Coombe's Wood (28 page)

Seconds later, she walked with sleep-tipsy steps down the hall, and peered through the peephole, expecting to see someone out there. She stared for several minutes, wanting to throw the door open and shout down the stairs, “Go away!” Finally, she walked back to bed. Her body was tired, and her head ached. She needed to rest.

Some time later, her eyes opened, and she gazed up at the familiar square of ceiling. She’d not noticed any sound. But she walked back down the hall, and again leaned up against the peephole.

This time, she expected to see nothing. She just wanted to take a look; if she didn’t, she’d lie in bed hearing creaks and imagining monsters tip-toeing around the flat.

As she peered around, she glimpsed the red end of a cigarette. As the person sucked into the filter, a face glowed a rich orange in the dark of the landing. Eyes looked straight into hers. She sucked in a breath, to stop herself from screaming.

George.

He was just looking across the landing. He couldn’t know she watching him. A second later, he flicked the smouldering remains of his cigarette. The butt flew out of sight, and then bounced off her door with a soft whispering sound.

She thought quickly. Did he intend to stay for a long time, like the other night? She had the card in her backpack, with the phone number for the police. They were searching for this man. She ran to the living room, where her bag lay on the coffee table. The pockets were full of junk, or so it seemed in the middle of the night. She turned the bag upside down, the pounding of her heart loud in her ears, as she shook the contents out. A card fluttered under the sofa. She felt under the fabric skirt, and pulled it out. She picked up the phone, her eyes barely making the numbers out in the dark. George had to be there, so the police could catch him. Izzy tiptoed back to the door, and looked out.

The landing was dark. Izzy waited for a fresh flash of flame from the lighter. None came. She thought she heard a shuffle – George treading softly as he descended the stairs? She heard what sounded like a laugh. Then the communal door clicked shut.

Anger boiled up, and she resisted the urge to punch the wall, or to slam doors. Izzy stomped into the kitchen. The clock said it was three in the morning. How could he! She wanted to shout and scream, she wanted to run down the stairs, with her torch in her hands, and beat him across the head. He had no right to be there, on her landing, stalking her, peeping in on her life. How had he even got into the building? Someone must have given him a key. She’d go round in the morning, and question all the residents. Somebody had helped him.

Izzy took a deep breath, and tried to calm down. She had work in the morning, and investigations to begin. She stalked back off to bed once more, lay under the covers, and practiced some breathing techniques, a type of self-hypnosis to encourage sleep. Her eyelids grew heavy, and closed.

Thud.

A loud noise drew her from the throes of a chase. George had been in pursuit, and wherever she ran, however she hid, he found her. His gorilla hands were grabbing at her leg, to pull her out.

Vaguely pleased to be awake, she rolled over to see the time, unconsciously rubbing at her ankle where he’d grabbed her. An hour had passed. It was four o’clock. She lay half-asleep, drifting on a wave of semiconscious sensations. During the last few nights, she’d been disturbed too often, and the sleep deprivation had left her body needy. She clung to sleep as if it were a life raft. She closed her eyes, and fell straight back into dreams.

Thud.

The second bang forced her awake. She sat up, hugging her knees to her stomach. Not sure whether she’d indeed heard a noise, she crept from bed, and sneaked down to the front door. She stood quite still, her eye at the glass, watching. Nothing moved. There were no sounds, no floating cigarettes. Her calves began to ache. Maybe she hadn’t heard a noise.

She walked back to her bedroom, peering into each room as she went. Satisfied she and Connor were alone; she closed her door and crawled back into bed. Sleep took her quickly. She slept with no dreams, but an instant of darkness, until her alarm woke her at eight o’clock.

“Bye Mum,” Connor called, on his way out.

Izzy got up and parted the curtains. Connor stopped on the footpath to talk to Becky, then leaned forward and kissed her. Izzy closed the curtains, carefully overlapping the edges.

She had pet sittings in the morning. Her diary told her she had three for the morning, and another four for the evening. She needed to clean Mrs Foster’s house and Mrs Cook’s rambling cottage. Her eyelids drooped, and she let out an enormous yawn. She hadn’t had enough sleep for days.

