The Fly-By-Nights

On hearing that last the hush that had fallen was suddenly utter: a total silence from a gathering that might only be described as hypnotized. For surely the small tech’s final revelation could have meant only one thing?

And in corroboration: “It seems a very long time,” Fielding had continued, his voice suddenly tremulous, “since last we had communication with anyone outside the clan or beyond the Southern Refuge. But this morning when I was out and about, Earl and Glenn achieved precisely that! It was one of those old radios—fallen apart and scrapped—salvaged and fitted with makeshift parts that were never intended for such use—written off time and time again only to be revamped, reassembled, reconstituted. And finally this morning when an all-too-frequent hiss of meaningless static suddenly went away, finally there were voices—real human voices…and…and a message!”

But that had been all from the head tech. Emotionally overcome, trembling in all his limbs, Fielding had been helped down from the iron flank of Big Jon’s vehicle and a path cleared for him through the assembled clan folk.

Then before the stunned crowd could react again, the leader had reached down, offering his hand to a man years younger than Fielding—Earl Jones, who for all those years might have reckoned himself a radio operator, if only the radios had operated!—and hoisted him aboard the rauper. For it was tech Jones who had heard and recorded the all-important message, and head tech Fielding had left it to him to tell the rest of the story:

How while searching pensively, almost idly through the wave bands, as he had done on a hundred previous occasions, suddenly he had picked up a repetitive signal, and a voice so very faint it might have been coming down from the stars! Scarcely daring to touch or interfere with the radio’s unlikely jumble of wires, tubes, and fuses, he had finally managed to adjust the gain and make a scribbled record of the message; which was a tired, even forlorn-sounding request, almost as pensive as Jones’ own mood: that if anyone was “out there” listening, he should try to make contact on the more viable wavelength which had then been specified.

Feeling he needed help and someone to corroborate, validate what was happening, Jones had called out for Garrison to attend him. Sleeping close by in a trundle where much of the technical equipment was stored, Garrison had started awake, quickly joining Jones where he had already tuned in to the other wavelength and was even then talking to some fantastic, incredible other!

At this point in the story Glenn Garrison had been eager to join Jones and the leader on the rauper’s deck, and between the two techs the details of the unique, exciting event had quickly been filled in:

They had indeed been in communication with a more northerly band of nuclear survivors—a group that for years had searched the airwaves for others, hopefully to expand a small population depleted by fly-by-night depredation and so freshen and fortify diminishing gene pools; not only theirs but also those of their surviving animal species… And yes, while certain technicians and craft specialists continued a semi-subterranean existence—primarily for the maintenance of “the sanctuary,” as a precaution against any possible future disaster—the majority of “the kindred” were now living their lives above ground, in farms and a small village they had gradually been rebuilding and renovating for close on a decade!… As for the fly-by-nights: following the massed attack that decimated the population of the sanctuary, the survivors had begun a campaign, venturing out during daylight hours en masse into the nearby village and countryside around to seek out and destroy the vampires where they hid from the sun… The ruined village, with its cellars and other dark places, served as the swarm’s main roosts; the vengeful kindred had hunted them down, burned them out, cleared off the area all around while setting booby-traps and installing advance warning systems… All of this made possible by the fact that the ozone layer in their more northerly latitude had slowly settled down, replenished itself, until now the region was totally safe above ground—from the sun at least—and comparatively free of the monsters; though there was still the occasional, however ineffective raid, always from the south: the very region into which the clan’s convoy was now about to venture…

Then, as the two techs approached the end of the story, Big Jon Lamon had cut in on them. Determined to have the last word, he had begun to bring the meeting to a close with the following statement:

“Now hear this:

“I’m aware that there have always been those among you who had doubts—who believed there was small chance that we would make it even this far—but I also know that all of you, each and every one of you, has put his or her heart, body, and soul into our great adventure. Moreover you should know that I have not been without doubts of my own, but that I now feel as if a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. And since it is my fervent desire to witness this relief that I feel reflected in you—to actually see it written in your faces, the weight lifted from your shoulders—I have kept the very best of the news to the last so that I might report it to you personally.

“So then, what is this wonderful news I’ve been holding in reserve? Simply this: that these sanctuary people, the kindred, are a clever lot who have either developed or retained from the olden days a means of radio triangulation; by which I mean that they have located us, this very convoy, at a point no more than a hundred miles due south of their refuge! Moreover, if we keep in regular touch and as we draw ever closer, it’s their intention to send out a strong party to meet and guide us in! People, my friends, we’re almost at the end of our trek!”

At which, after a brief pause to let that sink in, someone in the crowd had cheered, thrown his hat in the air, and done a little dance; which in turn had set the rest of them off: laughing, shouting and back-slapping.

Big Jon had let it go on for a moment or two before bellowing: “Now listen! Go and prepare. We have rested up here—most of us—but now it’s time we moved on. I was thinking: perhaps we should stay on here another night. Ah, but I learned a valuable lesson in that damned town back there! Namely, that if we stay in any one place too long, the fly-by-nights are bound to smell us out! So now, with all this good news buoying us up, I reckon it’s time we got underway again; and we will within the hour. Why, there are people waiting for us, and even coming to meet us! And it seems only right that in our turn we should do our best to make that meeting happen as quickly as possible.

“So, we’ll ride the rest of the day and coming night, then sleep tomorrow from dawn till dusk. But with any luck tomorrow will be the last time we rest up in daylight, and if the ozone layer will only quit its wobbling for good we may even be able to dispose of some of the lead that’s weighed us down all this terrible time! Now, what do you say to that?”

The clan folk had been with Big Jon all the way; but thinking to remind him of something, the chief mechanic, Ian Clement—a man with grease-smudged features, calloused hands and ragged oily coveralls: the hallmarks of his trade—had called out, “Big Jon! As you are aware, all that bad sludgy fuel we’ve been using has knocked out a couple of motors, making them irreparable. Now every trundle—and indeed every vehicle—will have to he packed to the gills with people and gear; which will put an even greater strain on the motors and slow us down more yet. Moreover and even worse, the one thing we can rely upon is that there’s bound to be at least a few more breakdowns!

“Now you know I’m not trying to put a damper on things, but these good people must understand that we’re not out of trouble yet; no, not by a long shot! Let’s face it, the best speed this convoy has ever achieved is something less than ten miles in any twenty-four hour period! Which I suppose is as much or more my fault as anyone else’s, me being the one who cares for these cursed engines! But now—what with fuel problems, earlier its conservation, and more recently its poor quality; and the lousy roads if and when there are roads, not just potholed rubble and cratered dirt; plus the fact that we’ve regularly had to detour to find safe harbour during daylight hours, while going with extreme caution through the badlands at night; and now the breakdowns, which can only get worse—well, I just don’t know what to say any more! But one thing for certain: while there’s nothing we can do about all this, still it makes that hundred miles seem one hell of a long way!”

“Ian, you’re quite right,” the leader had at once replied. “Which makes it all the more needful that we get underway with as little delay as possible. At least we know there’s no longer any requirement to be so frugal with the fuel and water. On the other hand, and where frugality is concerned, from now on we’ll need to be sparing with our remaining handful of domestic animals. Meaning that other than any wild game we may trap or shoot—assuming the fly-by-nights haven’t had them all—there can be no more roast suppers from the flesh of our caged creatures! No, for the kindred need our beasts’ genes to invigorate and reestablish the quality of their own animals: which is to say our animals, or humanity’s animals, as they will become in some far future time. And that’s not to mention our human genes—which are perhaps the future of humanity itself…!

“All of which to say, that having come this far we’re not about to let a handful of fouled-up, clapped-out vehicles stop us now—neither them nor anything else!”

And at last, as Big Jon swept the crowd with his eyes full of hope—such hope as the clan had never before seen lighting his face—finally he had nodded his satisfaction. And climbing down from his vehicle’s iron flank, he had commanded them:

“Now off you go and make ready. Another hour and we’ll be gone from here, and a long afternoon, evening, and night ahead…”

IX

All of which had taken place eleven days and ten nights ago.

Since when, as the convoy crept ever northward, the clan’s experiences had become increasingly eventful. Mercifully during that time there had been no more fly-by-night attacks or skirmishes; though at each day’s end, when Big Jon called a halt and the mechanical groaning of overloaded vehicles subsided into uneasy silence, and night’s long shadows began to shroud the land, the presence of vampires out there in what were once dead and crumbling radioactive wastelands—indeed “the badlands,” which now as often as not seemed magically transformed by improving local conditions into burgeoning grass and woodlands—was far more than merely suspected.

All too often the shrill, whistled alarms of the sentinels would be heard, their red flashes of warning light glimpsed out there on the perimeters; and the standby teams would ready themselves for action and prepare to ride out and engage the undead enemy. But unfailingly—and oddly—on each such occasion, as endless, breathless moments passed in deafening silence, eventually the flashing red beams would change to green, accompanied in short order by a long oh-so-welcome blast on Big Jon’s whistle as the leader signalled yet another all clear.

But so many alarms—three or four each night, and so often false or seemingly unjustified—that the people were actually becoming accustomed to them! While familiarity breeds contempt, however, they had never been contemptuous of the fly-by-nights; and thus the alarms continued to make for long, nervous nights.

The days, on the other hand, were glorious!

Unused to such balmy days and warm, benign sunlight—with the hinged lead shutters folded back and tucked away overhead—the people tended to forget the discomforts of cramped trundles and farm vehicles but perched wherever they could face outward, their legs swinging to the jolting, rocking rhythm of the lumbering transports. And for the very first time in their comparatively short lives, the pallor of their previously subterranean existence was beginning to be replaced by the pinks, then reds, then browns of skin tones coloured by the sun.

Ian Clement’s predictions, however, as they became reality, were causing problems; Big Jon’s optimism in respect of the unnecessary conservation of water had proved premature; even the hopes of head tech Andrew Fielding’s radio men, with regard to continued contact with the kindred, had been dashed to smithereens along with the radio, when the transport carrying most of the technical equipment had turned over in a ditch.

Big Jon considered this last as bad a problem as any other, if not a disaster: that the voices on the other end of the airwaves—as static-plagued as the reception often was—had been shut off forever in the irreparable tangle of wires, fuses, and shattered glass.

But in fact the other problems were just as bad, if not far worse, especially the trouble with the water. During the second night following the convoy’s departure from the wooded site in the lee of the cliffs—the first night of so-called rest, despite frequent disturbances by the real or suspected presence of nearby fly-by-nights—the old rust-scabbed bowser had sprung a serious leak. With its source directly under the huge tank, the trickle of precious water had not been noticed until first light when an area of soaked earth had revealed the full extent of the loss: at least two thirds of the clan’s reserves.

While chief mech Clement had stopped up the leak in double-quick time, the very next day there was nothing he could do for a seized-up trundle engine, or on the day following the wrecked tech transport’s broken axles. And all the time the increasingly cramped conditions in the rest of the convoy’s vehicles were making difficult times all the more problematic.

As for Garth Slattery, the outrider teams (now more commonly called the “night-watch squads”), and the unusual inactivity of the fly-by-nights:

Since the slow, lumbering column now proceeded only in daylight, Garth and his squad—along with the other squads—were on duty every night forming an oval perimeter around the entire length or cluster of the stationary convoy; which meant that the watch-men could at least attempt to sleep for seven or eight hours in the noisy, jarring trundles each day, and have the evenings to themselves when Big Jon called a halt and the column paused to rest and take stock. And so Garth was at last able to spend at least some time with his new wife, but rarely quality time and never a lot.

Layla knew that something was bothering him. His nightmares were worse than ever, when after only a few hours rest he would begin muttering to himself—then start awake with an inarticulate cry, clinging to her and shaking feverishly. Sometimes he would mumble her name; other times the name of someone else…someone Layla remembered only too well!

At first she believed she understood this well enough, and despite the disruption it caused accepted it as a natural consequence of the mutual animosity that had existed between Garth and that loathsome other. At least Layla accepted it as such—but not Garth, not entirely. He wouldn’t, however, speak of his concerns in any detail; to do so would only have worried Layla more yet, most likely needlessly. Thus he kept his own counsel—his doubts and indeed his fears—to himself. For not unlike Layla, albeit to a lesser degree, Garth was wont to reason with himself, trying to rationalize and perhaps minimalize his “problem.” But that was only in broad daylight, with the sun warming his face. Never at night, out there on the perimeter.

And so things went…

Around mid-afternoon on the fourth day, however—when the convoy had halted to make urgent repairs to a trundle’s failing suspension, and when once again Garth, only poorly rested, came shouting awake—Layla saw how he was actually starting to look enervated and even somewhat gaunt. At which she determined that later, when he was fully awake and responsive, she would definitely speak to him about it. But for the moment…

…While he washed sparingly from a mugful of water, shaved using the dregs and got dressed, she went off to a hastily arranged teaching appointment with some of the clan’s smaller children—which was where Zach Slattery happened upon her, only to find her looking more than usually tired, worn, and worried.

During a break, when the kids were allowed to play a simple game without supervision, Zach took her aside and spoke to her.

“Layla, while I know it’s none of my business—” he began, but she stopped him at once, saying:

“You are Garth’s father and you love him, so of course it’s some of your business!”

“Ah!” he said. “So you’re more concerned about him than because of him? Well good! It’s just that you’ve been looking so down, so tired and stressed out yourself, this last day or two. But as long as there’s no trouble—er, you know—between the pair of you…?”

“No,” She shook her head. “No trouble of that sort. For all the dreadful circumstances—I mean this horrible journey, and Garth’s nightly duties—I’ve never been so happy, and I don’t think Garth has either. But while everything else is going well, still there’s something…oh, I don’t know what, but it’s got me worried! Garth has nightmares—or maybe I should call them daymares?—about terrible things: the fly-by-nights, I suppose, but also about Ned Singer. He doesn’t talk to me about them but keeps them to himself all bottled up, which isn’t doing him any good. I’ve been putting off speaking seriously to him about it, but I soon may have to. I mean, he’s starting to look withdrawn and haggard—even ill! Or if not ill, then sick at heart.”

On hearing Singer’s name mentioned, Zach’s eyes had immediately narrowed. “Garth’s told you he dreams about Ned Singer?”

Again Layla shook her head. “No, he hasn’t told me much of anything, but I’ve heard him calling Singer’s name—or whispering it—just before he springs awake!”

Zach chewed on his top lip for just a moment, then stopped frowning and seemed to relax. Finally, lightening up, he nodded and said: “You know, I think you’re probably right about what’s bothering Garth? What with this hellish trek…and his duties…then after being out there in the dark all night, trying to get a few hours sleep on the boards of a cramped, jolting trundle! Why, it would surely be enough to unsettle just about anybody! And Garth’s doing a hell of a job for a man his age. He’s my son, yes, and sometimes I still think of him as a boy…but what the hell, Garth’s a man! Maybe more of a man than most men I know. Still, if you think I should, I can always speak to Big Jon Lamon about it. Because I know I couldn’t bear to see Garth falling apart—not like Peder Halbstein! But if the pressure’s getting too much for him…well, perhaps I should speak to Big Jon anyway, if only because Garth’s my son!”

“Don’t you dare!” Layla replied, almost before he’d stopped speaking. “Garth’s very proud, and if he found out you did something like that on my behalf—or even for yourself—he would never forgive us! And anyway I know you’re right: he is more of a man than most. A lot more than the rest of the clan’s younger men, and certainly more than those who have tried to spend time with me!”

“Calm down, calm down!” Zach told her. “Okay, it was just a thought, that’s all. But if I can’t speak to Big Jon, perhaps I should tackle Garth himself about this…this whatever it is? Since Garth never had a ma he could talk to, he’s grown up that much closer to me. He’s never found it too difficult to confide in me—until now, anyway. So then, what do you reckon? Should I talk to him?”

Layla thought it over, slowly nodded, and like Zach himself gradually relaxed. “Very well,” she said, “but without mentioning me. And please don’t put any more pressure on him. If Garth talks, fine. But if he won’t, then let it be.”

“It’s a deal,” Zach agreed. “I’ll just tell Garth he looks like…like something I wouldn’t want to step in, and ask him what’s wrong. And if there’s something seriously wrong, perhaps talking will help get some of it out of his system…”

As good as his word, Zach went directly to Garth’s and Layla’s makeshift canvas lean-to where they had built it at the side of a trundle. He found Garth seated on a large rock with his broad back to one of the trundle’s wheels, oiling his rifle. But despite having freshened up a little, still he looked more or less as Zach had described him to Layla: like something he would not care to step in. And having repeated that description to Garth, he inquired: “So then, what’s up?”

If only for a few heartbeats, Garth grinned at his father’s comment. But for all its transience his grin looked entirely incongruous on his pale, jaded face; and doing nothing to improve his careworn appearance, it had already disappeared by the time he said: “I don’t know…I guess I’m just tired. Haven’t been sleeping too well, that’s all.”

Moving closer to Garth and leaning his bad leg against the trundle for support, Zach nodded and said: “Tired? Yes, so I’ve noticed. But only tired? I think not. Worn out with worrying is more like it—you and Layla both—but worrying about what?”

“What?” Now Garth frowned. “You’ve been speaking to Layla?”

“Oh?” the other shot back sharply, as if affronted. “Isn’t that allowed, then?” Then he lied, saying: “I saw her, yes, but I didn’t stop to speak; didn’t much need to. She was teaching a handful of kids, but I thought she looked out of sorts, down in the mouth—though not nearly as far down as you!”

Then, suddenly scowling—hobbling closer still and shaking his crutch in Garth’s face—he snapped: “Hey, you! This is me, your Old Man, remember? And Garth, I know you! I know you almost as well as I know myself! So I’m asking you one more time: what the hell is up!? Because I’m pretty damn sure that something is way up!”

Garth opened his mouth, looked about to deny it again, then sighed and said, “It’s probably just me… except no!” he shook his head frustratedly. “It really isn’t! I mean, I’ve asked the other squad bosses about it, talked to Don Myers and Bert Jordan, and they’re both uneasy about it, too. They don’t much like it, but on the other hand it has to be better than the alternative!”

“What?” Zach frowned. “Garth, you’re rambling! What is this ‘it’ you’re on about, eh? And what’s this alternative that ‘it’ has to be better than? For goodness sake make sense!”

At which Garth laid his rifle aside, stood up, and finally blurted it out. “Did you ever get the feeling someone was following you, watching you? Did you ever glimpse something out the corner of your eye, except when you blinked and looked again it was gone? Have you ever felt…felt you’re being hunted?”

Zach believed he knew what Garth was getting at but wasn’t about to define the problem for him; he wanted to hear it from the youth himself. So rather than prompt him further, he simply said: “Son, when you’re out there in the darkness with a ground mist lapping your feet and shadows that shift when clouds block out the moonbeams…why a man might imagine almost anything!” (But even as he said these things Zach was thinking to himself: Except—God forbid—this could be a hell of a lot more than any man’s mere imagination!)

