Fourth Horseman (8 page)

His bike was covered in cobwebs and the tyres were flat. Mums was there, though, in good working order, so he took that and together we cycled to the lab. Dad pedalled like a maniac—I found it hard to believe that he was so fit considering how little exercise he took, but it didn’t seem to take anything out of him. He was in a race against time to get the virus alive and well to the lab and into a culture before it died on him. If there was a virus, he said. There was no guarantee that there was. The squirrel had been very sick and had a high temperature but it might have been caused by any number of things.

We parked the bikes and I used my card to open the door in the hayshed. Dad went straight through the cage room and into the ‘bug-lock’, which is what he called the decontamination chamber between the cage room and the virus lab. I changed into my work clothes, then said hello to the squirrels. They were delighted to see me and clung to the bars of their cages, looking for food and attention.

Whatever Dad was doing took ages. I fed the squirrels and cleaned out all the cages, then handled the slowcoaches until we were all thoroughly bored by each other. I was ready to go home then, but I was keen to know how Dad was getting on and decided to hang on for a while. I turned on the TV but there was nothing interesting on and I turned it off again. The lab buildings were ominously silent and, despite the space and the ventilation, felt airless. I could only imagine what processes my father was going through behind the airtight walls, what alchemical techniques he was using to isolate that tiny string of DNA. I tried not to think about the potential for disaster that lay in what he was doing. I trusted him absolutely, as a scientist and as a father, but no amount of rationalizing could get rid of the sense of unease.

I made a cup of tea and drank it and was just deciding to go home and make a start on the dinner when Dad appeared, stumbling barefoot through the bug-lock door, still in the process of putting on his shirt.

‘We’ve got one!’ he said, pushing a button into the wrong buttonhole so that his shirt hung skew-whiff down his front. He wasn’t quite punching the air with his fist but he wasn’t far off it. ‘I’m sorry I was so long but I had to get a few samples set up in a culture. They’re breeding away happily now.’

‘Well done, Dad,’ I said, trying to muster an enthusiasm that I wasn’t really feeling.

‘Give me a mug of your finest tap water!’ he said, reaching for his cigarettes and heading towards the kitchen door. I filled a cup and handed it to him, and he held it up like a toast. ‘To my new outside office!’

‘Is it that definite?’ I said. ‘Are you sure you can do it now?’

‘Not remotely,’ he said, laughing. ‘But there’s nothing like a bit of optimism, eh?’

He knocked back the water, dribbling a bit down his wonky shirt front. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said. ‘I’m exhausted.’

He put on his shoes and stuffed his socks into his pocket. It took longer for me to change my clothes, and he went on ahead of me to get Mum’s bike. As I came out of the building I saw him at the side of the first yard, staring into the trees. Even at that distance I sensed that there was something unnatural about the way he was standing.

‘Dad?’

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me. I had seen that look on his face before, and I broke into a cold sweat. I ran to join him. It wasn’t until I reached his side that I was able to see what it was that had transfixed him.

The white rider had returned. And this time he wasn’t alone.

T
HERE WERE TWO OF
them, standing side by side. The second horse was the brightest chestnut I’ve ever seen, its coat shot through with sparks of copper and gold. Its rider was dressed in rusty red, and in his hand he carried a huge sword. Blood was dripping from its tip. The sight scared me witless, but it didn’t occur to me to run. Both of us, Dad and I, stood motionless.

They were in exactly the same spot where we’d seen the first one on his own a few weeks before; about twenty-five metres from us, underneath the trees. This time the sun was shining strongly and breaking through between the branches, but it seemed to me, as it had the last time, that they were illuminated by some other, more brilliant source of light.

Both the riders were staring straight at Dad and he, as before, was staring back, totally mesmerized. I don’t know where it came from, but I had a sudden strong impulse to remember this; to observe more carefully than I had before. Scared as I was, I managed to keep part of my mind detached, and I looked more closely and saw much more than I had the first time. What I saw was that the white rider was like something out of ancient Rome. His robe was like a toga, and his legs were bare. The gleaming white cape that covered his head and streamed over his horse’s hindquarters was held in place at his throat by a huge gold pin. On his head was a crown of bright silver. In his hand he held a bow, and strapped to his calf was a full quiver of arrows.

