1. The homecoming
 
                                                 

I came to a halt at the top of the bluff overlooking the river.
Four and a half miles and twenty five years later. As the crow flies…
I took a deep breath, the sound of music drifting across the treetops, swelling and fading with the ebb and flow of the wind.
'Cry Cry Cry' then 'Folsom Prison Blues.'
I listened, singing along under my breath, trying to work out if I was listening to the real deal or the movie soundtrack. Then I caught the unmistakable opening riff of 'A Man Comes Along' from the American Sessions and that was alright. Shouldering my pack I started down the bluff, grinning like a Jack o'lantern.

"There's a man goin' around takin' names, and He decides who to free and who to blame…"

Iit looked as if all that greenhouse weather we'd been getting recently had been good to the valley too. The bracken seemed greener and fuller, the trees more abundant but then perhaps it had always been that way. It had been so damn long after all…

"Everyone won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down…"

Johny's voice lulled as I took a sharp left off the path, putting the bunkhouse behind me, catching another beat beneath the rhythm. At first I thought it was the pulse of blood in my ears but there was no mistaking it now. Hearing the deep thud of approaching rotor blades, I decided to get a move on.  It was just after nine o 'clock and although the sky was still bright enough there was no way it could be conventional civilian air traffic. Not at that hour…

                       

"Its Alpha and Omega's kingdom come..."

                       

The RAF Sea King had been called in from Chivenor in an operation apparently co-ordinated by the BMR ( Brecon Mountain Rescue ) and the Longtown Mountain Rescue Team in Monmouth. As I scrambled down the bluff it circled lower, hovering like a day-glo dragonfly above the falls. Several members of the BMR were already on the ground, slowly and ritualisticly securing an inert figure sprawled on a ledge above the splashpool to a flimsy aluminium stretcher. At first I thought they'd come for Grant but then I noticed him standing beside Mr. Horn on the flat rock we used as a stage area, still apparently in one piece, poncho fluttering in the downdraft.

                        

Ever since getting out of the laughing academy Grant has been pouring most of his energy into a series of increasingly ambitious sculptures, his most recent being a take on the 'White Lady' herself, a larger than life Goddess who dominates the cavernous studio space in Bermondsey where she took shape, finally reaching something like completion just before the solstice. Mr. Horn, habitually underemployed, had been passing the time by shooting a haphazard record of her gestation and had somehow managed to get a signal on his mobile just long enough to reach me on the evening of July the 17th to announce he had decided to take Grant back to the valley in order to get some additional footage to open out the short. This had seemed like a pretty bad idea to me, for any number of reasons. First of all it was raining...

As it happens Grant had gotten into trouble almost at once. Thanks to years of confusion and deliberate obfustication on my behalf neither one quite knew the route and Grant had had ended up slipping during an ill advised attempt to cross the Hepste via a narrow path behind the cataract, falling on his own stills camera in the process and bearing out the notion that it was somehow bad luck to bring cameras into the Zone, let alone Grant or worst of all a combination of the two. The 'chopper however was for some other pilgrim who hadn't gotten off quite so lightly although quite how they had managed to fall off a rock that flat remained a mystery to me.

Swinging my legs into the abyss I sought purchase with the pointy toes of my Durango originals, finding the face subtly changed in my absence but still familiar enough to make the downward climb a doddle. It's the quickest way to reach the valley floor albeit not one for the faint hearted. I descended slowly, working my way crabwise from one handhold to another, dimly hearing the Sea King's engines changing pitch as the automatic winch took up the slack . Just then the dude with the clipboard supervising the BMR guys on the ground glanced up and caught sight of Grant and Mr. Horn gazing quietly down from the rock.  Gesturing franticly at his head he began to shout something, words lost in the roar of the rotors.
"What ?"
"I think he's said something about our hats…"
"What ?!!?"
"HATS !!! I THINK HE WANTS US TO TAKE 'EM OFF !"
"WHAT ?"
"HATS !!! OFF !!!"
The BMR guy nodded fiercely and Mr. Horn complied, figuring the patient must have died and the gesture was required as a sign of respect whereas Grant insisted he'd heard the dude hollerin' somethin' about it being an RAF helicopter and assumed he was supposed to salute the flag on the tail fin. The bullet headed Mountain Rescuer stared , eyebrow twitching for a moment as if trying to figure out whether they were making fun of him or not.  . Then deciding to let it go he hurried away , disappearing into the cauldron of spray whipped up by the rotors.
"The hell was that about ?"
Mr. Horn grunted,  noticing me behind him."I think I've just figured out how Tarkovsky did that shot in 'Mirror'…you know, the one with the gust of wind that comes out of nowhere…" He nodded towards the retreating 'chopper.
"It's really loud…"
"What ?"
"LOUD ! I mean it comes at the end of a dialogue scene…"
"So ?"
The Sea King rounded a curve in the ravine, climbing from sight, engines fading into thunder of the falls.
"I mean you know how Tarkovsky hated ADR…"
"Yeah. And Werner Herzog didn't use a model boat either but I'd say its definitely worth checking out…" He watched as the turbulence in the treetops subsided. Then he put his hat back on. " I mean how would you know if that scene's in synch or not ? You don't even speak Russian.."
I nodded, turning to Grant. "How 'bout you ? You got an opinion on any of this ?"
"I think I've broken my ribs…"
"You don't know for sure ?"
"I fell on my camera…"
"Is the camera okay ?"
"Yeah.It's got a really hard lens" He grimaced, rubbing ruefully at his chest.
" What are the symptoms ? Have you gotten a second opinion ?"
"Well, there's no real bruising but it hurts like fuck."
"Could be some sort of quantum thing. If there's no bruising and no-one has actually observed your ribs to be broken then it could still go either way. I mean you could be dying…but right now the chances are equally likely that there's nothing wrong with you at all…"
Grant thought this through, looking a little nonplussed . In fact he still seemed confused by the fact I was standing there to begin with.
"Have a bicky." I tossed him the packet of hobnobs.
"Got anything else in that bag ?" Mr.Horn orbited closer.
"Only essentials…" I loosened the straps to come up with a tiny horned mannequin: - "I got Moag. A copy of the 'Dunwich Horror' and a bag of nightlights."
"Any more food ?"
"Just the biscuits. Had to keep it light to make time.." I cast about myself for a dry place to put the mannequin, eyes lighting on a strange metal contraption fastened to a length of cable resting beside the tent. "What is that ? Some kind of torture implement ?"
"It's a camera mount."
 