It was Garth’s turn to frown. Staring hard at the other he said: “So then, it appears you’ve guessed at least something of what I’m talking about, this thing that’s so much on my mind?”

“Eh? Well damn right I have!” his father then exploded. “Do you think I’m completely stupid? What the hell else do you have in common with Myers and Jordan, if not your work out there in the dead of night? Maybe I should go and ask them what’s going on, what’s been getting to you this last fortnight or so, ever since—oh, I don’t know—ever since that great bully Ned Singer got taken!”

That last was a deliberate ploy on Zach’s part, and he was watching his son closely, noting his reaction. Nor was he disappointed at Garth’s response: his narrowing eyes, and the way his broad shoulders twitched however slightly, almost unnoticeably. Until at last:

“Yes, you’re right,” said Garth, nodding and taking a deep breath before adding: “That’s when it began, or maybe a day or two later. As for what it is…you might as well ask what it isn’t, or what it hasn’t been!”

“Oh?”

Garth nodded again and said, “I can’t believe you haven’t noticed anything yourself! Maybe it’s because you’re okay with the situation—turning a blind eye to it—satisfied to let it rest, like Don and Bert. But let me remind you, Father, how there hasn’t been a single fly-by-night attack—no, not even a chance encounter or skirmish—since we lost Ned Singer! And yet they’re out there, plenty of them. I know that the fly-by-nights are out there every night! And gangling Garry Maxwell’s dogs: they know it, too! As soon as it’s dark they’re a bundle of nerves. Sometimes when I’m out on the perimeter, I can hear them sniffing around, whining and yipping; and Garry grumbling, calling them names, telling them to either bark and get it out of their system, or calm down and shut the hell up! But really he should know better than that, because those dogs of his…well, they definitely know better!”

Having heard Garth out this far, still Zach wasn’t ready to suggest or attempt to identify the source of the youth’s actual problem. Simply mentioning Ned Singer had opened the floodgates and got Garth talking, but Zach didn’t want to unsettle him any further by communicating his own worst fears in respect of that…that man? Anyway, there were still things he wanted to know before deciding what to do about all this. And so:

“You’re concerned that the fly-by-nights aren’t attacking?” he kept up the subterfuge. “Well, I must say that’s a new one on me!”

But now, as Garth’s frustration mounted, he was shaking his head again. “You still don’t get it, do you?” (Which was more a statement of fact than a question.)

“So explain,” said Zach, shrugging.

“They aren’t attacking because they’re following, watching, and waiting! And it could be we’ve been wrong all this time not to credit them with more than a little intelligence. Oh, I know that they’re usually completely insane, and mindlessly reckless even where their own miserable lives are concerned. But now…well I’m beginning to think that they’re capable of learning! I think they are learning. And…and I also think—”

“Yes?” (Now it was coming.)

“—I think they have a leader!”

“Go on,” said Zach, his voice husky, and his hand squeezing Garth’s shoulder as if to squeeze the problem right out of him.

Rock steady now Garth faced his father, looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’ve seen him out there in the night, and more than once, I thought maybe I had nodded off—and perhaps I had, maybe I do—for even now I can’t be absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent sure of what I think I’ve seen! But Father, if a swirl of mist in the dark of night can take on the shape and ghastly face of a man, then there’s a lot of mist out there that looks an awful lot like Ned Singer!”

“Ahhh!” said Zach, and his voice contained a shiver despite that what he had heard merely confirmed what he’d suspected all along.

“He never comes too close to me,” Garth went on, “but stays out there on the edge of my night vision and melts away, disappears, before I can focus on him. Or, if he’s only a figment of my imagination—my night fears—then the image vanishes the moment I try to fix it in my mind’s eye…”

Zach waited, let the pause last another moment, then said: “All right, Garth, so what’s your conclusion, your best guess? Have you seen Ned Singer out there—and if it really is him, then what the hell do you think he’s doing—or is this all in your mind after all?”

Garth shrugged irritably. “If it’s my imagination—and believe me, I really do hope it is—then Ned’s not there at all and all he’s doing is driving me insane! But if, just if, it is him, then the fly-by-nights are doing what he wants, working to his plan and following him following us! And as I said, there’s plenty of them. In fact I think they’re a horde, a swarm that’s been gathering force, increasing its numbers as it moves parallel with the convoy!”

“A swarm!” Zach softly repeated him. “Moving parallel.”

“Father—” Garth gripped the other’s arm hard, “—I saw Ned again last night, except now…he’s different.”

Feeling the steely coiled-spring tension in his son’s fingers, Zach hobbled back a wary pace, asking, “How ‘different?’”

Releasing his father’s arm, Garth slumped down again on the rock with his back to the wheel. And after a moment’s thought:

“I think,” he began, “that when I first saw him clearly—or at least clearly enough to identify him—it was on my first night as a boss where we camped in the woods in the lee of those cliffs. Ned was as grey and as still as a stalactite, standing there in the mist with his ragged clothing hanging off him. But it was him all right, even though his normally bulging red face and piggy eyes were…well, different. As long as I had known him he had always been too sure of himself, ignorant and arrogant. But out there on the perimeter—or perhaps in my dream—he looked vacant and oddly puzzled, as if he was trying to remember who he was and what he was doing there, or as if he stood in some weird dream of his own. And his eyes were burning cold, leaden in his deathly face.

“Well, that was the first time. But since then…

“His vacant look has gradually changed, until now it’s got that old arrogance back. But it’s also sly, evil, full of purpose, because Ned’s no longer puzzled; he knows why he’s there and what he’s doing! And as for his eyes: they burn on me!”

“On you!” Zach whispered, and he nodded. “Yes, they would!”

“But Father—” it was as if Garth hadn’t heard him, “—how can any of this he possible? Ned Singer is a dead man, taken by the fly-by-nights! And yet I see him, and it makes my mind spin in circles!”

Zach got down on his good knee beside Garth and hugged him. “Son, you’re not crazy, not even nearly crazy. And as for Singer—”

“—A dead man!” Garth muttered it again. But:

“No,” said Zach. “There’s another word, or description, for what Ned Singer might be now. Not dead but—”

“Undead!” said Garth. “Like…like that scav you told me about? Oh…what was his name? Jack Foster, yes?”

“Ah!” Zach released the other. “So you remember our conversation about that old business, do you? About Jack Foster, and how he was taken—and how he came back?”

“Yes,” said Garth, frowning as at last he began to see the light, or thought he did. “That’s been on my mind quite a bit. But…do you think perhaps that’s what my problem is? That I can’t get that story out of my head: how Foster came back with a swarm and tried to break into the refuge, and now I’m obsessed with the idea that something similar is happening with Ned Singer?”

“You think you may have dwelled upon it for too long?” his father replied, without truly accepting that was all there was to it. “Well it’s possible, I suppose.” And then—remembering what Layla had told him about Garth’s nightmares: how he would suddenly start awake with Singer’s name on his lips—he said: “But Garth, there’s something more to what happened that time; something I never mentioned before because I thought it wasn’t important—until now.”

“Then tell me!” said Garth.

“Well—” Zach scratched his chin, and cast his mind back to when Garth had been a mere infant “—Jack Foster was a very odd sort of fellow: too quiet, not at all pleasant, something of a loner. He had no close friends that I remember, not even among the rest of the scavs. His father had suffered for a long time from radiation poisoning, and Jack’s face and head had come out badly misshapen; which probably accounts for his being a loner. On the other hand perhaps he was too…I don’t know, too much an outsider to ever have been a scav! For as you’ll appreciate, it took a certain type of man—a team player—to venture out from the refuge after sunset, searching for useful materials in the ruins while risking his life in lethal confrontations with fly-by-nights! But in addition, Jack didn’t seem quite as hard as the rest of us. I mean, he was something of a daydreamer—no, not someone who would fall asleep on the job, which is not intended as any kind of reflection on you and what you’ve told me, you understand—but someone who dwelled in his own world and mind: a very ‘introspective’ type of fellow. Now, that’s a hell of a big word, which I might have misused because I never took to schooling and reading the way you did. But it means—”

“That Jack Foster was a deep thinker,” said Garth. “Someone who was maybe too interested in what went on in his own head?”

“Yes!” said Zach. “Put simply he did too much thinking, had too much of an imagination. And sometimes, in fact quite often, he would tell us that when he was on his own—which he actually preferred to be—picking over some supposedly ‘safe’ place deep in the rubble, he’d often seen fly-by-nights just standing off and watching him, and for some reason they’d never tried to attack him!

“Now, while Jack had been a scav with me and Big Jon Lamon for, oh, maybe four years, he had only ever been seen to shoot and kill fly-by-nights on occasions when we were together as a team, and when we—the rest of the crew, that is—were under attack. And he would say some pretty weird things from time to time; for instance: ‘Oh, they’re not so bad not once you get to know them…’ Which would make us laugh, of course, because it had to be his idea of some kind of joke…didn’t it?

“Well, we used to say that Jack Foster led a charmed life; and indeed he seemed to…at least until the night they took him! But charmed or not Jack’s life was never a very happy one. That was because of his bad dreams about the fly-by-nights, or so we assumed. Himself, he never said too much about it, but it was said by folk who bunked close to him, that he rarely got more than an hour or two’s sleep before waking in a sweat, shaking head to toe, and making a hell of a fuss about something in his head!”

At that Garth’s jaw had dropped; but now, since it appeared Zach had finished speaking, he said: “Maybe they’d been getting into his dreams! And maybe—I mean just maybe—they’ve been getting into mine, too!”

“Oh?” said his father, remembered his promise to Layla, and reacting as if all this was news to him. “Have you been suffering in the same fashion, then?”

“Oh yes!” Garth shivered. “I’ve been nightmaring, and it’s Singer who’s in my mind. Always telling me…telling me…”

“Yes?

“That he’s coming!”

And once again: “Ahhh!” said Zach, struggling to get to his feet, then backing off a pace. And with his expression changing, becoming stern, and his tone of voice hardening: “So then, with all that you’ve experienced and all you think is happening, you never saw fit to report or even mention any of this to anyone?”

“Of course I wanted to! You must know I did!” Garth shot to his feet and faced the other. “But how could I? What, I should frighten the life out of Layla? Or talk to Big Jon and explain how I, er, perhaps nod off out there on the perimeter every so often? Or get myself laughed at, ridiculed, by raving on about ghosts in the mist, not to mention that really nasty one in my dreams? I mean, who would take me seriously? And tell me something if you will: is there anyone among us who hasn’t had bad dreams about fly-by-nights from time to time? God, surely it’s enough that I’ve doubted my own sanity without inviting anyone else in to judge me?”

His father nodded and said, “Take it easy. I only wanted to be sure you weren’t falling apart like Peder Halbstein, is all. And I can well understand how you thought you might be!”

“But I’m not?” Garth desperately needed to be sure.

“Hell no! And don’t worry about it, for when I speak to Big Jon—which of course I must—I won’t mention your sleeping on duty. Fact is you mightn’t have nodded off at all, not if those creatures really can get into a man’s mind. Hey, Ned Singer was a bad bastard even in life! So who knows what he may be capable of in death, eh?”

“Or undeath?” said Garth.

And his father nodded again. “Or undeath, yes.”

“So, you’ll speak to Big Jon…and then what?”

“I’ll let you know,” said Zach. “But until then say nothing to anyone else. Layla isn’t the only girl you might frighten to death. And not only the girls, either…”

X

From that moment on a small handful of changes had been guaranteed to take place in Big Jon Lamon’s security procedures; in fact they were in place for the first time that very night, but had been kept so low-profile that only the men involved would ever have noticed them. Garth and the other night-watch bosses were aware of them, of course, and every squad member had been cautioned to silence; likewise the hastily recruited—or “volunteered”—inner cordons of shift workers: three eight-man teams working four-hour shifts from eight at night till eight in the morning, within the area occupied by the convoy’s vehicles and temporary habitations as opposed to the outer perimeters. Such teams were in addition to the mobile standby squads with their motorized, often customized two-wheelers, and their tasks were specific: in the event of all alerts to rouse the standbys up, and should any attack by fly-by-nights ensue to assist in sending these armed riders off to wherever their fire-power seemed most in demand; then to occupy prearranged defensive positions of their own right there in the central area of the encampment.

Moreover, the manpower of the night-watch squads had been doubled; from now on no man would ever be on his own out there on the perimeters but would have a partner to keep him company and learn from him through the long nights. Thus as of now, if or when there were sinister things to be seen out in the mist, there would be at least two sets of eyes to confirm such sightings. Only the three night-watch bosses—whose duty with immediate effect would be to stay alert and constantly on the move, patrolling from post to post without undue pause—would be unaccompanied, for any excessive movement or unusual activity out on the perimeters might easily set Garry Maxwell’s “sniffers”—not to mention the rest of the watchdogs—barking their heads off all night long!

Conceived in light of Garth’s conversation with his father, then put into effect in haste but as quietly as possible, these additions to the convoy’s security measures greatly reinforced its dark-hours defences. At least, such was the mutual opinion of Big Jon Lamon and Zach Slattery. As for the majority of the travellers: they remained in ignorance of the perceived threat, if indeed any threat as such existed. For what purpose would be served in unsettling the people now, when the end of this arduous trek—one way or the other—might already be in sight?

Something less than five hours after speaking to Zach, as darkness fell Garth was back on duty with his enhanced squad, along with Don Myers, Bert Jordan and their teams. But alert as never before, Garth was far easier in his mind now.

Easier in his mind, yes…

Introspection his father had called it: the analysis of the processes of one’s own mind. Safe enough and even beneficial in a sane man, but hazardous if one’s sanity was suspect, and more especially so if the mind in question wasn’t entirely one’s own but was suffering from regular attempts at infiltration by some loathsome other for its own fell purpose. That way a delicately balanced intellect might well be driven over the edge.

Not that Garth considered himself mentally suspect, not any longer and definitely not to that degree! But if what had happened to Jack Foster—a scav from his father’s younger days who had been seduced by fly-by-nights and fallen under their influence to such an extent that he joined a swarm and used his altered or assimilated human intelligence to lead an attack on the Southern Refuge!—if telepathic powers of the same order were now cunningly at work on Garth himself…well it no longer so much alarmed as infuriated him! Not least because the source of this malicious interference, this product of hateful changeling animosity deliberately targeting the clan but aimed rather more specifically in Garth’s direction, was oh-so-well known to him.

A hateful changeling, yes…Ned Singer, of course! Singer and his new-found undead existence.

Garth no longer entertained any slightest doubt of it…

To all intents and purposes the night was passing uneventfully if slowly, when in the small hours, as Garth trudged his perimeter, he arrived for the fifth or sixth time (he hadn’t deemed it necessary to keep a count) at the observation post of Eric Davis: an older man from Ned Singer’s original scav team where Garth had first known him. Having also served with Davis as an outrider, Garth liked and trusted him.

Despite being Garth’s senior by at least three years Davis held no grudge; as Big Jon Lamon had not so long ago observed, a boss’s job was onerous, bearing a great weight of responsibility. And while Davis was no slouch, still he preferred to be led rather than to lead. Moreover he recognized Garth’s leadership potential from their time together as scavs and outriders, and he valued the younger man’s friendship.

Stationed with Davis at a vantage point looking out over a broad, misted stream, one of Big Jon’s “volunteers”—a fresh-faced, nervously thoughtful young man called Gavin Carter, not much older than Garth himself—seemed in the flickering glow of electric torchlight for some reason to appear very pale and shivery. Having noticed this at a glance, Garth asked what was wrong; when last he’d stopped by here all had been well.

“Oh, young Gavin will be all right,” Davis shrugged it off. “He thought he saw something out across the stream, that’s all. We were sitting on that old log there when I suddenly felt him slump against me. If you ask me I’d say he’d simply nodded off for a second, but after he bumped into me he shot awake scared for his life! That was just a moment ago, right before you got here.”

Nodded off? It was easily done, as Garth was only too well aware! As for being scared: but wasn’t that entirely understandable, too, of a highly-strung impressionable young fellow out here in the dark and the mist? Of course it was…and yet:

“Scared?” Garth stared hard into Carter’s eyes. “Scared of what, Gavin? What was it you think you saw? Or is it just that you knew you shouldn’t be falling asleep?”

The other licked dry lips, shivered again and said, “First off, I didn’t nod off…at least I don’t think so. It was—oh, I don’t know—more like I had fainted or something! Except I don’t think it was that either! Maybe it was some kind of daydream: scary pictures in my head that were there and then gone; something out there, across the stream…” For a moment as Carter paused, his wide unblinking eyes turned from Garth and gazed fearfully out over the writhing mist and darkly swirling water. But then, giving himself a shake, he sheepishly added: “Anyway, I’m sorry if I’ve let anyone down and…and it’s not going to happen again.”

Garth took his arm, gripped it and said, “It’s okay, and no harm done, Gavin. But you still haven’t said what you think you saw. It could be important.”

Eric Davis, who of course knew of the changes in the watchkeeping routines, if not why they’d been made or why he must be quiet about them, frowned and said, “Important? How, important? What’s going on, Garth?”

“Nothing special,” Garth lied, releasing Carter and turning toward his friend. “Just a theory Big Jon and my father seem to have cooked up between them. I don’t understand it myself!” And before Davis or Carter could question him further, he added: “I shouldn’t worry too much about it…” And then, to Carter: “But Gavin—if you should have any more of these faints—well, I suppose you can always tell me about them later, okay?”

“I’m truly sorry, Garth,” Carter answered him. “But anyway, like I said, it won’t happen again. I’ll stay sharp, and that’s a promise.”

“That’s okay then,” said Garth, slowly nodding his forbearance (while in fact itching to know more) but reluctant to pursue the matter in the presence of the inquisitive Davis. Beside which, and as he had suggested, he could always speak to Carter later; if not tonight, perhaps tomorrow. And anyway it was time he was moving on from here.

Thus, deep in thought as he went—but with all five of his senses tinglingly aware of the night and in tune with the darkness as never before—Garth got on with his patrol…

Except for the sure knowledge that fly-by-nights were out there in some force in the dark beyond the perimeters, knowledge that was common to the other squad bosses and almost every experienced watchkeeper except perhaps the dullest and least sensitive, the rest of Garth’s duty hours that night stayed mainly free of troubling occurrences.

The only exception came toward morning, something less than an hour before first light, when a weary Garth visited the most northerly junction of perimeters and met up with the phlegmatic Don Myers who had arrived at the same sentry point while patrolling his own adjoining stretch of the perimeter. On this occasion, however, the normally dour Myers seemed much more disposed toward conversation, and after Garth had spoken to his men the older squad boss took his elbow and drew him aside.

“Garth,” he said then without preamble, “how about it, eh? I mean…what do you think?”

