Ominous Folly

by Ray Barry, Denis Hughes

Genres: Science Fiction; Time Travel

Synopsis

Diana and Jane had their glamorous European road trip all planned out: shopping in Paris, then down along the Spanish coast for sun and sea.

A strange road takes them through twists and turns until they black out. When they wake, they're on a strange island, with no way off and no sign of how they got there. This strange bubble out of time has no seasons, no day or night, and is populated by a small collection of people. They are cared for - or ruled over - by the mysterious 'Master'.

They're in paradise. But they're not allowed to leave...

OMINOUS FOLLY is one of Denis Hughes' works under his many pseudonyms. It has been out of print in the UK for decades and is now available for the first time as an eBook!

Release date: May 27, 2021

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

The two-seater Jaguar lurched from one rut to another with sickening frequency. Ruts, pot-holes and loose stones made the so-called road a nightmare. And the hot sun beating down sent dizzying waves of heat swirling upwards to distort the bright coloured landscape.

Dinah’s arms were aching from the strain of picking as smooth a course as possible. It said much for her skill as a driver that the car was making such good time; it also spoke well of the vehicle itself.

A particularly vicious lurch jolted them violently.

“All I hope is,” said Jane, “that we don’t break a spring before we get there.” She stared away south towards the forbidding barrier of the high Cantabrian mountains and the uplands that footed them. “This is no kind of country for a breakdown, Dee.”

Dinah grinned and tossed her blonde head defiantly. The sun glinted brightly on her hair as the cooling southerly wind stirred and tangled it playfully.

“Well,” she answered, “it was you who said Sunny Spain for a holiday, Jane. Don’t blame me for the roads!”

Jane, almost as blonde as her companion, but wearing a scarf over her head, pulled a face.

“I didn’t think Spanish roads were as bad as this,” she said. “Besides, the main ones aren’t; it’s only the little ones that shake your liver up.”

Dinah gritted her teeth and negotiated a pot-hole some eighteen inches deep. “You’re the navigator!” she said.

Jane didn’t answer directly. Instead she bent and studied a map on her knees. “If we want to sleep under a roof to-night we’ve simply got to make Ferrol,” she announced at length. “It’s the nearest place with an inn that’s marked.”

Dinah nodded, concentrating on the road ahead. At times her eyes strayed to the magnificent scenery to the south. The road picked and wound its way along the northern coast, so that the Jaguar pointed west. After motoring down through France it had been Dinah’s idea to make for Vigo once they were into Spain, working from village to village along the Biscay coast. The idea had been good; the roads detracted somewhat from its pleasure.

“Ferrol by nightfall, eh?” mused Dinah. “We shall have to find a short-cut to do that.”

Jane grunted thoughtfully, her eyes glued to the map.

“There’s a minor road marked here,” she said presently.

“A minor road? Heaven help us if it’s worse than this one!”

“Maybe we can find someone to ask further on.”

Before Dinah could answer the road dipped sharply till it was running almost down to the edge of blue-green water and creamy white surf. Right at the bottom was a small stone cottage, backing against a wall of granite that echoed the roar and thunder of the sea.

“Look, a house!” cried Jane excitedly.

Dinah slowed the car instinctively. A sturdy looking fishing cobble was drawn up on the narrow hard in front of the cottage. Black nets hung to dry over the garden wall; a pile of lobster pots flanked the line of the road. There was no one in sight when the car stopped in front of the house.

“According to the map,” said Jane, “there’s a fork about three miles farther on that will save us nearly ten miles to Ferrol.”

They got out and slowly approached the cottage.

“You know, Dee, I always feel that anything could happen in a country like this.” Jane gazed curiously round; her eyes were dreamy as they drank in the rugged beauty of the scene. Dinah, more practical, had seen movement behind a window in the front of the cottage.

“Someone at home at any rate,” she said.

The door was opened before they could knock, revealing a black haired, picaresque figure in fisherman’s clothing. He might have come straight from a pirate ship, thought Dinah. There were gold ear-rings in his ears; he was barefooted, his hair was short and curly above a walnut-coloured face. But his teeth, when he smiled, were white and even, and there was friendliness in his bright black eyes.

In halting Spanish they accepted his invitation to step inside. Jane had the map in her hand as they entered the room. There appeared to be only one room, and in the far corner sat an incredibly old woman with a shawl round her bent shoulders. She was knitting some formless garment with coarse wool, probably spun on the ancient wheel that Dinah saw under the window.

“Mio madre,” said the man with a smile, gesturing to the crone.

