The Wood

Eight

Reluctantly James Foster had abandoned his search for Carol Embleton. Several times he had heard her splashing on ahead of him through the dense reed-beds, was confident that he would overtake her. So he would have done had it not been for this damnable fog. Now she was lost and he had to face up to the fact that so was he. He had lost all sense of direction. His priority was a reasonably dry place in which to pass the rest of the night; once daylight carne he would soon catch her. He shivered with cold, eventually located a large alder tree growing out of a hummock of ground above the level of the marsh. He settled himself down and once his anger had simmered he began to feel drowsy, almost relaxed.

He would kill her, he had to. He would never forget the sheer thrill of his last killing, that tall dark-haired girl who had eventually given up her struggles and let him do what he wanted. As his orgasm mounted his hands had encircled her throat, begun to squeeze. It had made her thresh beautifully beneath him, her death throes in time with his own thrustings. He had ejaculated and she had died, a perfect combination. He did not regret it one little bit. It had served to whet his appetite for another killing. Had Carol not been riding him then she would have died the same way. Damn the cow, he had intended to screw her a second time and throttle her at the very peak of his orgasm but she had jumped and run. Which was why they were both spending the night in this damn awful place.

Just thinking about her gave him another erection. Tomorrow he would find her, fuck her, and kill her. That was a foregone conclusion. He… Something had him opening his eyes, staring up at the sky in bewilderment. There was a fire somewhere, a big one that lit up the heavens. Explosions, firing, the sound of aircraft whining and droning. He sat up. And then he saw the blazing bomber, watched it fall like a stone out of the sky, explode somewhere not far away with a force that vibrated the ground. In the ethereal reflection of the blazing aircraft he saw the parachutist gliding down, decided that he had better go and investigate. Hell, he should have minded his own bleeding business. Now he was floundering in this bloody morass again, looking for another dry place to pass the night for he had not located the man who had parachuted down and he would never find that patch of higher ground beneath the alder again. Then, unbelievably, he chanced upon a stretch of almost dry ground beneath some taller oaks, trod his way through a carpet of dead leaves and ferns that were brittle beneath his feet. The rain had stopped and for a moment the moon shone down brightly through the entwining branches. A little way ahead of him he could make out a clearing, an area where it was almost as light as day. He walked on forward, emerged into the clearing, and suddenly became uneasily aware that he wasn't alone, felt the presence of others before he saw the shadowy shapes grouped around the clearing in a circle, some of them having moved so that they ringed him completely.

Fear, searching for a gap in the circle through which to make a run for it but there was none. Staring from one cowled figure to the next, trying to count them and losing count; there were dozens of them!

'Who are you?' Jesus, they gave him the creeps just standing there looking at him, pairs of eyes that seemed to glow balefully in the moonlight like a pack of wolves that had crept up and surrounded an unwary traveller. 'I said who the fuck are you? Are you dumb or something?'

As though at some prearranged signal the watchers began to converge on him, the circle diminishing, crowding him. He backed away, turned one way then the other. He wanted to scream. Suddenly they halted and a tall cloaked figure, his face shadowed by his voluminous cowl, detached himself from the rest and stepped forward a few paces.

'We were expecting you,' he said, his voice deep and resonant. 'For we are the Oke Priests who rule this place and you have dared to trespass in our domain. However, we have need of you. We knew you would come, that the old ones would not forsake us. But there is plenty of time…" You're fucking nutters, James Foster thought, swallowed. Suddenly he was very cold, shivering uncontrollably, felt an urge to urinate, to empty his bowels. This lot were up to something, playing at black magic or some other kind of cult rites. He'd read about them in the papers, how they desecrated churchyards, sometimes dug up bodies. Ugh!

'Look,' he began, self-consciously because he was stark naked, standing there with his hands folded across his genitals like an erring schoolboy facing his headmaster, 'I don't want to interrupt your, er. meeting. I'll be on my way, leave you to it.'

Foster had barely taken a couple of steps before he was seized from behind, his attackers moving with unbelievable stealth and speed, cold hands grabbing him, hurting him. He screamed, struggled, felt himself being lifted aloft, carried; laid flat on his back on a rough cold surface. A flat rock of some kind, rough so that it grazed his skin. Staring up into faces that were still bathed in shadow, only those terrible eyes visible. He ceased struggling because it was futile; even when they brought ropes and began to bind him tightly; arms, legs, pinioning him to the slab across his chest, the only movement remaining to him a slight raising of the neck. He could lift his head a few inches but it was painful, pulled on his spine.

