The Watchers (25 page)

Mia turned right and took the roa
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towards Imber. They had almost got lost since there weren’t any road signs to guide them. It was as if the village on Salisbury Plain didn’t even exist.

Earlier, back at the house, while Keri had made more phone calls, she and Tom had taken her father’s car and driven back to the fields opposite Stonehenge. It was a familiar sight as they pulled along the side of the road. It was early morning on the eve of the solstice and the place was packed with die-hard pagan worshippers.

After they'd parked and demobilised the car, they'd walked through the masses of shelters and camps, where they eventually located the spot where Mia had pitched her tent. It was hard to believe that it had only been twenty-four hours before when they had all sat in a circle at the side of the stones and found the entrance to the Watcher's otherworld. Now it seemed like time had stood still, but judging by the disarray of her camp, it looked as if she'd been away for a whole week. Her equipment had been taken and her tent commandeered by two couples cuddling beneath it with their heads and torsos concealed from the chill of the night, with their eight feet poking out still clad in dirty hiking boots. Mia decided that retrieving her gear was more hassle than it was worth, so without disturbing her squatters, she happily donated her kit to the solstice cause.

Tom took a set of keys from the pockets of his jeans. Jesus had requested Tom retrieve his van and to keep all his belongings and the research inside for posterity. Tom had laughed at the time and while Jesus looked confused by his amusement, Mia had struck Tom’s shin with her foot. “We’ll get your van, Jesus,” she’d assured him. “Maybe someday you’ll need it.”

She recalled the look in his eyes when he'd responded. "No. I am completely certain I will never need it again," he said before they left him there in the Watcher's world.

Tom was looking around at the crowds as they stood next to the van. “How are we going to get it out of here?”

“Just toot your horn and edge through. Believe me! No one here is going to argue with the Scooby-Doo van.”

Mia watched him get in and start up the engine. It failed to start so he tried it again. Finally, he had it ticking over. Tom stuck his head out of the window. “There’s not much gas,” he said. “And I hope you know I haven’t got a licence.”

“Does it really matter, Tom?”

“I guess not. Not if it’s the end of the world and all.”

Mia rolled her eyes and headed back through the crowds towards her parked car. She waited for Tom to catch up and when he pulled up alongside her, he stretched his hand through the window of the van to give her something. It was the picture of Shanna; Jesus’ beloved wife. She wished she was able to give it to him.

On the way back, Tom had a near miss with a red Sierra speeding along at eighty miles per hour. It was the same car Jay had hired at the airport and he could have sworn he saw him in the driving seat. Tom decided to let it go. That couldn’t be Jay, not with another woman sitting in the front.

Tom parked the van on the driveway at the front of the house. Mia had left a note for her parents telling them not to worry and that she was looking after the van for a friend. She felt good about preserving Jesus' home, even though he probably wouldn't need it anymore.

Tom and Mia, Keri and Sarah left the house at nine o’clock and after sleeping for a couple of hours in a lay-by somewhere, they carried on their journey at midnight, down an unlit road leading towards the ghost town of Imber.

Mia drove while Tom navigate
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, with Keri and Sarah huddled together on the back seat. Keri broke the silence as they coasted along, stroking Sarah’s hair away from her face. The little girl still hadn’t spoken. “I have agreed with the Prime Minister that we would hand Sarah over when we meet up. They will inform her parents in the morning and arrange a reunion.”

Mia strained her neck to look into the rear view mirror to see Sarah in the back looking small and vulnerable wrapped in Keri’s arms. “How about that, Sarah? Soon you’ll be with your mum and dad again.”

She didn’t respond.

Imber loomed ahead. Mia scouted the deserted landscape as the car’s headlights shone on their ghostly facades of the ruined buildings.

“There are some cars in front,” Tom whispered. He was pointing to two black SUV’s parked one in front of the other.

The vehicle in front had its lights switched on, shining across the deserted road towards the old disused pub. Four burly men dressed in black were getting out of the rear car, walking towards the one in front.

Mia pulled up behind them and turned off the ignition. “What’s happening?” She strained her neck to see beyond the cars.

“It looks like we’re the last to arrive.”

Suddenly, Keri pushed open the back door and ran down the side of the road towards the people alighting from the car in front.

“Harry,” Keri screamed. “Harry.”

Sometime around eight O’clock that nigh
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,
Jay Pullman drove out of the village of Avebury in his leased red Sierra. Just as he was silently wishing he had never met Maggie, the car almost collided with a van that looked like it had come straight out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon.

“Will you watch where you’re going?” Maggie yelled from the passenger seat.

“Idiot,” Jay yelled at the retreating vehicle.

“You’re the idiot, American boy. These are English roads remember.”

“Yeah well I don’t care which side you guys drive, as long as you stay on that side. You know what I’m saying?”

“Hmmm. I’ve been meaning to ask you all day, what side of the bed did you get out of?”

“That’s just it Maggie, sweetheart.” The affectionate term rolled off his tongue like tires burning the sidewalk. “I haven’t been to bed. In fact, I haven’t seen my bed for over two days, ever since I met you. I’m dog tired now, I can tell you. In fact, I’ve had enough and I’m going home...to my bed.”

“It’s not your bed. It’s the hotels.”

Jay sucked in his breath. Maggie could rattle him like he'd never been rattled before. Now he needed the time-out.

“Besides,” she went on. “You can’t go back to Glastonbury. It’s the solstice at 4.48am. There’s no point in going back and then coming here again to watch the sunrise.”

“Who says I’m coming back?” He was snarling now. He couldn’t let go of the curl of his lip. Maggie put it there.