She walked around the flat, gripping a teacup. Time pressed on, and she needed to leave. But George would be waiting. Feathers couldn’t help her this time; he’d gone off to work. But she couldn’t stay holed up in the flat, and she couldn’t keep cancelling her cleaning jobs. How would they eat? How would she pay the rent? Who would feed the poor animals?

She clutched her mobile and peered through the peephole. The hall appeared empty. She opened the door cautiously and tiptoed out, her keys in one hand, phone in the other. She stood immobile for a few seconds, listening for the sounds of someone rushing up the stairs. Or even the bored shuffle of a person waiting on the ground floor. After a moment, she closed and locked the door, and dared to leave the building.

The car started with a gruff cough, and she drove off on her rounds with wide eyes, her foot ready to shift from petrol to brakes at the first sign of George. But he didn’t appear. Maybe didn’t want to risk further damage to his car, or he was sleeping off his night time sessions as he paced outside her door. Either way, she arrived back home relieved. She opened the door, surprised to feel a grumble of hunger in her stomach. A smile creased her face for the first time that day, and she trotted into the kitchen.

With a bowl of cereal, she wondered into the living room. After a search under the cushions, she found the remote and switched on the telly. She flicked through channels whilst munching on Cherrios. She found a decorating show. The hosts happened to be stripping wallpaper, with a view to painting the walls. She squinted at the screen, the curtains still closed, the room dim. She could flick the light on… Izzy shook her head, eyes on the telly, and crossed the room. She took a mouthful of cereal, and then grabbed one of the curtains, and threw it open. She took hold of the other side and pulled.

Something was splattered all over the glass. She didn’t really notice at first, she was watching dishy Paul washing the wall with some solution. He scrubbed at the plaster, removing the sticky remains of the wallpaper paste. His muscles rippled under an undersized t-shirt. She glanced back at the window as she put another spoonful in her mouth. There was something red all over the glass. She stopped chewing, and looked harder. Crimson streaks, and now she could hear buzzing
…
What was out there? She leaned forward, peering over the window cill, and onto her balcony.

She dropped her bowl. Milk and cereal washed over her toes. Her spoon skittered over the floorboards, and ceramic shards erupted in all directions as the bowl smashed. Open-mouthed, she stared at the smears on the glass. There was a wet mark on the tiles where something had been thrown up onto her balcony. It made a meteor-like trail, but instead of a lump of space rock, the trail ended with a lump of meat – two small legs and a tail – half of something. Swirls of flies buzzed. More flew up as she watched. Soon there’d be a swarm. George had hit the window with a second lump of meat, but not broken the glass. Eggs were already laid in there hundreds. Then she saw movement. Some maggots had already hatched. They wormed their way down into the flesh and wiggled, moving the lips, flickering the eyelids, as if the eyes might spring open. What was it? She tilted her head and tried to work out what the creature had been. A baby fox maybe.

Izzy gasped. Not just an animal, a dog. Sidi! The animal was Sidi. Slaughtered and left for the flies. Torn in two, not cut or sawn. His body looked deformed, squashed, and she pictured George stamping on the poor pup, until his bones shattered, and then ripping him into two.

“Fucking George!” She banged a fist in the door, and stepped back over the mess of cereal on the floor. She had to do something. “You can’t keep doing this!” She burst into tears, and staggered out of the room. She wanted to leave, abandon everything. Get away from George. She pulled on her trainers, hardly realising what she was doing, as she wiped away the tears. She paced up and down her hall, still not sure what to do. The image of Sidi, his body destroyed and thrown onto her balcony, seemed burned into the back of her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Poppy,” Izzy said, and ran from the flat.

Out on the fields, the air started to clear her mind. Izzy jogged across the stubbly grass and towards the woods. There was a murdered dog on her balcony. George had really flipped. If he could do that to Sidi, what was he going to do when he caught hold of her? She dried her face, swallowing the tears, and ran right up to Coombe’s Wood. Izzy reached out, and felt the magnetic-like repulsion as she pressed against the force field. Two positives unable to come together, she decided. Or was that two negatives. Maybe this was all her fault. Had she done something to George to justify his treatment? Some slur in the early years that he’d never forgiven?