“What do I think?” Garth was mystified. “About what?”

“Why, about what’s going on here, of course!” Myers rasped. “Or rather—” and he flicked an urgent, suspicious glance into the unknown night, “—what’s going on out there!”

“Out there?” Garth repeated him listlessly. “What, you mean the movement?” He spoke inadvertently, without thinking what he was saying, and only then considered his words.

But the other had immediately tightened his grip on Garth’s elbow. “Ah!” he said. “So you have felt it, eh?” And he glanced this way and that, and once again into the swirling mist beyond the perimeter before continuing: “Yes, the movement! Damn right that’s what I mean! They’re on the move, these bloody things!”

And finally it struck home: that insidious, flowing motion that Garth had been sensing all along, without that it had registered as anything especially sinister. A thing of the mind—a mental thing, more often sensed than visible—yet stemming from a physical source. Oh, sinister enough, certainly, as anything remotely connected with fly-by-nights always was; but at the same time cloaked in this disarmingly dreamy inertia, this hypnotic effect, with which Garth, the other watchkeepers, and perhaps even a majority of the clan as a whole had become so—but so what?—so familiar, that it had indeed bred contempt in them…or if not contempt, then at least some kind of acceptance or leaning towards the inevitable!

Donald Myers was nodding his head knowingly. “Oh yes, I can see that you’ve definitely felt it! And so have I, often—and mainly ignored it, at least until tonight—until it changed!”

“A movement, yes,” said Garth thoughtfully. “But haven’t we known about it, been aware of it, for quite some time now—at least a week or more? Haven’t we spoken of it at some length to Big Jon Lamon and the other elders? Isn’t it common knowledge?” Now he felt as though he was arguing with himself!

“Yes, yes!” Myers answered, impatiently. “But that was when the bloody things were only watching us, keeping up with us and doing bugger all else! I reckoned maybe it was because there weren’t enough of them to mount an attack, but—”

“Not recently!” said Garth, cutting him short. “I’ve sensed that there are plenty of them, far too many, in my opinion! And getting stronger, gathering reinforcements as they follow us—though of course I could easily be wrong, because even one fly-by-night is too many in my opinion!” (Indeed, and in particular the one who was there even now in the darkest inner recesses of his mind!) “And anyway, being few in number—even when they’re down to a handful—never stopped them before! But Don, what’s this you say about a change? What’s happened tonight that’s got you so excited?”

“Excited, me?” Myers looked taken aback. He’d never considered himself excitable in any way, and didn’t much like it that others might. “No, not so much excited as feeling that I’m only just waking up! As to what I’m waking up to…” He paused for a moment to consider the best way to explain himself, then said:

“It was one of my new lads, a Big Jon Lamon ‘volunteer’ on his first night’s duty and maybe a bit more timid than most. An hour or so ago I visited him and his partner, one of my regular guys. I found them snapping at each other, as nervous and jumpy as Southern Refuge mice when cats were on the prowl.”

Nervous, and jumpy! Garth’s thoughts flew back two hours to his visit with Davis and Carter—but more especially Carter—and suddenly he was wide awake. “So, they had some kind of problem,” he said. “But what was it?”

“Not just them but me too, now!” Myers replied, and went on: “It was the young kid. He swore that he’d seen something out in the night and was arguing with Tom Griffin—the older guy, who I’ve known for years to be steady as a rock—that they should be sounding the alarm! But old Griff, with a load of experience back of him, was having none of that because he’d seen nothing. And there and then as I tried to reason with them: ‘Look!’ says the new kid. And we looked…”

Garth felt a shiver run down his spine. “And you saw…?”

“Movement!” said the other. “Out there where the mist broke on the far edge of darkness, they were on the move!”

“Fly-by-nights!” Garth barely breathed the words, and Myers nodded.

“It had to be,” he said. “And yet even now I can’t be sure! Even though—or perhaps because—I not only saw it but felt it, as if it was in my head! That forward-flowing motion; those gliding, spectral figures; that drift of tattered shapes, leaning into the night, hardly looking at us at all—but when they did with burning eyes, like so many fireflies at that distance, and quickly blinking out—and moving as if driven by the mist, or as if they were a part of it or even riding it! For a moment they were there, and then…there was just the swirling where they’d been, and they were gone!”

“But where to?” Garth’s mouth was dry as a stick. “In which direction?” And before the other could reply: “North!” he answered his own question, and with certainty. “And yes, now you’ve woken me up, too. For Donald, I’m sure that you have seen them, and felt them: the fly-by-nights! No longer satisfied to remain parallel with the convoy, they’re moving on, going north—and getting there before us!”

With which Garth also realized there was no longer any need to speak to Gavin Carter. He already knew what Carter had seen, and pretty much what he would tell him…

As the new dawn broke, however, and the sun lifted free of the horizon into a blinding blue sky, there were people whom Garth must speak to. And so, having stood his squad down, he at once sought out his father and the clan’s leader.

Accompanied by Donald Myers, he found Zach and Big Jon engaged in apparently gloomy conversation at the latter’s rauper. There, when the elders saw the squad bosses approaching—their serious expressions and grave manner—they broke off talking and instead prepared to listen.

In deference to Myers’ seniority, Garth held his tongue and let him tell the story of the night’s occurrences, then corroborated it word for word. But as he was finishing he gave Zach a look whose meaning the other clearly understood: that there was more to be told, perhaps best in private, at least for the time being.

“So,” said the leader when Garth had finished speaking, “It appears they’re moving ahead of us and getting stronger as they go. Huh! As if we needed more bad news! When I saw you two corming I had dared hope you weren’t bringing me problems, for I’ve enough of my own. And anyway let’s face it, the fact that a body of fly-by-nights is heading north isn’t proof that they’re especially interested in us. I mean, they haven’t attacked us yet, have they? And who can say why they’re on the move, or why they do anything for that matter? Enough, for I have other things on my mind! Off you go to your rest—and thanks for nothing very much!”

But then, as if he suddenly realized there was little else they could have done but make their discovery known to him, Big Jon added: “Wait! There’s an immemorial saying: ‘don’t kill the messenger.’ Or in this case, don’t be so ungrateful to him! For it’s far better to know what’s in the wind than to get blown arse over tit by it when it turns into a storm! So, despite the somewhat dubious nature of your report, still I must thank you for bringing it to my attention. Now go and get some sleep.”

At which Zach said, “Garth, stay if you will. I’d very much like a few words with you. And turning to Myers, who was looking a bit puzzled, still taken aback by the leader’s response: “It’s personal, Don: father and son stuff, you know?”

“Yes, of course,” said the other, accepting Zach’s explanation with a shrug and going on his way.

Big Jon Lamon also made as if to go about his business, but Zach stopped him, saying, “Jon, you might want to be in on this too. For I think there’s something else on Garth’s mind.”

“More properly in it!” said Garth, and began to explain his concerns. “The fact is, I’m more than ever sure that Ned Singer is out there, and that he’s after me—me and Layla both, that is—not to mention the entire clan! Myself to kill if he can, the clan to devour, and Layla to…but you know my meaning.”

Big Jon frowned and said, “I’ve been giving some thought to what you’ve told us previously. And while it was very important and we’ve acted upon it, of course, still I can’t help thinking that you’re putting on airs to some extent or rather that you make too much of your fears. For let’s face it, Garth, you were concerned that the fly-by-nights weren’t attacking us! So don’t you think you may be exaggerating the problem somewhat, putting yourself at the centre of things, and making much ado about—”

“Now hold!” Zach snapped. And. then, quickly: “I’m sorry, my old friend, but we should hear him out. I know my son almost as well as I know myself, and if he has something to say—”

“Which I do!” said Garth. “Oh, I can’t prove what I’m feeling, what I think is happening or going to happen soon, except maybe to say that it isn’t the first time that it has happened; for if it was the first time we might not be having this conversation or argument in the first place!”

“What?” Big Jon was scowling now, his mood rapidly deteriorating. “An argument, you say? But I don’t argue, Garth, I command! And what’s more, I think that on top of your other problems you’re beginning to speak in riddles! For I just don’t see why—”

“Sir!” Garth cut him short; an interruption which—at any other time, and coming from anyone other than Zach Slattery or his son, would be considered an inexcusable rudeness—stopped the leader dead in his tracks. And: “Sir,” Garth repeated himself, but more quietly, “there may be a good reason why you’re not ‘seeing why.’ That’s because it seems likely that your own overwhelming concerns, coupled with this sinister thing that’s going on here, are blanketing your thoughts and diverting them from what has always been and still is the greater danger!”

And as Big Jon stood there with his mouth agape and his colour deepening, Garth quickly continued. “The greatest possible danger, yes, which is of course the fly-by-nights! The fly-by-nights: who are in my mind, and your minds, and perhaps the entire clan’s minds, even now! Or if not now then certainly at night and every night!”

For what seemed like long seconds Big Jon stared at Garth, then at Zach, then back to Garth. Until finally he closed his mouth and growled: “So the fly-by-nights are in our minds, eh? Which is presumably this ‘sinister thing’ that’s going on here, is it?”

“Please listen!” said Garth. “It’s understandable that you think I could be exaggerating, worrying unnecessarily about myself and my young wife. I thought so too—which my father will verify—until I talked to him only yesterday, when he told me something I hadn’t known before, something that I’ve been thinking about ever since. Perhaps you’ll more clearly understand me if I mention a name: Jack Foster!”

Big Jon was frowning now, but his colour was back to normal as he narrowed his eyes, slowly nodded and said, “Yes, go on.”

“But don’t you see?” said Garth. “What happened with Foster is exactly the same as what’s happening now. The same frightening story…except now the villain is Ned Singer!”

And again as he paused the leader said, “Go on then, Garth, get it all out.”

“Jack Foster was a loner,” Garth went on. “No one liked him too much, not even you and my father and the other scavs. Maybe he didn’t even like himself, put himself on a par with the fly-by-nights! He was malformed and an outsider, no less than those monsters in the broken cities; at least he may have thought so, deep in his mind. Perhaps after a time he came to hate the clan more than he disliked the fly-by-nights! I mean, didn’t he used to tell you they weren’t so bad, once you got to know them? You thought Jack was joking, but what if it was simply them getting into his mind?”

Big Jon’s frown was even deeper. “You said you thought they were into all our minds, which must have included mine?”

“Yes,” Garth answered, “except some of us have fewer problems than you and so are more aware of it. Myself for instance, and two of those new fellows who were working their first duty last night. But if Gavin Carter and that other lad who was out with Donald Myers hadn’t spoken of what they’d seen, what they felt…would anyone else have noticed, I wonder?”

Big Jon pursed his lips, stroked his chin and said, “I can see what you’re getting at. But Garth, there are holes in your theory. For example: while it may be possible that Jack Foster developed some kind of affinity with the fly-by-nights—that he saw them as misunderstood creatures much like himself—Ned Singer held to no such fantasies. Why, Ned had more kills than anyone I’ve known in the last five years! Also, it’s very hard to believe that Ned had any kind of especially receptive mind. What, I’ve known Singer for years, and the one thing he wasn’t was a great thinker; in fact he was a dullard! Oh, I’m sure he knew his job, but he was even better at being a bully, a thief, and a drunkard on illicit scavenger booze!”

“And probably a murderer,” Zach muttered under his breath.

“That too, possibly,” Big Jon agreed, “though it was never proven. The point is, how come this great thick thug of a man is suddenly gifted with such amazing mental powers that he can get into a person’s mind?”

“But wouldn’t his dull brain make him all that much easier for them to get into?” Garth argued. “And surely you’ll remember that he did hate us, and myself in particular? You’ll recall how he ranted at us, calling us dishonourable, and bastards one and all, and blustered about having no friends or allies? Well, he’s got plenty of friends and allies now, and doesn’t need too much by way of a warped or transformed brain. No, not at all for now he has backing of the fly-by-nights: their massed vampire mentality…!”

And after a moment’s silence: “Your argument is…compelling,” said Big Jon. And Zach added:

“Damn right it is! For there’s truth in my son’s words that even clouded minds can’t deny!”

Big Jon was calmer, far more thoughtful now. Suddenly aware that his old friend Zach Slattery was right, and that indeed as the leader he should be more—perhaps a lot more—concerned with what Garth had alleged of the new, greater threat posed by these oddly reticent, curiously inactive fly-by-nights, he was at last beginning to wonder why he wasn’t or hadn’t been!

Was Garth correct then, in his beliefs? In any case it were best to let him continue; for it was apparent that the anxious looking young man standing before him wasn’t yet finished.

And as if Garth was privy to his thoughts:

“Sir,” he patiently continued, “with the greatest respect, you know how both you and my father are in the habit of quoting these old sayings come down from a time before the war, before the refuges? Well, Ned Singer had some sayings of his own. Now, I worked with him, and the saying I remember best—because of the way he would use it when we approached a suspected nest, as in the car park in the ruined town with the church and the well—was this: ‘softly softly catchee monkey.’”

And as Garth paused again to collect his thoughts: “Go on,” said Big Jon, but far more quietly now. “And by the way, I know that saying, too. It’s an adage used by old-time hunters, which advises stealth if you want to catch your prey all unawares as you creep up on him.”

“Exactly,” Garth replied. “As Ned and the fly-by-nights are now creeping up on us! Except in my case it’s an adage that Ned would seem to have forgotten because the strength of his hatred—his need to let me know his intentions, my future fate at his hands—has caused him to show himself physically on the perimeters; and yet again when he’s drawn on this weird fly-by-night mentality in order to invade my dreams!”

“You believe Ned’s using these monsters,” Big Jon growled.

“No more than they are using him!” Garth answered. “And no more than they used Jack Foster…”

“So then,” the leader chewed his top lip, “while I’m still not fully convinced, but assuming you’re right—also because it’s obvious that you anticipate an ambush, but mainly because I can’t afford to say you’re wrong!—what do we do about it?”

Garth shook his head. “Sir, I’ve told you the problem, but it’s beyond me to supply a solution. You’ve already doubled our security procedures, and I don’t think it would help our cause very much to have too many more untrained men on watch. But as an early warning measure we can tether our dogs, evenly spaced out, around the perimeters from tonight on. And…and that’s about it! I can think of nothing else—except to suggest that the time may have come to inform the other night-watch members of the dangers that may well be imminent. And that last should be done now, in time for tonight’s watch, for it has to be the best way to keep the men alert and on their toes.”

“Tonight’s watch?” said Big Jon. “As soon as that?”

Garth nodded. “Oh yes, definitely. For there was one very notable absentee from that column of fly-by-nights I saw drifting north last night. Not only that, but after speaking to my father yesterday, I finally managed to get some completely unbroken, undisturbed sleep! So that now I can’t help but wonder if Ned’s softly softly approach is at last in force, and maybe into its final phase.”

“Well,” said Big Jon. “Other than implementing these suggestions, it appears you’ve done all the spadework for me! Very well then, Garth, you may consider it done. For despite myriad other tasks awaiting me—” and sighing he threw his arms wide, to encompass and indicate the convoy’s inactivity, “—the good Lord knows I’ll have to find the time for this!”

Frowning, Garth looked all around, then glanced at the sun where it climbed steadily into the sky. Before he could ask the obvious question, however, his father preempted him. “Yes, you were right to mention the leader’s enormous problems, of which the most recent is the reason we’re still not underway.”

“Indeed,” said Big Jon, gruffly. “Do you have any idea how few miles we’ve trekked in the last dozen or so days? No? Well I’ll tell you: it works out on average at perhaps seven a day! That’s mainly because of vehicle breakdowns, streams, bogs and gullies to cross or find ways around, ruined and suspect towns to avoid, several burials—may God have mercy on their souls—water to ship manually from a handful of clean sources, and, mercifully indeed, some decent fuel that a search party miraculously found and spent time siphoning off from a battered gas station not too far off route. Now, while I can’t tell you I’m not well pleased about those last two items, still all of these things taken together—though more especially the breakdowns—are costing us dearly in mileage. On top of which, lacking a radio, there’s this frustration of not knowing how near or far our northern cousins may be from us, or even if they’re yet en route to meet us!

“As for this morning’s problem: yet another trundle with a clapped out engine clogged with dirty fuel! I’ve got the mechs working on it, of course, for we can’t afford to lose any more vehicles. Each breakdown results in the other transports getting more tightly crowded; which in turn makes them more liable to failure! I swear it’s almost enough to drive a man mad—if I’m not mad already!”

“I’m sorry to have added to you problems,” said Garth.

“Me too!” said the leader. “But enough! I must get on. And meanwhile I’m sure that pretty wife of yours must be wondering what’s become of you. You look very tired, Garth, so if I were you I think I might be inclined to ignore or even take advantage of anyone else’s current problems; indeed, I would look to my own, and avail myself of a little decent rest while I could get it.”

Good advice, which Garth at once accepted…

XI

Once again Garth’s sleep was mainly undisturbed; at least until shortly after noon when Zach asked Layla, who was up and about, to give him a shake. Big Jon wanted Garth on hand when he spoke to a now considerable gathering of night-watchmen, a task which he’d put off until now to allow last night’s duties to get some well-earned rest. Still it was a fairly weary-looking gang that the leader addressed, outlining the possible threat before urging them to greater vigilance.

Garth then filled them in on all the finer details, warning them to keep everything that they’d been told to themselves. It would never do to cause unnecessary concern or even panic among the travellers in general. But a final piece of advice—delivered in order to reinforce what they’d already been told—was to make sure that as of now they went on duty with all the firepower they could muster, along with the best ammunition possible from what sparse reserves remained in the convoy’s magazine. And without more ado, that was that.

Very timely too—as with low muttered exchanges and apprehensive sideways glances at each other, the now pensive night-watchmen began to disperse—for a moment later the chief mech, Ian Clement, came hurrying to Big Jon’s rauper, eager to present him with some very welcome news.

In a yet more grimy condition than usual—with his hands, ragged coveralls, and almost unrecognizable face spattered with thick black oil and red rust—Clement breathlessly inquired of the leader: “Well, Big Jon, do you hear it?”

“Eh, hear it?” the other replied—before it dawned on him that he was in fact hearing something from back there, midway along the column of disparate ramshackle vehicles: the throaty rumble and intermittent throbbing of an engine!

And now the chief mech was grinning ear to ear as he said, “We got it running—or if not running, at least walking! Just give it a moment to let that decent fuel they found dilute the lumpy stuff, and the engine should soon settle down.” Which it was doing even as he spoke.

“The trundle?” Big Jon grasped Clement’s hand, and at once released it to clean his own hand on the other’s filthy coveralls. And: “God, you’re a mess!” he said—“But a very beautiful mess! Can we get underway, then?”