                               

"Looks more like a 21st century solution to witch pricking. Still it makes a groovy l'il chair for Moag…" I perched the mannequin on the camera mount which did indeed resemble a tiny throne. "Get anything good with it ?"
Mr.Horn grumbled something about the light, the vicissitudes of global warming and the lousy state of the nation in general. To be honest the mount's design seemed a li'l cumbersome and it occurred to me he might've been better off with some sort of rectangular arrangement with a cable running through casters on the upper bar and the camera clipped to the lower one instead but now seemed scarcely the time for it. Crouching beside the soggy woodpile I tried to gather the drier pieces of tinder into a volatile configuration.
"I mean it seemed sunnier in the old days.. or are we just getting old ?"
"It was sunny enough in France. You should've been there…"
" Well this place is turning into a fuckin' swamp. This country's finished…"
"Sounds like I got here just in time." I spun the flint of my lighter, wishing there was more kindling.
"In time for what ?"
"It's getting' dark. You know what this place is like when it gets dark…"
The tinder produced a streamer of grey smoke. I leaned closer to blow on it but it had already gone out.
"Have you got any newspaper ?"
He shook his head. "What was that book again ?"
"Hand's off. that's'The Dunwich Horror' – recommended reading…" I worked the flint. This time the tiny flame found purchase and I fed it one twig at a time. " It's a cheap edition so it doesn't matter if it gets a li'l clammy. Help give the text some texture…"
"I'll get the coffee going," Mr Horn started into the gloom, washing out the billy and refilling it from the stream. I stayed with the fire, feeding in the larger sticks, willing it to take hold. When I looked up I saw Grant silently leafing through the Lovecraft anthology, a chocolate biscuit in one hand.
"You ever read that ?"
"I've got it..."
"Back home ? Really ?"
"No. With me." He reached into his knapsack, coming up with an almost identical paperback. "I was planning on reading it down here…"
"Damn ! That take the fuckin' biscuit !"
"What ?" Mr.Horn crouched, propping the billy over the sorry excuse for a fire.
"We've got two copies of the same goddam book ! No food, no fire, no decent drugs but two copies of 'The Dunwich Horror' ! It's gotta be some sort of sign !"
"Yeah…probably not a good one…"
I paused, quite certain I heard something.

And there it was again...
A musical tinkle of laughter.

"What ?"
"Sounded like a chick. Bunch of chicks even …"
Mr.Horn drew himself up to his full height, scanning the darkness. " Shame no-one thought to bring a flashlight…"
" A flashlight's the last thing you need. Probably have the opposite effect. I mean that's where we always went wrong efore. With the 'Blue Water' shoot, for instance…"
I banked up the larger logs, hoping to dry out enough wood to keep us in business.
"So where does Lovecraft fit in to all this ?"
" Lovecraft rated Machen very highly indeed.'Dunwich Horror' takes off on the premise of 'The Great God Pan' and incorporates elements from Machen's mythos. I was just goin' on instinct…" Tearing open the polythene bag I began to stuff my pockets with fistfuls of nightlights. " We've still got an hour or so before moonrise. I suggest you familiarize yourselves with the material…" I thrust the book into his hands before starting towards the falls, Behind us a great silvery glow was slowly spreading across the eastern rim of the valley. Somewhere beyond the hills the moon was already working her magic.
"Damn…but I've missed this place…"

         

I got as close as I could to the cataract without actually getting my boots wet. Then hunkering down I dipped my hands into the river, splashing clear cold water over my face and hair, letting its current calm me, half hearing Grant's voice coming from the ring of firelight, faltering as he struggled to make out the typeface.

"Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras – dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies – may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition – but they were there before ! They are transcripts, types – the archetypes are in us, and eternal…"

Kneeling at the very edge of the void I began to kindle the footlights, slipping the candles into the natural depressions in the limestone that shielded them from the wind, a flickering semi-circle widening slowly behind me. I don't know where the notion of the nightlights had come from, maybe that line in Jim Morrisson's 'American Prayer' about "looking for death at the end of a candle." All I know is that it evolved out of one of the first trips to the valley and being a good idea stuck. I worked my way backwards, sometimes on my knees, sometimes on all fours, setting candles adrift in the rock pools that dotted the undulating limestone surface and suspending others in overhanging trees, trying to recall those long forgotten 'landing protocols'.

                              

"How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to affect us all ? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury ? O, least of all ! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body – or without body, they would have been the same. That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual – that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy – are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence…"

                            

I started off trying to lay out a pentagram but it mutated along the way into something more like that weird graven octagon we'd found last month near the summit of Mount Bugarach. The end result was pleasing enough, the leaping wicks setting off a dozen other dancing shadows and reflections, a labyrinth of light that was an elegant death trap, serving to blind the unwary to the abysses and precipitous torrents that coursed between the beacons. Once misstep in that maze and you'd be lost forever...

I stood gazing out over the footlights, trying to order my thoughts. At first I thought Grant had fallen silent but then I heard a familiar litany of glottal intonations, their jumbled consonants almost lost in the surge of the falls.

"Eh-ya-ya-ya-yahaah-e'yayayayaaaa…ngh'aaaaa…Y'bthnk…h'ehye-n'grkdl'lh…"
I smiled, realizing he was only attempting the italicized phrases that appeared in bolder print. Inclining my head I started back towards the fire, picking my way from one pool of light to another. There was a trick to crossing the stage floor just like there was always a trick to everything here. It entailed keeping your eyes downcast so as to block the direct glare of the flames with the brim of your hat but heaven help the fool who tried to set foot on that floor without appropriate headgear.

"Ygnaiii… Yog-Sothoth…"

The fire had subsided to a ring of embers that emitted so little light it took a beat to make out Mr.Horn's outline huddled in the deepening gloom.
"Where's Grant ?"
" He crashed. 'Bout half an hour ago.." He gestured towards the tent. " Said something about his chest hurting."
"I thought he was reading…I heard his voice…"
"He was. Then it got too dark to know exactly what he was reading so he stopped."
"Probably for the best…" The candle light slanted oddly through the smoke and I narrowed my eyes, trying to work out if I could see something moving in the blackness beyond. "We don't want any repeat performances…"
" No reruns. Not here…" Mr.Horn's voice tailed off as he fumbled for his tobacco pouch:- "But I was hoping to see some original material …"
I nodded, noticing the first faint glimmer of moonlight in the trees at the top of the ridge. "Time we took our seats then, wouldn't you say ? "

                     

2. Wood Green Empire

                      

Night and day are not so much different countries as different worlds, never more so than in the valley. Terrain crossed in minutes that afternoon now presented almost insurpassable obstacles. Great jagged slabs of dripping limestone reared up out of nowhere and black chasms yawned momentarily at our feet as we crawled, slid and clambered over that mossy jumble of cyclopean rocks, working our way slowly higher, towards the top of the ridge, towards the moon and whatever waited there.

I glanced up to see Mr.Horns outline stooped above me like a figure from a particularly grim faerytale , pockets stuffed with nightlights, kindling them as he went. His features, lit from below, seemed oddly transformed, grown stony and troll-like as the hill's alleged inhabitants. What the hell were we doing here, I asked myself ? Grown men with lives and families scrambling over the rocks in the dark like children ? And looking for what ? It may have been one thing when we were still teenagers under the influence of whatever psychedelic had been the order of the day but surely we knew better by now ? What in did we expect to find in this place except damp socks, wet scree and slugs. And more slugs. Bigger and fatter than I'd seen 'em before, swollen and emboldened by the unseasonal damp, etching slimy silver trails across the rain slick rocks as they inched blindly from the threatening light.

The going grew easier as I neared the top of the rise. The rocks really did resemble steps even though they were in all likelihood natural formations and in the moonlight I glimpsed the vague outlines of time worn oghams. At closer inspection some of those markings revealed themselves as little more than lichen and oddly geometric slug tracings but others were less readily defined.

