The Gastropoda Imperative, Peter Barns [story books to read txt] 📗

over the top of another dune. Then she saw Georgie’s back end sticking out of a hole in the sand. “Oh you naughty boy,” she chastised the dog as she neared him. “You’ve been chasing rabbits again, haven’t you?”

Struggling to her knees, Clara Jenkins clutched her wayward dog’s rear end and pulled. He yapped, trying to struggle free. There was obviously something down the hole that he found very interesting.

“Come on Georgie. Time to go home now.” Clipping the lead on Georgie’s collar, Clara Jenkins put him back on the sand.

Georgie Porgie was straight down the hole again, his barks muffled as his back legs worked to push him further in. Clara Jenkins pulled at the lead but couldn’t shift him. Grabbing him by the back legs she eased him out, slipping over and landing on her bottom in the sand when he popped free. Feeling a little foolish, she held him up, planning on giving him a good telling off, but she noticed something clinging to his collar. Something glistening and yucky looking.

“What’s this then, Georgie? What have you got there?”

Clara Jenkins picked the thing off, shaking her hand and shouting when it bit her. The writhing creature landed on her leg and bit her again. Clara Jenkins smacked her hand down on it, wiping away the bloody remains on the sand.

She started to get up, but was suddenly too dizzy and disorientated. Sitting down again, she clasped Georgie Porgie to her chest and looked around in confusion. Something was wrong, she couldn’t seem to move her arms and legs properly. Her eyes were watering and her breathing had slowed.

Was she having a heart attack?

Georgie Porgie slipped from her grasp and stood barking at his owner.

Clara Jenkins fell to her side, fingers trembling as she tried to reach out for her Georgie - or was it Porgie? No, it was her George, come back for her after all these years. There he was. What did he want? She couldn’t think properly, her mind was all woozy.

Georgie Porgie backed away, head low, growling protectively as his owner collapsed and died in front of him. He ran back and forth yapping, too frightened to go near the creatures that were suddenly swarming out of the sand.

Ten minutes later, the old woman’s body was gone, even the clothes and shoes she’d been wearing, consumed. Only a pair of glasses, some coins and a set of door keys, marked the spot where the old woman had fallen.

Georgie Porgie whimpered, confused, then ran up and down the beach, until after awhile it headed home. Soon the incoming tide had covered the remnants of the old woman’s possessions with sand.

Chapter 15

Piers hadn’t shown up for the evening milking, so Lyra got on with the job. She’d been doing it off and on for three weeks now, and with Piers’ help, had become quite proficient.

Finished with the milking, she gathered up the chickens and shooed them into the shed. Then, picking up a bucket of pig nuts, she went to the sty and shook a line of food into the trough. The sound of nuts hitting the steel feeder brought a loud grunt from the straw pile in the corner, and Lyra had to skip aside pretty smartly as Nettie trotted over and got stuck in.

While the pig hoovered up every nut in sight, Lyra scratched its back. Its skin was wrinkled and hairy, not soft, as she’d expected when she’d first touched it. Just look at her now, she thought. Tickling a pig. Wow, who’d have imagined it!

Even though her aunt was now home from hospital, she still couldn’t do any heavy work, so until she was well enough to get back in the saddle, Lyra and her mother would have to cope. Lyra giggled to herself. She was even thinking like a country girl now. Back in the saddle, indeed. Picking up the milking bucket, she made her way back to the cottage, checking on the sheep as she went.

“Everything okay?” her aunt called from the lounge as Lyra plonked the bucket in the kitchen sink, getting ready to filter it.

“Yes. Everything’s fine, auntie. They’re all shut up for the night. Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Please dear. That’d be nice.”

Lyra took two cups of tea through to the lounge, setting one of them on the wide arm of her aunt’s chair.

“Thank you, dear.” Taking a sip, her aunt sighed appreciatively. “Your mother will be back soon. Then I’ll get us all something to eat.”

“You sure you’re up to that, auntie? I could do it.”

“Tush dear. I’m not that old. Not yet.”

Glancing at her aunt, Lyra kept her thoughts to herself. Her aunt looked at least ten years older than when she’d gone into hospital a few weeks ago. She seemed to have shrunk into herself. Before going out, her mother had asked Lyra to keep an eye on her aunt while see was away for the day, and she could see why.

“No Piers today then?” her aunt asked. Lyra shook her head. “He’s a nice boy really, you know. People just don’t understand what he’s been through. They don’t give him a chance.”

Lyra smiled at the thought of Piers being called a boy. But then, Lyra supposed, he certainly acted like one at times.

“I feel so guilty that I’ve neglected him all this time,” her aunt said, almost to herself.

“Neglected?”

“Yes, dear. I go over to the bothy once a month you see, and clear up for him. He’s so useless at that sort of thing. But since—” She touched her chest, a sad expression on her face. “Well I expect it’s in a right mess by now.”