The chief mech nodded. “I can’t see why not, as long as the other vehicles aren’t playing up. But I’d best warn you—as if you didn’t know already—some of them are in pretty ropy condition. Not too many miles left in any of them! As for the one we’ve just fixed: well, she’s lost two of her ten cylinders and is now running—or walking—on eight. But as long as we don’t push her too hard she should hold out, though how much longer I can’t say.”

Nodding gravely, the leader said, “I know that you’ve done the very the best you can, Ian, and on behalf of myself and the entire clan I find I must thank you once again. Please don’t go forgetting to tell your team I said so.” As the chief mech went off Big Jon called for a runner, and when he arrived told him: “Go lad, fast as you can, all the way down the line and tell ’em they have fifteen minutes to pack up and get aboard. We’re about to move on…”

The convoy proceeded north, but oh so very slowly now. And even when they came across a badly potholed, shrub and bramble festooned road the going wasn’t too much improved. But things could have been worse; the radiation count was so far down that chief tech Andrew Fielding was beginning to have doubts about his instruments; and the one-time hydroponics chief, Doris Ainsworth, was almost delirious about the quality and quantity of greenery bordering the route.

Close to an ancient farm whose stone buildings leaned under the weight of years and rampant ivy, there were fields of vegetables run wild and apple orchards where early fruit was already ripening on lush, heavy branches. A five minute halt to let the clan folk gather armfuls of good sweet food, and then they were on their way again.

Less than a ponderous mile later there was a great stand of oaks set back from the side of the road, but the travellers had never in their lives imagined anything like this! The thicket—though that was hardly the right word for it—was perhaps two acres in extent and packed solid with trees that soared as much as eighty feet tall, apparently vying with each other for space and light! In the dense, luxuriant outer canopy a vastly sprawling rookery housed hundreds of huge glossy crows who protected their nests with raucous cries, a handful of them even swooping on the column in an attempt to scare the noisy intruders off…

In the middle of the afternoon, when the leader called the customary short halt to allow for calls of nature, Doris Ainsworth came bustling up front to the rauper to speak to him.

“These trees and the countryside all around—” she told him, “—all of the green things—Jon, I tell you it’s not natural! The radiation levels are down, I know, but still there’s mutant growth in all this stuff; in fact these are almost new species! In the last hundred miles or so the change from what we used to call ‘badlands’ to what we see now—the difference in the quality of the soil, and the obvious viability of rich clean growth in all this vegetation—it’s truly astonishing! And if things continue improving like this the further north we journey, then I’ll readily concede to a belief in just such a paradise as the kindred have told us they’re accustomed to! Why, if not for the awful fear of fly-by-nights, we might even have built our homes and settled around that tumbledown old farm back there; or perhaps right here, right now, where no one would need to go short of anything ever again!…Well, shelter perhaps, next winter, but certainly not good food! Oh, and by the way—here, do try one of these apples. Not quite ripe just yet but pulpy, pungent and utterly delicious!”

“Madame, I thank you,” Big Jon told her. “Yes, and I too am sorry there are such things as fly-by-nights—but alas, there are! So please don’t go making suggestions of that sort to anyone else; for there are some who might just be stupid enough to give it a go…only to die in the very first raid, or as soon as they run out of ammunition.”

“Ah!” the lady replied, rapidly blinking as she backed off. “But—did you call it a suggestion? Hardly that—no, never! It was nothing more than an ‘if’, that’s all.”

“Why yes, of course it was,” said the other. “And ‘if’ pigs could fly…?” But Doris was already making her way back to her own position in the convoy. Observing her retreat, Big Jon took a bite of apple, chewed meditatively for a moment, then spat it out. Too bitter for his liking, he felt it would give him wind. Anyway it was time to go, and he mounted his rauper’s rusty flank…

Some three hours later, having climbed a long slow rise through wild but flourishing countryside, the convoy looked down from a basin’s rim on a broad valley offering vastly dissimilar views. The now almost non-existent road—its surface reduced by time, weather and burgeoning scrub to tilting blocks of concrete and asphalt under dense layers of bramble and creeper—descended steeply to the valley’s floor, where it then proceeded more or less parallel with a wide river whose source lay somewhere beyond a hazy northern horizon. East of the defunct road, rising contours diverted the water toward far distant regions; but something a little less than two miles due north and ahead of this divergence, twin bridges a quarter-mile apart had long ago surrendered to the flow. Now their half-submerged skeleton sections formed gapped jetties against which the rushing water gathered speed and energy, spinning itself into gleaming whirlpools as it was sucked below, resurfacing on the southern side in spiralling eddies and gushing foam.

East of the river and almost directly ahead of the convoy, the remains of a medium-sized town lay clearly visible. Mainly in ruins, still a handful of squat, three- or four-story buildings on the river’s edge—possibly mills that once ran on hydroelectric power—had survived, barely. Most of them had lost their roofs, and the entire top floor of another had collapsed inward.

Away from the river across town, a railroad’s once-terminal remained mostly intact, with arrow-straight tracks running east through ruined suburbs. About halfway to the eastern limits of unaided vision, a train’s carriages lay scattered like cast aside toys across badly cratered tracks; while at a similar distance but a mile or so north of the wreck, a great crater almost a quarter-mile in diameter sat central in a scene of total devastation. In fact, nothing but this ashen moonscape remained to be seen: just this vast rayed bowl with its shallow lake, where despite the passing of so much time only a blue-green algae had found a way to survive and even flourish; and outside the crater’s raised rim, a star-burst effect of symmetrical white rays, laid down by the outfall over the blackened debris and desolation of what was once a small village…

“Well, and so much for lands east!” Big Jon Lamon muttered morosely to himself where he stood in the turret of his rauper and surveyed the valley’s expanse. “And whatever our journey’s ultimate destination…” he shook his head, and then continued determinedly, “it definitely won’t be in that direction!”

As for the countryside to the west:

Houses and other buildings when blown up, knocked or burned down, soon become rubble and ashes. But trees, foliage, all the green things in general—while they too suffer occasional disasters—they tend to return: they grow back again and quickly, often to the extent of shoving aside and burying the rubble and the ashes. Here in the westerly reaches of this valley, however—whether as the product of Doris Ainsworth’s theory of nuclear radiation and mutation, or simply the result of evolution in an environment radically transformed by the absence of Man and his poisonous works—here the green things tended to grow, and to grow…and to keep on growing!

Which would definitely appear to be the rule in the rising countryside to the west of the river, where the derelict road—or more properly its smothered and increasingly obscure outline—continued to parallel the water as far as the collapsed twin bridges…and then disappeared utterly beneath the outer canopy of an immense forest!

Big Jon’s bottom jaw fell open. Where earlier he had judged a stand of giant oaks and a rookery of fat glossy crows “astonishing,” now he found himself rethinking that previous evaluation. For what he saw down below, thrusting itself into being on the riverbank opposite the fallen bridges—then opening out to climb rising contours to a ridge some four or five miles west—at the same time spreading out and reaching across the valley’s floor all the way to the northern horizon…now that was truly astonishing! Indeed for long moments he could only stare, finding it hard to take in and accept the sheer enormity of it!

While at this elevation and distance it served little purpose to even hazard a guess at the actual height or girth of the larger members of this vast evergreen forest, still Big Jon arrived at a mental assessment. Those mighty firs had to be all of one hundred and fifty—or even one hundred and seventy—feet tall! And in their higher canopies they appeared packed so very close that only a few gaps showed, none of them large enough to indicate clearings of any appreciable size.

As he continued to gaze down on that gigantic forest, one undeniable truth quickly made itself apparent to Big Jon: that unless there was plenty of free space beneath that vast canopy—between those huge boles and below the lower branches, where the sunlight must surely be shut out and undergrowth mainly absent—no power on Earth was ever going to force a way through; which of course included the convoy’s trundles and every other vehicle that had found the going hard even on what was left of the old roads, let alone through a trackless green fastness!

But on the other hand, who could say? At this distance appearances might well be misleading, deceptive even through powerful lenses…. Oh really? Yet despite having serious misgivings about that last, still as Big Jon lowered his binoculars he was telling himself there was always hope…

For all that the column had remained stationary for only a minute or so while its leader surveyed the way ahead, a handful of men had come forward from their places several vehicles back to see what was the difficulty. One of these was the chief mech Ian Clement, and following the line of Big Jon’s worried, fixed gaze, he too looked down into the valley at what he had to assume was the prospective route ahead. In that same moment it was as if he read his leader’s mind, and:

“Big Jon!” The chief mech groaned and shook his head. “Even a quick glance down there tells me we’re in really bad trouble, and that’s a fact! The vehicles are just about done in as it is—but now, with that great green barrier down there? I mean—”

“I know what you mean!” the leader growled, at once silencing the other. “So please be quiet, Ian, and let me think…”

By which time Zach Slattery had come hobbling up front; and as the small group of ominously silent senior clan members made way for him, he leaned against the rauper’s jutting prow, joining his peers where, as a man, they stared helplessly down into the valley.

Momentarily lost in thought, finally Big Jon saw Zach, gave himself a shake and said: “Well then, old friend, how about it? Your mind is ever sharp, so do you see any choices we can make? Do you have any suggestions?”

“There are always choices,” Zach answered, his voice a grim rasp. “Unfortunately, I can’t see one that will do us any good! As for suggestions: while I don’t know about anyone else, right now my own mind feels like a huge dark vacuum: horribly empty!”

Nodding his understanding—and speaking quietly, almost to himself, but knowing he must decide one way or the other—Big Jon then said: “Maybe if we stay up here and leave the road, it might just be possible to follow the high ground west, and—”

At which point:

“Not a hope in hell!” the chief mech barked, forsaking the customary niceties. “What, we should leave the road—potholed, creeper-ridden relic that it is—and drive cross-country? That was bad enough when there were so-called badlands, but at least we could see where we were going! I mean, these shrubs and this greenery and what all, it may be pretty to look at, but if anything it makes the going just as rough as driving through scrub and rubble, and at the same time hides the many pitfalls! Let’s have one thing understood: even if we stay on this ruined road, we can only cover a few more miles before the wheels, axles and engines give up the ghost. But to leave the road, to go off it? Well, I don’t know…” Finally beaten, defeated, the chief mech shook his head. “I just don’t know…” And as his words petered out he could only offer an impotent, almost apologetic shrug.

Then for a long moment silence reigned, until: “And so much for that choice!” said Zach. “But Ian is right, of course.”

“Yes, I know he is.” Big Jon nodded tiredly.

“Which leaves us with the valley,” said Zach. “But at least it’s downhill!”

“That’s right,” said Ian Clement, resigned to the fact that his work was at an end, that he’d done his best but could do no more. “And if the gears should burn out,” he continued, “or the engines decide to quit, I suppose we can always freewheel—at least to the bottom and as long as the brakes hold out!” And he offered a derisive, humourless snort.

“And then, when we’re down there,” said Big Jon, “depending on how things look close up, there’ll be other choices to make. Whether or not we try to push on through—but of course that’s if any of the vehicles are still functioning—” and he glanced at the chief mech. “Or—”

“Or abandon the vehicles to the trees and go on foot,” said a new, younger voice: Garth’s voice, from where he’d joined his father at the front. “Of course, we’ll still have the bikes and no lack of fuel. The outriders—as they were—should still be able to scout ahead, finding us the easiest routes. And if just one of the smaller trundles is still working and able to squeeze through, maybe we could use it to carry fuel, arms and ammunition. As for the animals: all their lives they’ve known only us; we’d have to carry the birds in their cages, I suppose, but the beasts, what’s left of them, will need to go on foot along with us. Which I’m sure they will, just as long as we’re leading and feeding them…”

Done with speaking, Garth looked in turn at each of the men and found all of them staring back at him—some slightly disapprovingly, perhaps—but none of them offering any opposition or argument against the logic of what he’d said. And as for Big Jon:

Looking down at Garth from the rauper’s turret, the leader blinked twice and said, “The voice of youth: a calm voice, with nothing of panic in it. The voice of reason, which admits of no insurmountable difficulty but looks to the future—any future—because there has to be one! And people, I like that sort of voice!”

“And why not?” said Zach. “For there’s a lot of commonsense in what it says and a good deal of hope even in what it doesn’t say! Let’s face it, we can’t be far from journey’s end, not now…just a few more miles at most. Are we suddenly grown incapable of walking? No, not at all! Myself, I’ve only one good leg but I’ll give it a go. And anyway, what with the convoy’s mileage recently: why, for all the time it’s taken we might just as well have walked the last twenty or thirty miles!”

“That’s very true,” said Big Jon, scanning the faces of the elders—some of whom still seemed dubious—as they turned to look up at him. “But at least before walking we can coast, well, for the next few downhill miles at any rate! So then, does anyone have any better ideas? No? Then you’d best get back to your places, for time’s wasting and the future’s damned impatient!”

And a few minutes later the convoy was underway again…

Chief mech Ian Clement’s predictions were proving all too accurate: one of the larger tractors and the water bowser failed to make it down into the valley. The latter’s driver jumped for it, saving his life when his cumbersome vehicle toppled on a crumbling surface, burst open and lost its load. As for the tractor: worn-out, its engine coughing and sputtering, it simply gave up the ghost, coming to a grinding halt where its front wheels ran into a deep rut and refused to come out—which meant that the trundle it towed was also stuck there. Wear and tear, bad fuel, harsh conditions: all of these things had taken, and were still taking, their toll. For even as the column crossed the valley’s floor toward the mighty forest, yet another vehicle quit; which left many travellers hanging on like grim death to groaning and heavily overloaded trundles, trying to keep up as best possible by running alongside, and disappointed to be on their feet even sooner than they had anticipated.

Then, on the final approaches to the looming green barrier, Big Jon’s rauper lost a track, spun out of control and broke an axle on a tilting slab of concrete. At which, cursing his luck and anything else he could think of, the leader tossed his belongings down, dismounted, patted his sorry beast once on its red-rusted flank, and without looking back walked the last hundred yards into the resin-scented verdure of the massive trees.

And there, beneath those huge branches, a surprise awaited Big Jon; and not only him but the clan in its entirety. For indeed the forest had spaced itself out! The boles of the giants were not so close together that they denied entry to the smaller trundles; the lower branches were off the ground to a height where they would cause no real hindrance; and while needles and leaf-mould were thick on the ground, there was little by way of undergrowth. Moreover, the greater the penetration—and as the canopy thickened high overhead—there, apart from the deepening, dusty gloom, conditions in general even appeared to be improving.

Not that the leader intended to penetrate the forest to any great depth; the afternoon was already lengthening towards evening, and the sky beginning to darken, growing heavy with rainclouds. No, the night’s camp must be made right here and now on the forest’s edge…and then made safe! Nor would Big Jon try to bring the entire column in; it was obvious that the majority of the vehicles wouldn’t make it, and to try would simply be to clutter the entire area. Wherefore all the larger vehicles must be abandoned in the open, while the clan and their few precious possessions and beasts would be brought in beneath the trees to enjoy whatever small measure of comfort the forest would afford them. And tomorrow morning? Time enough then to move on, facing the problems that the new day would doubtless bring…

Garth was with Layla, putting up their rude shelter against the bole and between the spreading roots of a forest giant, when he was called to attend Big Jon at the small vehicle he had commandeered and positioned at the hub of the encampment. The battered old open-sided bus was one of just four transports which so far had shown their maneuverability over the forest’s floor and between its great trees. From this time on—in darkness or whenever else the clan made camp—it would serve as the leader’s command post; on the move it would carry sick or incapacitated passengers, such as Zach Slattery by reason of his troublesome leg. Thus the vehicle would be in use at all times, with everyone’s best interests in mind.

On arriving at Big Jon’s vehicle, Garth saw that the other night-watch bosses were already there; and so was Garry Maxwell and his “sniffers.” Appearing less than enthusiastic, Maxwell’s charges whined and fidgeted on their leashes, huddling as close as possible to his skinny legs and almost tripping him.

“What’s wrong with your animals?” Big Jon frowned and waved Maxwell back a pace or two. “Other than their smell, I mean…”

“Can’t wash dogs without water!” Maxwell protested. “‘Least ways not for some time now, not while it’s been hard to come by and we kept it for drinkin’. But for a fact they do stink some. Maybe I’ll give ’em a treat and take ’em back down to the river for a swim on the end of a rope—not that they’ll thank me for it! We came in that way, me and the sniffers, so’s I could stop and fill some bottles from the river—just for drinkin’, mind. And didn’t they kick up a fuss around that fallen bridge? You bet your life they did! Which is why I’m here reportin’: ’cause they don’t like it here, neither by that bridge nor here under the trees. Too gloomy for ’em, and damp with moisture risin’ up off the river. And then there’s the sharpish smell of these big trees and their gooey gum and what all, gettin’ up their noses, makin’ ’em sneeze and gen’rally confusin’ ’em. What I’m sayin’: they don’t much like not knowin’ what they’s sniffin’, and they can’t sniff any too good anyways, not with all these new smells gettin’ in the way and irritatin’ the hell out of ’em!”

“Huh!” Donald Myers issued a derisory snort. “Well, I don’t know about confused or irritated, Gangling Garry, but sometimes I fancy your dogs have a lot more sense than you! Should I tell you why they’re so nervous, so jumpy?”

“Oh, by all means!” Maxwell answered, trying to appear offended and failing. For with his thin or at best wiry frame, his shambling gait, unkempt hair and long nose, he looked almost as much a hound as his dogs! “Do tell, since it appears you knows so damned much about my business and my sniffers!”

“Then listen!” Myers growled. “Once I’d got myself settled in, I found I had a little time on my hands. So as not to waste any, I took a couple of lads from my crew and a pot of luminous paint out in the forest to mark up some trees in a circle round the camp: a perimeter maybe sixty or so yards in diameter, with pretty much clear line of sight from tree to tree. I was making myself useful, that’s all, and saving my good friends here some time and effort before nightfall—”

“—Which won’t be long in the offing now,” Big Jon prompted him, “so save us a little more time and effort by getting on with it! Then I’ll want to speak to all of you.”

Myers nodded. “Away from the forest’s fringe and the deeper we went, and with the sky outside clouding over, it was getting very gloomy; so I was pleased to note that the paint was beginning to glow, however faintly, but still enough to pick out the perimeter from tree to tree. Then one of my men noticed a different glow just a short distance deeper into the forest outside the perimeter. It was the sort of glow that some toadstools and rotting timbers make.

“Since we were well armed we investigated and found a deserted fly-by-night site. There were small animal bones and lots of other shit—I mean real shit: fly-by-night filth, I suppose—all of it softly alight with that unhealthy glow. And worse, at first sight there were what looked like human bones and a human skull mixed in with it! Or maybe not—no, definitely not human, not any longer—for the bones were horribly misshapen, crumbly as chalk, and as long and thin as Garry here; while the skull was like eggshell but very long in the jaw, with teeth as sharp as knives…!”