The logs I had banked up must have finally dried out enough for the fire to take hold, a brightening tongue of plasma rising from the forest floor, licking at the fluid night, giving the darkness form. I stopped, disorientated by the abrupt change in perspective, staring out over a kingdom of shadows, the guttering candles in our wake gleaming like campfires on the shores of another world.
"Damn.." I shook my head, trying to get my bearings. "This place…"
Then the words caught and I took a sharp breath. There was something else moving down there, outlined for an instant by the firelight, something that didn't make the blindest bit of sense. The slopes below teemed with furtive movement yet that motion seemed as inherently inhuman as a brood of monitor lizards encircling their prey or a nest of maggots silently battening on carrion. Only they weren't maggots. They were what Anton saw back in '85 and what Grant ran into the night he lost the plot.

I sat down, giggling helplessly.
Front row center. Best goddam seat in the house.

I don't know how long I sat staring down into the well of the night, back where it all began, but it was every bit as wild and unlikely as it had ever been in the years gone by, on drugs or otherwise. After a while I managed to stop giggling long enough to skin up.

Everywhere the shadows teemed with incalculable, buzzing motion. Every rock, branch and hollow seemed to serve as only another perch, another nest, another bower from which flitting, insect eyes followed my slow mammalian movements with an inquisitive yet impartial sentience. Their whirring, hopping forms made no real effort to flee my direct gaze as they might have done in the past, as by all account they were supposed to do but this time however I was not alone. This time I had at my beck and call a professional video camera with night viewing capabilities ! But where was Mr.Horn ?

"Immo ?"

Could he see this ? It was so busy down there, so blatant, so obvious he had to be able to see it too but where in hell was he ? If we could get even a moment of this on tape…

"Hey !"

He had been only a few feet ahead while we were climbing and I assumed he was just behind me watching from the shadows. A light flickered from the crest of the hill and I started towards it.

"Mr.Horn ?"

But it wasn't a nightlight and it wasn't Mr. Horn..

"Damn ! That's out of order…"

A silvery luminescence was rising from a semi-circle of lichen encrusted stones at the top of the ridge. I took a half step closer, trying to convince myself it was reflected moonlight but how could such a thing be possible ? It seemed to be streaming upwards, from out of the earth.

                 

Rim lit by that coruscating glow the stones looked almost like an altar… or a door ? I rubbed my eyes but the illusion persisted. Not only that but the light was getting brighter with every step I took.

"That's so out of order…"

Not knowing what else to do I took off my hat, cautiously raising one hand in a sign of greeting and at that moment something within the stones seemed to silently pop, sending up a burst of pale sparks and incandescent vapour.

"That's impossible…"

But the beauty of it was it didn't care if it was possible or not. It was happening anyway.

"Mr. Horn ! GODAMMIT …"

My rational mind kicked in, telling me Mr.Horn must have brought down some flares or fireworks and was hiding somewhere even now, trying not to laugh, getting a kick out of scaring the bejesus out of me. Sensing a flurry of renewed activity on the valley floor I turned to see him still standing beside the campfire, feeding another log onto the coals. I blinked, trying to figure out how he could have gotten all the way down to the river so quickly ? Had I somehow skipped a beat while I was sitting in that ancient armchair, lost time being one of the classic hallmarks of this sort of malarchy ? Had Mr.Horn really missed the whole show, gotten bored or simply buggered off ? Or had he ever really been there to begin with ? Had I only imagined he'd been climbing beside me earlier ? Admittedly he'd been kind of taciturn during the ascent but he was the silent type and had seemed real enough to pass muster at the time. And where in hell was he getting that firewood from ? Half an hour ago there was hardly enough dry tinder to heat a decent cup of water. Now the flames were licking high enough to all but kindle the overhanging branches, sending great shards of jagged orange light leaping out across the flat rock at the top of the falls. Judging by the colour of the sparks and the intensity of the conflagration he had to be using some form of accelerant which made a kind of sense but even if he'd been messing with chemicals again or had bought up a jobload of old fireworks how could he possibly be letting them off above and below me at the same time ? Granted, a man of his ingenuity might have been able to figure out some sort of routine but the dank weather mitigated against the idea of running current off a concealed car battery and I didn't think he had the funding to go fully remote. Besides, getting the sort of basic ingredients you need to cook those pyro's nowadays has gotten hard. Even simple accelerants such as potassium nitrate are no longer available over the counter in the UK and have to be smuggled piecemeal from the continent. But why would anyone, even someone like Mr.Horn, bother ? Just to pull off a lame fuckin' stunt like this ? Unless it wasn't a stunt. Unless whatever the hell it was was actually happening…

I glanced back at the light streaming up out of the rocks behind me.
Maybe it was a door after all ?

"Ahhh for fucksake …"

There was a throb of distant music and I caught the faint yet unmistakable peal of child-like laughter. Then the clouds parted high above and for the first and only time that night I saw the face of the swollen July moon blazing crazily down at me.

                        

What kind of music was that anyhow ?
And were those drums at all ?
Or rotors ?

