Chapter One
Ely McCluskey became aware of the smoke first, a sight which made him stop weeding and stare, stare Northwards and up into the air. Great swathes of acrid mess, the colour of ash, seemed to drift on the wind, float from the land owned by those religious fruitcakes over the hill. Across the field from Ely, his son paused in the work to glance from billowing clouds of greyness to his father and back again. Danny waited to see if some non-verbal signal from the old man would let him know how to proceed. Sure enough, after a minute of motionless deliberation, Ely abandoned his work and set off, walking purposefully toward the adjacent road where his truck was parked. Without needing a gesture, Danny moved from his position to join him, across the ploughed soil.
The rattle of the truck's diesel engine broke the quiet clarity of morning as Ely sped down lanes he'd traversed his whole life. Beside him Danny pulled out a battered mobile phone and checked the power level, just to do something. It seemed the device would need recharging later that day. He only used the phone to inform his mother when they were coming for meals or when arranging to meet up with friends at the local pub, but like most kids his age Danny became slightly anxious if the device wasn't constantly to hand. Ely's son was seventeen, a ruddy, noiseless type, one of nature's farmhands, lacking the intelligence or wherewithal to escape the family heritage. Pretty soon Ely would have to get used to thinking of his only child as a man, something he'd have to force himself to do. Danny remained very much a boy.
They approached the source of the smoke, a haze which enveloped the whole horizon, blocking out the blue sky on this chilly January day. The only fumes Ely had seen rising from the fruitcakes' land before were thin plumes, a sight you'd associate with burning compost heaps or a campfire. This was something else altogether, a sight on a par with those fires back when foot and mouth infected the country. A time of great emotion in rural parts when Ely had been forced to stand aside as the army came to execute healthy livestock with bolt guns, throwing the cadavers onto a great, burning pyre, like something medieval and unreal.
Danny swung down from the vehicle as it ground to a halt, a gate barring the strangers' territory from the rest of the area. On the metal struts a sign warned anyone who wasn't affiliated with S.O.N. that they were trespassing and would be dealt with accordingly. Normally Ely wouldn't have opened the gate for love nor money, not wishing to go anywhere near those weirdoes, the source of so many strange rumours passing through local circles. Who could tell what they'd do if you ventured onto their property? The entranceway was secured with a large padlock and heavy metal chain when Ely had driven by in the past, but this time there was no such anchor. Danny simply had to push the gate with all his might, allowing them the freedom to drive on.
Negotiating his way up the unfamiliar lane, Ely was assailed by another sense-memory relating to the bad days of that viral disease which decimated his industry. The man swept strands of thinning white hair back over his head. Ely had hoped he would never again experience this sensation, a feeling of being engulfed by the smell of burning flesh. He struggled to pull a worn handkerchief from his pocket to cover nose and mouth, looking across to his son whose face remained impassive. The man wondered if that worry and fear he felt was beginning to show on his features, he hoped not. The driver motioned to the object in Danny's hand and told the boy to dial 999, requesting all three services. The boy did so in his usual gruff manner, advising the telephonist to send vehicles to a field off the Old Skelton Way. By the time he finished the call their truck was within sight of the structures which made up the large farm. The outbuildings and farmhouse remained untouched, what looked like converted animal enclosures and greenhouses were unaffected by the fire, but beyond them the source of smoke became obvious. The huge barn was ablaze.
Ely parked his truck beside the farmhouse and grabbed whatever items might prove useful from compartments, indicating Danny should do the same. They took tools, bandages and a bottle of water before Ely switched the engine off. It was at this point, as the coughs of the cantankerous old vehicle faded away, that a high-pitched wail became audible across the yard, one banshee-like call, a pained scream. Danny raced after his father around the farmhouse wall, the two of them confronted with the vision Ely most feared.
The barn was enormous, perhaps fifty metres by a hundred. Flames and roiling smoke spilled from window-slits and rose up the outside walls before dispersing into the air. Sections of the roof were wooden and alight, adding to the choking fumes which came from the construction. The scent of fuel, perhaps petrol or kerosene, hung heavy around them, mixing with the gut-wrenching odour of scorched meat. A smell which, along with the intermittent moaning, told Ely there were dozens of people inside. And all of them were dying.
