The Wood

Fourteen

Muffin was back close at Roy Bean's heels, so close that at times she threatened to obstruct his difficult progress through the swampy ground. Angrily he kicked back at her, heard her whimper but she did not move away, just cringed.

'Stupid bitch,' he grunted. 'You're supposed to be working the rough, searching for a scent like those bloody police dogs are.' Strangely, the Alsatians had gone quiet. Perhaps they were trained to work silently. Or else they were acting strangely, too.

Hell, this fog was thicker than ever and yet you could hear the sea pounding the coastline like it hadn't done since that disastrous week of the Fastnet yacht race some years ago. It was crazy, a raging sea but here in Droy Wood you experienced the kind of feeling old-time mariners must have had when they were becalmed. The wind's never going to blow again, you're here for the rest of your life and there isn't much of that left now. The gamekeeper struggled in a patch of soft ground, the thick springy grass beneath his feet giving him the impression that it was floating on water, that at any second it might tip up and throw him into a deep pool. Muffin was wallowing, almost swimming, snorting the way she always did when she retrieved a shot bird off the water. It hadn't been as wet as this the other day. Christ, it was always swampy in here but this was ridiculous, frightening if you thought too much about it.

No longer was it easy to keep the men directly on either side of you in sight. Not just because the mist was appreciably thicker but now they were in the densest part of the wood where they were forced to detour impassable barriers such as bogs and impenetrable patches of brambles. Even if the syndicate demanded to shoot the wood the beaters wouldn't stand for it, Roy Bean reflected. And neither would 1.1 never want to set foot in this fucking place again.

He had given up urging the spaniel forward. She had a stubborn streak in her and she'd made up her mind not to range from her master's side. Any other time, anywhere else, she would have had a thrashing. Bloody dog!

He paused for a moment. Perhaps he wasn't as fit as he thought, he rarely got out of breath. The stink in here didn't help, a mixture of decaying trees, marsh vapours and rotting seaweed drifting in from the sea. He glanced about him; there was nobody in sight at this very moment, he could not even hear the other searchers splashing and cursing. It gave you a funny feeling like suddenly everybody else had left and you were abandoned here, hadn't a clue which way to go. Once you lost your sense of direction in thick fog you didn't find it again unless by chance you stumbled upon a recognisable landmark. And here in the wood everywhere looked the same, every stunted tree like the next one. But at least today you could hear the sea, knew that if it was on the left then the road had to be on your right. Well, at least it should be. He shuddered.

Roy Bean set off again, an urgency about his movements now, a disregard for the water that slopped over the tops of his Wellington boots. He should have worn waders but how the hell were you to know that the fucking place was going to flood?

Muffin stopped, cowered and whined. Oh Jesus Christ, not only are you refusing to work but now you bleedin' well don't want to do anything! He lifted his ash stick threateningly and at that moment the spaniel gave a short sharp bark, the way she warned him when there was a trespasser somewhere close by on the game preserves; except that now it was a yelp of fear, ears fiat back on her liver and white head, tail curled down between her hind legs. He was about to strike her when a movement distracted him, an eddying of the fog up ahead of him, revealing an outline then closing back over it again. One of the searchers must have gone too far, realised his mistake and come back, was trying to locate the line again. Silly bugger, if you were beating for me on shooting days you'd get a cursing. That's how beaters get shot, buggering about all over the place.

'Oi!' Roy's shout was strangely subdued, muffled. 'Over here, mate.'

The fog rolled away from the other once more, and as it swirled the spaniel gave another bark, jumped and ran in the opposite direction, splashing, swimming; fleeing in sheer canine terror.

But Roy Bean scarcely noticed the departure of his dog as he was afforded a clear view of the man ahead of him, aware that the other man was stark naked, that the features were familiar, identical with those plastered on walls and telegraph poles all over the village. Instant recognition, mind-blowing shock. Oh my God, it's him. Foster/ Hundreds of bloody searchers and it has to be me who finds him. Not wanting to believe his eyes. It was some trick of the mist or his imagination playing him up.

Bean shouted again. 'Oi, the bugger's here. Oi, you lot, where the fuck are you?'

His words seemed to.bounce off the wall of fog at him. That sea was making so much noise that nobody could hear him. If only they'd let me bring the gun but all I've got is a bloody stick.

James Foster was smiling. There was something wrong with his throat, like it had been cut, only it couldn't have been or else he wouldn't be standing there now. The bugger's only dangerous to women. What's happened to that nature conservancy bloke and the decoy copper then?

Foster turned, began to walk slowly into the mist.

'Oi,' the gamekeeper began to move after him. 'Oi, you. There's hundreds of police here. You're surrounded, you can't get away.'

The other did not appear to have heard him, indeed he might even have forgotten that there was anybody there. Sauntering away, almost casually, Roy Bean struggling to keep him in sight. Any moment the mist would billow over and he would be gone. I couldn't 'elp it, sir. I shouted but nobody came. Tried to follow 'im but I couldn't keep up with 'im, lost 'im in the bleedin' fog.