The two girls found themselves being offered wine and cake. Not for several minutes did they succeed in getting down to the reason for their stop. There was something so friendly and home-like about the cottage that it seemed a shame to leave. Again, struggling with language and the local dialect, they eventually made the fisherman understand what they wanted to know.

Had they suggested driving across the sea the effect could not have been more surprising. In a flow of rapid Spanish that was completely unintelligible to Dinah and Jane, he was obviously trying to put them off from using the fork road that would save so much distance.

“But is it a good road?” insisted Jane. Dinah translated as well as she could, stemming the man’s seemingly horrified spate of talk.

He gulped. His mother had stopped her knitting and was staring at the girls, her gnarled old hands still and idle in her lap. There was swift fear in her eyes.

“Señorita,” said the man, “the road is good, but…” He shrugged and spread his hands, saying no more.

Dinah studied his frightened expression. Vague ideas of brigands invaded her mind. If the road was good why shouldn’t they use it? Some local superstition, she supposed. Turning to Jane, she met her friend’s eyes.

Jane said: “We’d better push on, Dee. We’ve spent too much time here as it is. We shall have to use that road now—unless we camp out under the stars tonight!”

Dinah nodded. They thanked the man and his silent old mother, returning to the car. The man stood watching them in the open doorway of the cottage. Dinah started the engine and waved her hand in friendly salute. But there was no answering smile on the fisherman’s face. Instead he crossed himself hurriedly.

Dinah let in the clutch and the Jaguar purred away.

For a while neither of the two girls spoke. Both felt a vague apprehension, yet would not voice it. Some of the warmth and brightness seemed to have gone from the sunshine; perhaps their minds were oppressed by the fisherman’s attitude. Dinah kept remembering the way in which he had crossed himself when they drove away.

“It just isn’t logical,” she said at length.

Jane shot her a sidelong glance. “He said the road was a good one,” she muttered. “There can’t be any reason why we shouldn’t use it, surely! Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“I was just thinking that even nowadays there are some pretty queer characters in these out-of-the-way places.”

Dinah grinned. “We came to Spain for adventure!”

“Hmmm… Well, anyway… If we’re going to take the fork you’d better slow up; that’s it just ahead.”

Dinah slowed, braking for a pot-hole. “Here goes!” she said grimly. “If your navigation’s wrong we may end up anywhere!”

Jane glanced at her companion apprehensively. “You sound as if you’re scared,” she said accusingly. “Are you?”

“No-o.” Dinah accelerated again, the car bouncing off up the fork road that headed farther inland away from the sea. Both girls were silent, studying the country, though Dinah concentrated most of her attention on the road. After about a quarter of a mile the surface improved unexpectedly.

“This is better than I thought it would be,” said Dinah. “If it’s as good as this all the way we shan’t be able to grumble.”

The car sped on, making better time than before. But Jane was not so easy in her mind as she made out she was. Presently she nudged her companion, her eyes on the map.

“You know,” she said, “this road isn’t doing what it ought to.”

“How do you mean?” Dinah sounded vaguely irritated.

“Not according to the map,” said Jane. “And look at all these hills. We should be in much flatter country.”

Dinah frowned. There was nothing wrong with the road surface at any rate. “Well,” she said, “I’m not turning back now for anyone. It must lead somewhere. Maybe the map’s wrong; it’s probably out-of-date.”

But Jane said no, it wasn’t out-of-date.

“Then it’s Spanish,” was Dinah’s comment. She said it as if that accounted for everything.

“There hasn’t been another turning off it at all,” muttered Jane, a little worried now; “and I know my navigation wasn’t at fault.”

Dinah did not answer. The road was winding through a steep-sided canyon. Although the sun was still bright it seemed to be growing darker around them, for the walls of rock on either side were gradually getting higher and higher. At the same time the road was narrowing. Before long there was barely room for the width of the car.

Jane fidgeted anxiously, folding and unfolding the map with nervous hands. “Don’t you think we ought to turn back?” she said at length. “I’m sure this isn’t right, Dee.”

Dinah managed a grin. “My dear, we can’t turn round where we are; and I’m certainly not going to reverse all the way back. We must have come several miles already.”

“Three,” replied Jane, one eye on the speedometer.

The walls of rock, tinted orange by the sinking sun where it caught their upper crests, threw back the drum of the powerful exhaust. The girls suddenly felt as if they were being hemmed in; there was an unreal quality in the light, in the forbidding chasm through which they motored, in the noise of their very progress.

And Dinah was instinctively driving more quickly, though she would have found it difficult to give an honest reason for haste.

By the end of a further fifteen minutes Jane had given up trying to follow the map. There was no comparison between the two for one thing, and for another the canyon was so deep as to conceal any landmarks that might otherwise have been v. . .