Читать книгу The Rising - Will Hill, Will Hill - Страница 19

SOUTH OF GUDENDORF, LOWER SAXONY, GERMANY ELEVEN WEEKS EARLIER

Greta Schuler tiptoed down the staircase of her family’s farmhouse, taking care to avoid the third-to-last step, the one that always creaked. Her sleep had been fitful, full of bad dreams, and for an unsteady, wavering moment she had been unsure whether the noise she had heard had been real or imagined. But then it had come again, a deep rumble from the direction of the north field, and she sat upright in her bed, drawing the covers round her.

It was cold in her bedroom; she could see her breath in the air. She waited for the noise to come again, and when it didn’t, she climbed out of bed, crossed the cold wood of her bedroom floor in her bare feet, pulled on her boots and her thick woollen coat and set out to investigate. For a second or two, she considered waking her parents, but decided against it; days on the farm were long and tiring, and they needed their rest. And besides, Greta was almost twelve years old, and a country girl; she had run off countless stray dogs and foxes, and even the occasional wolf.

At the foot of the stairs she eased her father’s shotgun out of the umbrella stand that stood beside the heavy front door, took the battered black torch down from the shelf on the wall, then gripped the brass door handle and slowly, centimetre by centimetre, pulled it towards her. The door creaked once, ominously loudly, then settled, and slid open. A blast of cold air whistled through the gap between the door and its frame and Greta shivered, her skin breaking out in gooseflesh. She pulled her coat tighter round herself, and slipped out into the night.

On the doorstep she broke open her father’s gun and checked that it was loaded. She saw the bronze discs and red tubes of the cartridges lying in place, snapped the gun shut and looked around the wide farmyard that lay before the house. Snow covered every centimetre of the ground, shining silver beneath the light of the full moon that hung in the night sky above her head, light that illuminated a long streak of something dark. It ran across the yard, from the thick woods bordering the gravel track that led to the main road, to the wooden gate of the north field that stood beside the farmhouse. Greta stared at it, feeling fear crawl momentarily into her stomach before she pushed it away, then flicked on the torch and stepped forward.

She gasped as the beam fell across the streak. In the yellow light of the torch, it glistened a dark, shiny red. She could see steam rising from it, tendrils of pale mist spiralling up into the night sky, and she knew immediately what she was looking at.

Blood. A lot of blood. Freshly spilled too.

Fear rose through her, and this time she was unable to make it retreat. But she did not go back inside to wake her parents, even though she knew she should. She was her father’s daughter, stubborn and fiercely independent; she would not ask for help unless it was absolutely necessary, and she would rather die than admit there was anything that frightened her. So she stepped away from the door, her boots crunching the thick snow beneath her feet, and headed towards the north field.

As she approached it, the torch beam wavering unsteadily before her, she saw that the heavy wooden gate was standing open; the snow at its base was swirled into drifts and ridges, and smeared thickly with blood. The smell of the steaming liquid hit her nose as she leant in to look at the gatepost, and she retched. The heavy chain that was slung round the post every night by the last farmhand to leave was lying in the snow, its links bent and twisted open. As Greta shone the torch into the field, her heart beating rapidly beneath her narrow chest, she forced herself not to think about how much strength it would have taken to bend steel as though it was cardboard.

Her torch beam picked out a large shape on the far side of the field. She stepped through the gate, taking care not to stand in the cooling red liquid, and headed towards it. She was halfway across the field before her torch cast enough light for her to realise what she was looking at.

The cattle that grazed the north field were huddled together in its furthest corner, packed tightly together like sardines. Greta, who had been around livestock since she was old enough to stand, had never seen anything like it before. The animals were shifting constantly in the cold night air, taking half-steps backwards and forwards, their heads up, their eyes wide discs of white. As she approached, the herd let out a long, deep rumble of noise, and she stopped.

They’re warning me not to come any closer. Something has scared them half to death.

Greta turned away from the frightened cattle and followed her own footsteps back to the gate. She looked along the long smear of blood, to where it disappeared into the pitch-black of the woods. She was shaking now, partly from the cold, partly from fear, and she followed the trail of gore with short, hesitant steps. When she was three metres away from the treeline, her bravery failed her, and she stood, rooted to the spot, staring into the woods.

Then a growl, so deep and low that Greta felt it vibrate through the bones in her legs, sounded from somewhere in front of her, and her breath froze in her lungs. The shotgun fell softly to the snow at her feet, as she heard something move through the trees. Then two yellow eyes appeared in the darkness, floating high above her head, at least two metres from the ground. Slowly, they moved towards her, and a shape emerged from between the trees.

Standing in front of Greta was the biggest wolf she had ever seen.

