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.’”