The Silence Read online

  Contents

  Praise

  Also by Tim Lebbon

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One: Noise

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Part Two: Silence

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  Part Three: Grey

  22

  23

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  “Tim Lebbon takes the British dystopian horror novel and creates a modern classic set in a terrifying near future, where the only thing that stands between humankind and a savage prehistoric predator is the ability to stay silent.”

  Stephen Jones, Horror Writers Association Life Achievement Award, International Horror Guild, Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Award winner

  “A book that I want to make a lot of noise about… in the best way possible.”

  Pat Cadigan, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Synners and Fools

  “Horror master Tim Lebbon spins an inventive and deeply disturbing apocalyptic fable. A classic blend of horror and science fiction.”

  Jonathan Maberry, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of V-Wars

  “What I’ve always admired about Tim Lebbon’s fiction is the delicate characterisation he creates amidst such monstrosities; the cinematic apocalypse of The Silence is no exception.”

  Adam Nevill, British Fantasy Award-winning author of The Ritual and Last Days

  “When the end of the world comes, pray it isn’t masterminded by Tim Lebbon. His apocalyptic scenarios shred the nerves and The Silence is one of his best, a chilling, edge-of-the-seat thriller packed with vivid characters and creepy situations. It will haunt you long after the final echoes have died away.”

  Mark Chadbourn, bestselling and British Fantasy Award-winning author of Whisper Lane

  “Bright, vivid, horrifying and beautiful. Make sure you have some free time ahead when you start this book, because you absolutely won’t want to put it down. I loved it.”

  Alison Littlewood, bestselling author of A Cold Season

  “The Silence is a scary, compelling, and heart-pounding novel, not just for the terrifying creatures that get unleashed on the world, but for the reminder that even when everything goes to hell, the most dangerous threat is ourselves. Be vigilant, and don’t make a sound.”

  Robert Swartwood, USA Today bestselling author of The Calling and Land of the Dead

  “Tim Lebbon is the undisputed champion of end-of-the-world fiction, and in The Silence he presents us with his most intense and compelling apocalypse to date. Focusing on a single family’s desperate struggle for survival in a world engulfed by deadly, voracious predators, this is heart-pounding, white-knuckle fiction of the very highest quality.”

  Mark Morris, British Fantasy Award winner and International Horror Guild Award nominee

  “The Silence is very nearly a perfect book. From the opening page to the final sentence the prose is tight and driven as it chronicles one family’s struggles with the end of the world we have all known… Lebbon displays his literary merits here, showing an intimate, and often inspiring glimpse of the apocalypse. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The Silence is golden, indeed.”

  James A. Moore, Bram Stoker Award nominee and author of Seven Forges and The Blasted Lands

  “The Silence is Hitchcock’s Birds 2016: the enemy isn’t just the monsters, but modernity. It’s a clever, fast-paced thriller with vivid, memorable characters. You won’t put it down until it’s done.”

  Sarah Langan, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Missing and Audrey’s Door

  “Absolutely riveting. The end of the world has never been more terrifying… One of Tim Lebbon’s best.”

  Brian Keene, Grand Master Award-winning author of The Rising and Ghoul Chased

  “Nobody ends the world quite like Tim Lebbon. He’s the grand master of destruction, the lord of the literary apocalypse. The Silence might just be his best novel to date: an ingenious mix of intimate character study and epic monster mash, a story that is clever and thoughtful in terms of themes and ideas but utterly relentless in its execution. Just don’t read it out loud, or the monsters will get you.”

  Gary McMahon, multiple British Fantasy Award nominee and author of Rain Dogs and Hungry Hearts

  “Somehow both epic and intimate, Tim Lebbon’s The Silence is a masterful symphony of horrors that deserves a spot on your shelf of favorites. The Silence reads like a blend of John Wyndham and Stephen King, and reminds me why I fell in love with horror in the first place. It’s a must-read.”

  Christopher Golden, Bram Stoker Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of Snowblind

  “Nobody ends the world as unflinchingly and heart-wrenchingly as Tim Lebbon. Make no mistake – The Silence will put you through the wringer. It will make you sob, and cheer. It’s as gripping and jaw-dropping as many a horror film – and I mean that as high praise. Stephen King would be proud. So, actually, would John Wyndham.”