"You have to. Otherwise, all of this would have been a waste of time."

“It has been a waste of time. I should have known better. I’m a sucker for getting talked into things by females. I always have been. Why did I even come here?” he spat.

Maggie had talked him into spending hours at Avebury trying to decipher some of her theories. They had walked up the avenue of sarsen stones to the two incomplete stone circles within the rounded area that was the village. It was surrounded by a deep grassy ditch, no more than twenty feet deep in places, but when it was first built -Maggie told him-it had reached a depth of around thirty-three feet. It was the inner part Maggie was interested in. “Hey, come and look at this,” she’d called when they strolled through the ancient stones. She was pointing to a stone with a piece that looked like a woman’s… “It’s called the vulva stone,” she said.

Jay reddened. He hated talking about women’s bits.

“Any recognition here?” Maggie asked like she was some sort of goddamn teacher.

“Yes, I get it. It’s the Mandorla.”

“Good boy. Now you’re learning.” She pointed to a modern concrete marker. “There should have been an obelisk there in the centre of the southern stone circle. It was removed but it was recorded by Sir John Lubbock, the first Lord Avebury, as resembling a male’s member. That’s probably why it was taken away.”

“What happened to it?”

“Broken up, probably. Some of these stones were used to build the houses you see around here.” Maggie shook her head. “Criminal!”

“So what’s on your mind?” Jay just wanted to go back to his hotel and get a nice cool shower.”

“I think there’s something here…No, I know there’s something here. I can feel it. This is the entrance to the otherworld. This is where we can find Fran. I just know it.”

“You said that about Swallowhead Springs.” He pulled his cell from his pocket to check his messages. Still nothing from Fran or Tom. Where the hell were they? “Come on, Maggie, time to go.”

Now as they tore down the dual carriageway towards Glastonbury, Maggie was adamant they would return in a few hours to witness the summer solstice and to finally discover the entrance to a world that Jay was sure didn’t exist
.

Alice Burton remained transfixe
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at the seven Watchers in front of her vehicle, staring through the windshield with their giant legs spread apart. The headlights on the car had dimmed inexplicably, but there was enough light to see their shadows projected onto the road, increasing their body’s magnitude to gigantic, ghostly proportions. Her breath had caught in her throat and she was finding it hard to breathe. She wondered for a moment if she was having a heart attack…or maybe even a stroke.

They were imposing figures but they were magnificent. Their torsos protruded from them like great solid mounds of muscle. Their arms, at their sides, stretched to below their powerful hips with clenched fists on hands that looked like they could crush diamonds. Behind them, their wings were facing downward, but it was their gaze that disturbed Alice more than anything else. Their eyes were piercing as a blade of light reflected from the car into their enlarged black pupils and she could tell, even from where they stood, a few metres away from the front of the car, that they were staring right at her. Their human features displayed anger; anger unlike anything she had ever seen before and it sent a chill through her bones like a static electric charge.

Within seconds, as if they were in a trance, she watched her men alight from the other car and walk slowly past the blacked-out windows of her own. They were joined by her driver, who offered no words as he moved from behind the wheel and closed the door quietly after him. They all walked towards the waiting angels. They seemed willing and yet Alice knew they couldn’t be. They were trained to protect her, to lay down their lives, but now they looked as if their minds were being controlled by the Angels.

“Harrrryyyy!” Keri screame
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as she abandoned the car and ran towards her husband getting out of the vehicle in front. She was calling his name as she stumbled towards him and when he turned, she flung herself into his arms.

He held her tightly. “Keri. Are you all right? Where’s Elizabeth? Where is she?”

Keri was crying and shaking her head. “She’s safe. It’s okay.”

Mia got out of the car and walked towards them as Tom come up behind her. The four of them stood in a group at one side of the SUV, watching the Prime Minister, Alice Burton, get out of her vehicle and walk to the front of the car as if she was being pulled along by invisible strings.

Alice Burton had steppe
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out of the car. She was shaking uncontrollably, but using her strong and unyielding will, she reminded herself of who she was. The Angel monsters were pulling her in by some invisible force, but she resisted like the great leader she was.

She spoke with indisputable authority. “You have asked for an audience with me, so I am here. What do you want?” She maintained an impenetrable stance.

The main one responded. “My name if Uriel and these are my brothers. We represent life on earth and in heaven above. We are the true rulers of man, envoys of the Lord our God and the mother earth. We are here to warn you of the destruction you are about to inflict on the people in the Middle East. We have come to bid you lay down your weapons and move peacefully from the midst of the hatred that brews there. Even now, our people, the ‘Watchers’, are going among leaders in other countries to negotiate a treaty of peace. It is not too late for you to withdraw your part. It is not too late for them. And if you do this, the earth can continue for another five decades until the threat is repositioned and we must once more persuade you to turn away.

He paused.

Within those years of peace, we, our people, are prepared to work with you to build a new way of existence. It will be nothing like you have experienced before but if you trust us and you listen to our teachings, the world and your people will prosper. Not in a material way, but in a spiritual climate that will allow you to join hands with your neighbours and to connect with other nations as one. With our help, the tower of Babel will tumble at last. No more will your language, your colour or your religion divide you. You will live alongside your brothers and you will prosper in science. You will conquer the skies and you will exist in the realms of paradise. If you lay down your arms now, you will finally be free and we will all rejoice."

There was silence in the night that surrounded them. Uriel had once again paused his oratory while Alice Burton contemplated his words.

It was then, at that precise moment, everything went horribly wrong.