I turned, raising one hand to the talisman at my throat, seeing flashlights weaving on the valley floor. The hell were they doing here ? I thought the others knew better than to bring electric light into this place ?

I felt a stab of indignation, crouching and averting my eyes as the probing beams raked past, too many beams to be able to put down to Grant or Mr.Horn. Had someone seen those lights we'd laid out earlier and come to investigate or worse still alerted the goddam BMR ? The thud of engines was louder now or was it just my breath ? Then I caught the flash of what looked like mountain bikes through the trees and heard the crackle of a two way radio. It seemed absurd to kick up this kind of fuss over something so trivial but this was the 21st century after all where anything was possible. Again there came that childish laughter followed by a string of raucous cries and creeping towards the edge of the bluff I tried to make some sort of sense out of what I saw. Those hooded, stunted figures that swarmed about our campfire sure as hell didn't look like they belonged to the BMR unless they'd gone plainclothes and taken to wearing baseball caps and baggy tracksuits for the evening. They looked more like children or young teenagers but whoever they were they were seriously angry about something, kicking vehemently at the fire, strewing sparking embers everywhere. I heard a metallic clang followed by a guffaw of ribald amusement as someone used Mr.Horn's billy for a football and for a moment I wondered what had happened to Horn himself and whether he was still down their in their midst or had fled to safety in the darkness ? He had seemed to be there a moment earlier. And what could possibly have pissed those kids off quite so badly ? Were they drunk ? On drugs ? Just naturally insane ? Could those BMR guys really be crazy enough to return under the cover of darkness to avenge some imagined insult or had the Welsh equivalent of the Chainsaw family moved in to the 'hood in our absence and were even now making sport with whatever campers they could find ? They were certainly making merry with our belongings. I suppose they weren't worth a damn anyhow, not in material terms but while I despaired of my poor Moag mannequin and those scattered books there was worse mischief in the offing..

I saw the tent shredded apart and a pale, kicking figure disgorged like a grub from within. I couldn't tell if it were Grant or not but he was going to end up with more than a few cracked ribs judging by the way those kids were laying into him. His cries grew high and feminine as they grew intermittent but no matter who it was down there, noone deserved that treatment. At first I watched without a word as if a hand were holding my mouth. I had sat out one murder that day but this was too much. By half...

Slipping the SS dagger from my boot I found voice. Drawing myself to my full height I shrieked down at them but the kids only jeered and shrieked right back, making no effort this time to hide their faces. Then with a yell of laughter they scattered into the bracken, flashlights weaving between the trunks as I started at them but there were more than just a few feet of very rough ground between us and no ready way of closing it.

I slid to a halt on the brink of the cliff, visual purple shot to shit by those beams.
I needed to be pretty goddam limber to pull a routine like this, more limber than I felt just now. Kindling a nightlight I tried to work my way back down that wet jumble of boulders at least a li'l more slowly but the breeze coming up off the river fought the flame every inch of the way, forcing me to shield and nurture the spark with the brim of my hat whilst simultaneously blocking the direct flare of its wick from my eyes so that I might have some chance of not breaking an ankle which forced me in turn to keep my knife firmly in my boot where it probably belonged. Only my boots kept skidding and the only way to go was down. Worst of all the wind kept loughing and changing tack, requiring me to keep my hat brim moving and the rest of my body moving with it, the sputtering wick casting a perfect pool of gliding light across the underside of the overarching canopy of leaves in the midst of which I saw my own madly dancing shadow effortlessly contained. It was all so out of order I began to giggle and then the giggling got out of hand and I couldn't stop. I skidded, caught myself and slipped again, my shadow leaping from rock to rock, down and down into the very maw of the ravine.

I was losing altitude fast and doing alright but I sure wouldn't want to try doing this at home. But maybe this was my home ? I mean if any place had a right to kill me this was it. This one had my name on it from the top. Mayhap my heart belonged in Montsegur but this obscure corner of the Welsh backwoods had a most reasonable prior claim on my corpse. It wanted me to stay and to some extent I wanted to belong. Its chasms called me to rest my sleepy head and bury my bones, to allow its bugs and slugs and weevils to eat me, its grubs to fatten on my marrow and make me part of 'em, part of this place, part of the hill, forever and ever, world without end. Or worm without end. Whichever first. Leg before wicket. Amen.

God knows what any of it really looked like from the outside but then I don't believe in God. Not in that sense.
I do however believe in Cuban heels.

3. Hollow... Loosen…

I hit the ground laughing. It was one of the stupidest fuckin' things I'd ever done but I reached the bottom of the gorge in record time, candle clenched in my fist still miraculously ablaze, body upright, bones unbroken. Granted I was a li'l off course. The wind was rising steadily and there was more rain behind it, the other candles winking out one by one causing me to lose my bearings but then I caught sight of the campfire a hundred yards to my right and waded towards it, not enitirely sure if I was actually on the bank or floundering in the shallows. When you're that damp and crazy to begin with it can be hard to tell. After what happened back in Montsegur I'd learned to be cautious when it came to getting too close to the goddam water. Certainly that campsite seemed dark as a grave. Oddly peaceful too after the unholy chaos I'd witnessed earlier. But where were those goddam kids anyhow ? I crouched... and froze.

