John Rickards writes thrillers and crime fiction, as well as dabbling in short stories. Read samples or catch the latest news here, get in touch, or see what's going on at his personal blog.

CHAPTER ONE

The sudden gust of wind booms against the windows like a hammer blow. The people in the bar jump at the noise, eyes running across the painfully fragile glass as if it’s about to shatter completely. As if at any moment now the air will be full of flying shards, then masonry as the storm takes the rest of the building with it. It’s that kind of night. The parking lot outside is momentarily painted stark white, the glare from a big rig’s lights turning the driving rain into a luminescent fog, an impenetrable blanket of flickering neon around the front of the roadhouse. Then the glow dies and the world outside the glass goes black again, and all the bar’s patrons are left with for company is the noise of the elements hammering to be let in. Like massive phantom beasts scrabbling at the walls, their angry scratching all but drowning the faint, crackling country music playing on the radio in the corner. The static-shredded warbling does nothing to make the atmosphere more convivial.

The old man perched at one end of the counter with a steaming mug of coffee shakes his head and says to the world in general, “It’s a bad one all right.”

The barman looks up from the quiet conversation he’s been having with a young guy in a slick black leather jacket. The expression on his face says that this sort of opening gambit is familiar ritual territory and that his response is an automatic one. On a night like this, well, why not? “Yeah,” he says. “Real bad.”

“That shack Banks built to keep his tools in is gone. Totally gone. There were pieces of it blown all over when I left the house. Imagine how far it would’ve had to blow to make it here. That’s a real storm for sure.”

“Banks never was any good with his hands,” the barman says. He’s large, somewhere well past forty, built like a leather sack stuffed with rocks and there’s steel mixed with the boredom in his gaze. The lazy arrogance of a big man in a small place. Brown hair worn long in a ponytail, beard to match. Lines forming at the corners of his eyes give him a permanent look of distrust. “That’s what his wife said at his funeral, anyways.”

The old man gives the obligatory snort. “I hear she’s remarried down in Florida. Some feller who sells hurricane fencing.”

“We could do with some of that round here if this keeps up.” The barman shakes his head, glances at the windows again.

“Hurricane fencing. Can you believe that? She was a strange one, Marcia.”

“I saw it coming this afternoon,” the barman continues. “Away down the valley, getting bigger all the time.”

“Like that time she was going to get all those chickens. Seen something on the TV about them being good for the soil and all of a sudden wanted dozens of them running free.”

“I swear that cloud looked like a goddamn atomic bomb had gone off. Boiling up and angry. And I mean it looked angry.”

The old man nods. “It must be sitting across the whole valley by now. Maybe even further if it’s high enough to reach over the mountains.”

“Maybe so.”

The valley has always been unkind. For three hundred years it has never been home to more than a couple of dozen souls at any one time, a half dozen unincorporated buildings and a few dozen acres of subsistence farming. Not even an attempt at building a larger, more permanent settlement. The soil is thick, rich wet clay holding fast to the mountains’ bedrock. The north end, where the land rises into the near-constant clouds, is carpeted with old growth forest that has stood since before the lands were first settled. The south, sloping gently away to the plains beyond, is grassland that turns to marshes at the valley’s foot where its twin rivers meet. People driving across this stretch of land on the highway might wonder why no one has ever made more use of it. Herds of cattle. Majestic old farm buildings overlooking rich pasture. But then they’d cross one of the rivers that mark its edges, climb up into the mountain passes, and they’d forget all about it. Save perhaps for a lingering feeling that they are somehow better to have left, to be away from the long shadows of the peaks and the strangely bleak emptiness between them. The valley is green the way a cemetery is green and it does not do to disturb the surface of such places for fear of exposing what lies beneath. No one stops for long in such places.

Townsfolk over in Fairlight or Hornchester don’t talk about the valley. They might stop at the gas station there or drop into the roadhouse for a beer on the way home if the need or the chance presents itself, but none of them would ever consider, even for a moment, living in such a place. Some unconscious impulse, an evolutionary remnant lurking in the human hindbrain, tells them: This place is wrong.

