The Wood

Nine

Thelma Brown awoke stiff and cold, stared into the thickening mist. It had still not cleared but at least it was daylight. She shivered with the cold, stood up and moved about in an attempt to get warm, get her cramped muscles working again.

It was awful, unbelievable what had happened last night. I'm sorry Mum, John, you were right after all, I shouldn't have gone, it was dangerous. That man who picked me up couldn't have been a policeman, he wouldn't have acted like that if he was. But where were the police, why didn't they come looking for her? As soon as it got light enough they would be sure to search the wood again and then they would find her. But in the meantime the man who had raped her was still in the wood. It had to be the man named Foster, the one who had abducted Carol Embleton, probably killed Andy Dark, because it couldn't be anybody else. He must have left the wood, picked up another car and driven that same road again ahead of the policeman who was going to pick up Thelma, beaten him to it, taken advantage of the fog. Damn the fog, it was responsible for everything that had happened last night.

She felt sick, a combination of fear, cold and hunger leading to nausea. Perhaps she could find her way back to the road, it couldn't be all that far. Take a straight line in. she didn't know which direction. Everywhere looked the same in here, dead or dying twisted oaks, bogs and thick reeds. And the awful silence, not even a crow calling raucously. But she couldn't just stop because she might still be here when darkness fell again. Don't panic, they'll find you; they'll have to or else there'll be a public outcry. POLICE DECOY SNATCHED BY RAPIST. JAMES FOSTER STILL AT LARGE. They would move heaven and earth to find her.

She saw what appeared to be a well-trodden muddy path leading away through the trees, skirting some tall reeds, decided at once that she would follow it. She trod cautiously, fearfully. The rushes were tail and thick, could have concealed an army. She kept as far from them as the path would allow, started, almost screamed once, when they rustled as though somebody lurked in there waiting to spring out at her. It could not have been the wind because there wasn't any, not so much as a faint breeze. And the mist seemed to be thickening all the time. You'll never leave here, Thelma Brown. Nobody leaves Droy Wood when the mists cover it.

The path snaked on and on. She wondered who had made it, an uneasy thought. No cattle or sheep carne in here; wild animals then, foxes, badgers, rabbits travelling constantly to and fro through the night hours. She tried to convince herself that it was the creatures of the wild, might have done so had it not been for the total silence around her, a dead place which even the birds and animals shunned.

The path was cutting away to her left now, winding through the trees, going on and on, visibility down to less than ten yards. Thelma could not get that fiery sky out of her mind, that blazing aircraft, the parachutist. It had seemed so real at the time but it had to be an hallucination because it couldn't possibly have been real. The human brain played strange tricks on one when under stress.

She stopped, listened again. If only she could pick up the sound of a passing car or lorry, know that the road was not far away, that she was going in the right direction. But always there was just the silence. The ground beneath her feet was drier now, leaves rustling as her bare feet scuffed through them. The trees, too, mostly oaks, retained a vestige of browning greenery as though they had not surrendered completely to this place where everything died. Hope, hurrying. If only that man Foster had not been in the vicinity she would have yelled for help; the police must be starting to search for her by now.

And then she came upon the young girl, not much older than ten or eleven. Thelma started, thought it must be another trick her confused mind was playing on her. She stared, saw the child sitting on a dead tree trunk watching her, smiling, not in the least bit surprised. Long golden hair done up into pigtails, her head seemingly too large for her slender young body; pretty, wide blue eyes, a flowery blue dress that fell to the ankles of her bare legs. Quaint, old-fashioned, Thelma thought, just how Mum might have looked when she was young. Or even Grandma.

The child did not appear to be in the least frightened or concerned, holding some reeds which she had been attempting to plait, playing idly just as she might have done in the meadows on a hot summer's day.

'Hallo,' she said still smiling, 'fancy seeing you here.'

'Fancy seeing you here,' Thelma echoed, and for some reason another shudder ran over her body. 'Aren't you cold with just a summer dress on?'