I mean I'd seen some shit that night but this went the extra mile…

As I brought up my knife hand I noticed what looked like long emerald blades of fine green grass trailing from my bare forearm as if growing out of it.
"The fuck… '
I brushed at the clinging blades and for a queasy moment they actually resisted.
"…are you doing ?!!?"
My hand pulled free, the gossamer threads curling away. I caught my breath, half convinced it had been a trick of the light after all. Then as I lowered my hand again those strands of  grass coiled right back out of nowhere,  seeking purchase.
"I'll be…"
 It was alive and trying to hold onto me in the only way it knew.
"Damned…"
I was so preoccupied by this unsettling discovery I scarely saw the man shaped outline that loomed in my path. Then it cleared it's throat and I realized I was no longer alone in that well of shadows.
"Hey !"
Mr. Horn stared silently back for the longest moment, each of us trying to work out whether the other was really human.
"Okay ?" He ventured.
"Goddam grass was tryin' to grow into me…"
He nodded , doing his best to take this on board.
"Where in hell were you anyhow ?"
He shuffled uneasily from one foot to another, trying to piece together the sequence of events: " I thought you were just behind me on the way up. Then I saw the lights in the valley and figured you must have gone back down to the campfire…"
"You mean you were up there all along ?" I nodded dazedly towards the ridge and that eerie effulgence that radiated upwards from its crest. The storm was closing fast now and the moon was only a distant, fleeting memory lost behind an inky wall of cloud.. "But I saw you… or I saw someone like you I guess… stoking up the fire…doin' a really good job too..just before those fuckin' kids turned up…"
" I just got here now. It was harder going down. Than up, I mean…"
" But the kids ! You must have seen 'em, right ? Those li'l fuckers with the flashlights ? They were all over this place… like a plague…" I noticed my pack still resting beside the neatly banked firewood that had seemingly never caught fire to begin with. I had seen blood running in streams in that non-existent light as those ugly, stunted children brayed with laughter but could find no trace of it now on the moist green grass. The campsite seemed a picture of tranquillity where only the liveliest awfulness had reigned before.
"I thought that was you running about with the flashlights…"
" I don't have a flashlight !"
" I know. It did seem out of character. Like there was more than one of you down here to begin with…"
I giggled, noticing Moag watching quietly from his crazy metal throne. I figured he'd come through okay. His credit was good in this place. Besides he's an inanimate object which gives him a certain edge; - " and Grant ?"