The soil is thick, but crops grow poorly, as if the land were suffocating the seeds while they were in the earth. Almost everything built here fails, one way or another. The woods are old and thick, but unpleasant walking country, dark and gnarled and uninviting. The twin rivers do not burble, they slither, churning thick and angrily against the banks. An unspoken, unformed, centuries-old local superstition has it that no one comes to live in the valley unless no place left on earth will take them, and that those few who are born here had best leave if they’re to escape the same damnation as their parents. No one stays here in this place where old sin and years of regret have soaked into the bones of the land itself unless they have something to atone for and nowhere else left to do it.

The old man sighs as he repeats, “Ayuh. It’s a bad one. Where the hell’s Chris got to? How long does it take to check on one damn dog?”

“Women.” The barman shrugs. “You know how it goes.”

“How it always goes. Maybe we’re both gettin’ senile,” the old man says.

“You and me? Sure, I’m not as young as I was, but that’s uncalled-for.”

“Naw, you jackass, me and Chris.”

“You’ve been married to her since dinosaurs roamed the earth, Will. You should be used to it by now.”

“Bah. I always was a slow learner.”

The barman’s still laughing at the old man’s joke when the front door bangs open and a bearded guy strides inside, pinching the rain from his eyes with one meaty hand. Keys jangle from the other, half a dozen of them dangling from a fob marked with the Mack logo. He runs his gaze over the place before he reaches the counter. As though he’s looking for someone, or making sure there’s no one here he doesn’t want to meet. Whatever he’s searching for, he doesn’t seem to find it. Just shrugs as his shoulders relax and his concern passes. The locals repay his gaze in kind, wondering who he is and why he’s here on a night like this, where he could be heading. What he’s done to deserve a stop here in The Valley. He walks up to the bar, drops onto a stool, and asks for a coffee.

“Sure, it’ll just be a couple of minutes,” the barman says. He turns as a bright, mousey brunette comes through the door behind the counter and drops her keys next to the register. “Hey, Ashley. You find that sweater okay?”

She gestures at her chest and the blue woollen number that covers it. Moisture is beaded in a V from her neck downwards and she sweeps damp hair back out of her face. “Yeah. Shit, it’s really bad out there. The wind’s built up something fierce.”

“That’s what Will was just saying. We can hear it in here.”

“We sure can.” The old man raises his mug and smiles, comfortable and easy. Like he’s settling into a well-worn chair. “Nothing like ‘75 though.”

“Nothing ever is, Will. You know that.”

“Damn straight. That storm was so bad…”

Ashley smiles wryly at the barman and whispers a fraction ahead of the old man, “Harry Dillon’s house blew down.”

“… the wind blew Harry Dillon’s house clean apart…”

“Only thing left was the tub.” She winks as the truck driver stifles a smile.

“… The only thing left of it was his bathtub, just sticking out of the rubble, full of rainwater like he was planning on taking a soak it…”

“Of course, I’m too young to remember it.”

“… Of course, you’re too young to remember it. Poor old Maud, too…”

“Drowned in the river,” Ashley whispers.

“… got swept away when the Easy broke its banks. Drowned, poor woman.” Will’s face breaks into a sly grin as he rounds on her. “And don’t think I can’t you hear you, girl. I’m old, but I ain’t so soft in the head yet that I don’t know I’ve told that story plenty of times before.” The barman chuckles to himself and the young guy smiles.

“So why tell it again?”

“For the benefit and entertainment of newcomers like our friends here,” Will gestures theatrically at the truck driver and the guy in the leather jacket, then pauses with his wrinkled face expectant.

“Gene,” the trucker says. “The name’s Gene.”

The young guy follows suit after a moment. “Vince,” he says. Thirty minutes since he shuffled in from the night. His short blonde hair’s still plastered to his skull, and only his jacket’s no longer running with rain. He dresses smartly, the ‘young professional going casual’ look the cities seem to love, looking very out of place in here. But try as he might to cover it with an easy smile and a friendly manner, his body language gives him an edge, says that he’s not just some white collar guy out for a drive on his day off. When he came in, he regarded the bar and the warm glow of the gas fire in the corner like a drowning sailor seeing an approaching lifeboat. The bar and its occupants regarded him like a sinking ship seeing one of its rats returning.

