Read Online The Hollowing by Robert Holdstock - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Holdstock
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house. If there had ever been carved features they were long since obliterated by rain and time, but he thought he could faintly discern a gaping mouth and the outline of a wide, blind eye.
Crouching, he crawled below the statue, still feeling along the brick wall, and after a moment stepped into a cleared space, now grassy and filled with flowers and nettles, extending from what had once been french windows. He saw, too, that people had been here recently.
He stepped into the house. The vegetation in the room had been scythed down and the smell of fresh sap was still strong. Through the covering of nettles and ivy he could see the fragmentary remains of furniture. A tree, a substantial oak, grew in the middle of the room, and Richard was puzzled: this was old; had the owners built their house around the oak?
He was startled as birds moved noisily above him, where the ceiling had collapsed and branches entwined, and stepped outside again. A small beaten path led from this glade to what had once been a backyard, and here a wider space had been cleared, bounded by thick saplings, but quite light. A ramshackle shed still stood here, and he could see the remains of a fence and gate forty yards away, where the trees grew thick and dark again. The garden area spread away from the creeper-covered hole of the back door, through which he now passed.
Inside he found the kitchen, a heavy marble work-surface, and the remains of fires and food on the floor. He saw, too, the gleam of light on a tracery of wires, and investigated more closely.
There were five wires in all, each the thickness of fuse wire. They had been run to and from various points, out around the perimeter of the garden clearing. There was no electric charge in them. They were just higher than Richard’s head and did not seem designed to trap anything. Where they joined the house they were attached to tiny terminals, and around each terminal a gold spiral had been impressed upon the brick.
A sudden wind gusted and the wood swayed restlessly, then was still again. In the sudden silence Richard heard the sound of electricity deeper in the house, and he followed the murmur to its source. In a box in the middle of what might have been a parlour—he could still see the wallpaper and a sodden, fungus-covered armchair below the ivy—he found a small machine, like a miniature radio. It had two needle dials, one of which was flickering. Gold and copper wires led from four sockets into the ground around it, and from a fifth vertically to the exposed laths of the ceiling where the plaster had fallen. The machine emitted the faintest smell of ozone.
As he stepped away from it, the needle on the active dial registered something strongly, then faded. As he approached again the needle quivered but remained essentially inert, only to react suddenly with great swings to the extreme, even though Richard had neither moved nor breathed. It was not responding to him, then.
At this same moment the birds outside fled through the foliage and something crashed away from the house, making a sound that might have been a cry, or perhaps laughter.
Unnerved, suddenly claustrophobic, Richard kicked his way through the tangled undergrowth and out of the overwhelming gloom of Ryhope Wood, back to the field. His head ached and his vision was askew. He rubbed his eyes but they kept watering, the edges of his vision blurred. He was getting a migraine, he imagined, something from which he suffered when he was very stressed.
Oddly, he felt quite relaxed at the moment, merely a little spooked.
He lay back on the damp ground and watched the swirl of grim, grey clouds above. Slowly his vision returned to normal. The breeze made the moisture in his eyes sting with cold.
* * *
The gallop was returning. He could hear the drum of hooves, the shouts of delight and encouragement as the five riders stretched their charges to the limit, galloping up the slope, a hundred yards or so from where he
Crouching, he crawled below the statue, still feeling along the brick wall, and after a moment stepped into a cleared space, now grassy and filled with flowers and nettles, extending from what had once been french windows. He saw, too, that people had been here recently.
He stepped into the house. The vegetation in the room had been scythed down and the smell of fresh sap was still strong. Through the covering of nettles and ivy he could see the fragmentary remains of furniture. A tree, a substantial oak, grew in the middle of the room, and Richard was puzzled: this was old; had the owners built their house around the oak?
He was startled as birds moved noisily above him, where the ceiling had collapsed and branches entwined, and stepped outside again. A small beaten path led from this glade to what had once been a backyard, and here a wider space had been cleared, bounded by thick saplings, but quite light. A ramshackle shed still stood here, and he could see the remains of a fence and gate forty yards away, where the trees grew thick and dark again. The garden area spread away from the creeper-covered hole of the back door, through which he now passed.
Inside he found the kitchen, a heavy marble work-surface, and the remains of fires and food on the floor. He saw, too, the gleam of light on a tracery of wires, and investigated more closely.
There were five wires in all, each the thickness of fuse wire. They had been run to and from various points, out around the perimeter of the garden clearing. There was no electric charge in them. They were just higher than Richard’s head and did not seem designed to trap anything. Where they joined the house they were attached to tiny terminals, and around each terminal a gold spiral had been impressed upon the brick.
A sudden wind gusted and the wood swayed restlessly, then was still again. In the sudden silence Richard heard the sound of electricity deeper in the house, and he followed the murmur to its source. In a box in the middle of what might have been a parlour—he could still see the wallpaper and a sodden, fungus-covered armchair below the ivy—he found a small machine, like a miniature radio. It had two needle dials, one of which was flickering. Gold and copper wires led from four sockets into the ground around it, and from a fifth vertically to the exposed laths of the ceiling where the plaster had fallen. The machine emitted the faintest smell of ozone.
As he stepped away from it, the needle on the active dial registered something strongly, then faded. As he approached again the needle quivered but remained essentially inert, only to react suddenly with great swings to the extreme, even though Richard had neither moved nor breathed. It was not responding to him, then.
At this same moment the birds outside fled through the foliage and something crashed away from the house, making a sound that might have been a cry, or perhaps laughter.
Unnerved, suddenly claustrophobic, Richard kicked his way through the tangled undergrowth and out of the overwhelming gloom of Ryhope Wood, back to the field. His head ached and his vision was askew. He rubbed his eyes but they kept watering, the edges of his vision blurred. He was getting a migraine, he imagined, something from which he suffered when he was very stressed.
Oddly, he felt quite relaxed at the moment, merely a little spooked.
He lay back on the damp ground and watched the swirl of grim, grey clouds above. Slowly his vision returned to normal. The breeze made the moisture in his eyes sting with cold.
* * *
The gallop was returning. He could hear the drum of hooves, the shouts of delight and encouragement as the five riders stretched their charges to the limit, galloping up the slope, a hundred yards or so from where he
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