登陆注册
10485600000001

第1章 No Entry to Midwich

Part One

One of the luckiest accidents in my wife's life is that she happened to marry a man who was born on the 26th of September. But for that, we should both of us undoubtedly have been at home in Midwich on the night of the 26th–27th, with consequences which, I have never ceased to be thankful, she was spared.

Because it was my birthday, however, and also to some extent because I had the day before received and signed a contract with an American publisher, we set off on the morning of the 26th for London, and a mild celebration. Very pleasant, too. A few satisfactory calls, lobster and Chablis at Wheeler's, Ustinov's latest extravaganza, a little supper, and so back to the hotel where Janet enjoyed the bathroom with that fascination which other people's plumbing always arouses in her.

Next morning, a leisurely departure on the way back to Midwich. A pause in Trayne, which is our nearest shopping town, for a few groceries; then on along the main road, through the village of Stouch, then the right-hand turn on to the secondary road for-But, no. Half the road is blocked by a pole from which dangles a notice 'ROAD CLOSED', and in the gap beside it stands a policeman who holds up his hand….

So I stop. The policeman advances to the offside of the car, I recognize him as a man from Trayne.

'Sorry, sir, but the road is closed.'

'You mean I'll have to go round by the Oppley Road?'

' 'Fraid that's closed, too, sir.'

'But-'

There is the sound of a horn behind.

' 'F you wouldn't mind backing off a bit to the left, sir.'

Rather bewildered, I do as he asks, and past us and past him goes an army three-ton lorry with khaki-clad youths leaning over the sides.

'Revolution in Midwich?' I inquire.

'Manoeuvres,' he tells me. 'The road's impassable.'

'Not both roads surely? We live in Midwich, you know, Constable.'

'I know, sir. But there's no way there just now. 'F I was you, sir, I'd go back to Trayne till we get it clear. Can't have parking here, 'cause of getting things through.'

Janet opens the door on her side and picks up her shopping-bag.

'I'll walk on, and you come along when the road's clear,' she tells me.

The constable hesitates. Then he lowers his voice.

'Seein' as you live there, ma'am, I'll tell you-but it's confidential like. 'Tisn't no use tryin', ma'am. Nobody can't get into Midwich, an' that's a fact.'

We stare at him.

'But why on earth not?' says Janet.

'That's just what they're tryin' to find out, ma'am. Now, 'fyou was to go to the Eagle in Trayne, I'll see you're informed as soon as the road's clear.'

Janet and I looked at one another.

'Well,' she said to the constable, 'it seems very queer, but if you're quite sure we can't get through….'

'I am that, ma'am. It's orders, too. We'll let you know, as soon as maybe.'

If one wanted to make a fuss, it was no good making it with him; the man was only doing his duty, and as amiably as possible.

'Very well,' I agreed. 'Gayford's my name, Richard Gayford. I'll tell the Eagle to take a message for me in case I'm not there when it comes.'

I backed the car further until we were on the main road, and, taking his word for it that the other Midwich road was similarly closed, turned back the way we had come. Once we were the other side of Stouch village I pulled off the road into a field gateway.

'This,' I said, 'has a very odd smell about it. Shall we cut across the fields, and see what's going on?'

'That policeman's manner was sort of queer, too. Let's,' Janet agreed, opening her door.

***

What made it the more odd was that Midwich was, almost notoriously, a place where things did not happen.

Janet and I had lived there just over a year then, and found this to be almost its leading feature. Indeed, had there been posts at the entrances to the village bearing a red triangle and below them a notice:

MIDWICH

DO NOT

DISTURB

they would have seemed not inappropriate. And why Midwich should have been singled out in preference to any one of a thousand other villages for the curious event of the 26th of September seems likely to remain a mystery for ever.

For consider the simple ordinariness of the place.

Midwich lies roughly eight miles west-north-west of Trayne. The main road westward out of Trayne runs through the neighbouring villages of Stouch and Oppley, from each of which secondary roads lead to Midwich. The village itself is therefore at the apex of a road triangle which has Oppley and Stouch at its lower corners; its only other highway being a lane which rolls in a Chestertonian fashion some five miles to reach Hickham which is three miles north.

