Part 30 (2/2)

'I am he and he is me.'

The others fell to their knees, clutching their heads, screaming. Rebecca Baber thrashed wildly against her restraints, her eyes bulging.

The Doctor resisted for as long as he could, his face a mask of pain. By the time he crumpled to the floor, overwhelmed by the a.s.sault, Denman, Trevor, Slater, Rebecca and Bevan had long since succ.u.mbed to Hatch's power.

The humming died away. Hatch stepped over the bodies and walked out of the room.

PART FOUR.

MAD JACK'S EYES

CHAPTER 13.

THE VACANT ZONE.

Ace threw herself at the scarecrow, dragging it away from Joanna. Her fingers dug deep into the creature's eye sockets, stabbing into the cloth and the rotting vegetation beneath. At least, that's what Ace told herself it was. When she pulled her hand free, her fingers were wet and coloured reddish-brown.

In the car, Joanna was screaming. Steven stood rooted to the spot, his mouth hanging open.

Ace rolled free of the scarecrow, aiming a kick up at the creature's head. There was a satisfying thump of impact - Ace imagined the brain rolling around inside the cloth-covered head - and the creature stumbled backward, arms flailing.

Ace looked down the road. More scarecrows, cross shapes against the rising sun, were lumbering slowly towards them.

Joanna was babbling hysterically.

'Get her out of the car!' shouted Ace.

'Then what?' asked Steven.

'Run!'

They ran.

A hundred yards down the road, Ace looked back. The scarecrows had stopped beside their fallen colleague, pulling the creature to its feet. It was an almost pathetic sight.

Ace grinned. Then she remembered that she was being chased through an English village by killer scarecrows and that wiped the smile from her face. 'I think we've got their attention,' she said, breaking back into a trot after Steven and Joanna.

'Jack's sent them,' wailed Joanna. 'We're all going to die.'

'Not if I can help it,' said Ace with a grim determination, glancing at Steven. 'Come on, let's get to your parents' place.

We should be safe enough inside.'

Steven grimaced. 'I'm glad you're so confident.'

'I'm not, I'm optimistic,' replied Ace, honestly. 'But they they don't know that.' don't know that.'

The harvest had begun.

The stickmen dragged the weak and vulnerable from their beds and on to the green, where alien fronds reached out hungrily. Jack ate what he could, and what he could not eat, he used. used. His hollow men then turned to the wicked and the arrogant. His hollow men then turned to the wicked and the arrogant.

Jack i' the Green was a kindly father, longing to shower gifts upon his children. Now, at last he could - the gifts of death and screaming insanity.

All the while the black stain grew, tentacles pulling themselves from the ground, flailing blindly in the air, then burrowing down again. The scarecrows marched relentlessly as Jack expanded, reaching out towards the surrounding villages.

Bob Matson woke with a start. It was as if he'd had a sudden dream of falling from a great height, but the only images that penetrated his fogged unconscious were of the stickmen and the spreading black stain.

That hadn't really happened, had it? He hadn't really been... expelled?

The mattress beneath his back was thin and hard, the sheets provided little warmth.

Bob Matson sat up on the park bench, the dirty pages of newspaper falling from his legs like layers of sloughed skin.

Where the h.e.l.l was he?

Matson looked around him at an unfamiliar expanse of short gra.s.s and flower beds. Beyond the park were tall buildings and countless rows of red-brick semis. A feeling of claustrophobia, such as he had never experienced in Hexen Bridge, washed over him.

He had had been banished. He remembered now with grim clarity the flight from the scarecrows that had pursued him until he was well clear of the village. And, if his dream was to be believed, he'd been granted only a temporary stay of execution. been banished. He remembered now with grim clarity the flight from the scarecrows that had pursued him until he was well clear of the village. And, if his dream was to be believed, he'd been granted only a temporary stay of execution.

He was so alone.

He pulled the s.h.i.+rt collar up around his neck and stared at the first light of the rising sun, s.h.i.+vering.

Eventually the noise, the incessant ringing in his ears...

faded.

Denman picked himself up from the floor, cradling his throbbing head and swallowing down the feelings of nausea.

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