The older man motioned for his son to stay well back. With the claw of his hammer, Ely began to prise at the nails securing planks of wood over the barn doors. Danny did what he was told, stayed back and marvelled, not for the first time, at how a lifetime of working the land kept his father strong and sprightly even as he approached sixty. The cries from beyond the door continued as Ely, sweating with the heat and exertion, used a foot against the wall as leverage, the nails coming free without too much difficulty, some no more that half an inch into the thick wood. One piece of timber came free and fell to the mud-streaked tarmac beneath his feet, then another, and a third, Ely having to turn away every thirty seconds or so to raise the dirty cloth to his face, attempting to breathe oxygen through the material. When the fifth and final two by four came free, Ely paused before reaching for the handle halfway up the eight foot entrance. The door came ajar inch by inch, waves of smoke billowing out toward Danny with each tug his father gave.
Heart-pounding from the effort and nauseated by the sickly tang of roasted flesh, Ely took a step away from the barn, bent over and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground. Behind him Danny could only watch in horrified fascination, the scene inside becoming terribly vivid through the vapoury gloom.
Inside charred remains littered the floor. Two corpses, blackened and smoking, were entwined in each others' arms. Around the pair tens of others lay face down or kneeling, many still alight, human forms gradually becoming unrecognisable the further he looked. Danny continued to stare into this charnel house, unable to turn away until a horrific sight jolted him alert. Emerging from the shadows came a smoking figure, wraith-like in its forward motion, feral noises issuing from somewhere deep in its throat. The boy took a step backwards, fighting his instinct to run and squinted to get a better look. The ghoulish being was a woman, that much was clear from her swollen belly and clothing, material which burned terribly. In fact much of this female was on fire, her hair, her arms, her chest and back. Danny's second reaction was to rush toward her and help, but the damage was far too advanced for his efforts to do any good. Instead the boy went on watching, eyes fixed and mouth open, as the flames licked at the woman, melting the flesh of her belly and freeing the foetus there. The unborn child flopped disgustingly from her body, hit the ground and sizzled away into a puddle of blood and viscera on the tarmac. Then nothing, just a red stain. Yet for a split second there the child was recognisably human, four tiny limbs and a face, that face which held a clear expression, turning from confusion to utter terror instantly. Danny felt his legs give out and collapsed to the ground, forcing his eyes away. The blackened shell which remained, all that was left of the melted thing's mother, crumpled like wet cardboard.
When the retching ceased Ely gathered all his remaining strength to see if there was anything he could do for the victims. Though beams and sections of the barn still smoked the structure looked solid enough, the man taking a glance inside which told him they were too late. Afterwards, and for the rest of his life, Ely would remember those dead in their prone positions, night-black and virtually shapeless. There were tens of corpses, some with flames still licking at what was once their skin, others just heaps of mangled remains, like piles of soot or carbon sculptures. At that moment Ely didn't take much in, a smouldering hand having enclosed his ankle when he stepped into the barn. Ely was not someone who allowed himself to feel abject terror, saw fear as undignified in a man, but during those seconds his heart leapt into his mouth and the urge to flee overwhelmed the farmer. With all his remaining resources Ely fought off this urge and looked down at the thing which held him.
Somehow the man was still alive. Ely knew it was a man because of his hands, otherwise it would have been difficult to tell. His body was a charred mass, one hundred per cent burns, all black except for those piercing blue eyes which implored Ely to bend down and listen to what the shrivelled lips were trying to say. He did so, catching the words "stop" and "get" but little else, the man relinquishing his grip on Ely and dying, dying right there in front of him, those last utterances in the world drowned out by the sirens of emergency vehicles.
Ely struggled to pull himself together, they would have to meet these authorities who arrived with their questions and procedures. Outside the barn another cadaver lay face down on the tarmac, Danny crouched beside it, a soft whimpering coming from the boy as he clutched at himself, head resting on both arms. Danny's pathetic noise joined the varying pitches of police cars, ambulances and fire engines which raced each other down the country lanes and tracks, hurrying after the unmissable beacon of distant smoke. Local cars pulled aside, allowing the vehicles to pass, the drivers changing their destinations in an instant, electing to turn where the roads were wide enough, switch directions and follow the sirens to this intriguing incident. These motorists, overcome with curiosity in their quiet county where little of any consequence went on, would later regret the actions. Naive rubberneckers soon went back, forced away by the stomach-turning stink of the scene while inside the dozen farmhouses which formed an erratic border around the smoke-shrouded countryside the smell made drool drip from the mouths of sheepdogs, the animals salivating uncontrollably.