“Oh really!” Maxwell muttered. “So accordin’ to these skinny old bones of mine I’m scarcely human, am I? Huh! Well thanks a lot—I don’t think!” His indignation went for nothing, however, for Myers simply ignored him and got on with his story:

“Well, the site didn’t look all that fresh, and not having any burning desire to linger there I hastened my lads back into camp; but I reckon we’ve found the reason why Garry’s dogs have been acting up. Oh, resin and river damp may have played a part in what’s bothering them, but mainly it’s what they’re smelling out there: that glowing fly-by-night nest in the forest! And as for those freakish remains—” Seasoned scav that he was or had been, still Myers paused and shuddered, “—well, I reckon this must have been one very hungry pack, for it now seems to me…”

At which Big Jon cut in, finishing up for him: “It seems to you, and to me, that now in desperation they’ve resorted to eating their own!” And Myers, done with his story, simply nodded.

Then after several long moments—perhaps in order to shake off some of the spiritual gloom, the disquietude that the group as a man could feel descending—their leader shrugged, cleared his throat and finally found his voice: “Well here’s the thing: I called you here for your thoughts on tonight’s security measures, much more important now that we’ve learned of Don’s discovery: that the fly-by-nights have used this place at some time in the past and are not averse to nesting nearby in the forest. So just keep that in mind and tell me—” his gaze fell on Bert Jordan, “—Bert, what do you think? Have you any suggestions?”

Scratching his chin, Jordan said, “Let me give it a little thought.” And after a moment: “We’re not short of watch personnel, and I believe we should use every man-jack of ’em tonight out there on the perimeter that Don’s marked for us. We should allocate at least two men to each station—or at least every other station—and wherever possible with no more than one or two trees between manned locations. And incidentally, but importantly, this will make for a lot of weary lads come morning; so when it’s a question of who rides the trundles, night-watch personnel must take priority. Let’s face it, you can’t use ’em over and over, night after night, and still expect ’em to walk the next day!” He paused, shrugged and went on:

“So, that’s about all from me…except I probably should report something I saw on my way in. See, I was riding in this trundle that got stuck in a deep rut coming down the big slope. By the time we’d dug it out, it was just about the last vehicle in the entire convoy, and I reckon I pretty much was the last man to make it in under the trees on foot. But on my way in, that’s when I saw these flashes of light—or maybe lightning?—and heard the thunder…at least it might have been thunder.”

The leader frowned and said: “Thunder? Well that’s reasonable; the sky was full of rain clouds, that’s for sure. As for lights, or lightning: I suppose that’s perfectly logical, too, for after all, the two do go together! Just exactly where did you see these flashes, Bert?”

“North of us, in the forest,” the other answered. “Maybe a little less than three miles along the river, and half a mile deep in the trees, where they start rising toward the valley’s western rim. It was after I heard the first of these thunder sounds and was looking for the source, that I saw the canopy there lit by this flash of light—a split second sort of thing, you understand, which I only just glimpsed out the corner of my eye. So I stood still a while, watching for it to happen again; but the thunder had died down and nothing happened…at least until I looked away! Hah! But isn’t that just typical? For then I heard more dull rumblings and saw three or four more flashes of light centered on that same area of the canopy; flashes that vanished as quick as they’d come, leaving nothing I could focus on…”

And after a moment: “That’s it?” said the leader.

“That’s it,” Jordan replied.

“Hmm! Sounds like St Elmo’s Fire—electrical discharge—which I’ve seen once before while scavenging down south. Well, we may be passing by that way tomorrow. Do you reckon you can show us the spot then?”

“Pretty close to it,” said Jordan. “Sure thing.”

“Very well, since there’s nothing we can do about it right now, we’ll leave it till then…”

Big Jon grunted, nodded, and turned to Garth. “Young Slattery I see from your expression that there’s something you want to say. So out with it, speak up. There’s only an hour or so to dusk, by which time you’ll need to be out on the perimeter.”

“And not just the perimeter,” said Garth. “At least, not in my opinion.” And then, aware of a sudden tension and the frowns that were appearing on both Bert Jordan’s and Don Myers’ faces, he quickly followed up with: “Not that I disagree or find fault with the work that Don’s already done, or Bert’s suggestion. Of course I don’t, but I think there may be something more.”

“Go on,” the leader prompted him.

“It’s something that Garry said about those collapsed bridges over the river,” Garth went on. “The fact that his sniffers baulked when Garry brought them in that way, and that they seem very uneasy and at odds with things even now. I mean, from what I saw of those bridges, they’re half submerged but still pretty much passable. And on the far bank there are those large industrial-looking buildings, more or less intact. Just the sort of places where—”

“—Where fly-by-nights like to hole up,” said Big Jon, indulging his habit of preempting the thoughts and suggestions of others. And again he said, “Go on.”

“Well,” said Garth, “we all of us know that a fairly large party of fly-by-nights, perhaps a swarm, has been moving apace with us heading north, and that recently—with all the breakdowns and other problems—they’ve even moved ahead of us. But the fact that they haven’t attempted to attack us is…well, it’s unusual to say the least. And I’ll risk repeating myself, but as I’ve stated before, I think it’s because they’re biding their time, looking for the perfect opportunity and…and in every regard being instructed or at least advised!”

Big Jon nodded and growled, “Softly softly catchee monkey!”

“Exactly,” said Garth. “And here we are, bottled up in this unexplored forest, unable to move on in a hurry—or even move on at all at night—and there could be dozens, hundreds of the monsters less than three hundred yards away through the trees and across the river, just waiting for darkness! So by all means we must man Don’s perimeter, but we should also have heavily armed men down on the approaches to those twin bridges; and here and now I volunteer myself and my squad to those tasks…”

As Garth finished speaking, a steeply slanting ray of weak sunlight found a way in through what must have been the smallest possible gap in the canopy’s outermost western fringe, and very briefly a myriad dust motes were seen swirling like miniature galaxies in its ephemeral beam. Then:

“Those rain clouds seem to be moving on,” said Myers, his normally strong voice suddenly small and shivery.

“Good,” said Big Jon, “but so is the time.” And turning to Maxwell he continued: “Garry, it’s time you went and organized the rest of the camp’s dogs. And tonight I want you out on the perimeter with your sniffers. Oh, and as of now we won’t worry too much about noise: if they want to make a fuss let ’em bark till they’re hoarse, just as long as they do their job! As for you three—” his keen gaze swept the faces of the night-watch bosses, “—you can get on and do what you’ve always done best, and may the good Lord watch over each and every one of us until morning…”

XII

For a little less than two hours Garth busied himself positioning his men on what remained of the tangled, almost obliterated road east of the forest, at junctions a quarter-mile apart from which a pair of lesser roads—in much the same degraded condition—had once serviced the bridges. He made sure that the men had superior, unobscured arcs of fire from the best possible cover, checked their weapons, ammunition and all other items of their equipment; and with evening turning to dusk and shades of night creeping from the east, he returned briefly to the camp a little less than two hundred yards away, where not far from Big Jon’s command trundle Layla had lit a tiny oil lamp in the entrance to their canvas shelter. For despite that beyond the canopy darkness was yet to fall, beneath it the gloom was already deepening.

Garth was only there to kiss and reassure her—and in turn to be hugged and reassured—but there was something different about tonight: a certain imminence that held him there with her a minute or two longer than he had intended. And all across the camp’s roughly circular area, though more especially around its outer edges, small oil lamps glowed like fireflies, casting fitful shadows where the people had erected their shelters. But as the camp settled down, and the murmuring of near-distant voices gradually faded—and the only movement was that of silent men and dogs on standby duty, when even the muttering of chief mech Ian Clement ended abruptly in a soft curse as he threw down his tools and gave up working on a broken generator—so the gloom deepened more yet and the sudden silence seemed other than natural…perhaps supernatural?

“What is it?” Layla asked, her voice hushed where she stood in Garth’s arms beside their makeshift lean-to. “I mean, why is it so quiet? Earlier—I don’t know if you noticed—but there were no birds calling in the trees, no small creatures rustling in the leaf-mould; only worms and beetles. It’s too still and I don’t like it. And just look at those dogs there, tails between their legs and starting at shadows! I think they’re feeling the strangeness. And all the clan folk, with nothing of energy left in them, apparently! But there have been times in the past when they’d be up, if only to huddle around a fire for company.”

“Fires are out,” Garth answered. “These huge trees are full of resin and the ground underfoot is a carpet that would smoulder and burn all too easily. Big Jon wouldn’t even have allowed oil lamps, but what few electrical batteries remain were needed by the men on duty on the perimeters. As for the people: they’re worn to the bone, and since there’s nothing else for them to do the best possible thing for them is sleep…and that includes you! And speaking of the night-watch: that’s where I should be, and without delay. But before I go…I only wanted to tell you how much I love you.”

“Oh, Garth—I love you, too!” She held him tighter still. “But I’ll ask it yet again—why does it feel so important that we tell each other that, especially tonight?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s like Big Jon says: feeling close to journey’s end we’re hopeful, but because we’re still not there we’re afraid we’ll fail. Which means that the closer we get, the more our fears will mount! It’s called a paradox, I think. Take my advice and at least try to sleep. And when you do, accept only the sweetest of dreams.”

With which they slowly drew apart, and Garth went out into the deepening dusk, where the valley’s western ridge was rimmed with fading gold and the first stars were winking into being in the east. But as he made his way toward the closest of the pair of positions manned by his squad, Garth too pondered the apparent lethargy of the clan as a whole.

Was it simply because they were “worn to the bone,” as he’d suggested to Layla? Or could it be that something else—something from outside, not so much physical as mental—was insinuating itself into their minds; something stultifying, that was making their minds unreliable and even more acquiescent?

With these questions and a pair of ancient adages repeating in his head, Garth hurried as best possible through low shrubbery and gathering darkness towards the river.

As for these sayings he was repeating to himself: “Familiarity breeds contempt” was the one, while “Slowly slowly catchee monkey” was the other…

It began something less than two hours later. Garth had visited the northern junction, where three of his men looked down along the short access road and out over the slumping, half-submerged structure of the bridge toward the now darkly ominous buildings on the far bank. The clouds had drifted away south, leaving the black river water to shine in the light of a half-moon. Despite that this was wont to fade occasionally behind the wispy, trailing revenants of the departed cloud mass, still the pale-yellow light vas a mercy; as was the fact that only the faintest trace of mist was finding its way ashore from the river.

Now, having satisfied himself that the team watching the northern bridge was well situated, alert to a man, and that all was in order, Garth had returned along the crumbling old road’s barely traceable track and through its shrouding foliage to the southern manned location—that closest to the camp in the forest—and mere moments ago had accepted and was sipping from a welcome mug of herbal tea, when a friend of several adventures, Billy Martin, gave him a nudge him and said:

“Garth, did you ever see anything like that before? I mean, what on earth…?” But his words tapered off as, peering uncertainly, wonderingly, he let his mouth gape and pointed a finger out across the bridge and over the river.

Along with the other members of the team—Eric Davis, and the recently recruited Gavin Carter, who seemed much calmer and more at ease now than previously—Garth’s gaze traced Billy’s to the ugly square facades of the partly ruined buildings on the far bank. Silhouetted against night’s faintly luminous backdrop, they looked gauntly eerie.

But there was something else of luminosity there, and by no means static: a glittering stream composed of myriad pinpoints, that flowed from the base of the building directly opposite the bridge’s far end and down toward…toward the bridge itself!

Then for just a moment Garth asked himself—even as Billy had asked him—Now what on earth…? But only for a moment—

—Because then he knew!

That the countless pinpoints were an effect of the sulphurous rottenness in the eyes of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of fly-by-nights! And that even as he watched they were beginning to cross the bridge at a pace that was ever quickening!

A rampaging swarm—the biggest swarm ever seen, ever imagined—with the sweet scent of blood in their fretted nostrils, its taste in their yawning mouths, and the longing and the lust for it in eyes that glowed pale as the silvery moonlight!

Garth’s three heard his gasp, saw him stiffen, and knew the worst: just three of them, or four including Garth himself, and a horde of monsters on its way across the bridge!

“We shouldn’t be here,” said Gavin Carter, quite calmly. “I should not be here! And he put down his self-loading rifle and began to lift a bandolier from around his neck—at which Garth was released from his momentary paralysis.

“You can run and die, Gavin,” he said, his voice straining however slightly, but somehow managing to stay in control. “For if we can’t stop them here they’re going to get you anyway. And not just you but everyone—you, us—the whole clan!” Even my Layla! he thought.

“But you will definitely die first!” Billy Martin growled. “For I swear I’ll shoot you myself, and you’ll thank me for it in heaven or in hell, whichever!”

And Eric Davis pinioned Carter and held him still, saying: “It’s why we’re here, Gavin. And it’s why you’re armed; unlike the majority of our people, those poor bastards in the forest, who won’t even know what hit them! But if we’re going down, the least we can do is take a bloody great swathe of these buggers with us! So what do you say to that?” Then releasing the other, and grimacing as if Carter’s proximity made him feel ill, Davis shoved him forcefully away.

“Do I have…have any choice?” Trembling, stumbling, and almost falling, Carter choked the words out; but he didn’t run.

“You can stand, fight and probably die,” said Garth again. “Or you can just give in and die anyway, as a coward! Not that anyone will ever know.” And suddenly disgusted at his own fear, he spat into the night as if to rid himself of the taste of it, spat as hard as he could, as so often he’d seen his Old Man do. “Those are your only choices, Gavin, and the same goes for all of us. So what’ll it be?”

“But whatever you choose—” Billy added, loading shells into a sawn-off shotgun’s breach, then laying it aside and taking a fragmentation grenade from his pocket, arming it and thumbing down on the sprung safety lever while gauging the distance, “—you’d better make it quick, ’cause here they come!”

“I’m no…no coward,” said Carter, shaking his head. “I’m just… It’s just that I’m scared!”

“So, welcome to our world!” said Eric Davis. But even as he spoke Carter was gritting his teeth, taking up his weapon again and saying:

“When my ammo is done so am I, I guess. But until then I’ll go out fighting.” And to his boss: “Garth, where should I aim?”

“Aim at their heads,” Garth answered gratefully. “At their burning eyes. But before you start—” (he had heard the metallic ch-ching as Billy released the safety lever and knew that he was about to hurl the first of his grenades) “—just wait until the smoke clears!”

“Fire in the hole!” yelled Billy, as his throwing arm swung forward and he released his deadly egg. And his timing was near perfect. The head of the snaking fly-by-night column had advanced off the bridge onto the access road where it was now little more than one hundred feet away. And far more than the phosphorescent corruption of their eyes, the individual creatures themselves were now plainly visible.

They came like a wall of mist: drifting, swirling, reaching with hands and taloned fingers on incredibly long spindly arms. Solid in their weird, insubstantial way—yet seeming at times to merge with each other, only to separate again like grotesque manlike amoebas—they didn’t appear to have seen Garth and his team behind the tumbled, creeper-clad wall of a centuried brick dwelling; nor did they take note of the metal missile that fell among their forward ranks…until a moment later.

Behind the wall Garth and his people had ducked their heads as shrapnel flew overhead and the blast reverberated across the valley and back. In that position they didn’t see the brilliant flash of light, feel its heat or suffer its disruptive power—but the leading ranks of fly-by-nights had seen, felt and suffered all of that! Filth rained from above as Garth and the others lifted their heads. Out on the overgrown access road, shattered fly-by-nights—pieces of pulpy bodies: limbs, heads, and less easily identifiable portions—were still flying in every direction. But the head of the snake had been split in two, and the advance of the creatures had slowed down as they turned aside, spreading out to north and south along the riverbank.

All well and good! thought Garth. Except now the misshapen, long-jawed heads of the corpse-like things were uniformly turning, their ravaged nostrils sniffing, and burning eyes staring in one direction: toward the ruins, where Garth and the others were repositioning, spacing themselves out behind the old wall. For over and above the acrid pulp-and-cordite stench of chemical fire and shredded undead plasm, the vampires could now smell their prey and knew where they lay in ambush…knew also that this prey, this small group of human beings—this food for the inhuman things they had become—would fight back!

There were almost two hundred of the monsters, though their numbers were hard to gauge with any accuracy; of which the last two dozen or so were only now filtering to left and right, away from the access road and along the ruins of the road that paralleled the river. But to both north and south the furthest creatures were already moving forward off the road into the cover of the denser shrubbery and scrub; and by doing so—whether deliberately or unintentionally, unconsciously—they were quickly fashioning themselves into a pincer formation.

Seeing what was happening, Garth called out, “Billy, Eric—save your grenades for later, when the fly-by-nights come at us from the sides. And Gavin: you can start firing just as soon as you like, at any of these monsters that come at us head on; the same goes for all three of you. Just tell yourselves this: that while we daren’t let them get too close, the closer they are the easier targets they’ll make…and in any case make every shot count!”

But already Garth knew that this attack was very different. For where was the deranged frenzy of berserk bloodlust that had featured in every previous confrontation in which he’d been involved? Where the lunatic savagery that was the very definition of fly-by-night “tactics?”

Garth could see that the vampires directly in front, where they had come together to close the gap blown in their ranks by Billy Martin’s grenade, were now advancing with what could only be described as stealth—which was something that was more or less unheard of!

Oh, their eyes dripped sulphur as before, and their too-long arms reached out in front just as horribly; but their movements were cautious and even sly. Because now they hunted with malice aforethought: a previously unimaginable, conscious and intelligent fly-by-night activity!

No mere accidental or coincidental confrontation this, but an ambush laid with a skill foreign to the usual vampire vacuity, though perhaps not entirely unheard of. No, for the exception that proves the rule had established itself long ago in the shape of a certain Jack Foster: a scav taken by fly-by-nights, changed, elevated, and finally returned…as the leader of a swarm, a small army of the undead!

With which thought, as suddenly and surely as he recognized this second exception for what it was—that the so-called “rule” was once again being proved or broken—Garth also accepted that for the moment there was nothing he could do about it. No, for in order to do anything he must first survive!

The dust and loathsome debris thrown up by Billy’s grenade had settled; its yellow smoke had drifted away, taking some of the stench with it. And now while Garth searched in vain for a way around his team’s deadly predicament—some manoeuvre that would allow them to back off while yet holding the vampires at bay—his three had commenced picking off the central mass of oncoming fly-by-nights shot by shot, head by exploding head.

But while there was no obvious alternative to the measures that Garth and his men were taking, still his brain was feverishly active as he quit looking for nonexistent solutions and wondered instead what was happening back there in the camp under the great trees only two hundred yards away.

There had been no whistled warnings from his team—which in any case would have been superfluous—but the blast of the grenade going off, and now the sharp, rapid-fire crack! crack! of gunshots would certainly have got everyone up on their feet, preparing for an attack; and it was more than likely that reinforcements were on their way right now, coming at the run or as quickly as possible through scrub and underbrush, hearts racing and weapons at the ready. Garth was sure it must be so, but…would they get here in time? And even if they did would it make any difference against this horde?

