The others had wanted to leave the tracks then and go out to where there were houses and living flesh, but it would not let them. They were still in the city, and that meant danger. They hid when daylight came, trembling, fortunate to have found another tunnel further on.
Then with the night, they found something completely new to them, and they welcomed it.
They had never experienced the long flowing grass before, but they relished its softness and the cover it afforded them. It teemed with small, living things and because they were still young, they forgot their fear and wanted to play. But their leader would not let them; it knew that danger was all around. It led them up the grassy embankment, away from the railway track, away from the tunnels in which the trains sped beneath the city, and into the woodland, a new world where they could breathe the air and run free. It could sense that the humans were still there, but the further they went into the woodland, so the presence became less noticeable. They crossed hard, concrete strips, fearful of the racing monsters whose eyes shone far ahead into the night, and eventually, as dawn approached, they rested. They were still afraid, but it seemed the badness was over.
The group soon adapted to their new life and they never lost their cunning. They grew to a size that made them fearful to the other animals of the forest, and they mated. But the one whose body was different from the others would not rest; it could not adapt as the others had, for it knew they were not yet safe. And it missed something. It felt unprotected in the open.
They journeyed further, always at night, always in a tight-packed group, flowing through the grassland and skulking in dark places when the sun rose. They found the heart of the forest, and the dominant one found the resting-place it needed, somewhere it could feel safe, where it could hide its deformed body in constant darkness. It had found the perfect lair.
It had grown old, living twice the normal life-span of the creatures it was derived from; and it had mated, creating ofFspring that were in its own image. Not many completely of its kind lived, and those that survived were weak and not always able to fend for themselves. Yet they dominated the others of the litter, the dark-furred ones, and the two strains lived together, the latter foraging for food and bringing it back to the lair for the leader and its natural heirs.
It never left the confines of the lair now, for its misshapen body had become too heavy, too bloated. It still ruled over them all, but it could sense the mounting tension. Its followers were becoming increasingly restless, both the black and those more like itself craving for something they could not understand. Although they were now many in numbers, they had remained hidden for several years, their inborn fear of what lay beyond binding them to the woodland, away from the eyes of humans. But it was as if their numerical strength was making them bolder, giving them a courage they had not possessed before. And the craving grew stronger each day, the forest animals they killed failing to satiate their strange yearning.
The thing in the corner knew what that craving was, for the group hunger came from their leader. The creature hungered for something tasted before, long ago.
Its two heads weaved to and fro in the darkness and a stickiness drooled from the mouths as it remembered, after so many years, the taste of human flesh.
SIX
"Can't we stay in the car, Alan? It's so cold out there." The woman pulled her coat tightly around herself and hunched down into the passenger seat.
"Come on, Babs, it's not that cold. I'll soon warm you up." The man leered across at her, and slipped a hand around her shoulder, pulling her towards him.
"It's creepy," the woman complained.
We're too near the roadside here, Babs. There's too many passing cars."
Well, drive a bit further in."
Alan tried to keep the irritation from his voice. "I can't do that, darling. The car might get stuck in the mud. I won't be able to see the ground properly in the headlights. I might get jammed on a tree root or something."
The woman sighed with resignation. Why bother to protest? Alan always got his way in the end. And she had to admit, she usually enjoyed it when he did.
Alan Martyn was an estate agent, his offices in the nearby Loughton area, and Babs Mrs. Newell in the office was his secretary. At twenty-nine, he was up and coming; at thirty-five, she was down and hadn't been coming enough. Fifteen years of marriage and raising two sons who were now teenagers had almost smothered any overt desires in her; her lifestyle had reached its level and the sudden bumps, the rises and falls, were only slight. She should have been content, for she was married to a good, if dull, man, and the boys had grown into fine, if boisterous, young men. The house was nice perhaps a little small, but nice and they had a colour telly. Even the dog was obedient.
Sometimes she could have screamed with the niceness of it all.
Reg, her husband, was solid, salt of the earth, A GOOD MAN. He didn't wear carpet slippers around the house, nor did he smoke a pipe he wasn't that bad. But he did roll his own to save the expense of buying cigarettes; and he did keep rabbits in the back garden; and he did bath every Sunday and Wednesday, without fail; and he did always find time to help the boys with their homework or answer their questions; and he always took the dog out for a walk in the evening, no matter what the weather; and he always offered to wash the dishes, even if she wouldn't let him; and he always left his muddy shoes outside the front door; and he had never raised a hand to her; and he always made love on Saturday morning without fail; and he never asked her to try a new position; and he never used anything other than his penis on her; and she had never caught him masturbating.
Oh Reg, why are you such a fucking bore?
Alan's lips brushed against hers, roughly, greedily. Alan was bad, selfish, but he excited her. Babs was aware that it was his difference to safe, reliable Reg that made him so attractive. He was a bastard, beyond doubt, and he used her just to fulfill his own lusts. But that was all right; that was how she used him.
She would never leave her husband and the boys she loved them dearly.
But she was a woman, and she needed more than just cosy affection. Reg had his rabbits, she had -this.
Babs had always wanted to return to work, missing the contact with outsiders, people whose lives she knew little of and therefore would find more interesting than her neighbours or relations. Housework was humdrum, hard but un challenging and the house no longer held any stimulation for her. But outside work had come by as a necessity rather than an indulgence: Reg's salary had become steadily worth less week by week, inflation became the master of household decisions. Reg, as a production controller in an advertising agency, had no union behind him to make sure his earnings kept reasonably level with the ever-increasing price rises and so, at the instigation of Babs herself, it was decided she should take a job again. The boys were now old enough to be less dependent on her, so there was no great problem in that respect, and Reg was sensible enough to realize his wife needed an outside interest.