“Metal,” Craig says suddenly, next to me. “We need metal boxes, metal cases, metal anything from the barn. Hurry!”
Nineteen
“It can break through wood, but not metal,” Craig says a short while later, as he sets the metal boxes on the floor in the barn. “If it could break through metal, it would have done so when it was trying to escape before.”
There are six boxes in front of us, of varying shapes and sizes, and each contains a section of the creature’s body. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what Craig was planning, but now I understand that he means to keep the creature’s different parts separate so that they can’t recombine. Even now, as rain continues to fall outside, I can hear faint bumping sounds coming from inside some of the boxes, as if the creature is starting to recover.
Suddenly there’s a scream from the farmhouse, and I turn to look out across the yard.
“He told her,” Craig says, and we both listen to the sound of Sharon sobbing loudly as she learns of Adam’s death.
“Why didn’t he listen?” I reply after a moment. “I told him to stand back. I told him it was dangerous.”
“How did you know?” Craig asks.
“I—”
Turning to him, I realize that I’m not sure how to explain. I would feel extremely foolish if I claimed to have encountered the creature before in a dream, although that is in fact what seems to have happened. Still, I tell myself that there must be some other explanation, that something else must have happened to give my dream that incredible lucidity and detail.
One of the boxes bumps loudly, and it’s clear that the creature is gathering strength. Still, the boxes seem to be keeping it contained, at least for now.
“There should have been another way,” Craig says after a moment. “I’ve never seen someone die before. He was my friend. There should have been another way to deal with this.”
“She’s inconsolable,” Dean says quietly as we stand in the kitchen, listening to the sound of Sharon sobbing in one of the upstairs bedrooms. “I think it’s finally broken her.”
“I’m not surprised,” I reply. “Did he tell her exactly how the poor boy died?”
“He didn’t go into all the details. I’m not sure he even understands it himself. I think he’s going to try to give her one of the sedatives they usually use for Jessie, and then he’s going to come down and we’re going to figure out what to do with Adam’s body. I guess we’ll have to bury him somewhere.”
“These young people shouldn’t be dying,” I tell him. “They had their whole lives ahead of them.”
“We need to know what’s going on,” Dean says. “In the rest of the world, I mean. I feel like I’m going crazy, just sitting here and waiting to see what happens.”
“You said the city was too dangerous,” I remind him.
“I did, but maybe that’s not a reason to stay away.” He pauses. “I think I was wrong, Mr. Harrisford. Regardless of the risk, I think I’d rather go and face whatever’s out there, instead of hiding away like this. How many more of these creatures are there? Is this some kind of invasion? And how is it connected to what happened to the music?”
“I think they came for the music,” I tell him, “and they took it. How and why, I can’t even begin to imagine, but I think that’s fundamentally what happened. And now this one, for whatever reason, seems to have been left behind.”
“That sounds nuts,” he points out.
“It does indeed,” I reply, “but if you’d told me two weeks ago that all the music could be drained from the world, I’d have said that too sounded nuts.”
He sighs.
“I’m going to go and look for some shovels,” he mutters, turning and heading to the door. “Donald shouldn’t have to dig the grave. I can at least do that for him.”
Once he’s gone, I lean back against the wall and try to work out what to do next. I have now seen two young, healthy people get cut down right before my eyes, and I don’t think I can bear to see it happen again. The world has deteriorated so fast and by such an extreme, and I feel that at any moment I might sit down and find that I lack the will to keep going. What’s the point, if all that’s left is death and misery?
“Damn it!” a voice hisses nearby.
Turning, I look at the empty doorway that leads through to the front room, and then I wander over and see Jessie sitting cross-legged on the sofa, still tapping at her mobile telephone.
“Do you have any battery?” she asks, turning to me. “I’m down to almost nothing. If it dies, I won’t know when the network comes back up.”
“I’m so sorry about your brother,” I reply.
“Do you have any battery?” she asks again. “Can I have it? I need to keep my phone alive.”
“Your brother—”
“You must have battery,” she continues, before suddenly getting to her feet and stepping toward me. “You have to give it to me. I’m in charge of checking to see if the phones work, it’s selfish of you to keep your battery when other people need it.”
“I wanted to say that I—”
“Where’s your battery?” she snaps, suddenly shoving me hard in the chest. “What’s wrong with you? Are you stupid? Can’t you understand what I’m saying?”
She leans closer, and then she starts speaking slowly, as if to a child.
“Give. Me. Your. Battery. Old. Man.”
I wait, but now she’s glaring at me with barely concealed anger.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say finally. “I didn’t know him very well, but he seemed like a fine, upstanding young man.”
She stares at me, as if she can’t quite believe what I’m saying. And then, just as I begin to wonder whether I should try again to console her, she steps back and screams before slamming the door shut in my face.
Twenty
“I’m not sure where to begin,” Donald says as he stands at the head of the grave. “When this is all over, we’ll get a proper priest to come and speak. And we’ll move him. We’ll move Adam to a proper grave in a churchyard.”
Down at the bottom of the grave, Adam’s body rests wrapped in white sheets. It has been almost exactly twenty-four hours since he died, but the rain did not relent until this morning. I’m shivering slightly in the cold air, and I already regret leaving my jacket on a chair in the kitchen.
“So this is just temporary,” Donald continues. “I promise you that, son. We’ll get you a proper grave just as soon as we can. We’ll come back and do that, you won’t be here forever. I’d like to thank Dean for digging the grave, I know it must have been difficult with the ground being so wet. And of course I’d like to thank my dear wife for dressing our son and getting him ready. And I’d like to thank everyone else for coming, too. Amen.”
He pauses, before taking the shovel that was leaning against the wall, and starting to fill the grave. As he works, his wife sobs and Jessie continues to tap angrily at her phone.
“We’re leaving,” Donald announces later, once we’re all back inside the farmhouse. “Sharon and I have talked about it, and we can’t just sit around here and hope that things work out. We’re going to go to town and see what’s what, and then I think we’ll probably go on to London. Things are bound to be better organized there.”
“I think that’s wise,” Dean tells him. “Thinking about it, we’re just waiting to die if we stay here. I’m going to go too.”
“There’s something else I have to tell you,” Donald continues, before turning to me. “You seem like a very nice gentleman, Mr. Harrisford, and I have nothing but good wishes for you. At the same time, I have to protect my family, and we’re already low on food and water. I hope you’ll understand that I can’t invite you to come with us. I can’t even offer you a lift in our vehicle, on account of how the extra weight would be a burden.”