'What's. the idea?' he said not really wanting to know.

'The old ones are becoming impatient,' A flat intonation. 'It is a long time since we offered them a sacrifice but now we can make amends. We now await the rising of the sun. Lie still and repent whilst there is still time.'

Silence. If they had cursed him, threatened him with terrible atrocities it would have been better than this awful stillness.

They had moved back into the shadows where he could not see them any longer. They might even have left except that he sensed their presence, felt their eyes feasting on his nakedness. Repent whilst there is still time. James Foster knew that he was going to die.

For a time his brain seemed dulled as though he had taken some stupefying drug, an anaesthetic. The lust and the anger in him were dead, a kind of purification of his brain which allowed him to see things in perspective; his own role that of a spectator. The girl, Carol, she was somewhere out here in these woods, lost and frightened. Because of himself. These druids, for surely that was what they were, might find her. And if they did… guilt, fear. His fault. He must not tell them about her. Lie if they asked him. Torture of a kind he had never experienced before in his life as though he was being forced to search his own mind, tell them what they wanted to know although they probably knew it already. He could feel their power, sucking it out of him like some heavy-duty industrial vacuum cleaner. Confess, for time is running out. Cleanse yourself.

Don't tell them about the girl in case they go looking for her. They already know. I liked her, I didn't want to hurt her, just couldn't help myself. She wouldn't have gone with me if I hadn't made her, and I'd've killed her afterwards so that nobody else could have her, so that she didn't go back to that boyfriend of hers. You bastard! I wish I could tell her I'm sorry. Oh God, if I could only see her for a couple of minutes to tell her. But it's too late; she'll hate you for the rest of her life.

The one you killed… he tried to push the recollection from him but it wouldn't go. She had tried to plead but tightening fingers on her throat had garrotted the words. He hadn't felt any remorse then but he did now. I want to die so that I don't have to think about it any more but if the police catch me they won't kill me because there isn't a death penalty. Everybody wants the death sentence brought back because it's merciful, puts you out of your misery. Instead they shut you away and you go crazy reliving every second. You'll die, all right, but you won't forget because here the dead live on, forced to relive their actions for eternity.

Remember the first time you ever did anything, the strange thrill you got? You were seventeen at the time. Don't remind me about it. You will recall every second of it. Foster squirmed, these bastards were really scouring him out now. Confess, it isn't long until sunrise.

I tried to date Beth. She was only fifteen but her folks poisoned her mind against me. You're a virgin, Beth, and you'll stay that way until your wedding night, and you won't be marrying him. You can tell by the expression in those eyes of his what he wants. We forbid you to see him. So James Foster had waylaid Beth on her way home from school with all the precision of a carefully planned military operation, He'd followed her, found out the route she took when she got off the school bus, a short cut across the fields to the council estate. Small and slim, mousy coloured hair, but well developed for her age. Masturbating night after night just thinking about her. She had become an obsession. And then he had struck.

She had backed away, given a little cry of fear when he had emerged from the bushes to bar her path. She saw the bulge in the front of his trousers and it frightened her like the look in his eyes did. You're a virgin aren't you, Beth? I hate virgins. So frightened she had stepped back into the bushes with him, trembling as he undid her clothing. No' I'm not going to fuck you, I just want to look. And to feel. Tender young breasts, a sparse growth of pubic hair, exciting him as he had never been excited before. Fingering her so that she began to cry. You wouldn't even date me now Beth if your folks said it was OK, would you? It's their fault that I've had to do this to you. But before I let you go there's something I want to show you!

She hadn't wanted to look, had turned her head away so that he had had to grab her by those soft wavy locks and make her watch. I'll bet you've never even seen one of these before, Beth. Well, you have now and if you take your eyes off it once I'll get really angry so that no boy will ever want to date you again with a face like you'll have. Now watch, you virgin bitch!

She had watched, trembling violently with fear and revulsion. He had shuddered, gasping for breath. No, I'm not going to fuck you because I want you to spend months, years, just thinking what it might be like. Get me?

You'll never forget this as long as you live.

She had sobbed but dared not close her eyes, watched until he was satisfied, writhed as his warmth spurted on her bare stomach and thighs as though it scalded her. And then he'd left, running breathlessly, knowing that she would not tell what had happened to her. She would never tell anybody. She hadn't told. A month later they had found her body m the river and that had given him one helluva thrill. No guilt — until now! You killed her, James Foster, as surely as you murdered that other girl whose name you never found out.

I want to die. You'll die all right but there will be no escape in death. Life means life — even in death!