The fly-by-night pincer was steadily closing in from north and south, and while Garth and Gavin Carter carried on pumping off shots into the advancing main body—now dangerously close—Billy Martin and Eric Davis were arming and steadily hurling their pitifully few grenades at the vampires that came creeping in from the sides. Their explosions split the night, until finally:

“All done with the grenades!” Billy’s voice called hoarsely from where he crouched at the northern end of the old wall. And following one final flash of light and deafening blast from the south:

“Me too!” Eric’s wavering cry rang out.

“Get over here!” Garth called in the momentary silence. “To me, where we can form up back to back. We’ll keep on firing until these devils are coming over the wall, and only then make a run for it—”

“—If we have to!” Billy’s yell cut him off, as he and the others closed with Garth. For now they could hear shouting from the direction of the encampment, and the weak beams of electric torches were cutting individual swathes through the smoky darkness, directed by a dozen or more desperate human figures where they came crashing through the scrub heedless of life and limb.

The vampires had also heard the rallying, querying cries of the reinforcements; and now, having come almost within reach of the wall, their advance had slowed to a virtual standstill. But it wasn’t just the headlong approach of the men from the camp that was giving them pause; it was the brilliance of other lights, three sets of paired headlight beams, that came searching from the north and along the river road: the blinding headlights and the men on foot—Garth’s other team from their vantage point at the northern bridge—half-running, half-riding, even seeming to fly, where they clung to the sides of the thundering mystery vehicles!

But…flashing lights and thundering engines? Garth’s mind whirled in circles! What was it Bert Jordan had reported seeing and even hearing: lightning, or lights, over the great forest’s northern canopy, and thunder from that same direction?

No, not at all! Thunder and lightning? Never! Garth laughed out loud; he shook a fist at the night and shouted at his three where they clustered close to him, bewildered but still breathing, still alive: “Why did you stop firing?” he yelled. “They’re not through yet, these damned things—but neither are we—so give ’em all you’ve got!”

Mechanical thunder and jouncing lights, yes, as these magical, wonderful vehicles came lurching over broken concrete and scattered, fragmented tarmac; bursting through uprooted shrubs and wrenched-aside saplings. And now the breathless men of the clan forming up to left and right, with Garth and his three in the middle of a semicircle, and every man of them blazing away at the fly-by-night horde.

And the vampires themselves, blinking their yellow, phosphorescent eyes—blinded and lost in the glaring headlight beams—crumpling like so many rotten mushrooms under a sleeting rain of lead…and worse yet coming their way.

But Garth couldn’t feel sorry for them—not even an ounce of pity—as the three squat kindred vehicles halted in a line abreast and opened up with fifty-foot lances of flame from nozzles in their caged-in prows. Like chemical scythes, these spurting, shimmering jets of incendiary heat were a translucent blue in their outer shells and a searing white in their molten cores. Gnawing into and through everything they touched, these roaring tongues of fire left nothing but red-glowing ashes and slumping piles of cinders in their wake. And the monstrous vampire horde simply melted away under their furious heat and light.

Some few dozens of the swarm fled back the way they’d come, along the access road and out across the half-submerged bridge; but a majority wafted wraith-like along the river road, followed closely by three merciless vehicles that burned their flamethrower fuel till nothing was left, then opened up with automatic gunfire. But in a while even that ceased, leaving the night full of smoke and stench and disbelieving, occasionally stumbling clansmen.

Then in the astonished silence—as the rumble of kindred vehicles died a little, fading with distance where they continued to pursue the fly-by-nights—suddenly men were embracing; but as much for physical support, to keep each other from falling, as in celebration of a victory!

And just when Garth felt his shoulders starting to slump a very little, as he was beginning to surrender to mental fatigue and physical weariness both, then out of nowhere—

—Someone sniggered?

But someone…or something?

For this sinister “sound” was by no means real or physical; Garth had experienced or “heard” such before and knew it hadn’t reached him through his ears only through his mind! And:

Ahhhh, ’prentissss! That sibilant voice “sounded” yet again in his head, audible to him alone. Lured you away, have they—know-it-all ‘pup’ that you are? But did you and all those other clan bastards think to get the best of Ned Singer? Well, who’ll get the best now, eh, ’prentissss? Ned, that’s who! Perhaps not the best of you—but the best of your old cripple of a father, aye—and for sure the best, and the juiciest, of Layla Morgan!

Garth reeled, staggered like a drunkard, as from the encampment in the forest the first hoarse shouts sounded, the terrified screaming, and the half-hearted (or so it sounded to Garth) sporadic crackle of gunfire. But of course it was sporadic—he told himself, as his legs unfroze, beginning to propel him back through the trampled shrubbery toward the dark blot of the forest’s fringe—because the majority of clan ammunition was all but used up! And:

“Layla!” Garth gasped, his heart, lungs and legs beginning to pound. “Layla! Father!”

Layla—yessss! sang that awful, hateful voice in his mind. And Zach yessss! Ha-ha-haaa!

Not knowing what was happening—only now beginning to react to the cries from the camp—the other clansmen at the road junction had been left behind as Garth, now totally galvanized, hurled himself through the night. He forced his body on, faster and faster, yet felt that he moved in slow-motion! It seemed to him that gravity had failed, as if he drifted through the darkness as insubstantial as a leaf, with each frantic leap lasting twice as long as the last one before bringing him down again on slippery creepers and humped roots!

And now from the encampment—staggering and almost falling, fleeing on rubbery, spastic legs from the wraith-like thing that wafted close behind, its elastic arms outstretched and reaching—came someone whose voice Garth knew at once despite its whimpering tone. “Help!” the scar-faced Arthur Robeson cried, thrusting his flapping arms out before him, and clutching at thin air in a manner that might seem in certain ways similar to the creature with burning eyes that came floating after him, but which was entirely different. “Somebody, anybody, please help me!… The fly-by-nights, coming down out of the trees!… They were hiding in the high canopy, and now…now they’re in the camp!… For God’s sake, can’t someone help me!?”

But too late! Robeson’s pursuer was upon him!

At the last moment the terrified man had half-turned, tripped, toppled over backwards as the monster leapt on him, straddled him, opened its jaws impossibly wide…then clamped down and covered his screams and entire face with them! There followed a terrible wrenching, a leathery tearing, before the vampire sat back, its scarlet mouth full of flesh and blood; at which a veritable fountain of blood erupted, hurled aloft on Robeson’s bubbling, gurgling shrieks!

Garth choked back his horror. But even desperately afraid—for himself certainly, but mainly for Layla and his father—he had not been so wildly panicked as to fling himself through the underbrush and the night without instinctively lighting the way ahead with the torch taped to the barrel of his rifle. And now, as his forward rush continued unabated, that weak beam of light showed him the final awful details as the horror seated astride Robeson’s jerking, vibrating body opened wide its bloodied jaws a second time, dipped its head and tore the man’s throat out!

At close to point-blank range Garth blew the fly-by-night’s head off. And as the frothing, pulpy spray collapsed he did the same for Arthur Robeson: which was as much “help” in this world as Robeson was ever going to get! For while it seemed improbable—or even impossible—that in his condition Robeson could ever return as one of the undead, still Garth had reason enough now not to take chances with whatever future, if any, might yet lie ahead.

And seconds later, as the howling of maddened dogs and the shouting, screaming and gunfire from the camp sounded that much louder and clearer—seconds that seemed to pass as slowly as minutes, while the resin-laden air became pungent with cordite stench, and the ground underfoot turned to leaf-mould and pine needles—Garth went in at a run, with his heart pounding and his eyes stinging from the smoky air—went in under the outermost fringes of the colossal, now nightmarish evergreens.

But he went too fast, too carelessly; half blind with his watering eyes, and unsure of where his feet were falling; his only certainty: that he must find Layla now, before something else found her.

Garth didn’t see the humped root that tripped and sent him flying, neither that nor the black bole of the great tree that brought an even greater darkness down on him…

XIII

While it might seem like forever to Garth, to the clan folk in the camp it had been mere minutes, no more than three or four, since the first of a dozen fly-by-nights had climbed down from the higher reaches of the canopy. Up there they’d been so completely concealed, hidden in foliage so deep and so dark, that even yesterday’s sunlight had been unable to discover them. Oh, Garry Maxwell’s “sniffers” and the rest of the clan’s dogs had sensed that something was very much amiss; but biding his time, a certain changeling had planned his ambush to perfection, and on high with his undead cabal had watched and patiently waited.

It meant nothing at all to him that many dozens of the vampires—in a worst-case scenario, the entire swarm, which some twenty-four hours ago he had sent over the river to the ancient mills—would die true deaths under fire from the clan’s defenders. What were such creatures after all but a diversion, a distraction, cannon-fodder to lure clansmen out from the camp that he had hoped they would make somewhere beneath the great trees. Ah, but as slyly devious and evilly intent as he was, even Ned Singer could scarcely have foreseen how marvellously well both his plan and his hopes had come to fruition…or how at least they seemed to be coming.

Ned’s only regret: that Garth Slattery was one of them who had gone to defend against attack from the bridge. But at least Ned could taunt Garth, and with his vampire-infected once-human mind he could do it even at a distance! That was something he’d not been able to resist—something he had done already, which may have been a mistake—or perhaps not. Maybe he had done it deliberately in order to draw Garth back within reach; but with his mind gradually devolving to an unavoidable undead and vacuous condition, Ned was having difficulty assessing even his own actions with any accuracy. Be that as it may, still he intended to taunt Garth again: just as soon as he held the girl Layla in his spidery but oh-so-strong fly-by-night arms, and enjoyed the heat of her sweet strong blood coursing through his desiccated, cobwebby veins!

Ah, yes: the cold pleasure he would derive from laughing in the face of that horny Slattery pup—if the horde from across the river didn’t get him first, and if he should dare return to the camp and his beloved Layla—and how much more pleasure in killing and eating him! But not as much as he’d get from Layla, in all the endless years of having her body and her blood…

Ned would be the last of his kind down from the huge trees. He had sent the others, just one short of a dozen, ahead of him to kill or draw the fire of the men on the defensive perimeter. Some of those men had succumbed to death from above; others had heard or sensed furtive movement in the dense darkness overhead and reacted accordingly; three of Ned’s guerrillas had suffered the true death as a result.

Softly softly catchee monkey was a concept that Ned had instilled into pulpy vampire minds through a telepathic art which, paradoxically, they had taught him; but as for repressing their incessant, ravenous hunger…that was utterly beyond him! When fly-by-nights attacked it was for one reason only: to replenish themselves. Should any victim survive such a bloodletting, then he would shortly become a member of the next undead generation. However, by reason of Ned Singer’s untutored, patently susceptible mind, he and one other before him—the scav Jack Foster—had been the exceptions that proved a rule. They had been taken not only for their flesh and blood—though most of the latter had been drained off in order to facilitate the metamorphosis—but for something else that the monsters had sensed their willingness to supply: the knowledge that was locked in their human brains…while yet they remained human!

Thus the fly-by-nights had coerced Ned to their needs, who in his turn had coerced them to his. His need for vengeance: to destroy his enemies in the clan—in particular Zach and Garth Slattery, and that swaggering fool Jon Lamon—then to take the girl Layla and use her, changing her as he had been changed and bending her to his will: the will and ways of the vampire which he’d become, and from now on must always be.

His plan had seemed to Ned a simple one, which only now was proven less than simple in its execution. He had assumed that the fly-by-nights from across the river, while they would doubtless lose many of their members to clan defenders at the bridge, would nevertheless quickly overcome the opposition and swarm on the encampment. There they would indulge themselves in a feasting frenzy, leaving him to his own devices.

But something was amiss, for Ned was sensing—even feeling—a mass extermination! Undeath to true death: that worst case scenario he had more or less ignored because it had seemed contrary to any reasonable expectation. It was of course due to the advent of the kindred: their men, vehicles, and murderous weaponry. But all Ned sensed was an impression of searing heat, the dissolution of at best vague and tenuous fly-by-night thoughts, and a sudden yawning emptiness in what had been the eery, restless flow of enigmatic vampire mentality.

There were, however, those one or two members of the swarm whose minds were marginally clearer, more perceptive and conscious of self and being than the fly-by-night norm—“leaders,” presumably, of the less well endowed majority—and, most probably the ones who could get into the minds of men, even to the extent on rare occasions of recruiting such to their monstrous existence. As yet ignorant of what was going wrong, Ned now determined to contact one or another of the latter.

And at least one was out there, down on the river’s rim and fleeing south. But fleeing….?

Ned issued a mental query, nothing more than a thought: Why do you run? From what?

The reply registered on the screen of his mind like a badly blurred picture: From the fire and the leaden sting of relentless men. From jets of blistering heat and the collapsing cadavers of molten fellows. From death—the true death—come from the north, all unforeseen, in fire and flying metal! If I would feast some other night and sup on good sweet blood, then flee I must or…

…Ahhhhhh!!!

No sooner contact than this long-drawn-out mental sigh—of vast relief? Yes, it would seem so!—as the mind that Ned had found suddenly shrivelled away, perhaps indeed to ashes, before dispersing into the waning flow of the telepathic aether.

Then for the first time the vampire Ned Singer contemplated failure—but not of his plan in its entirety, not while eight of his remained at large in the encampment—and not until he’d enjoyed his revenge!

No, definitely not till then…

The leader and first of his cabal, but the last member to half-climb, half-drift down from the canopy, by the time Ned’s bony, chisel-toed feet settled to the forest’s pine-needle floor, the howling of dogs and cries of doomed clan folk—men, women, and children; not to mention the hoarse, vivid curses and small-arms fire of others as yet unscathed—had wrenched the entire camp from its bone-weary slumbers.

Big Jon Lamon was up and out of his command vehicle, a side-arm in his belt and another in his hand, shouting to anyone who was listening: “Light! We need more light! If you’ve got a hand torch or oil lamp, switch ’em on or get ’em lit now! We have to see what’s happening here. And you men shooting off those guns: who-the-hell-ever you are, you’d best be damned sure you’re not hitting clan folk!”

Excellent advice, for in the smoky sulphur and pine-scented gloom, lit with sporadic flashes from muzzle discharges and the flickering light of a handful of torches and lamps, the shadowy figures that moved like ghosts against the nebulous velvet backdrop could as easily be men as monsters.

As for the remaining vampires, the eight survivors of Ned’s advance guard: they had no such problem. Creatures of darkness, to them this all-shrouding gloom was as daylight to human eyes. But at the same time and paradoxically, such vampire vision was their greatest disadvantage; for the darker the night, the more brightly burned those feral eyes, appearing to any who saw them as if to drip molten gold or sometimes silver.

Zach Slattery came hobbling from the gloom to join Big Jon in the fitful light from a sputtering lamp in the old bus. And:

“Damn it to every hell!” Zach snarled, propping himself up against the vehicle and thumbing shells expertly into his weapon’s breach. “It’s obvious that this has to be fly-by-nights but right here in the camp? Where did they come from, for God’s sake?”

“Down from the trees,” Big Jon replied. “Don Myers saw one of them; he shot it dead before it could reach the ground! Then he heard other shots from around the perimeter and guessed what was happening. He came at a run into the camp and almost bumped into me as I was getting down from the old bus. He told me what he’d seen and went off into the gloom to look for and kill more fly-by-nights! We were ambushed, Zach! They were waiting for us in the canopy, which would seem to make them unusually intelligent, patient, and perhaps even disciplined—the clever bastards!”

“Too clever!” Zach growled. “As for disciplined: d’you mean well ordered? In which case you’re saying that Garth was right, right?”

“About Ned Singer?” The other nodded. “Yes, I think so. But look out!” Half-crouching and lifting his hand gun, he appeared at first to be aiming directly at his friend! But he wasn’t.

With its jaws gaping and spindly arms reaching, a nightmarish figure with dripping, sulphur-yellow pits for eyes had come ghosting out of the smoky shadows behind Zach.

“Move!” Big Jon yelled, but Zach was already toppling sideways in an intuitive, controlled fall, turning as he went down. And at close if not point-blank range the pair fired their weapons together. The fly-by-night’s chest caved in under the massive impact of Zach’s shotgun blast, and its right eye collapsed inward, exploding into yellow froth from the shock of Big Jon’s single bullet. Then as the thing sighed its last and its carcass crumpled to the ground:

“Just like old times, eh?” Zach gasped, wincing his pain as the leader grasped his outstretched hand and hauled him up onto his feet. “Times when we scavenged together, and sometimes went hunting bloody vampires!” But:

“No, Zach,” Big Jon breathlessly replied, shaking his head, “not quite. For this time we’re the ones being hunted, and it’s one of them who’s directing the hunt! But what the hell—let’s go find and kill some fly-by-nights, shall we?”

“Damn right!” Zach grunted. “By all means. But Garth is out there somewhere, thinking he’s protecting us, while his wife is here and alone. Before doing anything else we should find young Layla and make sure she’s safe. What say you?”

Nodding curtly, the other answered, “I saw the pair of them earlier, setting up nearby. I think she’s this way. Let’s go.”

And without another word these old friends—these two “old men” of the clan—stepped forth into smoky, shifting shadows, cordite stench, and the menacing velvet gloom.

While close by, greatly reduced in number but monstrous and merciless still, the surviving members of Ned’s ambushers—his vampire cohorts from the canopy—carried on with their murderous business…

Only three men left…Ned still thought of these creatures who had climbed up into the dusty canopy with him as “men,” because he knew they had been. It was one of the few remaining vestiges of his own once-humanity, and he had chosen the original eleven because of the weird rapport he had with them; not as strong as with the ones he thought of as swarm leaders, but strong enough that their presence—knowledge of their existence—was ever there in his mind, like faces he would recognize in a crowd. By way of explaining this sense of familiarity, Ned had “reasoned” it likely that they had been taken recently and, much like himself, had temporarily retained certain traces of their previous human mentalities and so were connected on similar wavelengths.

By now, if things had gone to plan, enough of Ned’s kind to constitute a swarm should have completely destroyed the defenders at the bridge and come up to ravage in the forest camp. His fly-by-night ambush party from the high canopy might have suffered some few losses, but the surviving majority would even now be converging on a certain area defined by Ned’s presence. That was how it should have gone and how things should be, but where was the swarm and where his eleven “men” now?

There had been eleven of them, yes, but following immediately on their descent, only eight. Then, as the camp had started awake to the near-distant tumult from the river crossing—and more surely awake to sounds of gunfire and cries of terror from the perimeter—their numbers had quickly reduced to seven, six, five and four. Until a moment ago, even as he searched them out in the telepathic aether, yet another mental connection, like a dully glinting thread in Ned’s mind, had been broken and blinked out, and he was left with three.