“Some audience,” Ashley says, shaking her head. “Two whole new pairs of ears for you to bore stupid. You going to take your one-man show on the road with crowds like that?”

“Two, ten, a hundred. It’s all the same.”

“Depends how much they pay for tickets.”

“Where the hell is Christine?”

“She’s not back yet?” Ashley asks.

Will waves at the near-empty bar and simply shakes his head.

“She’s probably taking time to pretty herself up for you.”

“We could be here all night then.”

“If you’re not careful,” Ashley warns him, “I’ll tell her you said that.”

He shrugs. “You wouldn’t be so cruel.”

“I could try. How much you want to bet?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Will says. “I’ll give Chris a couple more minutes, finish my coffee, then I’ll go look for her.”

Ashley nods. “Might be an idea to check on the brothers, too.”

“Why’s that?”

“To make sure there’s nothing they need at their place.”

“They’ll be fine. They’re always stocked up, those two.”

“They are?”

“Sure.”

“I’ve lived here nine months and I haven’t so much as seen through their windows. They’re your cousins and you’ve lived here since time began. But how long’s it been since you were last inside their house?”

The old man’s expression hardens. “A while.”

“So how do you know they’re okay?”

“That’s the impression they’ve always given me, being family.” He shrugs. “They’re just that sort of people. You’ll understand when you’ve been here longer, seen a few more storms like this one.”

“Still, in a storm like this, it’s best we know for sure.”

Vince waves his empty glass and Ashley goes to serve him as the barman hands the trucker his coffee. Good strong stuff, a hot drink to match the weather.

“I’m Isaac,” he says. “Is that your rig out there?”

“Yeah. I’m glad I don’t have a trailer, not with this wind.”

“You’re on the way to a pick up?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Where’re you headed?”

Gene pauses for a moment and concentrates on the coffee. “South, down towards Philly. But not until this storm dies out. Catch that wind from the side and bang, over you go.”

“Is that a real danger? I mean, those things’ve gotta be pretty heavy. I’ve seen panel trucks flip in the wind, and rigs with trailers, but never a rig on its own.”

“It can happen.”

“I never knew that.”

“If the wind’s strong enough it can. The high sides catch it at the right angle, with enough force, and the wheels leave the road. Then that’s it. Nothing you can do but hang on. I don’t want to risk it.”

The young guy shivers. “Quiet tonight,” he says to Ashley. “Guess the weather must be keeping everyone away.”

“It’s never that busy at the best of times,” she says. “The weather don’t make any difference.”

“With quality décor like this?” He waves at the room, but his eyes never leave her. He smiles. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“’Fraid not. What can I get you?”

“It’s a tragedy.” He eyeballs the room again and checks his watch, then orders another shot of Scotch and a coffee. Something to take the chill off.

“Meeting someone?”

“I’m supposed to be, yeah.”

“Friend of yours from round here?”

“Yeah. But I guess with the weather being what it is, there’s no guarantee he’ll show up. If that’s the case I’ll just have to entertain myself.”

“I’m sure you’re good at that.” Ashley turns towards Will, who’s struggling into a warm coat, muttering complaints about his creaking joints under his breath. “I can go check on Christine if you like,” she says. “I’ll drop in on the brothers as well, see how they’re doing.”

The old man looks relieved. “You sure, Ash?”

“We can’t have you catching cold and moping around the place for the next week saying that you’re dying of pneumonia.”

“Now that only happened once. It’s my age. A cold can be lethal at my age, you’ll see.”

She doesn’t rise to it. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll go.”

“Well, if you insist. Be careful, though, the way that storm is.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing,” she says. “There’s nothing out there to be afraid of.”

Lightning shrieks across the sky over the darkened parking lot, flash-freezing the world in place for a second, as a man in a trenchcoat walks calmly towards the roadhouse. In the sudden brilliance his eyes pick out the unlit sign – ISAAC’S BAR AND GRILL – under which some local wit has scrawled, “Pop.: 6”. He grins to himself and resumes his stride as the strobe-stopped raindrops go back to smashing against the gravel. The wind howls around him, ripped into strange eddies by the storm’s thrashing above. His smile has an edge to it, and only a trace of humour. A nervousness, a wariness he’s trying to hide. He glances briefly around the parking lot and the valley beyond, scanning the darkness, then shoulders his way into the bar.