  Stephen Volk, BAFTA and British Fantasy Awardwinning writer of Ghostwatch and Afterlife

  “Utterly compelling; grim, grisly and all too real. Tim Lebbon leads you on an extraordinary journey from order to chaos at a terrifying pace and it’s a stark warning to us all never to become too cosy or complacent… This is a novel that unlocks what a cataclysm would look like it if were to befall us, and where the moment you think things can’t get any worse, they do. I loved this book and I have to know what happens next…”

  James Barclay, David Gemmell Legend Award nominee for Ravensoul

  Also available from Tim Lebbon and Titan Books

  Coldbrook (US only)

  Alien: Out of the Shadows

  The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Movie Novelization

  THE SILENCE

  Print edition ISBN: 9781781168813

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781781168837

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: April 2015

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Tim Lebbon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Copyright © 2015 by Tim Lebbon

  Visit our website: www.titanbooks.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  For Ellie Rose, still my little sweetie, in her big exam year.

  and

  For Graham Joyce, who saw beauty in everything.

  PART ONE

  NOISE

  1

  …an historical occasion, the first time an important scientific discovery like this has been broadcast live. The excitement here above ground is palpable; we can only guess how thrilling it is down at the entry point. The scientists and potholers are all at a safe distance, and the specially designed and constructed robotic systems are now ready to start dismantling the ancient cave-in. What we might find beyond, no one is certain, although a recent series of seismic surveys suggest that the hidden cave system, isolated for perhaps millions of years, is vast. Rumours abound that it might contain caverns larger than the recently discovered Son Doong Cave in Vietnam, and extensive systems as long as the legendary Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. I, for one, have never been so excited. This is a day that everyone connected with this expedition will remember for ever. And I hope you, the viewers, will remember it too.

  Hidden Depths—Live!, Discovery Channel, Thursday, 17 November 2016

  As I watched three black-clad figures adorned with climbing gear being lowered into a cave, Jude threw an apple core at my head. It just missed, hitting the wall behind me, splitting and showering me with fruit flesh and pips.

  “Piss off!” I shouted. His shadow flitted from my bedroom doorway—he was obviously wary of retribution—but his left hand and head reappeared around the jamb.

  “I’ll tell Mum you swore,” he signed.

  “So tell her!” I said. My words were a vibration formed from little more than memory. I felt the regular plod-plod of my younger brother’s footsteps as he stalked back into his own bedroom, and a moment later a thud against the wall as he jumped on his bed. He’d be back. Little turd was in that sort of mood.

  Brushing moist apple from my shoulder, I turned to the television once more. I had only just turned it on. I’d been strumming my guitar for an hour or so, before succumbing to the urge to slouch down on my bed and watch some undemanding crap on TV. But the first image I’d seen had immediately caught my attention.

  It wasn’t a jungle, exactly. More like a heavily wooded landscape, hillsides rich in trees and shrubs, more distant peaks bare and stark and swathed in mist. Creepers hung from trees that grew far above, feeling their way into the shadows like dormant tentacles, and a stream zigzagged slowly along the base of a ravine. Several large tents were pitched there, a few smaller ones close by, and a storage compound was piled with plastic crates and khaki bags. There were people moving in the ravine, and it was their expressions that had made me watch so intently.

  They were excited. Not just caught in the moment but properly thrilled by what they were doing, and whatever it was they’d found. The “Live” motif in the screen’s corner gave the scene even more immediacy. Men and women clustered around the camp in the background, and the camera was focused on one small group—the three people draped in ropes and harnesses, the propped metal winch, and the dark gulf of the cave entrance set in the hillside. Two women worked the winch, and one by one the explorers were lowered out of the light and out of sight.

  I was confused why there was no narration, but then I pressed a button on the remote and subtitles popped up. Jude must have been watching my TV again, messing up the settings. Annoying little shit.

  “—just over a mile, so although that doesn’t yet make this anywhere near the longest or the deepest cave system in Europe, that unique feature does set it aside as the most fascinating, and the potential for deeper exploration is huge. As Dr Krasnov said earlier, you’re watching history in the making, live on the Discovery Channel. So as these three cavers are lowered into the vertical cave mouth, further inside the robotic systems are already…”

  What unique feature? I wondered. The cave mouth looked unremarkable, a sinkhole perhaps fifteen feet across, its edges shrouded in bushes. Daylight seeped down one side, revealing a plant-covered wall that seemingly led straight down. It was a bit spooky, I supposed, and watching the last caver disappear into the darkness I wondered whether I’d stumbled onto a new drama or movie. But I checked that it really was the Discovery Channel, and then the presenter appeared in shot for the first time. I’d seen her before, reporting from all across the world. What an amazing job, I thought. At fourteen, I was just starting to get a feel of what I wanted to do, and watching this reporter filled me with anticipation. Being deaf wasn’t going to stop me from trying to become who I wanted to be.