"You haven't got any clothes on.' Almost a prudish accusation.

'No. no, I haven't, have I?' Thelma glanced down at herself, experienced an unfamiliar embarrassment.

'Why haven't you?' Wide questioning eyes demanding an explanation.

'Because. ' — I can't tell her I've been raped, and neither must I let her go wandering off on her own with him about — 'because I fell in the mud and my clothes got all wet and muddy so there wasn't much point in wearing them. I hung them on a tree.'

'My mummy used to say that you only wore clothes to stop other people from looking at your body, that we didn't really need them. She's dead now, though.'

'Oh, I'm sorry.' Poor kid.

'I'm sorry, too. But would you like to see my daddy?'

'Oh, yes… but I can't. like this.'

'He won't mind.'

Thelma knew she was blushing yet the spark of hope within her that had almost gone out was glowing again. A child and her father, they had to know the way out of Droy Wood. It was funny that she did not recognise the girl, though. She knew most of the locals but this one was a stranger to her. They were building some new houses just outside the village, though, on the city side. Perhaps she came from one of those. She had to because no local would go anywhere near the wood, particularly when the mist covered it.

'My daddy's back there,' she said pointing vaguely behind her. 'It's quite a way, it'll take us ten minutes to walk it.'

'That's OK. What's your name?' 'Elsie.'

'That's nice.' It's old-fashioned, too. People don't use names like that these days. Still, what's in a name?

'Come on then.' Elsie stretched out a hand.

Thelma took it, felt icy cold fingers entwining with her own, transmitting a shiver. The child was deathly cold. 'You're cold. You ought to wear more clothes or else you'll be catching your., (death). you'll be catching pneumonia.'

'I'm all right, I'm used to it.' Her voice was husky, almost as though she had a sore throat. 'It's not really cold, it's just the damp fog.'

Elsie was pulling on Thelma's hand, overtaking her as though there was some sudden hurry.

'What's your daddy doing in the wood?' Serve me right if she told me to mind my own damned business.

A pause, clearing her throat. 'He's always in the wood these days. You'll see for yourself soon, though.'

They walked on in silence, a slight uneasiness creeping between them.

'I miss my mummy.' A note of sadness, almost a sob. 'I loved her.'

'How long's she. '

'A few days. Would you like to see her grave?'

No, I wouldn't. 'Sometime perhaps but hadn't we better go and meet your daddy first?'

'I suppose so.'

The other's mood had changed; sullen, those cold fingers detaching themselves from Thelma's, walking faster, striding on ahead.

The wood was not quite so boggy here, the ground a thick carpet of dead leaves which had gathered over the years, the permanent smell of decay almost overpowering. A wide space, perhaps the trees here had been felled at some time or other or else they had just blown down and rotted. Ahead of her Thelma saw what appeared to be a huge circular hole in the ground, a pit of some kind that had once been dug out manually because there was a large mound on the opposite side. It grew weeds and moss so the excavation had been a very long time ago. She wondered what on earth anybody would want to dig here for.

'They used to get peat from here a long time ago, when my daddy was a little boy.' Elsie appeared to have the uncanny knack of being able to read your thoughts. If her father had been here as a boy then they couldn't live in those new houses.

'You live around here then?' A direct question; perhaps too direct.

'Sort of.'

What's your other name? What's your daddy do for a living? And just where do you live? Thelma checked her curiosity. She would find out soon enough.

'My daddy's down there.' Elsie had run on ahead, was standing looking down into the deep hole.

Thelma halted, a sudden inexplicable terror gripping her, a tremor in her voice when she spoke. 'Whatever do you mean. down there!'

'Down there!' Impatience, a tiny finger stabbing down at the hole. 'If you don't believe me come and look for yourself. I thought you wanted to meet him. I've brought you specially.'

