Out of Nowhere (6 page)

Kirsten threw her loot into the pick-up truck and joined them. She wasn’t too happy at first with the job Philip wanted them to do. She was like a little child who’d been let loose in a toyshop only to be told, just as she was getting into the swing of things, that it was time to go home and do her homework. But she cheered up when Philip promised they’d have time to raid more interesting shops later.

‘I think I could get to like thieving,’ she said with a grin.

They fetched the plastic sacks from the car, while Philip set off to the hardware shop.

‘Any special book requests?’ Kirsten called after the big monk. When he looked back you could see his white teeth grinning through the black curls of his beard. The grin looked genuine, and again Stephen felt uneasy – either the man was a great actor or his moods were all over the place.

‘Just don’t get anything too steamy,’ joked Philip. ‘We don’t want too many distractions.’

Then he was gone, and they crossed the square to the library.

‘I’d really much rather be doing a bit of pillaging,’ Kirsten complained.

‘With any luck,’ Stephen pointed out, ‘we won’t even get in.’

But there was nothing to stop them. The door of the building was old and solid-looking, but it stood slightly ajar. Stephen wasn’t sure he liked that. The disappearances seemed to have happened late on Sunday night, a time when library doors should be locked. It suggested that someone had been here since then.

The door swung open at a push, and they were in a large front hall. Before them was a broad staircase. Off the hall were anonymous offices, most of them identical and all of them empty. The quietness seemed even quieter here.

‘Now this is
really
creepy,’ Kirsten whispered. It was a whispering sort of place.

They went up the stairs, their footsteps echoing in the stairwell. In front of them, on the next landing, stood a glass door with the words
Public Library
written on it in gilt letters. They stopped, hesitant. They looked at each other with embarrassed smiles.

‘Robbing a library,’ Kirsten whispered. ‘It feels almost sinful!’

But she didn’t sound as though that bothered her. Her whisper echoed, as though a mocking little voice was aping hers.

For a moment they both just stood outside the door. Even now Stephen half expected a librarian to appear, demanding to know what they were at. Then the sound of breaking glass came from somewhere outside, startling them.

‘There goes the hardware shop,’ Stephen said.

The noise had broken the spell. Stephen shrugged off his unease and pushed at the library door. It swung open.

The library was a single, large, rectangular room. Big windows that looked out on to the square took up most of the wall straight ahead. The other walls were covered with bookshelves. Free-standing bookstacks stood scattered around the carpeted floor. Stephen felt himself relax. Inside the library the silence seemed less oppressive. It suited the place: you expected libraries to be quiet.

Immediately in front of them stood an old-fashioned glass-fronted library counter with low wooden gates on either side of it marked
In
and
Out
. Kirsten, bubbling at the opportunity, breezed in through the gate marked
Out
. Stephen used the proper gate. They stood looking around.

‘You start at that end,’ Kirsten said, pointing. ‘And I’ll start over here. We’ll meet in the middle.’

They started filling the plastic sacks, working in silence. Stephen noticed that Kirsten examined each book before selecting or replacing it. He himself flitted from shelf to shelf, picking titles that caught his eye. As he rounded the free-standing stack furthest from the door, he noticed that the room wasn’t, as he’d thought, perfectly rectangular. There was a walk-in alcove at this end. A sign above it read
Reference Section
. At the back of the alcove was another door. Set in its top half was a window of cloudy frosted glass. As he looked at the glass, Stephen thought he saw a shadow behind it – a moving shadow.

He stood stock-still, waiting. A shiver ran up his spine. There was no sound. He wasn’t even sure he’d really seen anything. He looked back at Kirsten, but she was still busy selecting books. Should he say something, and risk looking like
an idiot when the room turned out to be empty?

He looked back at the door, licking lips that were suddenly very dry. There was no sign of movement. Stephen cursed himself for a panicky fool. The eyes play tricks when things are tense. The hairs were tingling on his neck, but he’d heard nothing and seen … what? A movement that might have been anything or nothing. The shadow of a window-blind blowing in the breeze.

But there was no breeze.

‘Get a hold of yourself,’ he told himself.

He walked boldly over to the door in the alcove and put his hand on the knob. It turned easily and the door opened inwards. But before he could open it fully the knob was yanked from his hand, and something hit him very hard in the face.

Stephen toppled backwards, and as he fell he was hit again, hard, in the shoulder, by what felt like a boot. Someone flung himself on top of him. Blows were aimed at his head, and he had just enough sense to throw his arms up in front of his face. Several pairs of running feet went by him. His arms took the worst of the heavy blows, but some of them landed. He was dazed. Little stars sparked and died in front of his eyes. His attacker was growling, a savage sound that didn’t sound human at all. Stephen felt sick to his stomach with fear. He thought of the body in the field. He felt he was going to pass out.