But you are keeping up with him. Better not actually catch him up. Any second somebody will come and then we'll have the bastard. Come on you bloody lot, where are you?

There wasn't anybody else; just Roy Bean and James Foster in the middle of a wood that was getting more swampy with every step they took. 'Oi, you!'

Floundering, trying to keep Foster in sight, not because he wanted to apprehend him but because there wasn't anybody else here. Just the two of them in a world where nobody else had ever existed and Man was a gregarious species.

Bean's chest was beginning to hurt, a constricting pain that spread right down and burned like a stitch in his side. Ahead of him the naked man slowed, a dim outline only just visible in this vile fog, as though he deliberately hung back so that his pursuer would not lose sight of him. A hand was raised in mocking gesture. Hurry, time is running out; for both of us. The gamekeeper had lost a Wellington boot, had had to abandon it in the mud as he struggled free. I want to go back. Which way is back? Where is everybody else? Trying to shout but if he did manage it then it was drowned by the roaring in his own ears.

The stench was stronger now, burning the back of his throat, making him throw up but he could not afford to delay, vomiting as he fought his way through a thick reed-bed, cascading the remnants of his breakfast down the front of his shirt. Stuck again, having to leave his remaining rubber boot somewhere down in… there! He recoiled, spewed again. That mud, it was of a texture that he had never seen before, sloppy grey slime that bubbled and hissed, reminding him of slugs when you trod on them, how they burst into a filthy mess so that your foot skidded. It was oozing up out of the reeds, streaking the black water, covering it. Mother of God, it was as though the effluent of Mankind since the dawn of civilisation was being rejected by Earth, thrown back up. Take your vile pollution back! Everywhere was awash with it. A pit of some kind on his left, filling steadily with this bubbling slime and

there was somebody in it, an unrecognisable figure attempting to swim, mouthing screams in one continual vomit of the stuff. Man or woman, it was impossible to tell, perhaps not even human, a despairing arm raised and then it was gone, just a mass of bubbles marking its demise. And then they burst and you tried to convince yourself that it was a hallucination, a despicable trick of the brain in this awful dead place. You could imagine anything here. Foster was no longer to be seen. The gamekeeper glanced about him. No, don't go and leave me here. I don't want to harm you, I hope you escape. Show rne the way out of here and I'll swear on the Bible that I never even saw you. Everywhere the mud was oozing and thickening, hissing its hate for those who ventured into this place where they had no right to be. Movements everywhere, flitting shapes that might just have been created by the eddying fog. Figures that came and went before you could be sure, afraid to call out to them in case they were. you dared not think what they might be. Malevolent whisperings, rising to a crescendo, dying away, beginning again. And all the time you were fighting a battle to stop yourself from being sucked down — like that figure in the pit!

Roy clutched at a branch but it snapped off, showered him with splinters of damp rotted wood. He grabbed at another and it held. Just. He tried to think logically. The sea was responsible for all this. For centuries it had been creeping into Droy Wood, reclaiming the territory that had once been its own, filling gutters and making pools, a slow process that had now come to fruition. And then the marsh gave off its gases, created the fog. So you got lost and.

He started, recoiled so that the branch broke and threw him back against the trunk. There was a man standing only a few yards away, enshrouded in the mist so that his features were obscured but Roy Bean knew that it wasn't Foster. The shape was wrong and the other was wearing some kind of heavy uniform, a kind of soft helmet on his head. He must have been there all the time, just watching, waiting.

'Who… are you?' The gamekeeper didn't know if he actually managed to get the words out.

'Too late.' The other spoke with a guttural accent, slowly as though the language was unfamiliar to him and he had to dwell on each word. 'I have waited patiently all these years in vain.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Just as the Russian winter defeated us so the elements have again risen to help the enemy. The mist has shrouded and hidden this place, the bogs made an invasion impossible. Elsewhere the German army had triumphed. Except here. Only I represent the Fatherland here and I will defend it to the last.'

Bertie Hass spoke grimly, his fingers feeling for a holster belt that was no longer around his waist.

You're mad, Bean thought, swallowed and felt slime slithering down the back of his throat. This couldn't be happening, it was all in the mind like that guy being sucked down in that deep bog. Or else it was somebody playing a bloody stupid trick. " 'The war's over,' he said. 'A long time ago.'

'You lie, just as the others did, a trick to lure me from my stronghold. This wood shall not be surrendered. Consider yourself my prisoner, a prisoner of war.'

'I… look. the searchers can't be far away,' he stammered, looking blindly about him for somewhere to flee but there was nowhere, just mud that was becoming more liquid by the second. 'Hurry, we have no time to waste!' Roy Bean did not want to go, was resisting every movement his limbs made against his will, feet squelching in and out of the foul stinking morass that could no longer be termed mud, aware that somehow this man who claimed to be a Nazi was driving him on. Through the murk, along waterlogged footpaths, zig-zagging and unerringly finding and following one track after another. Not talking because there was nothing to talk about, aware of the other's presence right behind him, hearing again those words 'Hurry, we have no time to waste'. A huge shape loomed up before them, a turreted building that might have been a mediaeval castle, sinister in the gloom as though it had been deliberately lurking there waiting for them. You felt its coldness, its hate, a monster that was dying a lingering death and sought to vent its malevolence on somebody before it was too late. Those windows seemed to gleam for a second or two as if a shaft of wan sunlight had broken through the fog. But that was impossible, the sun would never shine here again.