'All. right.' Thelma Brown's legs felt suddenly rubbery. Perhaps it was some kind of joke, this child was funny in the head. Her father wasn't here at all except in her own imagination. It was all a game of pretence, she had run away from home, dodged school and come to indulge in her own make-believe games in Droy Wood. Her mother wasn't dead, just morbid childhood fantasy. They might be, probably were, searching for her at this very moment. CHILD GOES MISSING IN DROY WOOD. SEX KILLER STILL AT LARGE. MASSIVE POLICE HUNT.

'All right, I'll come and meet your daddy.' Better humour her for the moment and then I'll grab hold of her and I won't let her go until the police arrive, if they arrive.

Cautiously Thelma approached the edge of the pit. It was deep, she couldn't see the bottom yet. Sheer sides of thick black mud. Possibly it was a peat excavation after all but how the hell did diggers get up and down without a ladder? There certainly wasn't a ladder in sight now. No, her father couldn't possibly be down there. Pretend for the moment that he is, though. Mentally measuring the depth as she saw more and more of those steep sides. Ten., eleven. twelve feet and we haven't reached the bottom yet. Fifteen. black brackish water in the bottom because this whole place was nothing more than a wooded marsh that eventually the sea would erode and reclaim.

She could see the bottom all right now, holding back a yard or so from the brink, nervous like her mother used to get in the days when they used to go on family holidays and her father used to park the car overlooking a steep headland. 'Don't get too close, Frank, or else we might go over.'

A surface of water some twelve feet in diameter, impossible even to guess its depth. 'Your father's not here, Elsie.' And then she noticed something floating, half-submerged in the water.

She stared, wished that she hadn't, wished she had refused to come anywhere near this dreadful place. An arm casually flung out, a twisted leg protruding

a head, the orifices black cavities as though fierce deepwater pike had fed and bloated themselves. A hairless skull, the flesh greenish with decomposition or gangrene.

A body! Thelma Brown screamed, lurched and almost fell, was going to be sick at any second, would probably have thrown up except that her stomach was empty.

There's somebody down there,' she said turning to the child who was now at her side. 'Somebody who has been dead for a long time.'

'I told you my daddy was down there but you wouldn't believe me.' A mild reprimand. 'I kept on telling you my daddy was in the garden.' Not a hint of grief or revulsion, more than an acceptance of a gruesome fact, almost a gleeful statement. 'Now do you want to see my mummy's grave?'

'No!' Thelma swayed, closed her eyes. 'I do not want to see anybody's grave. That man in there, if it is a man, has been dead for a very long time. We shall have to report it to the police.' And for Christ's sake where are the police?

'It's my daddy.' Stubborn, sullen.

'No, it's not, don't be silly.'

'It is!' Elsie shouted, stamped her feet.

'All right, it's your daddy.' Thelma closed her eyes momentarily. 'How did he come to fall in there?'

'I pushed him in!'

Thelma's heart stalled, charged up into a faster gear. No, it couldn't be. This girl was mentally subnormal. She had found the corpse, invented this story and was determined to live it out. It wasn't healthy. She's likely to fiy into a tantrum so I'd better continue to humour her.

'All right, you pushed him in, but what on earth for?'

'Because he killed my mummy. Her grave's just over there.'

God almighty, this was getting crazier by the second! I've looked at your father but the last thing I want to see is. '

'Look, there!'

Thelma turned her head, saw the fresh mound of soil only ten yards away. She swallowed, tried to will it to disappear, just to be a heap of soil. But it didn't and it was a grave, A crude wooden crucifix at the one end, a macabre wreath weaved out of rushes.

'I'm making another wreath.' Elsie said. That one isn't much good, I did it in too much of a hurry because I wanted to put something on the grave. My daddy didn't like it. He was going to kill me too.'

'How awful!'

'He had another woman. He was going to run away with her but first he had to get rid of mummy. So he brought her for a walk in here to help him get some firewood and then he hit her with the axe, chopped her up into tiny pieces. But at least he buried her.'

