The Wilds (14 page)

Tim had left the marsh when the others did. He had driven home still shaking from the things he had seen. The fear when he had seen all of the blood in the woods and the certainty that the cows head was actually going to be Julie’s corpse had taken its toll on him.

During the walk around the woods he had convinced himself that she was dead, lost to him forever. Karl and Jason had been kind and gentle with him, but he got the impression there was something they weren’t telling him. It was as though they knew what they were looking for. Perhaps they thought they were protecting him by keeping whatever it was as secret, but in all honesty he would rather know. Not knowing was the worst. He loved Julie with all of his heart. He knew they were young, but so what? So, too, had his parents been when they got together, and they were still going strong. Tim had pictured their life together, and it had included it all, the house, the marriage and even kids of their own.

Now, though, his dreams were on hold, as long as he was unsure what had happened to Julie, as long as there was even the slightest fibre of hope that she was alive, he would never let go. That is why he wanted to know. Even though finding out would destroy his dreams, it was better than the constant torment of dreams that may or may not be fulfilled.

When he arrived home, his mother had cooked him his tea, a homemade lasagne, something that was usually his favourite. That day, though, he could only pick at it, spending most of his time moving it around his plate and only taking the occasional piece into his mouth.

His mother could see how upset he was.

‘She’ll turn up,’ she said reassuringly.

Tim wasn’t so sure, though; the evidence was mounting that she was gone. Even though some of the blood had belonged to the cow, it didn’t mean that some of it wasn’t hers. Then there were the torn pieces of fabric; they had come from her top, he was certain of that. The image of her standing there as he walked away from the campfire that night was burnt into his memory. He could remember every detail of her, the way the fire light flickered on her hair, the sparkle in her green eyes, and the colour, pattern and texture of her clothes.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

He saw the look on his mother’s face. She was feeling his pain; his misery was effecting her. Like all good parents, she could not see her child suffering and not have it torment her, too. Tim didn’t want her to suffer, so he did his best to muster up a smile.

‘Of course she’ll turn up,’ he said, convincingly enough for something he didn’t believe.

His mother smiled, and he saw the weight lifting off of her.

After he finished pretending to eat, he went up to his room. At first he just laid on his bed staring at the ceiling and reliving the night on the marsh. If only he had not needed to pee, if only he had stayed with her, then perhaps she would be here now. Or maybe they would both be dead, but even that would be preferable to this.

He blamed his bladder. Then he blamed the fucking cow that had scared him and made him fall down the bank and knock himself out. He hoped it was the same cow that had been butchered in the woods. He hoped that it was the same cow that had been beheaded by something.

He thought once more about Karl and Jason and how they had seemed to be keeping something from him. He also remembered the older man he had encountered before them, the one who said he was investigating the campsite, but was not a police man. Was he working with Karl and Jason in some way? All of them had seemed to know more than they were letting on, that was for sure.

Tim got up out of his bed and went over to the cluttered desk in the corner of his room. He opened up his computer and loaded up Google. He remembered that Jason had mentioned being a reporter for the local paper. Being a teenager, the Darton Chronicle was something he seldom ever flicked through, but he guessed they must have a website.

He searched for the paper and sure enough the first result was the official website of the Darton Chronicle. He saw a tab that was called ‘The Team’. He clicked on this and was taken to a page of smiling faces, one of whom was Jason Flynn. He clicked on the photograph and it opened up a page. It contained a brief biography of Jason, how he was a native of Darton, where he studied, and how he was the senior reporter and deputy editor of the paper.

Below the biography was a list titled ‘Jason’s Links’. These were a list of clickable URL’s that led to things like his favourite band (some nineties band called The Wonder Stuff, of whom Tim had only the vaguest memory), his favourite film (a link to the IMDb page for the movie ‘Se7en’) and his favourite author (a thriller writer called Stephen Leather). At the bottom, though, was a link just titled Altman. The name sounded familiar to Tim, but he couldn’t quite place it. He clicked the link and was taken to a page called ‘Welcome to the Cryptozoo’. Tim knew instantly why he recognised the name; under the title of the website was a large photograph of the older man he had seen on the marsh, the one who had been investigating. He was smiling and wearing the same tatty yellow sweater. He was holding up a plaster cast of an enormous footprint. The caption under the photograph read ‘Dr Charles Altman on the trail of Bigfoot in the Appalachian mountains 2007’.

As Tim looked through the website he saw that Altman was a vet who had taken it upon himself to hunt down the world’s strangest creatures. He had traveled to America in search of Sasquatch, Scotland in search of the Loch Ness Monster, and even the Himalayas in search of the Yeti. Most of the website, though, was dedicated to what appeared to be his obsession, stories of wild big cats living, breeding, and killing in the English countryside. There were a list of cases he had investigated in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Essex, and Buckinghamshire, but the one that seemed to take up most of his time was ‘The Darton Beast.’

‘A fucking big cat,’ Tim thought as he drove, ‘like a tiger or a panther killing people around Darton.’ It didn’t make any rational sense, but in his heart he knew it was true. After all, the cow’s head they found had not been cleanly severed with a knife. It had been shredded around the edges, torn and gnawed off by tooth and claw.