The music on the radio cuts out in a final, triumphant burst of static and never comes back. Everyone takes a moment to glance at the latest newcomer, checking him out. He doesn’t bother to return the gesture, just walks up to the counter and takes a seat. “A beer,” he says when Ashley asks what she can get him. He doesn’t look at her, at any of them.

“You’re not planning on driving?” Isaac says while she pulls him a pint.

“No.”

“No? Not that it really matters. I can’t remember the last time anyone here got pulled over for a DUI.”

“You’d have to be drunk to stay out on the roads in this, and even then you’d probably wish you’d stayed home.”

Isaac nods. “It’s pretty bad out there.”

“You don’t say.” The man takes a sip of his drink and closes his eyes like he’s planning on falling asleep where he sits.

CHAPTER TWO

Two men watch the figure on the road. He stands on the far side of a short bridge over a narrow cleft cutting into the hillside next to them. An indistinct shape hidden in a plastic poncho beaten by the wind and rain, rooted in place amongst the dirt and blowing leaves. A man’s voice, howling and bellowing like a dying animal, screaming between gusts and the cracks of thunder above. They can’t make out any of his words, only the pain, the hurt and anger, contained within them. In one hand, the figure has a naked flame, torn to shreds by the wind but still burning bright and yellow. In the other, something long and metallic that glistens red in the glow.

“What do you think we should do?” one man asks the other, the older of the two. Neither of them make a move towards the interloper.

His companion is silent for a while, then shrugs, looks uncertainly at the first. “Christ knows. He could be drunk, could be… Christ knows. Whoever he is, he’s been like this all this time?”

“As far as I know, yeah. I heard it over the wind when I went to check on the hens. Saw him and figured we’d best have a couple of us deal with it if we can. I don’t think he’s moved at all since I first saw him.”

The figure shrieks a single, drawn-out word and half-sinks to his knees as though all the fight’s gone out of him. It could be a name. It could be nothing, a non-verbal expression of some unfathomable emotional torment.

“You want to try talking to him?”

“No.” The second man shakes his head. “No, I don’t want to do that at all. Look at him.”

“Yeah. What if he tries coming to the house?”

“I guess we’ll have to deal with him.”

“How?”

“Christ knows.”

The figure whips back the hand that holds the flame and throws something towards them, arcing out across the ravine. A bottle. Both men watch it land well short of where they stand, if it was ever intended for them in the first place. When it smashes against the ground, fire boils across the wet leaves, the flames painting everything a monstrous orange and white. The two men instinctively flinch even though they’re too far back to feel the heat. On the other side of the ravine, they see the figure rise to its feet again and lift the object held in its other hand, slowly, deliberately. The fire dances grimly from the blade of the axe as the man steps forwards.

CHAPTER THREE

Isaac has given up on the bar’s newest arrival and gone back to the young man. Will engages Gene in small talk and everything returns to normal. The barman asks Vince where he’s from. He sniffs his scotch, knocks it back and says, “Baltimore, usually.”

“You’re out of your way round here, aren’t you? Hell of a drive.”

“Damn straight. I’m staying at a place near Smithford for a few days.”

“And this is the best bar in these parts, which is why you drove thirty miles on a pilgrimage out here? I’m flattered. If I’d have known, I’d have cleaned the place better.”

He laughs a couple of times, shakes his head. “Shit, if this was the best I’d be gone from these parts as soon as I could.”

“Ouch. Thanks.”

“No, I’m supposed to be meeting someone out here.” Vince smiles, slow and easy like his teeth have been oiled. “I’ve been looking at farms for thirty, forty miles in either direction. Thinking of buying land, getting away from the city, you know?”

“Out of the rat race?”