At the heart of Midwich is a triangular Green ornamented by five fine elms and a white-railed pond. The war memorial stands in the churchward corner of the Green, and spaced out round the sides are the church itself, the vicarage, the inn, the smithy, the post office, Mrs Welt's shop, and a number of cottages. Altogether, the village comprises some sixty cottages and small houses, a village hall, Kyle Manor, and The Grange.

The church is mostly perp. and dec., but with a Norman west doorway and font. The vicarage is Georgian; The Grange Victorian; Kyle Manor has Tudor roots with numerous later graftings. The cottages show most of the styles which have existed between the two Elizabeths, but even more recent than the two latest County Council cottages are the utilitarian wings that were added to The Grange when the Ministry took it over for Research.

The existence of Midwich has never been convincingly accounted for. It was not in a strategic position to hold a market, not even across a packway of any importance. It appears, at some unknown time, simply to have occurred; the Domesday survey notes it as a hamlet, and it has continued as little more, for the railway age ignored it, as had the coach roads, and even the navigation canals.

So far as is known, it rests upon no desirable minerals: no official eye ever saw it as a likely site for an aerodrome, or a bombing-range, or a battle school; only the Ministry intruded, and the reconditioning of The Grange had little effect upon the village life. Midwich has-or rather, had-lived and drowsed upon its good soil in Arcadian undistinction for a thousand years; and there seemed, until the late evening of the 26th of September, no reason why it should not so to do for the next millennium, too.

This must not be taken, however, to mean that Midwich is altogether without history. It has had its moments. In 1931 it was the centre of an untraced outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. And in 1916 an off-course Zeppelin unloaded a bomb which fell in a ploughed field and fortunately failed to explode. And before that it hit the headlines-well, anyway, the broadsheets-when Black Ned, a second-class highwayman, was shot on the steps of The Scythe and Stone Inn by Sweet Polly Parker, and although this gesture of reproof appears to have been of a more personal than social nature, she was, nevertheless, much lauded for it in the ballads of 1768.

Then, too, there was the sensational closure of the nearby St Accius' Abbey, and the redistribution of the brethren for reasons which have been a subject of intermittent local speculation ever since it took place, in 1493.

Other events include the stabling of Cromwell's horses in the church, and a visit by William Wordsworth, who was inspired by the Abbey ruins to the production of one of his more routine commendatory sonnets.

With these exceptions, however, recorded time seems to have flowed over Midwich without a ripple.

Nor would the inhabitants-save, perhaps, some of the youthful in their brief pre-marital restlessness-have it otherwise. Indeed, but for the Vicar and his wife, the Zellabys at Kyle Manor, the doctor, the district-nurse, ourselves, and, of course, the Researchers, they had most of them lived there for numerous generations in a placid continuity which had become a right.

During the day of the 26th of September there seems to have been no trace of a foreshadow. Possibly Mrs Brant, the blacksmith's wife, did feel a trace of uneasiness at the sight of nine magpies in one field, as she afterwards claimed; and Miss Ogle, the postmistress, may have been perturbed on the previous night by a dream of singularly large vampire bats; but, if so, it is unfortunate that Mrs Brant's omens and Miss Ogle's dreams should have been so frequent as to nullify their alarm value. No other evidence has been produced to suggest that on that Monday, until late in the evening, Midwich was anything but normal. Just, in fact, as it had appeared to be when Janet and I set off for London. And yet, on Tuesday the 27th….

***

We locked the car, climbed the gate, and started over the field of stubble keeping well in to the hedge. At the end of that we came to another field of stubble and bore leftwards across it, slightly uphill. It was a big field with a good hedge on the far side, and we had to go further left to find a gate we could climb. Half-way across the pasture beyond brought us to the top of the rise, and we were able to look out across Midwich-not that much of it was visible for trees, but we could see a couple of wisps of greyish smoke lazily rising, and the church spire sticking up by the elms. Also, in the middle of the next field I could see four or five cows lying down, apparently asleep.