It squatted in the darkness, its enormous head peering down at her, its mouth and snout soaked with crimson, its thick neck attached to a body the size of her father’s Land Rover. Its fur was greyish-green, and its flanks and back were horribly misshapen; ridges of bone rose and fell beneath the creature’s skin, its legs were crooked and bent, and a vast patchwork of scar tissue criss-crossed the animal’s hide, jagged white lines shining out from the fur in the light of the full moon. Behind the wolf’s bloodstained head something glistened, and Greta saw two angular shapes emerging from the skin, shining in the night air.

Metal, she thought, her mind reeling. It’s got metal sticking out of its neck.

The growl came again, accompanied by a blast of warm air and the coppery scent of blood. She gagged, staring helplessly up at the wolf, which was regarding her with a look that was fearsome, but also appeared curiously sad; the corners of its wide yellow eyes were turned down, its lips drawn back against its razor-sharp teeth in what looked like a grimace of pain.

You can’t outrun it. You can’t fight it. Your only chance is to make it realise you’re not a threat.

Greta took a deep breath, and looked into the wolf’s eyes.

“Hello,” she said, her voice trembling. “My name’s Greta.”

The wolf recoiled instantly, as though it had been stung by a hornet. It took half a step backwards, then threw back its head and let loose a deafening howl, an ear-splitting cry of misery and pain. Behind Greta, the light in her parents’ bedroom came on, and the sound of heavy boots on wooden stairs echoed across the farmyard. But Greta neither saw nor heard; she was staring, transfixed, at the monstrous creature in front of her. As the howl died away, the wolf opened its mouth again, and made a sound that Greta recognised. Her eyes widened, and she took an involuntary step towards the wolf, her arms rising before her in placation.

The roar of a shotgun thundered through the night air, and the snow at the wolf’s feet exploded. Greta shrieked as the wolf bolted into the woods, so quickly that she could have believed it had never been there at all. Then she saw the thick streak of blood where it had been standing, and realisation flooded through her. She heard shouted voices and running footsteps behind her, before her eyes rolled in her head and she crumpled towards the ground. Arriving at a flat sprint, Peter Schuler threw his shotgun aside, slid across the snow, shoved his hands under her back as she fell and wrapped his daughter in his arms.

In the kitchen at the rear of the farmhouse, Greta’s father sat at the battered wooden table that dominated the room. He was sipping a mug of thick black coffee that his wife had made him once she had finished putting their daughter back to bed. She was now watching him silently, leaning against the stove beneath the window, her expression unreadable.

Standing around the kitchen, equally silent, were three of the Schuler farmhands, whom Peter had roused from sleep when he returned to the house. They had come uncomplainingly, and were leaning against the walls, sipping coffees of their own, shotguns broken over their forearms, watching their employer struggling to control his temper.

Peter Schuler was full of a fury beyond anything he had ever known.

He was trying to rationalise the events of the night. Peter had spent his entire life on the farm he now owned, had worked it for his father until Hans Schuler had succumbed to the cancer that had eaten him away before his son’s eyes, had married his wife and raised his daughter there. As a result, he believed he understood animals, both domestic and wild, as well as anyone, and better than most. And he knew that was all the wolf was; a wild animal that had wandered into the Schulers’ territory, incapable of malice, or viciousness. But it had been standing over his daughter, his maddening, arrogant, beautiful daughter, standing over her with its teeth bared, its shadow swallowing her, and he had never wanted to kill another living thing as much as he did right now.

The wolf had scared Greta terribly. He had been carrying her back to the house, shouting for his wife to bring blankets as he did so, when she had suddenly stiffened in his arms, then screamed so loudly that he almost dropped her. When the scream had died away, she began to sob against his shoulder, her small body trembling. She was still shaking as his wife tucked her blankets tightly back round her, mumbling nonsense about the wolf being made of metal, insisting that it had spoken to her, that it had said “Help me” as she stood beneath its blood-soaked muzzle, waiting for it to tear her throat out.

“What do you want to do, boss?” It was Franck who asked, the farm’s head wrangler, a soft-spoken bear of a man. He was looking steadily at Greta’s father, waiting to be told what to do.

“Get your coats,” Peter replied, and a minute later the four men were marching across the farmyard, their guns slung over their shoulders.

Peter led them to the spot at the edge of the woods where the wolf had loomed over Greta, then took a deep breath and followed the trail of blood into the trees. Lars and Sebastian, brothers who had worked the Schuler farm since they were fourteen, walked steadily behind him, with Franck bringing up the rear.