“Something like that, yeah. There’s a man who’s looking to sell his father’s old land in the next valley over, and he suggested we meet up here so we can go over the particulars. Look at some photos, talk prices, all that. If I’m interested, I’ll take a look at it tomorrow.” Again, the smile. “And besides, I spent the afternoon surrounded by cow shit and being yammered at by real estate agents, so I figured I owed myself a drink.”

“Looking to buy around here, huh?”

“Yeah. Thinking about it.” He doesn’t explain further, just asks, “How about you… did you grow up around here? Got any pointers you could give me? Guy like you in a job like yours must know a few things.”

“No, I’m not from around here,” he says. “I’m from Cincinatti, originally. We moved around a lot when I was younger, though. Why’d you want to move away from Baltimore?”

“I’m just thinking about it. The big city can get you down after a while. Too crowded, too many people.”

“You’re downsizing and this is the best you could find?”

“Something like that. It’s not so bad out here.”

The barman raises his eyebrows. “I never thought I’d hear anyone say that. So what do you do? What’re you downsizing from?”

“Nothing very exciting.”

Isaac smiles. “Really? You get dental with that?”

He shrugs. “I work in insurance. Checking claims, adjusting premiums and payouts. That sort of thing. Like I said, not very exciting.”

“You’ve done it long?”

Vince sips at his coffee, about to say something in reply, when the sound of someone yelling comes from outside. The voice is distorted by the storm, wordless. The barman and Gene both turn to peer in the direction of the windows, hoping to see something in the darkness of the lot outside. The shouting gets louder and a figure runs past the glass. A thin guy in a suit slams open the front door, stares wildly around the bar and yells, “There’s an old woman outside, lying in the parking lot. She needs help!”

CHAPTER FOUR

The man looks like a startled deer, eyes white and jumpy. Panicking, not knowing what to do. Isaac stares at him for a moment. “An old woman?” he says. “Christ. Christine.”

“She’s just lying there.” The man gestures at the door behind him. “I don’t know what happened to her. She’s not moving.”

Will jumps off his stool with surprising speed for his age. Isaac hurries around the counter to join him. “Gene, can you give us a hand? We might need to bring her inside.”

“Should I call nine-one-one?” Ashley asks.

“Let’s see what’s wrong first.”

The three men sweep out of the door. The guy in the suit watches them go past with his mouth still hanging open. Ashley hands him a glass of brandy, but he barely seems to notice.

Outside, the storm howls across the parking lot, the wind and rain ripping at the skin of the trio like wild animals. Isaac tugs a couple of grass stalks blown from the fields to the south from his hair and swears at the heavens. The words are torn from his throat even as he utters them.

“What’d you expect, Isaac?” Will yells, cupping his hands around his mouth to be heard over the gale. “You knew it wasn’t sunshine and flowers out here. I didn’t realise it was this bad, but still. I told you this was a bad one. It weren’t no secret.”

If the barman retorts, it’s lost to the elements. Then they reach Christine. She’s lying splayed out on the gravel, eyes closed, coat and skirt both soaked dark by the rain. There’s nothing obvious wrong with her, but when Isaac bends down next to her to check her pulse he sees a ragged cut and a nasty looking bruise on the back of her neck. Nothing that looks broken, no major damage. Will crouches beside her and smoothes her hair out of her face. Worry pinches his features and for a second he looks his age, worn out and surprisingly fragile. His wife is cold to the touch but he hopes that’s just from lying out in the rain like this.

“How is she, Isaac?” he says hoarsely.

The barman stays there for a moment, then scoops his hands beneath her head and shoulder. “I have no idea. I can’t tell in all this. We’ve got to get her inside.”

Gene helps him carry the old woman into the bar. In the light, her condition looks better, but not by much. Her face is pale, but she’s breathing steadily and doesn’t seem to be worsening noticeably.

“Christ,” Vince mutters.

They lay Christine on one of the bench seats. Isaac takes a closer look at her injury. “It doesn’t look so bad to me, Will,” he says. “But then I’m no doctor, so what do I know? I mean, she’s alive, right?”

“The worst a blow like that could’ve done is broken her neck,” Gene says after a moment. “And if that’d happened, we’d probably have known when we moved her.”

“Jesus. Maybe we shouldn’t have touched her.”