I am not a countryman, I only live there, but I remember thinking rather far back in my mind that there was something not quite right about that. Cows folded up, chewing cud, yes, commonly enough; but cows lying down fast asleep, well, no. But it did not do more at the time than give me a vague feeling of something out of true. We went on.

We climbed the fence of the field where the cows were and started across that, too.

A voice hallooed at us, away on the left. I looked round and made out a khaki-clad figure in the middle of the next field. He was calling something unintelligible, but the way he was waving his stick was without doubt a sign for us to go back. I stopped.

'Oh, come on, Richard. He's miles away,' said Janet impatiently, and began to run on ahead.

I still hesitated, looking at the figure who was now waving his stick more energetically than ever, and shouting more loudly, though no more intelligibly. I decided to follow Janet. She had perhaps twenty yards start of me by now, and then, just as I started off, she staggered, collapsed without a sound, and lay quite still….

I stopped dead. That was involuntary. If she had gone down with a twisted ankle, or had simply tripped I should have run on, to her. But this was so sudden and so complete that for a moment I thought, idiotically, that she had been shot.

The stop was only momentary. Then I went on again. Dimly I was aware of the man away on the left still shouting, but I did not bother about him. I hurried towards her….

But I did not reach her.

I went out so completely that I never even saw the ground come up to hit me….

同类推荐
  • The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium
  • Double Tongue

    Double Tongue

    An aged prophetess at Delphi, the most sacred oracle in ancient Greece, looks back over her strange life as the Pythia, the First Lady and voice of the god Apollo. As a young virgin with disturbing psychic powers, Arieka was handed over to the service of the shrine by her parents. She has now spent sixty years as the very medium, the torn mouthpiece, of equivocal mantic utterances from the bronze tripod in the sanctuary beneath the temple. Over a lifetime at the mercy of god and priest and people she has watched the decay of Delphi's fortunes and its influence in the world. Her reflections on the mysteries of the oracle, which her own weird gifts have embodied, are matched by her feminine insight into the human frailties of the High Priest himself, a true Athenian, whose intriguing against the Romans brings about humiliation and disaster. This extraordinary short novel was left in draft at Golding's sudden death in 1993 but it is a psychological and historical triumph.
  • Wintering Out

    Wintering Out

    'Seamus Heaney has gone beyond the themes of his earlier poetry and has made the giant step towards the most ambitious, most intractable themes of maturity. The power of this book comes from a sense that he is reaching out towards a type of desolation and of isolation without which no imagination can be seen to have grown up.' Eavan Boland, Irish Times 'Keyed and pitched unlike any other significant poet at work in the language anywhere.' Harold Bloom, Times Literary Supplement
  • Man of the Outback

    Man of the Outback

    When beautiful Sally Baxter moves to Australia, she is eager for adventure, freedom, and to make a life of her own--far from the demands of her meddling family. Her friend, Julia, owns a ranch--and when she offers to take Sally in, it seems too good to be true. But Julia's ranch is in danger. Arrogant, domineering landowner Grant Forsythe wants to buy the land--and he'll stop at nothing to get Julia to sell. At first intimidated and enraged, Sally can't help but be drawn to the handsome, determined Grant--and he makes no secret of his attraction to her.But then Grant proposes to Sally. And she can't help but wonder--is he doing it for love, or for the ranch?
  • To the Ends of the Earth

    To the Ends of the Earth

    This is a one-volume edition of this classic sequence of sea novels set in the early nineteenth century, about a voyage from England to Australia. Rites of Passage (Winner of the Booker Prize) "e;The work of a master at the full stretch of his age and wisdom."e; (The Times Close Quarters). "e;A feat of imaginative reconstruction, as vivid as a dream."e; (Daily Mail Fire Down Below). "e;Laden to the waterline with a rich cargo of practicalities and poetry, pain and hilarity, drama and exaltation."e; (Sunday Times).
热门推荐
  • 中国历代通俗演义:宋史演义(下)

    中国历代通俗演义:宋史演义(下)