It has to be Droy House, Roy Bean tried to convince himself. But so much older, the way it might have looked once. Frightening, a sadistic illustrator of children's books inflicting subtle horror on his readers; they wanted to slam the book shut, throw it away, but instead they were forced to stare at it, and during the nocturnal hours it would return to haunt their dreams, so much more real.

Perhaps the German pushed him, Roy Bean could not be sure. He stumbled forward, felt stonework beneath his feet, solid steps that were treacherous with a coating of slime, harbour steps with a polluted tide lapping at them. The bare walls of the hallway streamed with foul condensation, the floor slippery. An open trap door in the far corner; he wanted to back away, to flee outside, but something held him there, drew him towards it. He tried to scream but no sound came from his lips, clutching at the waft" as he descended the uneven steps into the cold blackness below, this can't be happening! It is. Icy water, thick with slime, came up to his ankles. This underground place was flooding, we'll be drowned. Yet his protests were mute, his movements jerky. Don't touch me, please, I'll do as you say.

Pinioned against the wall, something hard snapped on his wrists and ankles; hanging there. He didn't know whether his captor was still here or not, just listening to the smooth swilling of thick liquid. The dungeon was filling up, like melting slush, mentally measuring its progress as it crept up his body, obscenely exploring inside his saturated clothing; numbing him. Voices, indistinguishable whispers, people moving about but seemingly unaware of his presence, trying to call out to them but his vocal chords had long ceased to function.

The scum lapped at his navel, submerged it.

Somebody was weeping somewhere, it sounded like a girl or a young boy, he could not be sure which, sobs which eventually died away. And then he saw the duai red pin-points of dozens of pairs of eyes, knew that they belonged to rodents. Rats, swimming, trying to escape but in the end they would drown too. Suddenly one bit him, sharp teeth gouging his thigh, and he writhed to the full extent of his manacles, jerked and strained, instinctively tried to pull away. They were all coming at him now; he could only see their eyes but he knew only too well what the repulsive bodies looked like, brown furry creatures that scavenged, lived on filth, and attacked helpless humans. Just one rat bite was capable of… God, he knew only too well what dangers rats presented. On the game preserves they were one of his main enemies. They ate eggs, young chicks, bit their way into feed bags and spoiled what they didn't eat. Left their turds everywhere and even when you poisoned them they managed to crawl into their holes beneath the out-buildings and you had to live with the stench of decomposing rats for weeks during the summer. Just one rat bite could. his skin crawled and he sensed that thigh wound bleeding, tinging the slime pink. Rat bite fever, the wound would fill with fluid; it already was, with contaminated sludge. Or Weil's disease. Or ringworm. Or…

But he wouldn't get any of those because he would drown first. Christ, he hated rats. In the past he had killed thousands of them; poison, traps, an air-rifle on the banks of the stream when he had half an hour to spare. Shooting rats gave him more pleasure than killing any other creature because he despised the little fuckers. You heard the soft 'phut' of the pellet as it struck the hairy body, sent it kicking and writhing into the current, turning the water crimson. Looking up at you and you read the agony in its eyes. Die you bastard and don't be too quick about it because I want you to suffer. Now the tables were turned, the rats had him in the water at their mercy. We know you, Roy Bean, what you've been doing to us for years and now it's our turn. You're the one who's going to suffer this time. We're all going to drown but not just yet. Not until.

They were ripping his clothes below the surface, gripping the material with their teeth, pulling until they tore it into shreds, bared his flesh. No, not there!

He tried to close his thighs but the leg-irons prevented him. Rough hairy bodies rubbed against his skin and suddenly he was able to scream again. Yells of sheer pain and terror as needle-like teeth found their mark, shooting the agony right up into his stomach, knotting it. He was spewing again, throwing up the filth that he had swallowed, helpless to throw off his attackers as they began their feast of living human flesh, chewing on the tenderest portions first.

Once Roy Bean almost fainted but even that was denied him. The stinking muddy water was up to his chest now and the rats were running up his chest and on to his shoulders, nipping at his neck, squatting there, gloating. Time had stopped, only the agony went on.

He cricked his neck as he strained to keep his head above the level of the rising floodwater; the end would not be long now. The rats were all climbing up on him, almost smothering him with their wet coarse fur as they jostled for places, began to fight among themselves.

He couldn't keep the liquid filth out of his mouth much longer, felt its sliminess against his lips, tried to spit it out. It was slipping down his throat, a sensation like melting ice cream that was contaminated. Coughing, spewing.

And only at the very end did the rats go for his jugular vein.