Only three survivors of his fly-by-nights, the creatures he had chosen to guard him, watching his back while he avenged himself on those hated men of the clan: Garth Slattery and his old cripple of a father; and Big Jon Lamon, their so-called leader. Well, the latter could die at once and be eaten, but as for the Slatterys: Ned would keep both of them alive long enough to witness the start of what he’d planned for Layla, the many different ways he would use her in bringing those plans to fruition!

Oh yesss! That was how he’d planned it, how it was supposed to have been…but now?

Now things were working out very differently and Ned’s revenge was as yet unrealized, his lust unsated. Ah, but there was time yet and plans can be changed! The girl Layla for instance:

Most of the gunfire within the camp—which had been sporadic at best—had ceased now, for a majority of the armed men had gone down to the river crossing; which meant that Ned might well find Layla all unprotected and incapable of resistance.

He would carry her away into the forest and there have both her body and her blood! Then, if that Slattery pup had survived the fighting at the river crossing, and if his father had likewise survived, they would surely seek Ned out. Indeed, he would even leave a trail that they could follow! For Ned knew that in the dark heart of the forest he and his men—further assuming that by then any of them were left—would have the advantage.

Thus he continued to plan ahead, his ability to do so fuelled by hatred, his once-human lust, and fly-by-night blood-lust. For while the future seemed uncertain now, and despite that his capacity for reasoned thought was gradually failing, all was not lost. No, for with vengeance so close he could almost taste it, Ned knew that he must pursue it to whatever end!

It was dusty, smoky and eerily gloomy under the huge trees, but to Ned’s eyes it was as bright as the daylight he no longer could bear. And while only three of his original cabal remained to guard his back during the next phase of his continually evolving plan, still they were possessed of fly-by-night strength and insensate ferocity, and that must needs suffice.

Moving more purposefully now—his eyes blazing yellow, and his fretted nostrils sniffing at the reeking air—Ned left the perimeter and went ghosting in towards the encampment’s central area. As he went so he “called” on his three to leave what they were doing and join him at the source of a certain unmistakable scent. Almost a perfume in its own right, this was the smell of sweet young female flesh, and to Ned it was unique as a fingerprint. With his vampire senses to guide him unfailingly through the night and his lust fully inflamed, he would know that scent anywhere…

XIV

At that exact moment, as the surviving members of Ned’s ambush party received his message, the creature closest to Layla where she stood confused and uncertain near the entrance to her makeshift shelter, was one of the oldest and most hideously mutated monsters of its kind; but it was also one of the most mentally and physically capable.

Over seven feet tall but spindly as a spider, with its hair drifting three feet behind it when it moved, and hanging almost to its waist when stationary, the creature was in its way anthropomorphic, but so far removed from any human origins as to be utterly alien. Its arms—even longer than its hair and thin as twigs, with hands and taloned fingers fifteen inches in length, the latter barbed at the knuckles—reached out graspingly before it in typical fly-by-night fashion, while its incandescent eyes burned an intense white, like blobs of molten metal. Worse than all of these anomalies together, however, were its yawning jaws that dripped fresh blood, and needle teeth still hung with strips of human skin and raw flesh torn from a recent victim!

Layla failed to see the thing at first…what she did see was a pair of ghostly, long-shadowed, smoke-wreathed silhouettes that came groping directly toward her out of the gloom! They too seemed to be reaching their arms out before them; but while Layla couldn’t know it their hands bore weapons, not talons!

Just a split second after Layla turned away from them, even as she made as if to flee into the night, she realized her mistake, that in fact she knew the pair: Zach Slattery and Big Jon Lamon! But in the same moment she saw the third figure where it came eagerly, purposefully wafting toward her from the opposite direction; a very tall, very thin figure…and one with flaring pits for eyes!

No less than Zach and Big Jon the ancient vampire was likewise silhouetted, against the nimbus cast by a small, guttering oil lamp which Layla had hung from the projecting ridge-pole of her shelter; but no matter the circumstances—gloom or glimmer—there could be no mistaking this thing for what it was. Again Layla spun on her heel; only to trip and literally fly into her father-in-law’s arms.

Thrown off balance by reason of Layla’s sudden, unanticipated weight, and with his game leg giving way beneath him, still Zach managed to cushion the girl’s fall; even though that meant losing his grip on his shotgun, however temporarily.

And meanwhile, Big Jon had seen the cause of Layla’s abrupt and terrified flight.

“God help us!” The leader muttered his prayer as the fly-by-night wafted toward him, suddenly accelerating into what seemed like a frenzied all-out attack, its wispy white hair and rotten rags floating behind it. Unable to avoid its rush, Big Jon made a stand. Taking aim with a hand that trembled however slightly, he let the nightmarish creature get even closer—only two or three paces away—before squeezing the trigger…and nothing happened!

Bad ammunition—again!

“Jesus Christ!” This time, realizing there was no avenue of escape, Big Jon’s words were little more than a groan; and feeling his knees turning to rubber he sank to the leaf-mould floor. Even sprawling, however, he went on repeatedly, uselessly, yanking on his antique revolver’s trigger in the hope that at least one of the remaining rounds had retained its sting. No use, all such hopes were in vain; and having come down on his right side between tree roots, now Big Jon was having difficulty in recovering his back-up side-arm from his belt!

Meanwhile:

Incredibly, and for all its swooping rush, the fly-by-night elder ignored Big Jon’s slumped figure; it wasn’t here for him. And while the leader gave up trying to reach the spare side-arm trapped under his heavy body, and began fumbling instead in his jacket pockets for bullets to replace the faulty rounds that he was shaking from his revolver’s chambers, the hurtling creature came to an abrupt, astonishingly smooth halt. And with barely a glance at Big Jon, it simply turned away from him! And stepping very carefully, calculatingly over Zach and Layla’s tangled figures—straddling them with its spindly legs—the monster bent forward and down from a wasp-like waist and caged them between all four stick-insect limbs!

Trying to free herself from Zach, who was groping blindly, desperately in the leaf-mould and pine needles for his shotgun, Layla had turned onto her back. Now, as she looked up directly into the fly-by-night’s hideous skull-like face, she wanted to scream but couldn’t. She had stopped breathing; she had no air and her throat was dry as dust; there was nothing she could do but gaze helplessly into those flaring, incandescent orbs that seemed with every passing moment on the point of spilling over and pouring their liquid metal contents down on her! Oh, Layla knew that last was an illusion, but it was an horrific concept nevertheless!

Looking at her through those nightmarish eyes, the monster cocked its head first one way, then the other. It was following unusual instructions—not so much orders as directions—that were very foreign to its nature. But the normally disfunctional group organism that was the swarm had recently taken possession of a man, a human being who, on this very rare occasion, it had endowed with the trappings of authority…all of which, supposedly, for the good of the swarm as a whole.

Well, perhaps, but where was the bulk of the swarm now? For no less than Ned, this old one had sensed the great extermination of so many of its parts—its species?—down at the river crossing, and it was now obvious that this adopted human’s ill-conceived plan had failed utterly. There would be no mass feeding frenzy tonight, nor any creation of fresh new vampires, not for this decimated swarm!

But…not every creature need go hungry, and how was this young female for a choice and tender morsel? This girl with her sweet body and sweeter blood.

The adopted human, this traitor to his own kind, had wanted her for himself; in exchange for which he would work to make it possible for the swarm to glut on the rest of the travellers—this clan whose men had treated him so very badly—but only as long as the girl was left to him alone. Indeed, she and a small handful of his enemies had been pre-eminent, conspicuous in his thoughts and central to a scheme which now had proved so detrimental, so disastrous to the swarm. And to the ancient vampire it seemed only right that Ned, too, should pay—that indeed he should be punished for his failure.

Yes, and the instrument of his chastisement was even now to hand…

All of these thoughts—these not-so-vague evaluations in the blink of a sulphurous eye; and the monster lifted its right foot out of the pine needles, reached forward and used a hooked toenail as sharp as a razor to slit Layla’s gown of fine-tanned skins from the deep vee of her neckline down to her knees, then brushed the two halves aside to display her naked body.

Paralysed with terror, Layla was unable to move a finger to protect herself; and now the creature’s jaws were opening wide, its crimson tongue licking ravaged lips, while that same hooked appendage reached slowly, calculatingly toward her breasts! The ancient thing’s intentions were perfectly obvious as it hunched its back and lowered its slavering, gaping jaws toward her quivering flesh. Why, with a single tearing bite this monster could slice into a breast like a warm knife through butter, severing its soft tissues to scoop it whole from the ribcage—

—But that wasn’t going to happen.

Close beside Layla, Zach saw what the old fly-by-night was about, gave up groping for his shotgun and threw up his arms to ward the thing off. But while the monster’s flesh felt horribly dry, coarse and cold to the touch—as a long-dead, or undead, thing should feel—still it had unbelievable weight and strength; so much so that Zach moaned his desperation as he realized that his arms could either yield or break, but they could never stop this terrific, inhuman force from descending!

On the other side of Layla, a fraction less than three feet away, Big Jon Lamon had stopped trying to raise himself up from between slippery forked roots, and having reloaded his revolver he now pointed it at the old vampire’s head and pulled the trigger—over and over again—before sobbing aloud and throwing the useless weapon aside! And:

Damn this rotten ammo to hell! Big Jon’s thoughts were chaotic—his mind in a whirl as he looked for a miracle and found nothing at least until the thought occurred: If only I…if only I had a knife!

What? A knife—

—But he did have a knife! He always had a knife, or rather his machete, which he used in clearing the way through tough or dense undergrowth; or when making camp; or at any time when its sharp heavy blade was needed, as when he’d used it on the sling of Ned Singer’s machinegun. It was simply that he’d never foreseen or imagined having reason to use it in hand-to-hand combat with an ancient fly-by-night, that was all. No, for as the onetime scavenger in Jon Lamon remembered well enough, that’s what guns were for…when they worked!

But as for right now…

He slipped the machete from its oiled leather sheath on his broad belt, and despite his predicament—jammed between forking roots from the waist down—twisted his body and swept his weapon outwards, inches from the ground, with all the strength he could muster. And a moment later:

“Ahhhh!” The leader sighed his satisfaction; for while the old monster’s spidery limbs were deceptively strong, still they were no match for the razor-sharp edge of his machete. The vampire’s clawed right foot—more like a hand than a foot proper—had been about to cup Layla’s left breast, preparing the targeted flesh for gaping jaws and yellow fangs that had descended to no more than five or six inches above the girl’s writhing body, when Big Jon’s curved blade chopped through its right wrist and threw the thing completely off balance!

Wailing, hissing its pain and snatching back its right foot in an attempt to stabilize itself, the thing teetered and began to topple. Then, somehow regaining control, it turned its awful head to glare its furious hatred at its attacker. But the leader’s blood was up, and while it remained his blood, his loathing would continue to more than equal that of this grotesque enemy! And as the half-crippled thing made to lurch more surely in his direction, so he swung his machete again.

Such was his strength, the renewed vitality Big Jon derived from the knowledge of even partial success, that the force, the sheer impetus of his second blow helped jolt him loose from the grip of the forked roots. Not only that but this time he’d been better able to aim, to direct his blow, and the ancient fly-by-night’s right foot and taloned toes would never again threaten anyone!

Keening its frustration as much as its pain, the monster’s scrabbling at the leaf-mould threw up dust, dirt and pine needles where it jerked and skittered like some crippled, poisonous insect. Yet forgetting the girl and intent now upon its tormentor, still it made every effort to propel itself towards him. Big Jon rolled away from it, and rolled again, well clear of the creature. Until finally, scrambling to his feet and taking his machete in his left hand, he was able to grope at his leather belt for his back-up weapon…only to curse his luck. The holster was still there, but empty! He’d lost the handgun somewhere in deep leaf-mould and deeper gloom!

Now, more surely aware of Big Jon’s skill with his machete, and having seen the leader clamber to his feet, the old fly-by-night somehow contrived to half-float half-lever itself upright and turn its attention once more on Layla and Zach. By now they too were on their feet; and Zach, having recovered his pump-action shotgun, was in the process of giving it a frenzied shaking, trying to dislodge dirt from its clogged muzzle, when the ancient thing launched itself at him.

Meanwhile Ned Singer and the last two members of his ambush party had come drifting together in that weird, forward-leaning mode of the fly-by-nights, out of the pine- and cordite-scented gloom, and were just in time to witness what next occurred: the coup de grace served on one of the oldest of their kind by both Zach and Big Jon, working as a team and in perfect unison.

Coming from behind the thing where it teetered on one foot and a severed ankle, the leader crouched low and lopped at its left knee with his machete. Bones that had seemed so immensely strong were suddenly powdery as chalk; they crunched audibly as Big Jon’s deadly blade slashed through them, and spurting yellow goo the leg was severed. With its right knee folding and its left stump crashing down into the leaf-mould, the once-rearing monster was reduced to a height of little more than five feet!

Desperately flapping its arms, it tried in vain to keep its balance; at which Zach pumped a shell into his shotgun’s breach, rammed the barrel up under the vampire’s chin as the thing came toppling forward, and pulled the trigger. The hot blast as five inches of his weapon’s barrel exploded at the muzzle and peeled back on itself was enough to knock Zach off his feet again; but while he was merely dazed the monster’s head had flown apart in a spray of stinking pulp!

The old horror was dead, yes; but now, apart from Big Jon’s machete, Layla and the two men were unarmed. And there drifting toward them out of the smoky darkness, Layla’s worst nightmares were about to come true in the shape of an even greater menace: a trio composed of Ned Singer’s last two ambushers…and even worse, Ned Singer himself!

Ned’s voice was a rasping sigh, yet as nerve-shredding as a shovel in cold ashes, as he floated closer and reached his long arms toward her. “Ah—Laylaaa! So very good to see you again. But look—” his burning gaze focused on her near nudity, greedily drinking it in where her ripped gown hung open, “—it would appear you knew I was coming, for see how you’ve prepared yourself! And I do appreciate that…ahhhh!” His bottom jaw fell open, dribbling yellow and grey slime.

The three creatures separated, each of them moving toward a chosen target: Ned to Layla, the other two intent upon Zach and Big Jon. And sensing his revenge so close, Ned’s chuckle was as ugly as black bubbles bursting in an oily swamp as Layla turned to flee, tripped on a root, and tumbled once more to the forest floor.

In the next instant he stood over her. He was still unmistakably Ned; thinner and less solid-seeming, perhaps, but apart from his eyes and the length of his face and jaws, his features were mainly unchanged. Ned’s lust, however, was something else; it literally radiated from him! Lust, hatred, and the merciless cruelty in his every move, his every word as he hissed:

“There’s only one thing missing, yesss! That horny Slattery youth who you preferred to me! But Ned Singer—the man he used to be—is still in here…well, somewhere. And soon he’ll be in you! But where’s that horny pup now, eh? Oh, ha, ha, haaaa!” And reaching down he took her wrist and lifted her effortlessly to her feet.

“Oh, don’t cower so!” he told her as she tried to pull back from him. “You can be Layla for a little while longer, at least until you’re tried and tested. Oh yes, tested first and then tasted! That’s the least I can do: let you go on being the Layla I’ve known so well, but never well enough, until we’ve shared this, that and the other together—but mainly the other—and you’re ripe for the change. For there’s little of sensuality in the night by night existence of a vampire bride, and you should get what you can while you can. So I’ll have you as you are now, then have you forever the way you’re going to be!”

Still cringing from him, Layla tried shaking herself loose; Ned only laughed and carried on speaking:

“I considered letting this so-called ‘leader’ and this old cripple watch me pleasuring you, but…ahhhh!” Suddenly aware that the situation was changing, his molten silver eyes pierced the gloom this way and that, until rather more urgently he went on: “But no, not here and not just yet. Instead, we shall watch them—we’ll watch both of them die!”

Even going unheard by human ears, Ned’s orders were sensed by the creature standing over Zach where he lay dazed and deafened among the leaf-mould; also by the vampire that Big Jon was facing down with his machete. And now that pair of monsters began to move with more purpose; the one hunching forward, reaching for Zach, while the other advanced on Big Jon, apparently regardless of the heavily slimed weapon he was flourishing before him.

Meanwhile the rest of the encampment was returning to something akin to normal. Voices, nervous and urgent, but no longer quite so fraught, were sounding throughout the entire area, and even the gloom was being pushed back as more lamps began flickering into life. From not too far away a male voice called out: “Here’s another! Oh my God! It’s young Greg! He’s been savaged, blood drained…but he isn’t dead! I’m sorry Greg, but as the good Lord’s my witness, you’ll never be undead!” This was followed at once by the decisive, echoing crack of a gunshot…

Other voices were calling, answering each other across the length and breadth of the camp. There were other gunshots, too, and the wailing of women and children—even some menfolk—as the butchered, dead and undead alike, were dealt with as mercifully and swiftly as possible: irrevocable denials of any monstrous recoveries.

From the direction of the bridge over the river, the rallying cry of defenders was heard: the voices of those men who had gone down to the bridge crossing to reinforce Garth’s team. Reentering the forest prepared to fight, they didn’t know what to expect, couldn’t know that the internal ambush and the fighting was all but over—all but the threat to Layla Slattery and the men who were risking their lives to protect her.

Ned Singer saw the danger. Human figures were hurrying to and fro in every direction, their flashlight beams cutting pale swathes through the gloom, along with which their hoarse voices reached out before them as they came ever closer:

“Big Jon, is that you?” Chief tech Andrew Fielding’s voice.

Followed up at once by: “What the hell…?” in the gravelly tones of perimeter boss Don Myers, as he and Fielding materialized more surely out of the shadows.

“Over here!” the leader shouted, recoiling from his attacker’s deceptive, almost aimless seeming advances: in fact clever manoeuvres that brought the vampire ever closer. But the newcomers had already apprised themselves of the situation—at least some of it.

They saw Zach on his back in the pine needles, jabbing at the thing that leaned over him with his shotgun’s splayed muzzle; saw Big Jon dancing his deadly dance with his own creature; but they failed to see Ned Singer, where he clapped his coarse hand over Layla’s mouth and half-dragged, half-carried her behind the bole of a giant evergreen.

And there in the safety of a somewhat deeper gloom he whispered throatily in her ear: “No entertainment for us here, dear Layla. So it appears we must make our own, but safely away from this place, eh?” with which he cast about, seeking a route from the central area to the perimeter, and beyond it to the darker heart of the forest.

Even as he did so, however, suddenly out of nowhere—

—What was this? Ned found himself wondering. This strange irritation—an invasive something in the back of his mind—a vague yet oddly familiar…contact?

Who or what was probing his innermost thoughts, and through them tracking him!?

Then, as Ned sniffed at the air and his vampire senses penetrated the night:

And what, or who, was this grim shape advancing upon him so surely and determinedly through the gloom? No fly-by-night ally of Ned Singer’s, that much was certain! Nor any need to inquire further, as the bruised and limping figure drew closer.