  “As we said earlier, there’s already a team of fifteen camped out at this system’s furthest extreme,” the presenter continued. “They include experienced cavers, a botanist, a biologist, a geologist, and a palaeontologist, and they’ve been underground for almost six days taking samples and trying to catalogue the new species of plant and insects already discovered down there. But now that the entrance to the next passageway has been found, and the explorers are ready to start moving aside the rockfall that seems to hide a much deeper, vaster system beyond, it could be that this becomes one of the greatest scientific discoveries—”

  I picked up my permanently open iPad and accessed the scrapbook app. I’d adapted and personalised it, and now used it whenever a news story grabbed my interest, attaching reports, video clips, and social media content. Sometimes I’d let my parents read my analyses. I knew they were pleased I wanted to be a journalist, but once Dad had said it would be hard work. He meant because of my accident, though he didn’t say it. But it was hardly surprising that communication was important to me. His doubt had surprised me a little, especially as he often listened to me playing music. Jude wanted to form a band with me, him as frontman, me as songwriter, musician, and everything else that didn’t involve stage-diving into the adoring audience. I’d replied to Dad, Say that to Beethoven. He never doubted me after that. Not to my face, at least.

  I opened a new file, called it “New Worlds?” and was just about to start the introductory text when a movement caught my eye.

  Jude slipped around the doorway again, crawling like a sniper, elastic band tensed between thumb and forefinger and paper pellet folded across it. I saw him and ducked, but he’d reacted faster. The pellet caught me an inch above my left eye.

  I howled in pain, then roared in rage.

  Jude tried to scamper away, wide-eyed and laughing.

  I dropped the iPad on my bed and launched myself across the room, reaching for my annoying little brother. Years of ballet and athletics gave me the advantage, and I was across the room before he could find his feet.

  My hands clamped around his ankles. He looked back over his shoulder. I grimaced, trying to put on the most evil expression I could muster. He annoyed the hell out of me, but sometimes I couldn’t bear to wipe that manic, delighted grin from his face.

  “And now, with vengeance close—” I began.

  “No, Ally, I’m sorry!”

  Something wet nudged against my side, nuzzling my hip where my tee shirt had ridden up.

  “Otis!” I shouted, jumping. Jude took the opportunity to slither from my grasp and crawl away, crouching in his doorway ready to defend his turf.

  The dog sat and nudged me again. “Coming!” I called, because I knew Mum had sent Otis to fetch me. He wasn’t a proper hearing dog—not professionally trained, at least—but I’d spent long hours coaching the Weimaraner to let me know when people were calling for me, when the landline was ringing, and when someone was at the front door. Otis and I had a deep relationship, and it still amazed me how he seemed to differentiate between moods and tasks—serious was being my hearing dog. Play was pretty much everything else.

  “Good boy!” I said, ruffling his neck and scratching his chest. Otis gave a short, sharp bark—I actually felt it, heavy in my chest—and pounded back down the stairs.

  Jude and I fought down the staircase on our behinds, side by si
de. We laughed. I’d already forgotten about that faraway ravine, the hole in the ground, and the people disappearing into deep, deep darkness.

  * * *

  It was just another hotel room, in another bland hotel that Huw would forget the moment he drove away, and this one smelled of piss.

  The place was presented nicely enough. The rooms were all different—his was unimaginatively called the Red Suite, with red curtains and bedclothes, and a series of abstract paintings depicting stark fleshy landscapes and bleeding sunsets—and the couple who ran the hotel seemed friendly and efficient. The wife was a little older than Huw, and she’d smiled just a little too much when he’d noticed the undone buttons on her blouse. It was only a peek, a bit of lacy brassiere. He couldn’t help noticing things like that, but notice was all he’d ever done. He had a table booked for dinner later, and the hotel seemed to have a great reputation as an eatery as well. So it was fine. It was quirky. But his room still smelled of piss.

  He’d moved slowly around the room, sniffing here and there, ducking into the en suite to see if the stink came from the most obvious place, but he couldn’t pin it down. It was only a slight tang, nothing too heavy and alarming, not enough to persuade him to ask to be moved. Certainly not enough to make him complain. Huw just wasn’t like that. He hated trouble, and avoided confrontation at all costs. If there’d been a huge turd in the middle of the floor, he’d probably have complained then. Probably.

  He sighed, sitting back on the bed and sinking into the four pillows he’d stacked against the headboard. A book lay unread beside him. A cup of tea cooled on the bedside table, a good idea at the time but tasting of… well, piss, with the faux milk they provided in those little plastic containers.

  That was another thing he’d do if he ran a place like this. A small fridge in the room with a jug of proper milk. He spoke with Kelly about it often, and once or twice they’d had serious conversations about actually buying a small B&B here on the Cornish coast. She could paint, more than the occasional dabbling she sometimes found time for now. He could surf. Jude could explore the rock pools down on the beach, and Ally could indulge whatever her latest interests might be—shell-collecting, kayaking, coasteering. Huw smiled. Ally would probably want to try them all, and more.