Read Online The Stranger House by Reginald Hill - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Reginald Hill
Ads: Link
twisty bit of road that overtaking was quite impossible. Nor did things improve when finally the man pulled in at a farm gate. The anticipated long straight empty stretches where he could gun the engine didn’t materialize. The road wound onwards and upwards, so far upwards that, despite the clearing skies he’d observed earlier, he found himself running into a patchwork of mist whose threads finally conjoined into an all-enveloping quilt. Full headlights bounced back off the shrouding whiteness. Dipped headlights showed just enough of the road to permit a crawling advance.
Then the road began to go downhill and he thought the worst was over. So much for these so-called mountains, if such low heights deserved the term. Wasn’t there another word they used up here? Fells, that was it. Not mountains but fells. A modest little word for modest little eminences.
But even as he relaxed, the road began to climb again. Ten minutes later, as the curves became zigzags and an ever-increasing angle of ascent meant that from his low seat he spent as much time looking up at the sky as downat the road, he recalled his mother’s reaction when he’d bought the sporty Merc. She’d objected to almost everything about it but hadn’t mentioned he might find himself driving on worse roads than he’d encountered in the Sierra Nevada. God must be really pissed with him!
Soon he was back in the mist. Things weren’t helped by the fact that many sheep seemed to regard this twisting ribbon of tarmac as their own personal mattress. Nor were they in a hurry to get out of his way. Slowly they’d rise, stare at him resentfully for a long moment, then step aside with no sign of haste. Some even took a step or two towards the car first and struck an aggressive hoof against the ground.
Dear God, if the sheep were like this round here, how did real wild animals react?
Then at last he was on the flat for a short space before the road began to descend. It was still twisty and narrow and steep but the lower he got, the thinner the mist got, till suddenly he was completely free of it. Above he could see a sky crowded with stars and, even more comfortingly, below he could glimpse the occasional twinkle of house-lights.
Soon he was running along a valley bottom, the road still narrow and bendy but at least it was flanked by walls and hedgerows which kept livestock in their proper domain. He met a couple of other cars and, despite the inconvenience of having to back fifty yards at one point to enable safe passage, he was glad of their company. When he saw the brightly lit windows and well-filled car park of a small hotel, he was tempted to turn in. But a glance at his screen told him he was close to his destination now and he pressed on.
The next road to the right should take him into Skaddale. He almost missed it, but was driving slowlyenough to be able to brake and turn. There was no signpost but as his map showed no other turn-off for miles, this had to be the one.
After a few minutes his certainty was fading. The road soon grew narrow and serpentine and though he had no sense of rising terrain, he found that once more skeins of mist were winding themselves around his windows. He began to wish he had succumbed to the lure of the brightly lit hotel. To make matters worse, he had begun to experience that strong sense of ghostly presence as he drove up the valley. He resisted it—the last thing a man driving along a narrow road in a mist wanted was the company of ghosts—but the price of resistance was the onset of a bad migraine. It was as if the mist had somehow got into his head where it swirled around wildly, occasionally pierced by dogtooth lines of brightness like the after impression of a light bulb’s filament. The laptop screen was going crazy too. It was all jags of light and swirls of colour, no longer a map, at least not a map of any place you wanted to be. He switched it off. It didn’t help.
In the end he had to pull up. He felt
Then the road began to go downhill and he thought the worst was over. So much for these so-called mountains, if such low heights deserved the term. Wasn’t there another word they used up here? Fells, that was it. Not mountains but fells. A modest little word for modest little eminences.
But even as he relaxed, the road began to climb again. Ten minutes later, as the curves became zigzags and an ever-increasing angle of ascent meant that from his low seat he spent as much time looking up at the sky as downat the road, he recalled his mother’s reaction when he’d bought the sporty Merc. She’d objected to almost everything about it but hadn’t mentioned he might find himself driving on worse roads than he’d encountered in the Sierra Nevada. God must be really pissed with him!
Soon he was back in the mist. Things weren’t helped by the fact that many sheep seemed to regard this twisting ribbon of tarmac as their own personal mattress. Nor were they in a hurry to get out of his way. Slowly they’d rise, stare at him resentfully for a long moment, then step aside with no sign of haste. Some even took a step or two towards the car first and struck an aggressive hoof against the ground.
Dear God, if the sheep were like this round here, how did real wild animals react?
Then at last he was on the flat for a short space before the road began to descend. It was still twisty and narrow and steep but the lower he got, the thinner the mist got, till suddenly he was completely free of it. Above he could see a sky crowded with stars and, even more comfortingly, below he could glimpse the occasional twinkle of house-lights.
Soon he was running along a valley bottom, the road still narrow and bendy but at least it was flanked by walls and hedgerows which kept livestock in their proper domain. He met a couple of other cars and, despite the inconvenience of having to back fifty yards at one point to enable safe passage, he was glad of their company. When he saw the brightly lit windows and well-filled car park of a small hotel, he was tempted to turn in. But a glance at his screen told him he was close to his destination now and he pressed on.
The next road to the right should take him into Skaddale. He almost missed it, but was driving slowlyenough to be able to brake and turn. There was no signpost but as his map showed no other turn-off for miles, this had to be the one.
After a few minutes his certainty was fading. The road soon grew narrow and serpentine and though he had no sense of rising terrain, he found that once more skeins of mist were winding themselves around his windows. He began to wish he had succumbed to the lure of the brightly lit hotel. To make matters worse, he had begun to experience that strong sense of ghostly presence as he drove up the valley. He resisted it—the last thing a man driving along a narrow road in a mist wanted was the company of ghosts—but the price of resistance was the onset of a bad migraine. It was as if the mist had somehow got into his head where it swirled around wildly, occasionally pierced by dogtooth lines of brightness like the after impression of a light bulb’s filament. The laptop screen was going crazy too. It was all jags of light and swirls of colour, no longer a map, at least not a map of any place you wanted to be. He switched it off. It didn’t help.
In the end he had to pull up. He felt
Similar Books