Thelma heaved. It wasn't true, it couldn't be. The girl ought to be taken home to her parents (they were still alive somewhere), or else taken into care. Then he said that mummy was in the wood, wanted to talk to me so I went with him. He had the axe, was going to chop me up, too, but I pushed him down there. Look, there's the axe still lying on the ground.'

A morbid compulsion had Thelma looking where the other pointed, tensing as she saw the axe lying in the grass. A stail that had almost rotted off, a brownish-red rusty head. It was rust, it was. Elsie had a vivid imagination, backed it up with any exhibit she could find; the body of an unknown man, she might even have dug that mound herself to support her story, and she'd found an axe which had lain forgotten since the last of the Droys worked this woodland. A fabrication, a good one, but a fantasy nevertheless.

'How long ago did all this happen?' Play along with her. In all probability she knew the way out of here. She just needed coaxing.

'A few days ago, maybe a week.' 'But that man down there's been dead for weeks, maybe months!' Oh Jesus, I've put my foot in it again, contradicted her.

'It was last week!' A shout, the beginning of another tantrum. 'Maybe not even as long as that.'

'Where did your daddy work?' Try and steer her off this macabre subject gently.

'Here, in this wood. He was the Droy Estate woodman.'

But the Droys haven't worked the wood since the turn of the century, maybe even earlier than that! Lies, everything she says is a lie.

'I see. Do you know the way out of the wood, Elsie?' Thelma held her breath, the million dollar question. Or are you just hopelessly lost like me?

'There is no way out when the mist covers the wood!' She might have been reciting from the blackboard in the classroom, words that you learned, remembered and repeated again and again.

There is no way out when the mist covers the wood!

'Who brought you here then, Elsie?'

'My daddy, I told you, so that he could chop me up and bury me like he buried mummy.'

She's not just ninepence for a shilling, she's stark raving mad!

'Well, we'll have to try and find a way out.'

'There isn't one, don't you listen to what I tell you. Are you some kind of idiot?'

'But you came here?'

'With my daddy, are you stupid?' Shrieking now, that tiny face screwed up into a mask of anger.

'So you've been here ever since you. pushed your daddy in there?'

'You've got it,' — a glance heavenwards — 'at last.'

Thelma was trying to think. If only she knew in which direction the road lay she could grab Elsie by the hand, drag her forcibly along with her. But she didn't know. They might walk seawards, be even more hopelessly lost when night fell. Oh God, what were the police doing? They should have been scouring these woods by now, tracker dogs barking. Fillery didn't seem the sort just to give up.

'And I think I know who you are.' Elsie's eyes slitted, her young lips curling into a sneer. 'Oh yes, you couldn't be anybody else. I should have realised when I first saw you.'

'Oh, and who do you think I am then?' Mild humour, awaiting a spate of further wild stories, more petulance.

"You're the woman my daddy was going to run off with, the reason he murdered mummy and tried to kill me. Aren't you? And don't lie. He used to sneak off from his work and meet you in the wood, didn't he? That's the truth, isn't it?'

'You're just being silly,' she said, trying to laugh it off. 'I never even knew your daddy, let alone met him secretly in the wood.'

'You are!' She spat. 'I know because you wouldn't be walking around naked like that if you weren't. Once my daddy was a good man, mummy said so, until you,' — stabbing an accusing finger, punching the air, — 'until you seduced him, poisoned his mind. You made him kill mummy!'

'That's ridiculous.' Thelma found herself backing away.

'Witch!'

Suddenly Elsie had become a frightening prospect, much more than just a spoiled child getting into tantrums over her fantasies. Her face had aged, her expression blazed the malevolence of maturity. And with that came the realisation that she was dangerous.

The police will be here soon. They're already looking for me,' Thelma Brown blurted out, stepped back another pace.

The police!' This time the young girl's spittle hit her, an act of defiance and contempt. The police won't come, and even if they do they won't find us. Everybody is lost when the mist enshrouds Droy Wood!'

