Tim Lebbon - Fears Unnamed Read Online Free Page B

rich in friends.”
    I was unfeasibly flattered by his comment, and I went on to say something trite in response—
thanks
, or
so am I
—when another gust of wind hit the tent. It seemed to suck the air from inside, drawing in the tent walls, pulling down the ceiling, shrinking the canopy as if to allow the desert sand and air to move closer. The whole structure leaned and strained for a few seconds that seemed like minutes, and then the gale lessened, the tent relaxed and I glared down at Scott.
    “Are we likely to be left homeless by this?” I said.
    “Nope. Tent’s meant to move and shift with the wind.” His eyes were wide, seeing something far more distant than I knew, and I saw the familiar excitement there, the knowledge that there was more going on than we could ever hope to understand. That kind of ignorance never offended Scott. It merely gave him more cause to wonder.
    I ducked outside to drag in my luggage, squinting against the sand being blown around by the rising wind. I stood there for a while, hand shielding my eyes, looking out toward the horizon to see whether I could spot the storm. All around, the skies seemed to have darkened from light blue to a grubby, uniform gray. The sun was a smudge heading down to the western horizon, a smear of yellow like a daffodil whipped in the wind. Out past the camp I could see dust dancing above the ground, playing in spirals across the plain where the wind was being twisted by the heat. They flicked to and fro. Snapping at the ground. Whipping up more dust and sand to add to their mass.
    And then, in the distance, floating above the horizon, there was a ghastly flash of light that lit the insides of the gray mass.
    I gasped, felt grit on my teeth and in my eyes, and a few seconds later a long, low roar rolled in across the desert. It started as subdued as a rumbling stomach, but increased in volume until it shook the ground beneath my feet and smashed my ears. Another flash displayed just how dark it had suddenly become. The resultant thunder merged with the first. The sky was screaming at me.
    Just as I turned to go back into the tent the wind came down with a vengeance. What I had thought a gale was only a precursor to this onslaught. Sand was ripped up and blasted into my face, my ears, my hair and eyes and mouth. The sound was tremendous; wind, thunder, and grit coursing across the tent walls.
    Inside, Scott had stood up and was opening two more bottles of beer. “Bit of a howler!”
    “Is it always like this?” I had to shout just to be heard, and even then I could have been mumbling.
    “Never seen one like this before! Here. More beer!” He held out the bottle and I went to him, accepting it, grateful for the dulling effect of the alcohol.
    The storm came down. It was so loud that we could not hear ourselves talk, let alone each other, so we sat together and listened. I was terrified. The aural onslaught was so extreme that I wanted to scream, challenge its ferocity with some of my own. It beat into the tent, seemingly increasing in volume all the time, and it was all for me, aimed at me, targeted at me and me alone.
    Scott sat wide-eyed and astonished, an inscrutable smile on his face as he stared at the canopy shifting above us.
    It went on for a long time, becoming more fearsome with each passing minute. The roar turned into something that sounded alive, a snarling thing, crunching down into the ground in a hideous rhythm. The storm was running toward us across the desert, legs so long that the footfalls were minutes apart. It was not an image that I relished, but deep down I found some satisfaction in the stirring of my mostly dormant imagination. Thousands of tons of sand picked up by the storm abraded the whole landscape. It was powered against the canvas, setting the whole structure vibrating into a blur.
    Something hit the tent. It slid slowly across the surface, visible as a dark shadow against the slightly lighter background. Its edges shimmered