The snow crunched beneath their heavy boots as they tracked the wolf through the forest. The animal was not hard to follow; it had left a trail of paw prints the size of dinner plates, and a long corridor of flattened bushes and broken branches that stood out in the yellow light of the men’s torches. Eventually, the forest widened into a clearing, and the men’s eyes widened as they entered it. The small, circular gap in the trees looked like the inside of an abattoir.

In the middle, strewn across the snowy forest floor, were the last identifiable remains of one of Peter Schuler’s cattle. A horn lay in a puddle of blood and offal, a hoof and a thick piece of the animal’s hide thrown to one side. Blood covered the ground, studded with steaming chunks of meat, through which the wolf had tracked its giant paws. The four men standing at the edge of the trees were hard country men, but the violence that had taken place in the clearing shook them to their cores.

“Shoot on sight,” said Peter Schuler, softly. The men swung their shotguns from their shoulders, racked them with trembling hands, then followed the enormous footprints deeper into the darkness of the forest.

An hour later, with dawn creeping above the horizon to the east, four shivering men emerged from the trees at the edge of the road that led south to Bremen. The tracks had continued in a straight line, until they finally stopped a metre in front of where the men were standing. They disappeared in a wide circle of disturbed snow that looked as though a group of men had been wrestling in it. The snow, and the frozen earth beneath it, had been churned and tossed and thrown in every direction. On the other side of the circle a new set of tracks led away from the circle, parallel to the road. The men stepped carefully round the disturbance, and looked down at the new trail.

“My God,” whispered Lars, and crossed himself.

Stretching away before them was a series of enormous human footprints.

“I don’t understand,” said Sebastian. “I don’t—”

“Quiet,” hissed Peter. “The Langers’ farm is just over that rise. Let’s move.”

The four men marched quickly alongside the footprints. After five minutes or so, the grey roof of the farmhouse where Kurt Langer, Peter Schuler’s oldest friend, lived with his family appeared above the top of the slope they were climbing, and Peter accelerated, urging his men to keep up with him.

I hope we’re not too late. Please don’t let us be too late.

They hurried over the rise, and Peter’s heart sank. Even from thirty metres away he could see the footprints leading through the front gate on to the Langers’ property, towards the farmhouse where the family would normally now be waking up. He shouted for his men to follow him, and took off running down the slope, skidding and sliding as his boots fought for purchase through the thick snow. He grabbed the gatepost, steadied himself and then paused, examining the ground.

There were two sets of footprints, running parallel to each other, in opposite directions. One led into the Langers’ yard, and the second, the heavy treads of winter boots, led back towards the road.

Too late, too late, too late.

Peter shoved the gate wide and lurched into the yard, heading towards the front door of the house, his shotgun at his shoulder. He was about to yell for the Langers, horribly sure that he would receive no reply, when he stopped again.

To his left, running between a low branch of the oak tree that stood at the edge of the farmyard and a brass hook inserted into the wall of the house, was a thick nylon washing line. Fluttering from it in the bright morning air were a number of heavy garments: plaid shirts, long johns, thermal socks and undershirts. But half the line was empty, and beneath it, scattered on the snowy ground, were a handful of wooden pegs. The first row of footprints ran beneath the line, then to the back step of the house. The second started there, a row of boot prints leading back towards the road.

A hand fell on Peter Schuler’s shoulder, and he jumped. But it was only Franck, his big, gentle face staring at Peter’s, his gun lowered at his side.

“You need to see this, boss,” said the head wrangler, jerking a thumb towards the road.

The four men gathered at the edge of the tarmac, looking down at their feet. The last of the prints were etched neatly into the snow, alongside the tracks of a set of heavy-duty winter tyres.

A truck. Four-wheel drive. Probably a pick-up, like the one in the barn at home.

The tracks formed a shallow semi-circle where the driver had brought his vehicle to a halt at the side of the road, before accelerating back on to the highway. There were no more footprints, in any direction.

“I’ll ring Karl,” said Lars. “He can bring the truck up here. We can follow it.”

Peter shook his head. “No,” he replied. “It’s gone. Whatever it was, it’s gone. Ring Karl, and tell him to come and pick us up. I’ll call Kurt later and tell him what happened. Let’s go home.”

An hour to the south, a battered red pick-up truck chugged steadily along the motorway. The driver, a round, red-faced man in a heavy woollen jacket and an ancient deerstalker hat, watched the road ahead of him, a short cigar clamped between his teeth. On the passenger seat beside him sat a plastic flask of coffee laced with cherry brandy, from which he was taking regular sips.

Behind him, in the truck’s flatbed, shivering beneath the pile of animal hides that the driver was taking south to market, his sleeping face a mask of contorted misery and confusion, lay Frankenstein’s monster.