    本书讲述从“第五十一回 巧排挤毒死辅臣 喜招徕载归异族”到“第一百回 拥二王勉支残局 覆两宫怅断重洋”的历史。在北宋朝廷走向消亡之际,王室宗族康王赵构在一众文武大臣协助之下南渡长江延续宋室宗庙。然而南宋朝廷苟且偷安,并在一帮奸臣的操控之下,设计陷害抗金的将领,最后重蹈北宋的覆辙。在蒙古大军步步进逼,三个皇帝或被俘,或死于逃亡途中,或葬身大海……
  • 甜妻恰好,总裁请趁早

    甜妻恰好,总裁请趁早

    订婚夜,洛言沁遭未婚夫算计,跟别人结婚了。更没想到,那男人,是他未婚夫的小叔——御墨琛。一开始,御墨琛对她避之如蛇蝎。她为了摆脱御家,只好一次次找他麻烦。久了,这麻烦也就摆脱不掉了。某天助理来报,“总裁,洛小姐跑了,还是带球跑的。”御墨琛怒,“跑什么跑?孩子同意让她生,对她也千般柔宠,她是想上天吗?”助理弱弱的应,“可是总裁……洛小姐说了,跟了您,没名没分的,她想出去给孩子找后爹。”“她敢!你立刻去准备车!二十四辆,组成迎亲队伍,把她给我逮回来!她生的孩子,只能叫我爹!”
  • 子午流注说难

    子午流注说难

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 论怎样和傲娇相处

    论怎样和傲娇相处

    池晓晓有点看不懂这个打小就欺负她的徐沐辰,明明说好了不喜欢她不愿意联姻对象是她,却还三番四次过来她这里刷存在感。待她喜欢上他之后内心百感交集,有开心也有烦恼哀愁,因为徐沐辰对她来说不明朗的态度,更因为她发现的那件事,最后因为实在太过煎熬,她干脆直接说了出来。彼时徐沐辰一脸闲适地坐在教室里,指尖还把玩着一支笔,闻言掩住眼底的狂喜尽量用最平淡的声音回复她:“哦,巧了,我也是。”而且喜欢你好多年了,也就等你这句话了。从他喜欢上她的那天起,他就没想过其他人。——徐沐辰
  • 千金难逑

    千金难逑

    穿越之后,她是云家小七,默默无闻,传闻即将病逝的千金小姐;她也是云轻狂,年少轻狂,秉承着前世的性子,嚣张轻狂。两个角色,一人分饰,她演得不亦乐乎…宫中争斗,她笑看风云。朝廷乱世,她旁观高坐。江湖又怎样,她照样搅得天翻地覆。
  • 程序员在二次元

    程序员在二次元

    加班赶项目的他,一觉醒来,世界线发生了变动。这里跟上个世界似是而非,唯一拥有巨大不同的,是娱乐领域。三大民工漫依然健在,但却没了一些有趣的轻小说;动漫领域在大师辈出之后依旧陷入废萌怪圈,少了一点振聋发聩的经典;游戏界依旧是那几座大山,只是有些作品不复存在……就在他不知所措的时候,迎面而来的是诸多可爱的女孩儿。土间埋:欧尼酱~快来陪我玩游戏啦~加藤惠:姜君,这个BUG是怎么回事?霞之丘诗羽:你以为你在跟谁说话呢!英梨梨:哈?未成年人并没有被禁止画这个吧?μ's:煜君你可是我们的第十人哟!HTT:呐呐~你要不要加入我们的乐队啊?椎名真白:请教我恋爱。……话痨作者,慢热作品,以上。
  • 吃鸡又奈我何

    吃鸡又奈我何

    张耘硕,籍籍无名的大学生,不小心爱上了一款叫做《绝地求生》的游戏,走进了新世界的大门。
  • 佛说阿弥陀经疏

    佛说阿弥陀经疏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 婚然心动:总裁老公难伺候

    婚然心动:总裁老公难伺候

    为了达到目的,她设计怀上他的孩子,如愿成为顾家少奶奶,以为幸福来临。车祸流产,她的父亲用一百万把她出卖。他霸道,“没有一百万,你就用你的一辈子偿还。”多年后,她笑颜如花,用钱狠狠砸在他头顶上,“呐,这是一百万外加利息。”
  • 台湾采访册

    台湾采访册

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。