His horse, as before, stood four square, motionless and calm. The other horse, in complete contrast, was lightly built; skinny and rangy. Despite the fiery glints that bounced off its red coat it looked under-nourished and unhealthy. Even so, it was bursting with nervous energy. It snatched at the bit and danced on the spot continuously. Its rider was lean and, although he hardly moved, I sensed in him the same restless energy. The sword he carried was crude, made of bronze or tarnished steel, but if the blood was anything to go by it was an effective weapon. It should have had me legging it out of there, but it’s hard to explain the effect the riders had. I was afraid, but it wasn’t an immediate fear for my own safety. I knew, don’t ask me how, that the men weren’t going to use their weapons on us. The fear they produced was much more subtle. It cut into the deepest parts of my mind; into my soul, perhaps. It overwhelmed me with a suffocating sense of doom. It was so bad that it hurt.

‘Dad.’ I took his arm. ‘Come away.’

He didn’t move. I hardly dared look at his face. I tugged at him; tried to turn him towards me. ‘Dad!’

He looked absurd, with his shirt front crooked and his face blank and dreamy. It might have been funny, another time. Now it was just terrifying. I shook him frantically, and dragged him round to face me. ‘Wake up!’

He looked at me vacantly, as though he had no idea who I was, then turned back to the riders.

I hauled at his arm and tried a different tactic.

‘Leave us alone!’ I yelled at the riders. I found myself pulling my mobile out of my pocket and waving it at them. ‘Get out of here before I call the police!’

They threw the trees at us. That was what it seemed like, anyway, as a sudden, violent wind sprang out of nowhere and bent them all towards us. It tore leaves off them and hurled them in our faces. We put up our arms to protect our eyes, and the leaves hit our hands with so much force that they stung. Then the wind dropped as suddenly as it had arisen, leaving the woodland quiet and still.

And empty.

Dad took a few faltering steps forward, then changed his mind. His knees were trembling and making his trouser legs shake.

Mine were too.

T
HE FIRST TIME, DAD
had sent me home, and later he had fobbed me off with goblins and cocoa. This time I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. We were travelling home together so he couldn’t get away from me, and there was no way for him to hide how rattled he was. It was a long time before he stopped shaking, and to compensate he cycled at a crawl, leaning forwards and peering at the road as though we were passing through heavy fog.

‘What’s happening, Dad?’ I said. ‘Who were they?’

‘Mm?’ he said, squinting at the clear road.

‘You can’t pretend you didn’t see them. They made you go all funny, Dad.’

‘All funny,’ he said absently, as though I was an irritating toddler showing him a new toy. He was cycling erratically. He kept trying to drop behind me, but I wasn’t having any of it. Whenever the road was clear I rode alongside him.

‘You have to talk to me,’ I said, with an anger I didn’t even realize I was feeling. ‘This is scaring me half to death!’

He dragged his eyes from the road for a moment, to look me in the face. In that brief instant I saw that he was afraid too. Terrified. He turned back to the road. ‘This project …’ he said vaguely.

‘What about the project?’

But the moment was gone. His guard came up. I saw it, along with the straightening of his back and the raising of his head.

‘It’s going extremely well,’ he said, much, much too cheerfully.

He began to cycle faster, trying to get ahead of me now, instead of dropping behind me. This time I let him go, not because I was allowing him to close the subject but because an idea was beginning to form in my mind and I wanted to think about it. There had to be an explanation for the appearance of the horsemen, and what if it was an entirely rational one? Maybe the animal rights activists had found out about the lab despite all our precautions. What if they had come up with an extremely novel way of trying to scare us off? I could see that it was a bit far-fetched, but it was the best lead I had come up with so far. I was still mulling it over in my mind when we got back to the house.

Alex still wasn’t back from the match. Dad bustled around the kitchen being over-cheerful. I left him to it, content now to bide my time and do some more thinking about my new idea. Over dinner Dad made small-talk and I played along. When we were finished he went into the sitting room and I heard the TV go on. I didn’t hurry; I stayed in the kitchen and cleared up, giving him time to get settled and let his guard down. But when I went in to join him he wasn’t there. I went along to the study and opened the door. He was reading a book. He put it down on his lap where I couldn’t see it.