Then Kirsten screamed.

The sound seemed to trip a strange switch inside Stephen. There was a very peculiar feeling in his head, a sudden twisting,
pulling
sensation, as though his mind itself was trying
to escape from his body. For a moment he had a feeling that was very hard to describe: it was almost as though he – not his body, but
he
– was somewhere else entirely. Then his mind seemed to snap back into his body like a piece of overstretched elastic suddenly released.

He was instantly very alert and very aware. Everything seemed very, very clear. His body moved as though with a will of its own. His hands caught his attacker’s wrists, his speed surprising both of them. Stephen saw the other’s face for the first time. It was the face of a boy not much older than himself, a dirty face twisted into a look of utter hatred. The youth’s teeth were bared in a doglike snarl, and Stephen shuddered as he saw that they were sharp, as though they’d been filed. Thick spit was drooling from his mouth. The boy’s eyes were dark and burning. He was very strong, but Stephen didn’t feel weak now at all. He held the youth’s hands easily, then bucked his hips so that the bigger boy was thrown off him. Stephen let go of his wrists and his attacker flew helplessly through the air and slammed into the wall with an explosive grunt. He fell on the ground with a cascade of displaced library books raining down on him.

Stephen was already on his feet, reaching for the little pistol he’d put in his back pocket. Hearing footsteps behind him, he pulled the pistol, swung round and used the gun to clout another youth who’d almost reached him. The gun hit his skull with a hollow pop. The youth gave an animal yelp and fell to the floor. Stephen swung again to face his first attacker, but he was still lying on the floor, groaning in pain, his hands making weak flapping movements. The second attacker lay on the
floor, unmoving.

Stephen turned to where he’d last seen Kirsten. She was struggling with two more youths, their faces as crazily twisted as those of the ones who’d attacked him. These too were growling in no human way. One of them stood behind Kirsten, his arm around her throat. The second was in front of her, and as Stephen watched Kirsten gave him a roundhouse kick in the stomach. Even the sight of it made Stephen wince. The youth made a sound like a punctured air-cushion and jack-knifed forward. He swivelled away and stood doubled up in front of one of the big windows, his back turned to Kirsten. Kirsten bent her leg and planted her foot square in the small of his back. She pushed.

The boy never knew what hit him. He shot forward and smashed through the glass. The low ledge caught his legs below the knees, and then, with a squeal, he was gone.

Kirsten and Stephen stared wide-eyed at the smashed, empty window. But the other attackers seemed hardly to notice that they’d lost a companion. Someone – one of the two youths he’d already downed – jumped on Stephen from behind, dragging him to the floor. He lay face down with the weight of his assailant on his back. A clawed hand gripped the wrist of his gun-holding hand. Another grabbed the back of his neck, grinding his face into the spiky carpet. Stephen struggled uselessly. Then a second body smashed down on top of him, knocking all his breath out. A rain of punches started falling on his head and back. Consciousness began to slip away.

‘Kirsten!’ he screamed, his voice muffled by the carpet.
‘
Run
!’

But he had no idea whether or not she was in any position to obey.

I’m going to die here, he thought with a strange calmness, without even knowing who I really am.

There was a loud hollow bang. The weight on Stephen’s back suddenly shifted. There was a second bang, a sharper, cracking sound, and part of the weight went away. The hands on his wrist and neck disappeared. He started to scramble to his feet, waiting to be hit again. Only as he stood upright did he look around.

Philip stood inside the library gate with his big black pistol raised. Wisps of shifting blue smoke curled in the still air.

The last of Kirsten’s attackers lay sprawled on the floor by the window. Kirsten herself stood staring down at him with huge terrified eyes. When Stephen looked around he saw one of his own attackers lying deathly still. The last attacker, the one he’d originally thrown against the wall, stood snarling at Philip. The snarl showed his wicked teeth. The boy reached into his pocket and took something out. A knife’s long thin blade flicked out with a click, and he brandished it at Stephen.

‘Ten,’ he said, or something that sounded like it: Tern? Teln? The boy’s voice sounded as though there was something wrong with his throat.

Stephen held up his own little gun helplessly. He knew he couldn’t use it.

‘Shoot!’ Philip said loudly. ‘Shoot!’

The boy didn’t shift his gaze. He stared at Stephen with a hatred in his eyes that seemed almost personal.

Do I know you? Stephen wondered. Do you know me? He felt a terrible longing to ask it aloud.

