Authors: Geoffrey Household

The Courtesy of Death (23 page)

BOOK: The Courtesy of Death

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Yet it was the blocked shaft which attracted me. The surface of fine ash from the hay was soapy as scum on a pond, but underneath it was black, dry and powdery. The deposit looked as if it were
evenly spread, but I knew that it could not be. The bales at the top of the shaft, between which I had pushed my way out, must also have caught fire, leaving a hollow. I burrowed into it backwards,
smoothing the disturbance of the surface as I went. My head ended up in the shadow of one of the tractor wheels; it could not, I hoped, be recognised as part of a human being, being as black as the
surrounding ash and camouflaged by fallen tiles. It was still very hot under the tractor, but my clothes were too soaked to be singed. I had to be careful not to expose bare skin or to touch
anything solid.

In a few minutes two of my pursuers were also at the ruins. They searched perfunctorily among the fallen beams at the other side of the barn where the blackened wall still stood. That was the
only spot which was not wide open for inspection. After one of them had burned his nose in the shadows, they decided it was far too hot for a hiding-place.

They sloped off up the track, all enthusiasm for the hunt gone, shoulders huddled under the lash of the rain. I stayed where I was, deliciously warm and waiting for darkness. I may even have
dozed off, for I suddenly found my nose full of ash and had a fit of sneezing. There was nobody to hear. Except for the incessant patter of the rain, my resting place was as silent as
Fosworthy’s.

In the west a strip of the leaden sky melted into a band of sickly yellow, the only sign that there ever had been and would be again a sun. I lay still while the twilight deepened. I was
incapable of making any plans. My only comfort was that hands, face and clothes were black, and that I had become as nearly an invisible man as any fugitive could wish for.

I heard a car drive down the track in the last of the dusk. The occupant got out and quietly closed the door. From my position I could not see who it was, but I guessed by his stillness that we
had met and that, hearing of the fire, he was paying a last, lonely visit either to mourn the dissolution of Aviston-Tresco or of the shrine where he had once found a spiritual security. He came
round the ruins until he was looking straight at me across a tumble of fallen stones.

The chance was too good to miss. I stirred in my bed of ashes trying to get a sound foothold and at the same time to avoid touching the hot steel of the tractor. My clumsy struggles infuriated
me when I wanted to leap straight for his throat before he could beat me to the car. But he did not wait. He gave one queer, choking cry and ran. I could not make it out at all until I myself was
clear of the ashes and racing for the abandoned car. What he had seen was the closed shaft bubbling and seething as a black, blind, incinerated thing struggled to get out. Which of the supposedly
dead he thought it was I do not know. His overwhelming sense of guilt must have aided the nightmare as well as more solid memories of my own monstrous refusal to die.

On the lip of the hollow he regained control of himself and turned to look back. It was too late. I was already sitting in his car. Ten minutes of frantic driving brought me over the northern
slopes of the narrow Mendips and down to the shores of Chew Valley Lake. There I washed and shook out my clothes. I was dirty and famished, but too relieved to feel exhaustion any longer. It was
certain that the poor, terrified disciple would never report the loss of his car and risk reviving the interest of police.

I stopped at a transport cafe and ate an immense supper. They looked at me oddly, but found me just presentable enough to be served. Then, with sleep the only enemy to fight, I drove temperately
back to London. At one in the morning I was in bed, my own bed, thinking myself truly free at last, for I had slammed the Gate of the Underworld behind me. But memory has no gate, or else I am not
the sort of man who can close it. Whenever the call is insistent, I am still forced to go down, alone, to the darkness and find in the reality of the hunters and the hunted my defence against the
dead.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Drew Padrutt

978-1-4532-9397-3

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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