For finally Ned recognized Garth Slattery, while simultaneously he “heard” his enemy’s vengeful message:

Softly softly catchee monkey, Ned! That bitterly cold voice stabbed like an icy knife at his vampire mind. And again: Softly softly catchee monkey—you ugly undead bastard thing…!

No more than fifteen paces away, around the curve of the mighty tree’s bole, Don Myers took aim with his self-loading rifle and fired at the legs of Big Jon’s attacker where it was side-stepping the leader and putting him off balance. But even as it got within range of its intended victim, so Myers’ shot blew one of its knees apart; and keening, flapping its arms, the thing toppled sideways. Big Jon saw his chance, took one short pace forward and aimed a devastating blow at the vampire’s scrawny neck. Its head came loose, flew free; its body collapsed into itself and crumpled to the spongy ground; it twitched and lay still.

Now Myers turned his weapon on Zach’s attacker—aimed and squeezed the trigger—and cursed as the gun jammed!

Myers looked around for Andrew Fielding, and saw the small, nervous chief tech fumbling with a bulky, ugly-looking machine gun. “It isn’t working!” Fielding cried out shakily. “I thought…thought I’d fixed the damn thing, but it’s still not working! It won’t fire!”

“Try freeing the bloody safety catch!” Myers yelled, scrabbling with desperate fingers where he tried to clear the breach of his own self-loader.

Frustrated by Zach’s jabbing with the splayed muzzle of his weapon, the surviving vampire was reacting to the shot that had killed its companion. As it straightened, turning its head away from Zach to see what was happening, he managed to rise up onto his good knee. And grunting from the great pain of the effort, he struck upwards, ramming his shotgun’s ragged snout deep into the creature’s groin.

Hissing furiously, it tore the weapon from its pulpy flesh, wrenched it from Zach’s hand and hurled it away; and raging, it turned again on its tormentor. This time there would be no holding it, no more problems from this now defenceless cripple!

But Myers had finally succeeded in clearing the inert round from his rifle’s breach; and having primed the self-loader with his very last bullet, he took careful aim and removed the monster’s head…

Then for a single moment there was silence, drifting smoke, and nothing else. But as Big Jon got Zach back up onto his feet a girl’s voice rang out: Layla’s terrified voice from somewhere close at hand, crying: “Garth, be careful!”

“Garth!” Zach cried. “Layla!” And with Big Jon helping him, he went hobbling in the direction of the girl’s voice.

While on the other side of the great tree:

Ned saw the rifle in Garth’s hands, saw its barrel shifting into a threatening horizontal position as his hated enemy began to lean into the weapon, centering its sights on him! He thrust Layla ahead of him between himself and the limping, bruised but determined figure of Garth, and called out:

“One more step, ’prentissss, and she dies here and now. And when your Layla’s dead what then? Will you be the one who makes sure she can’t come back? Best let me go, ’prentissss Slattery, and take this bitch with me. That way she gets to live at least a little while longer; that’s unless you’d care to fire a round right through the whore and into me!”

“You’re going no further, Ned,” Garth choked the words out. And hearing the familiar voices of his father and the others as they appeared from behind the huge tree, he continued: “It ends right here.”

Ned saw the advancing men—Zach and Big Jon in front, Don Myers and chief tech Fielding behind—and knew that all of his plans were finally in tatters. There was no way now to make his escape and take Layla with him. Oh, how he had lusted after her warm, live body…but now, that was all she’d ever be when he was done with her: just a body, no longer alive but undead.

Taking her shoulders he turned the girl to face him, and:

One last kissss, he “spoke” to Garth. Just enough to put a little of me into her. Not as much as I had planned to put into her—definitely not where I intended to put it—but more than enough to infect her. And then the problem’s all yourssss, ’prentissss. Oh, ha, ha, haaaa!

Ned’s jaws cracked open and a long tongue flickered toward the girl’s mouth. Layla spat hard into his sulphur-yellow eyes, and with every ounce of her remaining strength wrenched herself back and away from him—wrenched so hard that her dress where Ned clutched it was ripped from her shoulders and left dangling from his bony hands.

Off balance as she flew backwards, Layla slammed into Garth dead-weight, knocking him off his feet. The barrel of his rifle was driven inches deep into leaf-mould as he went down with the girl on top of him, and under their combined weight ligaments in his right wrist tore as his hand crashed down in a tangle of roots. With the shock of his injury lancing through him, Garth couldn’t restrain an involuntary, agonized gasp. But worse yet, his weapon had taken the brunt of the fall and had broken apart at the hinged breach!

Ned Singer was torn two ways: he knew that without further ado he could flee into the forest, into the night. But his vampire senses were evaluating the situation. There were six human beings now, crowding that same area under the huge tree; six of them and only one fly-by-night, Ned himself. Yet while the late comers carried weapons—and despite that at almost point-blank range they could scarcely miss—still no one had fired a single round at him! Garth because he hadn’t dared risk it with Layla there, and now because he was down and injured—seriously, Ned hoped—and his rifle out of commission. But as for the others, what of them? They hadn’t fired at him either, possibly because…because they couldn’t? Was that it?

Had the clan finally used up the last of its degraded ammunition? If so, and fully aware of just how low stocks had been, Ned could well understood that. Indeed, and at least where this group was concerned, that had to be the case. It had to be, for there was no other way to explain it!

And in his rotten black heart hope flared anew.

The girl might yet be his, and at least one of his enemies—perhaps all of them—dead! For with their useless weapons, how could they possibly defend themselves against the deceptive strength, vampire cunning, and insensate ferocity of a creature such as Ned? In short, and lacking the firepower of deadly weapons, how might they kill what was already dead?

With all of this passing in a matter of seconds through his deteriorating changeling mind, Ned ignored the recent arrivals, drifted forward, and again reached for the terrified girl where for the third time she staggered to her feet. Always uppermost, central in his planning, now for the moment, naked and beautiful, Layla was all he could think of, everything he desired. As for avenging himself on these clan enemies: it must wait until he’d infected the girl and stolen her away. Then on some other night—armed with fresh plans and a swarm of fly-by-night recruits—he would return. Why, Layla might even come back with him!

In his rapidly devolving condition Ned had failed to realize it, but ignoring these men of the clan was his biggest and final mistake.

For as if out of nowhere Big Jon Lamon was suddenly beside him, his lips drawn back in a snarl and his teeth grinding, his face a mask of pure loathing. The leader’s heavy machete glinted dully as it arced overhead, and descended with the weight of a guillotine to hack through both Ned’s wrists where he reached for Layla!

As the creature stood there, wafting dazedly left and right like a drunken thing, and staring disbelievingly at its yellow-pulsing stumps, Garth hauled himself upright, grabbed Layla and stumblingly ushered her from the poisonous danger zone.

Meanwhile Andrew Fielding had come forward; brushing by the others, he was shouting aloud: “Out of my way! I’ve got it! I’m ready! Give me just one shot at this beast!”

As they cleared a path for him, he aimed or rather pointed the ugly gun he was carrying at Ned Singer, closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. The nerve-shattering, rapid-fire burst of some two dozen rounds in less than a second drove the small and normally inoffensive chief tech backwards and down on his rump, and filled the air with gunsmoke and acrid cordite stench.

Far more than that, however, the concentrated burst almost tore Ned in half, ripping his pulpy flesh apart from his groin to his exploding skull, and delivering him all unprotesting to that fly-by-night hell which is the final destination for creatures such as him when they suffer the true death…

Then, as the ringing in their ears ceased and their stunned senses recovered—and as the chief tech blurted an inarticulate curse and scrambled away from his hot, smoking machine gun—then to a man, and definitely to a girl, they all of them found it hard to believe that it was over.

As for Layla where Garth comforted her, wrapping her in his jacket and hugging her close: quite beyond words and shuddering top to toe, she could only cling to him and sob her relief into his chest; until at last she was able to inquire, “Garth, is it…is it…?” To which he nodded, and ignoring the pain in his wrist hugged her closer and harder still. For it was most certainly over.

Helping Andrew Fielding up onto his feet, Don Myers stared for long moments at the cast-aside, smoking machine gun—then at the chief tech’s unimposing figure—before finally stuttering, “W-what? You, Andrew? B-but…how?”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Fielding panted where he dusted himself down with shaking hands. “Or maybe I should call it poetic justice? That dreadful gun was Singer’s own weapon, upon a time.”

“But you, my friend!” Big Jon spoke up from where he stood with Zach’s arm across his shoulder, supporting him. “And that great ugly gun…”

“Arthur Robeson had it,” the chief tech nodded. “I suppose you could say he’d inherited it. He couldn’t get it working and gave it to me to fix. That was earlier this very night while we were getting settled in. Now, I’ve always hated guns, but I had a look at it anyway. The problem was in the feeding mechanism—a broken return spring. I fixed it, removed the breach block so it couldn’t fire, tested it with the half belt of special ammunition that came with it; until without having actually fired a shot from the brutal thing, I believed it would work just fine. So after I’d reassembled it I settled down for the night…” He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing:

“When the first of the gunshots from the perimeter woke me up…well I was tired, it was dark, and things were very confusing. I took the gun with me—don’t ask why, perhaps to give it to someone who was better able to use it?—and came looking for Big Jon. And…well, that’s about it.” He finished with a shrug.

“But you didn’t give it to anyone.” Donald Myers was frowning, shaking his head bewilderedly. “And then left off using it until the very last moment!”

“Yes, I know,” Fielding answered. “But like I said, I don’t like having anything to do with guns; I really don’t understand them, or men like Ned Singer who hold them so very dear. So you see, Donald, it’s just as well you reminded me about the safety catch. I might not have thought of it, mightn’t have wanted to think of it…”

“But that’s you, Andrew!” Big Jon repeated himself. “That’s just the very essence of you, while this…I mean—”

“—I know exactly what you mean!” The small man stopped him short. “But you’ll never know how much I hated that man! He was a bully, an ignorant pig, and finally a fly-by-night. I used to avoid him, keep out of his way! He would shove me around—talk to me as if I was dirt—but right now I’ve never felt taller, better or more totally satisfied with myself in my entire life! On the other hand,” he let his narrow shoulders slump a little, “I don’t think I much care for this feeling, not really—feeling like a killer, I mean—and even though that wasn’t a man I killed but a hideous changeling thing, still I hope the feeling soon wears off. As for guns: I’m done with them forever!”

And leaning on Don Myers strong arm, he turned away…

Less than one hour later, in the vicinity of Big Jon’s command vehicle, the leader and a small group of friends and clan elders—including Zack and Garth Slattery—extended their heartfelt welcome, deepest gratitude, and whatever frugal hospitality was available to them to the commander and lieutenants of the kindred expeditionary party which had come to their rescue. And as the bulk of clan personnel, assisted by their new-found allies, went about the awful business of clearing up in and around the camp, where as yet there remained several dead and undead—or now more truly dead—corpses to be dealt with, so Big Jon and three senior officers of the kindred force concluded the formalities of greetings, introductions, vows of friendship and backslapping, and went on to recount in brief their tales of recent trials and tribulations.

Big Jon, having sketched a greatly condensed history of the clan’s arduous trek, had now offered the floor to the leader of the expeditionary force.

The commander, a tall, broad-shouldered man in his early to mid-thirties, with hollow cheeks, a deeply furrowed brow, and a shock of prematurely white hair, was quick to bring everyone up to date on recent kindred activity:

“After we lost contact with you,” he began, “our leaders in both our rapidly declining, indeed moribund subterranean refuge and in our open-skies settlement alike found themselves in something of a quandary. Had the unexplained radio silence resulted from a simple failure of equipment, or was the problem far more disturbing: perhaps a fly-by-night attack, in which your entire convoy, clan and creatures had been destroyed! They had no way of knowing.

“Arguing all the pros and cons, finally they arrived at a solution. Crumbling prewar maps showed three perhaps passable routes from your last known approximate location to more familiar, secured kindred borders; borders now scarcely more than a dozen miles away beyond the valley’s northern rise! If you had survived the perils of your trek, then surely your convoy must even now be very close, approaching along one of these routes.

“A decision was made: an expeditionary force would be dispatched to the edge of the densely forested region south of the fertile, mainly radiation-free zone that we have cleared of all fly-by-night pestilence; for inasmuch as we have built and occupied it, it is our homeland, patrolled constantly day and night with absolute vigilance and, whenever necessary, uttermost ferocity, permitting neither sight, smell nor faintest taint of any vampire creature within…within our…within our borders!”

He paused, visibly calming himself and shrugging apologetically before carrying on with his narrative. “Please excuse me, but such emotions—such bitter hatreds—are innate in all the kindred; no less than in you yourselves, I’m sure. But to continue:

“At the great forest’s rim our considerable force was split three ways equally, which allowed us to advance along all three routes simultaneously. That was at noon two days ago, since when we have maintained constant radio contact. My contingent, which as you’ve seen consists of three small armoured combat vehicles crewed by hugely experienced men—plus eight outriders on four multi-terrain motorcycles, plus one armoured support vehicle—was tasked with the forest route that follows the ancient river road through the mighty pines, and down and across the valley’s floor. Two evenings ago—which is to say on the evening of the night prior to this night—I sent two outrider teams ahead of me, down into the valley to commence checking the route’s viability; for it would have been a waste of fuel, time and effort if the route proved to be impassable.

“It was early evening when my advance exploratory party set out. Descending the densely forested northern rim parallel with the river’s white water, they made camp for the night in a cave they could very easily defend, with two men awake at all times, and the other two taking their rest. But before retiring to the cave, one man climbed up into the canopy of the tallest tree to scan the land south along the river through his infrared binoculars. He was looking for signs of your convoy, of course.

“Now, as I’m sure you’re well aware, vampire activity is by no means easily detectable with infrared. Except when they mass together in a swarm, or when they’re engaged in frenzied bloodletting, undead bodily temperatures are extremely low. Well, be that as it may, what my man up that tree witnessed some four or five miles away in the gloom of early night was definitely fly-by-night activity! They were flowing down the southern slope in a steady stream, following the identical route that your convoy might well be using—which indeed you have used—just one day later.

“But their movements were very deliberate; they had purpose and appeared full of a sly, covert intent, which wasn’t in accordance with any normally arbitrary or eccentric mode of undead tactics—or complete lack of such—to which we’re accustomed! And fascinated, my man continued to watch.

“Now the horde gathered here—right here, on the edge of the forest—and for a while remained static. Then the greater bulk of them, if not all of them, set out over that half-sunken bridge and vanished into those mainly derelict mills on the far side. Now remember: it was night time, which is their time, yet these creatures weren’t hunting; they were hiding! And for what possible purpose but to lie low, waiting in ambush!

“Well, let me cut a long story short. An hour before midday yesterday one of my outrider teams reported back to me, following which we spent the entire afternoon motoring or coasting as quietly as possible down through the forest into the valley.

“Before dusk we set up our temporary camp some three miles north in the forest along the river road, which has managed to survive in however poor condition, and were in time to witness the tail-end of your convoy—or what remains of it—groping and groaning its way down the southern wall. You’ll forgive my manner of expression, but that was a sorry sight indeed…”

“Hah!” Bert Jordan spoke up, snapping his fingers. “You saw and you were seen, even though I misinterpreted the sighting!”

And Big Jon nodded. “Your thunder and lightning, eh, Bert?”

“It had to be,” the other replied. “Kindred headlight beams penetrating the high canopy, and their rumbling engines as they positioned themselves.”

At which the commander took it up again:

“Aye, and position ourselves we did, so that when the time came we’d be fully prepared, ready to advance on the enemy with all speed, and with fire and sleeting steel at our fingertips!”

Quiet until now, Garth frowned and inquired, “When the time came?” And:

“Ah!” said the commander. “By which I mean when the fly-by-nights began to spring their trap, of course.”

Big Jon was plainly puzzled; his frown matched Garth’s when he asked: “But not before their trap was sprung?”

“Ah!” the commander replied once again. “You are asking why we waited so long. Please understand, the kindred never miss an opportunity to destroy the undead wherever they are found. Such were this swarm’s suspected numbers that the cull might well be of epic proportions! However, since our battle vehicles weren’t able to cross the fragile bridge, we had to wait for the fly-by-nights to come to us—or rather, to you. In effect we ambushed the ambushers! But…don’t for a moment think we deliberately risked clan lives. On the contrary; we witnessed your defenders going down to the river crossings, and calculated how you could contain the vampires when they came in a narrow stream over the bridge. Also, we knew it would take only a few minutes to cover the distance between, in which we were not mistaken.

“Our only miscalculation: that you lacked superior weapons; which meant our timing was cut close indeed! Mercifully no harm resulted from that. But of course we had no way of knowing that this was a two-forked ambush, with a dozen of these vile monsters riding overhead in the canopy. Now as you mourn your dead, we’ll stand with you, nevertheless thankful that such grievous losses are by no means as bad as they might have been.

“And finally, now that we’ve come together and your people are out of harm’s way, let us also be thankful that all’s well that ends well…”

“On that we heartily agree!” said Big Jon, taking and shaking the commander’s hand most vigorously. “My only wish is that we could have brought with us a greater contribution—a tribute much more in keeping—to you and your kindred, whose promise of a better life and future above ground, safe in the light of day, has buoyed us up and given us hope during our trek.”

“No! Ah, no!” Smiling broadly the commander shook his head.

“For we need you and your clan at least as much as you need us. I’ve seen your beasts, which will fatten in our clean northern pastures, mating with and improving our livestock overall. And as for your people—” he looked around, at the lamp-lit faces of the clansfolk who were beginning to gather there, “—plenty of good brave blood here, which has not surrendered to fear and fly-by-night depredation. And then there’s your young ones, and especially those who are approaching maturity…well, we have young too, but no fears now of the perils of inbreeding. Indeed our blood will grow stronger and purer yet; but always ours and never more fodder for loathsome creatures of the night! Aye!”

At which: “Aye! Aye!” The cry was at once taken up, spreading rapidly throughout the entire encampment…

Something less than an hour later, Big Jon Lamon, Garth and his father, stood with other silent once-clan members—now members of a greater community: the kindred, who were also represented—around a bale-fire on cleared ground well beyond the edge of the woods and within a new, stronger perimeter, and watched the leaping flames consume the bodies of friends and dreadful enemies alike.

To the former they offered their sad, silent farewells, and to the latter their uttermost satisfaction. The stench was very terrible, but they stood there anyway until only glowing embers remained…

And later still, wrapped in each others’ arms, Garth and Layla dreamed of pleasant pastures, a wooden cabin in a copse high on a hill, and small children playing, laughing in an orchard pink with blossom. But while the cabin would take time to build, and the children yet more time to grow, the dream itself was not so far away, for tomorrow it would merge with reality…

Table of Contents

The Fly-By-Nights