With a scream the youth jumped towards him. There was another bang, the sound of Philip firing. The boy performed an impossible mid-air somersault, as though plucked at by some giant invisible hand. He was flung to the ground, limp, like a discarded piece of old rag, and lay without moving.

Stephen still held the pistol out in front of him. He could see his hand shaking wildly. Then his whole body started shaking. He saw Philip walk over to the body. He extended his foot carefully and rolled it over. The corpse flopped onto its back. Philip stared at it. Then he turned to Stephen and raised his arm. Stephen found himself looking down the barrel of the big black pistol. He looked up at Philip’s face. It was as white as a sheet. His eyes were even more wild than they’d been back in the field. There was sweat on his forehead. He was shaking almost as much as Stephen. Stephen knew he was about to shoot him. For the second time in minutes he was sure he was going to die. He looked down again at the pistol’s muzzle. It made a third eye, looking at him, a black and wicked little eye, but still one saner than the eyes in Philip’s head.

‘No blood,’ Philip said in a strangled voice. ‘Three of them shot. One of them fallen twenty feet onto concrete and not a single drop of blood between them.’

Stephen’s shaking grew wilder and wilder. He felt curiously distant from himself. His knees trembled. Then he keeled over and everything went away.

The second village we came to was bigger than the first. According to the map it was the biggest settlement within the exclusion zone. It had a market square in the centre, and in the square there was a body lying on the ground. My friend parked the car by a statue of a young man with a gun in his hands and we got out very carefully, our crystals drawn.

The body was dead. Looking up, we could see a smashed window in the top floor of the building before which it lay. Taken with the drift of glass shards scattered around the sprawled figure, it explained the cause of the boy’s death. Except, of course, that it wasn’t a boy. It wasn’t one of our creatures either – it was a hunter.

We went inside warily. The building was deserted. The room with the broken window turned out to be a library. There were three more dead hunters there. They’d all been shot. My friend and I looked at each other.

‘Now this,’ my friend said, ‘is a fine how d’you do.’

‘You think our people did it?’

‘They must have – although I’d swear there’d been humans here recently.’

There were two big, black, plastic bags lying on the floor, half-filled with library books. My friend looked at them,
frowning. He shook his head.

‘This
is
a puzzle,’ he said.

‘Could the hunters be fighting each other?’

‘Anything’s possible, I suppose. But what would hunters want with books? The Sug aren’t what you’d call great readers. And I’d swear I could feel humans.’

‘Well, it’s a human town. The place was alive with them only a couple of days ago.’

He shrugged.

‘Maybe,’ he said doubtfully.

‘We couldn’t have …
overlooked
some humans in the clearance, could we?’

My friend winced.

‘I don’t even want to think about that,’ he said.

I knew we’d found something significant, even if its significance eluded us.

I ran through the possibilities in my mind. One, the hunters were fighting amongst themselves. That was very good, it would leave us less to kill. Two, our own people, or some of the others, were still capable of fighting back. That was pretty good as well. Three, there were humans around. That was definitely
not
good. In fact, that was terrible. For a start it meant that the hunters were so crazy they might have attacked humans. That would be very bad news for all of us, because humans, as individuals, are not very robust.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said to my friend. ‘I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.’

He nodded.

‘I’m starting to get a very bad feeling about all this,’ he said.

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘I’ve had a bad feeling about it all along.’

We got back into the car and drove out of town. We played no music now. After a while the road began to climb again, back into mountainous country. A few miles on I felt a special sort of strangeness. I looked over at my friend. He’d felt it too.

‘Sug,’ he said.

‘Only one, I think.’

‘The Hunt Lord most likely. I want to have a little chat with that idiot.’

Somehow I didn’t think the Hunt Lord would enjoy the experience. My friend can get quite nasty when he’s in a temper.

We saw him as we rounded a bend in the road. He was sitting on a fallen tree a little way up a slope, a big stout man in brown clothes. He showed no sign of alarm – if anything, he seemed to have been waiting for us. He rose to his feet when the car stopped. There could be no doubt that this was – in theory at least – the leader of the hunters. Although from what we’d seen it was obvious that he’d lost control of them. I felt anger rise in me, but it faded when I saw his pale drawn face approach the car. There was an odd mix of emotions competing to take control of that face. Tiredness, pain, and to my surprise something that might have been shame. Worry too. Most surprising of all was a flash, quickly suppressed, of something that looked awfully like relief.

When he reached the car the Sug leaned down and peered in through the open window.

‘Am I glad to see you two!’ he said.

That’s when I knew that things were worse than I’d ever imagined.