It was getting lighter now, the waning moonlight merging with a greyness that was not wholly the Droy mist. Creeping daylight, cold and penetrating. Foster lifted his head slightly, saw the figures moving forward. One of them, taller than the rest, had thrown back his cowl and had replaced it with some kind of crude cap made from animal hides, possibly a fox. He saw the other's features, wanted to jerk his head away but could not. Skin stretched across high cheekbones like ancient parchment, eyes hooded so that you could not see them; they might have been empty sockets. Almost lipless, just a single blackened tooth that appeared to be loose, might fall out at any second. Yet his movements were swift and sure, almost agile as he advanced on the trussed man.

'It is nearly time.' A lisp, spittle stringing from his mouth. The new day is here and soon the sun will rise. The first ray will strike this stone, bathe you in its glory. '

'Hold on.' Foster felt the panic coming back again as he noticed for the first time the long-bladed knife which the other was holding, steel that was dulled brown as though with rust. Except that he knew that it was not rust. 'You can't do this. '

'The old ones will not wait.' A recitation as though these were oft-repeated words. 'We have not forgotten them, how they have preserved us here over the centuries, enabled us to live when others have died and their bones have rotted. The mists are sent to protect us, to hide us from those who would destroy us and our ancient place of worship.'

'You can't kill me,' Foster screamed, straining at his bonds. 'It's. murder!'

'Which is why those who sit in judgement beyond the mists have sent you here.'

Those eyes seemed to glow redly for a second or two. 'You have murdered in a world where the penalty is not severe enough. This council has passed the sentence of death on you but it will not be oblivion, for after death there is life in many forms. You will live on here in this ancient place, in a torment undreamed of, for eternity. You will murder again, pay the supreme price many times over, because it has been ordained so.'

Foster lay back, closed his eyes, knew that the tall one spoke the truth.

'Look!' A shout that precipitated the beginning of a weird monotone chanting like the wind rustling the thick reed-beds, growing louder and louder. The sky was tinted pink, a roseate hue, the fog swirling, clearing to make way for it as though some mighty force was rising out of the wood and dispersing it. Cold; James Foster shivered for with the coming of day this could no longer be dismissed as some dreadful nightmare. It was reality in the sober atmosphere of daylight.

The chanting rose to a pitch, the throng closer now, grouped around the huge sacrificial stone, watching the sky. And Foster's guilt, his remorse, had evaporated along with the darkness. He did not want to die like this.

'Stop it, you bastards!' he screamed, strained at the ropes. 'You've had your fun. This is murder. You'll be put away for it. Let me go, d'you hear? For fuck's sake let me go!'

The sentence has been passed.' The tall druid bent over him, the blade only inches away from the rapist's throat. The old ones will command us to carry it out. We cannot disobey them.'

A hush. Any second now, the pink clouds overhead changing to a deep red, the lower ones having dispersed as though in readiness for the rising of the sun, clearing a path so that its first rays should not be obstructed. Foster caught a glimpse of some of the faces beneath the cowls, now no longer hidden by the shadows, and closed his eyes to shut them out. God Almighty, the dead had surely risen in Droy wood.

A cry of jubilation in unison, a bowing of heads; a blood-red ray of sunlight hit the oblong stone with the suddenness of a torch switched on in the darkness, bathed the head and shoulders of the naked victim, seemed to focus on the throat.

One swift movement from the Oke Priest with all the expertise of an executioner who has inherited all the skills of his trade. Striking, gashing, stepping back in time to avoid the jet of scarlet which spouted high into the air, a claret fountain spurting and splattering, the agonised terrified face of the offered sacrifice awash with his own blood. Writhing within the confines of his bonds, gurgling his last because he could not scream. Shuddering, twitching.

Dying.

The old priest knelt and the others followed suit, their incantations whispered now for they were truly afraid of the old gods. Sacrifices were demanded but it was not always easy in a place where only the dead walked. A chance traveller sometimes but this place was a jungle, numerous dead from past centuries hunting living prey. The mists controlled their fate, brought back times long gone, chose the time according to their moods. All of them remembered that one who had floated down from the burning skies that night like some gigantic bird, how they had hunted him through the reed-beds, almost lost him to the ghouls with the triangular hats. The man had all the cunning of a wild beast but in the end they had run him down, claimed him for their own. He was one of them, now, just as this one would be, a soul in torment, a slave of the Oke Priests.

For the old religion ruled this place and their slaves did their bidding. The gods were demanding more sacrifices; they had been kept waiting too long. Every killing in this place was done in their name.