She walked along the tree line, her hand gliding across the force field. Would Bodu come find her? She was touching his spider web. How long before his eyes pierced the darkness? So entranced in her thoughts of the beast, she didn’t notice her speed increasing. Izzy stopped and looked around. She was about half a mile from the flats. The wind blew, a gust, which tugged at her hair, and rustled the leaves in the trees.

“I fast-walked,” she said. “Me, all by myself.” She giggled, and turned away from home. She took a long sliding step, and then another. Three strides later, and she started to skate around the perimeter of Coombe’s Wood.

Gaining confidence as she increased her speed, Izzy held out a hand against the force field that surrounded the woods, and dipped her fingers into the magnetic feel of the force field. Her palm bounced on the surface, and she skimmed across the ground.

Concentrating, she didn’t see the creature stalking her at first. A faint growl grew slowly into a low sonorous rumble, and held until she glanced around.

Izzy stopped dead at the sight of the glowing red eyes. Her momentum too great, her speed turned into a stumble. She tripped, and flipped over, bounced against the force field and fell head over shoulders. The creature closed in, as if waiting to see if she would fall though. He kept up as she tumbled – dodging trees, leaping over low bushes, all the while his burning eyes never leaving her descent.

She skimmed the surface of Bodu’s prison. The treacle air surrounded her, and Izzy knew, if she passed through to the other side, her life would end. She began to slow, as she bounced between the ground and the force field. Then the air thickened sufficiently to bounce Izzy out onto the field. She came to a stop on her side, scuffed and sore but not mauled. She stayed where she fell, facing the woods, and peered between the trees. But Bodu seemed to have disappeared. She wanted to see what he was. Every chance of discovery was taken away. The beast would forever remain a mystery.

For a long while she lay sprawled on the dirt. Her left leg throbbed in pain filled beats, along with her left arm and side. As she tried to wish the pain away, she caught a glimpse of red. The creature was lying in shadows at the edge of the woods, and from the angle of his raised head, Bodu almost appeared to be staring at her in curiosity.

The creature was clearly a type of dog. A thick coat of jet-black fur covered Bodu’s body, and his great eyes glowed like burning cigarette ends. His winked at her, and drew his mouth back into a snarl, the whites of his teeth glinting. He growled, softly, just loud enough for her to hear.

Izzy realised she was all alone, and no one knew where she had gone.

11
^th
Oct

Izzy lay motionless on the ground, the cold earth sharpening the pain along her side. The creature was a dog, and no smaller than a fully-grown Jersey cow, by her estimate. She watched, as Bodu lay relaxed in the shade of an oak. The cold ground fed the ache along her body. Izzy sat up and edged closer. Immediately, Bodu raised his hackles, the volume of his growling increasing as she crept forward. After a while, he stood up and stretched, reminding her of a black Labrador she’d owned as a child. Bodu wandered back within the cover of Coombe’s Woods.

As he stalked off, an idea formed. Blood drained from Izzy’s face as all the pieces clicked into place. She turned the idea over in her mind.

There could be no alternative.

With her nerves worked into a frenzy, Izzy got up to limp back to the flat. Before leaving the field, she tested her fast-walk once more. After a stuttering start, she moved smoothly. Satisfied with her skills, she went home.

The day passed slowly. She tried to strip the last of the wallpaper from the back wall of the living room, but gave up after half an hour, and boiled the kettle. She decided to read to pass the time. Dolores Claiborne would not suit, so she sat beside the shelves in her bedroom, pulling out novel after novel. She tried a few pages of a few, and almost settled for a Roald Dahl, and My Uncle Oswald. She opened to the middle, she’d read it a few times before, but the humorous promiscuity didn’t appeal, and she put the book back. The bathroom needed cleaning, but she took a shower instead, hoping the hot water might calm her nerves. She ended the day curled up on the sofa, sticking her toes in and out of the holes of a crocheted blanket. Sipping her fifth cup of tea, she stared out onto the balcony. She couldn’t see the meat, but the blood and gore on the window had turned brown during the day, and attracted a swarm of flies, just as she’d guessed. Out of sight, the buzzing was loudest. A true reproductive festival, she thought with a dry smile.