" He crashed. Three…I dunno… maybe four hours ago now" Mr Horn gestured towards the tent. " Said something about his chest hurting."
I followed his eyeline. The tent was still there and I had every reason to assume Grant was still inside. Either dead or asleep. It didn't seem to matter any more.
" Didn't you see any of it ? The kids ? The helicopter ? The fuckin' lights…"
"The helicopter was real. This afternoon. I managed to get some of that on camera. Not much. But some…"
" No. Just now, I mean… didn't you hear it ?"
He shook his head.
"Damn. I must be really goin' crazy. Thought it was all goin' to hell down here. That my number was up for sure…"
Mr. Horn thought it slowly through: -"I did see something strange though. On my way back down to the camp…something I don't understand. Even though I'm not on drugs…I mean I'm not tripping or anything…"
"I know. "
"But I saw what looked like these two mechanical arms, digging their way out of the ground with these… kind of jointed, machine fingers…moving…as if they were choosing or selecting something…" He demonstrated with his own hands, thrusting them stiffly out as if they were Waldo arms: -"then moving again as if making another selection…like shuffling cards…"
"Weird."
" You didn't see anything like that, right ?"
I shook my head. " But I'd like to know where you thought you saw 'em…"
There was only one remaining nightlight left now about halfway up the valley wall and Mr. Horn cast about himself in the deepening gloom, eventually indicating an area at the base of the scree. "Seemed so clear for a while… digging … choosing … choosing again…"
"That's the exact spot where Carl digs his way out of the grave at the end of the 'Blue Water' video. Back when he still had that weird steel glove like Freddy Kruger… clawin' his way back up from hell.." I knelt, gingerly touching the moist earth, half expecting to still find it warm. "Probably that same embryonic sequence that inspired a lot of the 'Hardware' imagery now you mention it…"
Mr.Horn shivered but whether it was from the cold or the damp or the thought of what he had seen I couldn't tell. "This fucking place…"
"I know." I stood, wiping my hands on my jeans;- "It wanted to hold on to me. Hold on to all of us. And those children…whatever the hell they were… I didn't make that up. They were real too. I mean, it never actually happened but on some level you know it fuckin' happened… still happenin'…Look !" I glanced up, stabbing my finger at the shadowy figures that watched even now from the slope above.
"What the…"
"There ! Do you see 'em ?!?"
He nodded, narrowing his eyes, trying to focus on the pale, oddly childlike forms caught for an instant in the guttering halo of the failing candle, the last honest to God point of light for seven miles or more as the crow flies.. The wind blew stronger causing the flame to leap momentarily higher, those hunched figues gaining resolution, crowding closer.
Then the wind loughed and their outlines came apart, becoming something meaningless, disintegrating into shadows, into billowing foliage, into nothing.
"It's like…grass…blowing in the wind…but…"
"Yeah ? Look again !" The taper flickered, brightening for an instant, briefly illuminating the barren scree. "There's no fuckin' grass there ! Not now…look… nothin' but bare fuckin' rock !"
Mr. Horn blinked. But it was true.
Then the night wind rallied, the shadows changing tack and those trembling, swathing strands curled back into existence, becoming or trying to become people again.
"What is that ?"
" You tell me ! Don't suppose you've got a flashlight by any chance ?"
Mr. Horn shook his head, staring ashen faced as the watchers wove themselves together, one emerald strand coiling about another, tightening and thickening before our eyes.
"Why does no-one around here ever have a flashlight when we fuckin' need one ?"
He shrugged; - "I dunno… what we're looking at… what in hell that is…"
"I don't think it knows either. One moment its grass, then children, then whatever the hell it wants to be. It was trying to grow into me but I think I caught it just in time, trying to get under my skin or into my veins somehow. Like somethin' out of 'Invasion of the fuckin' Body Snatchers'…" I raised my hands, wishing it were bright enough to be absolutely sure. " Probably runnin' this whole goddam country by now. Maybe that's why everything's so fucked up…" I brought the palms of my hands together as if in prayer, just to make certain they were still warm, to make sure I was still human after all, my gaze returning to that weird, coruscating light that flickered silently upwards from beneath the spine of the hill. "And while we're at do you feel like venturing an opinion on where that light's coming from ? Can't be reflected moonlight 'cause the moon's long gone. At first I thought you were lettin' off flares or pyro pots up there. But you weren't, were you ?"
He shook his head again, getting the drift: "As a matter of fact I had a bunch of stuff on order but it didn't turn up in time. . It hard to get the right ingredients these days…"
"So, Mr. Lighting cameraman, tell me, where's the fuckin' light source ?"
" Looks like its coming up somehow… out of the hill…"
"Out of the earth… Pity we couldn't get so much as a single soddin' frame on tape, wouldn't you say ?"
"It's too dark. Not enough light to even register…"
"Not now." The candle sizzled ominously as if the light were being sucked out of the air the outlines of the watchers gaining focus with every breath, seemingly more solid than ourselves now.
"Shit ! What are those things ?"
"Djinn ? Spirits of dust and fire ? Elementals ? Nature spirits ? At least they've probably got more in common with wood lice than with you or me. Or Tinkerbelle for that matter…"
"And if you had gotten one on tape ? What then ?"
"I would've posted it on YouTube ! At least folk wouldn't have had to take our word for it then. They could've seen for themselves…"
"They'd just think you were using some sort of weird ass animation package…"
"I know.But it would've been a start. You believe in faeries right ?"
Mr. Horn pursed his lips. The pale figures were all around us now, gliding silently across the scree, the faltering taper no longer enough to keep them at bay.
"Well, you'd better. 'Cause you're lookin at 'em !"
All that remained of the old, warm world, all that we knew or understood was confined to that rapidly tightening circle of light. Outside the circle lay everything that was strange and frightening and the darkness seemed to reach higher and higher and further away to the end of the world itself.

" Go on…"

The tiny tongue of plasma clung precariously to existence for a moment longer.
Then it sputtered and went out .

"Make a wish !"

There was musical tinkle of child like laughter.

                                      

4. Their ways...

" All through July I came upon traces of evil rumours affecting this most gracious corner of the earth. Of course no first hand evidence was available. There was never any first hand evidence in these cases. But A knew B who had heard from C that her second cousin's little girl had been set upon and beaten by a pack of Welsh savages…Yet all the while the story grew more more monstrous and incredible: visitor's children had not only been beaten, they had been tortured; a little boy had been found impaled on a stake in a lonely field near Manavon; another child had been lured to destruction over the cliffs at Castell Coch… I was telling my landlord about these beastly children and wondering who they could be when he broke into Welsh, something like "the battle that is for age unto ages; and the People take delight in it.""
– Arthur Machen 'Out of the Earth'

                                            

"Morning ?"

Grant emerged cautiously from the tent, to see me still sitting beside the cold ashes, a book in my lap.
"Been up all night ?"
I nodded.
" Reading mostly. Got through 'Dunwich Horror' and then went back to Machen…"
" Quiet one, then ?".
"Quiet enough."
"I thought I heard voices…" He staggered down to the riverbank, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, a little surprised to find the billy lying so far away from the fire. " You haven't seen anyone else up here ?"
"No-one you'd want to meet." I turned the page, picking up where I had left off.