“It’s just a guess at the worst it could’ve been. That and maybe a fractured skull, but that’s not definitely life-threatening. I think we did right.”

“You guess?”

“I was training to be a vet, years ago. People are different, but the principle’s the same.”

“A vet?”

“Yeah, not a doctor. And I never finished the course.”

Will cradles his wife’s head in his hands. “I don’t think she’ll care about the difference,” he says. “Can you fix her up?”

“Uh… I’ll try. You should probably get her some dry clothes. She’ll get cold like that. That won’t do her any good.”

Then the old woman’s eyes flick open. Will practically collapses with relief as her gaze meets his. “Chris, sweetheart. Are you okay?”

“Lord,” she says. “What happened?”

“We found you unconscious outside. What happened to you?”

She slowly picks herself up into a seated position, unconsciously smoothing out her skirt. “I… I don’t know. I’d checked on Brandon. He was hiding in his basket. I was coming back, and then… nothing.”

“You don’t remember a thing?” Isaac says.

“A noise?” She doesn’t look at all certain and her tone makes it sound like guesswork, another question, not an answer. “Footsteps?”

“There was someone out there with you?”

“There was… oh God, my keys! Where are my keys?” Christine pats her pockets. Her hands are shaking and her teeth chatter together. “My keys are gone. Will, my keys are gone.”

Will looks at her, at Isaac. “Someone attacked her? To get into the gas station?”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“They could’ve killed her, hitting her like that. How could anyone do that to an old woman? Who’d do it?”

“Jesus.” Isaac shakes his head. “You’d have to be some kind of psycho…”

Isaac’s voice trails away as he looks around the bar. At Ashley and Vince at the counter. Then the newest arrivals. The guy in the suit, shaking a little, but looking relieved as he clutches his brandy. Gene, doing much the same as Isaac, gaze narrowed. The guy in the trenchcoat, still sitting with his eyes closed at the far end of the counter as he nurses his half-drunk pint.

Gene and Will follow his line of sight. The three of them edge towards the stranger, Isaac in the lead. The man doesn’t move as they approach, either oblivious or uncaring. Finally, when he’s just beyond arm’s reach, Isaac says, “Hey.”

He’s close enough to smell the damp rising from the guy’s coat as it dries. Close enough to see the individual bubbles on the surface of his beer. Close enough to see the stubble on the guy’s chin, a good couple of days’ worth. Close enough to see that the guy has his free hand hidden inside his coat, down below the level of the bar.

“Hey. Hey, buddy.” Isaac edges forward and reaches out a hand towards the guy’s shoulder.

The eyes snap open in sharp focus.

CHAPTER FIVE

In my head, the bar crumbles and fades. Metal turns to blood-coloured rust, glass smears and smudges with grime, the air turns foul and rotten. I sit in a room with nothing but corpses for company, nursing an empty bottle with a jagged neck. My mouth’s full of the taste of iron. The door swings open, clattering in a wind I can neither feel nor hear, and in the entryway stands a child. A dead girl perhaps ten or eleven years old. Instead of eyes she has empty black holes reaching back into nothingness I can feel like the pull of twin black holes.

She walks towards me, her feet echoing dully on the rusted floor, and there is nothing I can do but sit there and wait for her. She holds out hands dripping with blood as she draws closer. Finally, she reaches up and clasps me by the shoulders.

“Yeah?” I say and look up at the barman, trying to remember for a second where I am, what I’m doing here. The boredom I’d seen previously in Isaac’s eyes has been replaced by fear. There’s a faded tattoo on the back of one hand, but I can’t make out the design.

“I, uh, don’t suppose you know anything about what happened to the woman outside? To Christine?”

“What? No.”

“Really?”

I shake my head. “Why would I? What did happen to her?”

“Someone beat her over the head and stole her keys. She must’ve been out there when you came in. Did you happen to see anything out in the lot? Anyone else?”

Christine’s sitting up, looking pale and dazed, but alive. Is this what I came here for? Is this just the start of things to come? If that was the case, she should be dead. I look back at Isaac and realise he’s still waiting for a response. Say, “Look, I’m not likely to attack an old woman then leave her out there in the rain while I stop for a drink, am I?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he says.

