafy canopy of the outermost trees. Hurrying after him, but trying to avoid stepping on dead, fallen twigs, Harry said, “Greg, you told me you don’t know where the thing is. Yet now you seem pretty sure of your—”

“Yes, and
you
told me you could sense it, too,” the other whispered, cutting him short. “Oh, really? Well, as for myself, I’ve never felt it so close before—and getting closer! And I really
do
know this thing. I know and
hate
it! As for the feelings it gives off, like long-distance hypnotism: I ignore them—well, mostly. By concentrating my hatred, I can simply drown them out! So now let’s just hold still awhile and try to pick up its rotten scent, shall we?”

Miller paused and held a finger to his lips, and shortly, in a small, hushed, quivering voice, he said, “
There!
So then, if you really are sensing it, tell me what you make of that?”

“I’ve been getting that ever since I set out to find it—or you—or both of you,” the Necroscope answered. “A feeling that life just isn’t worth it. I might even have got something of it the first time we met, after your fight with Jack Forester. But I know what it is now; or rather, I know
something
is doing it to me—that it’s not my nature but something else’s nature—and that helps me to fight it. Forester, on the other hand, wrapped in his own misery, he doesn’t know, can’t understand. And slowly but surely it’s working its poison on him. I think it’s been working on him for a very long time.”

“Yes,” the other nodded. “I’m pretty sure it’s doing it to him, too. Makes him hate himself so much he wants to die, which is why he takes it out on me.”

“And of course Forester has other reasons—” said Harry, “or at least one other reason—for hating you. Which makes the thing’s grip on his emotions that much more effective. He feels even more
worthless because he can’t dish out the sort of justice he can’t even be sure you deserve! Little wonder the man’s so frustrated, angry.”