“What’s all this about aliens on the island?” Lyra asked.

Her aunt nodded slightly and looked across at her, the skin around her eyes crinkling as she gave a soft smile. “You’ve heard the stories then? Yes, of course you have.” Replacing her cup in the saucer, she settled into her chair.

More comfortable, she smiled again, but this time Lyra could see the sadness in her eyes. Then it struck her. When she’d asked her mother if her aunt had ever had any children, she’d told her no. It all began to make sense. Piers was the child her aunt never had.

“Well dear,” her aunt continued, “he used to help the boatman take people over to the island. He told me one day that he had sneaked into the labs to take a look, because he was convinced they were working on something to do with aliens. He came back terrified, babbling about Area 51, or some such rubbish, telling anybody who’d listen that he’d seen an alien there. All nonsense of course, they were working on a recycling project. But you know how cruel young people can be. Now they taunt Piers mercilessly about it whenever they get the chance.

“And while it’s true that some of the people on the island did die, it had nothing to do with aliens. It was an accident. They’d been using some toxins or other in their work - I think that’s what they call them, toxins - anyway, they spilt some. Poor Lexi,” she finished, shaking her head and tutting.

“Lexi?”

“Yes dear. She worked on the project. A scientist of some sort. Such a shame, she was not that much older than you really and such a nice girl. Such a tragedy to die like that. She lodged here with me while she was working on the island. You know, I really do feel so bad about not tidying up the bothy.”

It took Lyra a moment to realise that her aunt had changed direction with her conversation again. Finishing her tea, her aunt got up and came across to Lyra’s chair, picking up her empty cup. Walking towards the door, she stopped for a moment, then turned back. “I don’t suppose you’d—”

“Clean up the bothy for you?” Lyra finished, knowing exactly what was on her aunt’s mind.

“Yes dear.”

“Okay then,” Lyra agreed. It would go some way towards assuaging the guilt she was feeling about how she’d snubbed Piers when Troy had introduced him earlier in the day.

“You really are a good girl, dear.”

“Make sure you tell that my mum,” Lyra said, heading for the door. “I shouldn’t be too long.”

***

Piers grunted and opened his eyes in alarm. For one terrifying moment he thought he was falling - falling into that big, jagged maw. Catching hold of the straw either side of him, he steadied himself, taking deep, shuddering breaths.

He’d fallen asleep. In his drunken state, he’d sat out here in the middle of the night on top of the bale, and had fallen asleep, putting himself and all his plans in danger. Shaking his head, he did his best to push the dream from his mind.

But had it been a dream?

Piers looked about uneasily. No, it wasn’t a dream. He was here, sitting on the straw bale. Something had woken him. The cry of an animal in distress.

The cow. Where was the cow?

He couldn’t see her. Staring hard into the night, Piers looked for the shape in the blackness but could see nothing. Was he too late? Had they already taken her and gone?

Hearing a soft noise, like a flatulent, under-inflated bladder farting out the last of its air, Piers strained his eyes to their limit. He had staked the cow out over by the tree in the corner of the field, but now he couldn’t see her anywhere.

Then he spotted it - a dark form laying on the lighter ground. The clouds had covered the moon again, but there was just enough light for him to see by. He stayed sat on his perch unmoving, watching intently as the big animal seemed to ooze its way into the ground. There was an occasional movement as something rose from the ground before disappearing into the carcass again, but apart from that, no sign of them. Was one of the aliens testing the air, checking to see if he was somewhere nearby, warning the others, like he’d seen the Meer cats do on a recent documentary?

Within ten minutes the cow had completely disappeared and Piers knew that they had satiated themselves. Now his job was to follow them back to their lair.

Piers slipped off the bale, the flattened and reshaped bean cans covering his shoes and lower legs softly tapping as he picked his way across the field.

***

It was beginning to get dark, so Lyra used the big torch her aunt always left hanging by the front door to light her way along the lane. It was heavy, but then it did have a trillion candle power, or some such rubbish. Whatever, it lit the way fine, which made her a little more comfortable.

Piers’ stories about aliens on the island had got to her more than she liked to admit, Coming from a big city, she wasn’t used to walking about in near total darkness, so she was jumping at every little sound.

Following the small track that led off across the back of the fields just before the bus shelter, Lyra picked her way over the rough ground. On an impulse, she turned off the torch and stood looking up at the sky. A few clouds hung low, but mainly her view was unrestricted - and it took her breath away.

The night sky was a mass of bright stars. Lyra had never seen the night sky without it being washed out with background light before. All she’d been able to see in London was the odd bright object in the sky, and the moon when it wasn’t covered in cloud.

But this view was beautiful, amazing. She stood for a full five minutes, just staring upwards, hardly breathing, unaware that all around her the ground was moving. Then somewhere in the distance a cow bellowed, as though in distress, and Lyra snapped on the torch again, shuddering at the pain in the animals calls.