“I think you should call nine-one-one. Even if she’s not hurt badly, the person who did that to her is still around here somewhere. If they’re capable of that sort of thing and they’ve taken her keys then they’re probably planning on going through her house.”

“I know that,” the barman says, but off to one side I see Ashley pick up the phone. “I just wanted to be sure what anyone might know first. You said you didn’t see anything when you came in?”

“No. I didn’t see a thing,” I tell him. “If I had, I’d have came in yelling just like that guy. Anyone would.” I point at the man in the suit. As I do it, I wonder whether he’s the one I’m looking for. If he’s ‘Sam’.

The one-time veterinary student turned trucker leans past Isaac and wedges his face squarely in front of mine. His wiry red hair is thinning and his beard is the sort that would do a porn star proud.

“You’re taking this awfully calmly for someone who didn’t do nothing,” he spits at me. Everything about him radiates aggression.

“Hey, hey,” I say, holding up my hands. I don’t want this whole situation getting out of hand because some guy has a short fuse and needs to lash out at anyone he doesn’t trust. “Yeah, I am taking it pretty calmly. It’s just that I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before, and I know jack about medicine. So I’m not going to panic and I can’t dive in to help. Anything else I can do, I will.”

The girl behind the bar calls out, “The phones are dead, Isaac. I can’t get through to anyone.”

“The storm must’ve taken out the lines,” Will says at the back of the trio. I don’t speak at all, but there’s a cold, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. At the convenience of its timing and the cold air of menace which is now rapidly gathering in the bar.

“Cell phone?” Isaac asks the barmaid.

She shakes her head. “No signal. Hasn’t been for a while.”

“Radio?”

“Nothing works, Isaac.”

The barman rubs his face. “Nothing?”

“No.”

“Fuck. The transmitter on the hills must be out.”

The threesome gathered around me breaks up. Isaac picks up the phone behind the bar as though hoping it might have suddenly sprung back into life in the last few seconds. From the look on his face it hasn’t, and he slams it back in the cradle. “Fuck,” he says again.

I should’ve considered this possibility ahead of time. A place like this can be very easy to close off from the outside world if someone wants to. I wonder who knows I’m here. I’ve talked to several people about The Valley during the past couple of weeks, but I doubt any of them would remember anything about it or be able to say exactly where it was I’d gone. Cut off from anyone who knows me, I could vanish here and it would be like I fell off the face of the planet. By the time anyone came anywhere close to finding me, I’d be bones and dust.

No one says anything for a moment, then Gene asks, “So now what?”

“Someone’ll have to drive to Fairlight and get help,” the old man says. “While they’re gone, we can check the gas station ourselves to see if the feller who attacked Chris took anything.”

“Or if they’re still there.”

“Yeah.”

That pause that always follows a request for volunteers, everyone waiting in the hope that someone else will step up to the plate. The urge to get out, to let someone know what I’m doing here, to leave some record of my passing, grips me and I say, “I’ll go.”

“You?” the guy in the suit says from the back of the room. “You were probably the one that did this in the first place.”

“Don’t let’s start that again, fellers,” the old man says. To me he adds, “But he has a point. For all we know, you were the one hit my wife and robbed my store, and you’re just going to drive off and leave us. No offence, but how do we know you can be trusted?”

“You don’t. But if I wanted to drive off and leave you, I’d have done it by now without needing an excuse. Why would I even stop for a drink? I’m not that stupid.”

He inclines his head. “Fair point.”

“Anyway, I’ve got a full tank of gas and I drive real fast. You need the cops and maybe a paramedic, we can’t call them from here and I’m happy to get them. How far’s Fairlight?”

The old man looks at me for a moment, then says, “Twenty miles or so. The next valley along. Once you’re over the hills, try calling the cops again on your cell phone. You might be able to get signal there without the ridge in the way. I’m Will, by the way.”

“Alex. I’ll be back before long.”

No one says anything more to me as I swing out into the screaming night. As the cold air hits me, I realise how greatly relieved I feel to be out of the building and heading away from any trap prepared for me there.