Thelma found herself staring into those eyes which no longer belonged to a child. Pupils that dilated and contracted alternately so that you couldn't stop watching them, seemed to come out at you, bore into you; spun your brain so that you were nodding, speaking, saying things that you would not otherwise have said.

'Yes, I'm the woman you mentioned.' Guilt, you couldn't hold back a he. 'I used to meet your daddy in the wood. I wanted to run away with him because I was having his baby. I wanted him for my own but first we had to kill your mother. We'd have killed you, too, only you were too smart for us.'

'I was too smart for you.' A peal of hysterical piping laughter. 'I'm condemned to live in Droy Wood for ever but so are you\ None of us will ever leave but you will suffer torments worse than mine. Now, go and join your illicit lover in the pit, lie with him in the filth of your own making. Scream, but nobody will come. He screams for mercy every night but nobody hears him. Go join him!'

Thelma was aware that her legs were moving, propelled by a force beyond her own control. She tried to brace herself but she was powerless to halt the pushing, driving power that emanated from those crazed infantile eyes. Backwards. And still backwards!

'No, please!' She thought she screamed but it may have been in her own mind, an intention that got no further than a thought. Another step. And another. She swayed, knew she was tottering on the brink, a wave of vertigo hitting her, pushing her. A scream but it was in the mind again. She felt herself go, head-first; and in that instant the spell was broken but it was too late. A flash of memory, that time when one of her schoolgirl friends had pushed her in the deep end at the swimming baths. Her scream cut short by a mouthful of water, swallowing the chlorine-tasting liquid, panicking in a green underwater world, sinking until she bumped gently on the bottom. Then hands had grabbed her, pulled her up to the surface, helped her on to the side. But this time there would be no rescuer. The black water seemed to leap up to meet her. How deep, oh Jesus, how deep? I can't swim!

She hit the water hard, felt the impact and then something soft was cushioning her fall. Mud, thick black mud, shooting everywhere, sucking noisily for her, gurgling. Floundering but sinking no further, two feet of water at the most, spitting out the vile-tasting fluid. Breathless, frightened, looking about her. Seeing.

She screamed properly this time. That partly decomposed corpse had reared up on a wave caused by her fall, a grotesque thing whose limp arms lifted and fell, the head jerking back and forth like a string puppet, water trickling from the open mouth. Watching her. No, it couldn't see. It could. Toppling, floating again in a macabre crawl stroke, coming towards her. I want to touch you, to hold you, to mate with you, my dearest. We have been apart too long. This is our joyous reunion brought about by my evil daughter and the two of us shall be together for all time.

Fingers touched her thigh but somehow she squirmed away, managed to stand upright. Her left ankle shot pains up her leg, she must have twisted it in the fall. Trying to run, hobbling, splashing, forcibly dragging her feet out of the mud. One way, then another, trapped in a prison whose walls were solid mud with a demented creature that had risen from its watery grave. Tiring, but her pursuer seemed tireless, bubbling black water out of the cavities that had once been nostrils and mouth, following her every movement with those empty eye sockets. Eager, lusting, wearing her down. And up above the child who had called herself Elsie leaned over and watched, laughing insanely with obvious glee.

The two of you are together at last,' she screeched, her shrill piping tones seeming to whistle in the deep pit-hole. That was what you wanted, wasn't it?

But you won't have a second to yourselves because I'm going to be right here watching you. I'm going to see all those things you used to do together when you sneaked off into the wood. You'll be together for always but I'll be right here. You can't escape from the pit but even if you did you'll never leave the wood. Because nobody leaves Droy Wood — ever!'

Shrill peals of mirth that vibrated in Thelma Brown's brain, hurt her. Splashing, running still but slowing down. Her ankle was swelling up fast so that she could barely rest her weight on it.

And then those gnarled icy hands grabbed her, pulled her back, twisted her round. Helplessly she watched those slobbering lips coming in search of her own.