‘Just looking something up,’ he said. ‘I’ll be out in five minutes.’

I went back to the kitchen and made coffee. Properly, with the plunger jug and hot milk. I took it through into the sitting room.

‘Dad?’

I could hear him moving around upstairs.

‘I’m going to bed,’ he called back.

‘Bed? But it’s only eight o’clock.’

‘I know. I’m just exhausted. All that driving and everything.’

I went halfway up the stairs. ‘I made coffee. I want to talk to you. I’ve had an idea.’

He came to the top of the stairs. In a sickly-sweet, understanding voice he said, ‘Can’t wait to hear it, sweetheart. In the morning, though. I’m just too tired now.’

I was furious, and didn’t answer.

‘Sunday tomorrow,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Let’s all lie in. Egg and bacon for breakfast?’

I drank all the coffee and went into the sitting room, buzzing with caffeine and adrenaline. I stared at the TV screen and saw nothing. Or at least, nothing that was on it. I saw the horsemen. Whether my eyes were opened or closed, I could see them.

Alex came in, with Javed in tow, at about ten o’clock. They were in a subdued mood and both of them slumped down in front of the telly with me.

‘What’s this?’ said Alex.

I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was watching. ‘Oh, it’s just … something,’ I said.

‘We lost the match, thanks for asking,’ said Alex.

‘Oh, did you? Who were you playing?’

‘Warwickshire. I was lbw for seven,’ said Javed.

‘It was a bad decision,’ said Alex. ‘Everybody said so.’

‘No, bad decision or not, I should have had my bat there and not my pad. I wasn’t seeing the ball.’

‘Well, don’t get depressed about it,’ I said. ‘You’re not the only one who had a bad day.’

‘Why?’ said Alex. ‘Did Dad not find a virus?’

I had almost forgotten about that. ‘He did, actually,’ I said. ‘Listen, you two. Have either of you been talking to anyone?’

‘What about?’

‘About the squirrels, duh. The project.’

‘No, duh. We haven’t. We’re not allowed to, remember?’

‘Can’t Javed speak for himself?’

‘I haven’t told anyone,’ said Javed. ‘I’ll swear on anything you like.’

‘Why?’ said Alex. ‘Has something happened?’ I debated briefly with myself about whether or not I should tell them. But Dad had let me down and I badly needed to talk to someone about it.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Something has happened.’

We trooped through into the kitchen and Javed, who couldn’t bear the tea that Alex made, put on the kettle and stood guard over it. I knew I could trust the boys. I asked them not to tell anyone, but I didn’t have to swear them to secrecy or anything dramatic like that. I just poured it all out, about seeing the riders, first one and then two. I described them as well as I could. They listened quietly, and Javed managed to make a fine pot of tea without clattering anything and disturbing the mood. I could tell they were a bit suspicious to begin with, wondering whether I was pulling their legs or telling a long shaggy dog story, but when I explained my new theory, about the animal rights activists, they seemed much more inclined to believe me.

‘Maybe it was a hologram,’ said Alex, stirring sugar into his tea.

‘Why would someone make a hologram of two riders?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think holograms really exist like that, do they?’ said Javed.

‘They do in
Star Wars
,’ said Alex, who was keen on science fiction.

‘There’s no way you can go into a shop and buy something that beams two horses into the middle of a wood,’ said Javed.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Alex. ‘They can do anything these days.’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But why would they choose riders?’

‘True,’ said Alex. ‘Not the right style for the animal rights people if you ask me. Bit on the subtle side.’

We all agreed with that, and ruled out activists, for the time being at least.

‘So what else could it be?’

‘Something from another dimension?’ said Alex.

I could hear the radio faintly from Dad’s bedroom. He often went to sleep with it on, though I was willing to bet he wasn’t sleeping now, no matter how tired he was. But I was glad he wasn’t down here with us. We could never have had this kind of conversation if he was.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘They were more like something from another time. Out of the past.’