The wind slaps into me like a freight train, throwing me forwards into empty blackness. I lean in and fight it, walking bowed and stiff to my car, trying to keep my feet on the ground. The rain no longer falls as drops but comes now as solid lines of steel, metal rods lancing down out of the gloom with deadly force. Then there’s an ear-splitting roar above and lightning slashes across the roof of the world. The boiling, swirling cloud is painted a vivid emerald green and I’m looking straight up into the deep vaulted core of the storm. I see explosive billows thrusting out of its walls, pushing and growing against each other like some kind of volcanic bloom at the bottom of the ocean. Thick shreds of dark cloud whip and whirl beneath its base, circling the heart of the maelstrom.

Then the flashes are gone again and I’m inside my car, a piece of shit Chevy I picked up second hand for a couple of hundred bucks a few days ago. Five years and fifty thousand miles past the time it should have been turned into scrap. So far it’s managed to hold together okay, but sitting there with the wind crashing against its frame, shaking it from side to side, I offer up a silent prayer that it sticks to the road. That it doesn’t just blow away into nothing and take me with it.

The engine whines as I floor the gas and fly east up the highway. The wipers are going as hard as they can and the headlights are on full, but neither makes much of an impression on the rain. Periodically, a green-white flash will light up the whole valley and the accompanying crack of thunder kills all other sound, silencing even the engine, but otherwise I’m running almost blind. In truth, I’ve been running blind since before I reached the roadhouse. Since I took the plunge and headed out here on a fool’s errand.

I curse myself for not planning properly ahead. For becoming so distracted by the whole business that dragged me to this place that I made mistakes. Stupid mistakes that anyone with half a brain would’ve avoided. No backup, no cavalry waiting to come find me if things turn sour, no one expecting a call to tell them I’m okay. For buying this lousy car without realised I’d have to try and coax the thing up to speed while the world tore itself to pieces around me.

I shouldn’t have come.

One of the periodic flashes shows me running water up ahead, a ribbon of white glowing briefly in the black, and I kill my speed. Ahead, the highway crosses a river that runs down from the highlands at the northern head of the valley. The waters are dark and massively swollen, topped here and there by rips of silver foam. I roll slowly forwards until the car’s headlights are able to illuminate the scene properly, wanting a clear look at things before I continue. The bridge is short and low, a simple arc of concrete maybe twenty yards from end to end. The river has yet to break over its top, but it sucks and churns against the base of the structure with a deep, menacing bass rumbling. The concrete looks as though it’s shaking with the continual impact of the water and I wonder how long before the seemingly inevitable occurs. Hard to tell with the rain hammering from its surface. I don’t fancy having the thing collapse beneath the Chevy as I drive across, so I take a flashlight out of the glove compartment and step out into the storm for a closer look before I risk the crossing.

The wind slams into me, bringing with it the full force of the deluge like it’s been waiting to have me back in its grasp ever since I escaped into the shelter of the car. I trudge forwards, hauling my coat close around me, face and ears stinging with the pounding of the cold rain. I hunker down where the road launches out over the water. The noise is deafening here, like Niagara Falls in the middle of a hurricane, and the only slices of what passes for the real world I can see around me are the circles picked out by the beam of the flash and the dull gleam of the car’s headlights. I press my hand flat against the road surface and try to sense it moving.

Lightning streaks across the deep green sky above in a fresh and vicious series of bolts, leaping from one side of the aquatic inferno to another. One jagged fork cracks into the ground on the opposite bank of the river, throwing up dirt and smoke like a bomb going off. The boom of the thunder drowns out the noise of the flood for the briefest of moments, and I feel the bridge trembling, shaking and juddering.

Then there’s a sudden horrifying lurch and the ground beneath me shifts with a deafening tearing sound like a huge tree being uprooted. I have just enough time to see the bridge drunkenly pinwheel away in slow motion, to see the banks, road and everything for twenty yards on every side of me tear apart and fold in on themselves, to see my car’s headlights suddenly extinguished. To see everything around me thrown asunder. Then the river roars in angry triumph as I go tumbling down into the foaming blackness.

I shouldn’t have come.