"…I recollected: a matter of our little boy straying away more than once, and getting lost among the sand dunes and coming back screaming, evidently frightened horribly, and babbling about 'funny children'. We took no notice; did not trouble, I think, to look whether there were any children wandering about the dunes or not. We are accustomed to his small imaginations…"

Grant rubbed at his teeth with one finger and then stood once more, gazing out at the brightening skyline.The clouds swirling over the treetops were starting to break up, showing the first patches of blue.

                                 


"Hence the explanation of what puzzled you at first; the rumours, how did they arise ?

They arose from nursery gossip, from scraps and odds and ends of half-articulate children's talk of horrors that they didn't understand, of words that shamed their nurses and their mother. These little people of the earth rise up and rejoice in these times of ours. For they are glad, as the Welshman said, when they know that men follow in their ways…"

                            

For a moment there was only silence and the soughing of the wind in the trees.
"You got the time on you ?"
"Probably time we woke up Mr.Horn and struck camp…"  I gathered my leather jacket, slipping the paperback horror anthology into its pocket beside the bag of husked out nightlights I'd retrieved earlier.
"Just hold on…Hold on one minute…"
"What ?"
"There's something on your jacket…"
"What sort of something ?" I glanced down at myself, thinking for a moment he meant the adhesive back stage pass still clinging to my sleeve.
" I dunno. I thought maybe it belonged to you. You want me to get it off ?"
" I suppose you'd better. It might be poisonous…"
I stood still for a moment as he dusted at my lapel. "Damn…its stubborn."
"Don't hurt it."
"The hell is that thing ?"

We stared down at the dislodged critter as it wriggled in the dirt. It looked a bit like a cross between a woodlouse and a scorpion only they don't have scorpions in Wales. It was pale white and had more eyes and legs than I could get an easy fix on. Then it righted itself and vanished into the rocks.

"Whatever it was sure seemed to like you. Didn't want to let go…"
"Nice to be wanted, I guess. I mean I 'd love to stick around and all but we're on a schedule here." I checked my watch. It was exactly 24 hours since I'd placed that call to Rob and if I was going to get those tapes up to Hitchin' then it was high time we hauled ass and patched ourselves back into the mixing board of human experience. Four and a half miles to the road.

Downhill all the way…

                                  

Epitaph

At the mouth of the valley, where the Melte River flows out into the Vale of Neath stands the remains of an abandonned Nissan hut, decorated with images of various terrifying struggles between man and fish. The shed once housed an organization known as 'Nomad's Deep Sea Angling Club'...


            

Not only is it a considerable distance from anything that could be remotely described as the sea but stands perhaps as an obscure metatextual reminder of those oddly persistent links between the 'walkin' man' and the 'one that got away'.

                  

A few hundred yards beyond the hut is a tiny well tended churchyard containing the last resting place of Richard Stanley.

                  

The presence of several sons of the Rowlands clan in the neighbouring plots hints provide a clue to the broader narrative. My celebrated ancestor Sir Henry Morton Stanley was born out of wedlock in Denbigh, Wales in 1841 where he was chistened John Rowlands after his presumed father. His mother Elizabeth Parry surrendered him to the not so tender loving care of Saint Asaph's workhouse from whence he fled as a young teenager, working his way to the States as a cabin boy and a bare knuckle boxer before enlisting in the American Civil War on the side of confideracy. He survived Shiloh and a Yankee internment camp before switching sides, desserting and returning to the old country to seek out his birth mother who promptly rejected him all over again. Vowing to have nothing more to do with Wales he cobbled together the pseudonym Henry Morton Stanley from the names of his first employers and returned to America to re-enlist.

Several members of the family that had rejected him as a child later adopted the nomme de plume to emphasize their blood ties with the famous explorer and despite the fact that the very mention of his birth place was an anathema to the great man his name proved to be a popular one back in the 'hood . When directly asked by Francis Galton in front of a crowd of three thousand people at Brighton on 18 august 1872 to confirm whether or not he was really a Welshman Stanley somehow managed to slide around the issue with a typically long winded answer concerning the multitude of ethnicities making up the modern 'British Empire'…

                  

It was a peaceful enough corner of the Empire and I might have stopped off to skin up on my own grave if I hadn't been running against the clock but noticing how long our shadows had become I thought it best to shake a leg.

Jenna Parry, the 17th victim of the Bridgend suicide 'cluster,' who had been found hanged in the woods last febuary was a direct descendant of Elizabeth Parry and hence a not so distant blood relative. As for the 'Rees' part - well, my current flatmate's ex-husband is named 'Rees' but that's probably just a meaningless coincidence....

                                             

This is Richard Stanley, the last free man in River City, signing off...