How could they have not told him? He was furious at Karl and Jason for keeping this from him. He knew they had been trying to protect his fragile emotional state, but they had taken him into the woods looking for it. They had led him in search of a murderous animal without any warning.

He had promised them he would not go back onto the marsh earlier, but that was before he had found out about how they had hidden such a dangerous piece of information from him. Fuck them, he thought, and fuck their big cat! He glanced over his shoulder and saw the comforting sight of the shotgun laying across the backseat. Tim had been shooting since he was eight, one of the advantages of growing up in the countryside. He and his father had been regular clay pigeon shooters for years. Tim had actually won a few competitions. He was not a world class marksman by any stretch of the imagination, but he was good.

He had taken the gun from the cabinet without his parents knowing, and headed out to the marsh. From there he would search the woods, he would find ‘The Darton Beast’ and he would kill it, as certainly as it had killed the love of his life.

The pain, depression and confusion he had experienced over the last few days were gone. He was focused, he was determined and he was unafraid. Vengeance had become his single motivation, and he would let nothing stand in his way.

When he arrived at the marsh he swung the car into the little parking area. He put on his jacket and then carried the gun on his shoulder. Under normal circumstances, he would have always carried a loaded gun with the barrel open, so there was no risk of accidental discharge, but this was no ordinary circumstance. The gun was loaded and ready to fire, a round in each barrel and six more shells in his jacket pocket. He hoped he would not need the other shells. He hoped that the first to would be enough to take the beast down, but if they didn’t he would have to reload quickly as undoubtedly the creature would attack.

He walked along the bank, the cool autumn wind stinging his face, but making him feel more alive and focused than ever before. The salty scent of the marsh was complimented with a mildly fishy aroma that told him the tide was in.

His senses seemed more alert than they had been in days, possibly than they had been in his entire life. It was silent out there, with the exception of the occasional lazy mooing, or hoot of an owl hunting. The silence was broken by the sound of the theme tune to Tetris. His phone was ringing. He cursed himself for having not switched it off. The last thing he needed was his phone letting the beast know he was around.

He looked at them number on the screen, it was a mobile number, but one neither he nor his phone recognised. He answered.

‘Hello?’ he said quietly on answering.

‘Hi, Tim.’ He recognised Jason’s voice before he confirmed it. ‘It’s Jason Flynn.’

‘Oh right, yes, hi,’ he said calmly. ‘What’s up?’

‘You’re really quiet.’ Jason said.

This was of course because he wanted to keep his noise to minimum.

‘Sorry, I have a bad signal,’ he lied.

‘Oh right,’ Jason said. ‘Where are you, sounds like you’re outside?’

‘Oh, I’m just in my garden,’ he said, then smiled as he said, ‘looking for my cat.’

‘Hope you find it,’ Jason said.

‘I’m sure I will,’ Tim said.

‘The reason I’m calling is we have some new information about where Karl’s brother went last. It might help us find him and Julie,’ Jason explained. ‘So we’re going to ask a few questions at the Pritchard farm in the morning, you know the one off Maltham Lane?’

‘Yeah, I think I know the one,’ Tim confirmed.

‘We wanted to know if you wanted to come with us?’ Jason asked.

‘Yes, that sounds great,’ Tim replied. ‘What time?’

‘Nine,’ Jason said.

‘Okay, nine in the morning at the Pritchard Farm, off Maltham Lane. See you there.’

With that Tim ended the call and switched his phone off. There would be no need to go to the farm the following morning, because ‘The Darton Beast’ was going to die that night.

Vera Pritchard or V as many of the locals called her, looked out of the window at the sound of the engine. Her heart always skipped a beat when she heard a car pulling into the courtyard. She always expected it to be the police, finally coming to take Miko away from her and probably lock her up for her few remaining years.

Her visit to that old drunk Alf Tipps earlier today had made this jumpiness worse. She had not meant to kill him, she had only meant to frighten him and make sure he kept his stupid, drunken mouth shut in future. She had seen red, though, when she had thought about the prospect of losing Miko. She had felt the knife in her hand and before she knew what was happening poor, stupid, drunk old Alf was dead at her feet.

With relief she saw that it was not a police car outside, it was the Land Rover of that idiot Altman. How many more times was she going to have to put up with that man and his wild ideas? She saw his bulky frame drop out of the car and begin walking towards the house.

She prepared herself for more of his nosey and stupid questions as he slowly plodded across the courtyard. She left the window and walked to the door, opening it while he was still a good distance from the house.

‘Mr Altman, it’s a little late,’ she said

‘Yes, I’m sorry, Mrs Pritchard, I just wanted to ask you a few more questions,’ he said as he approached.

‘I thought you’d asked them all this morning,’ she said. Her eyes drifted from the fat man walking toward her down to the table at the side of her, and more importantly to the bloodstained knife laying upon it.

She had meant to dispose of it earlier, but had forgotten; her memory wasn’t what it used to be. Altman would see it, and he would ask questions.

Vera desperately searched her mind for an explanation, a reason she could say that the knife was there. Nothing was coming to mind.

‘I’m rather tired, Mr Altman,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?’

Altman was across the courtyard now and about to walk up the path to the house.

‘Terribly sorry, my dear lady, but it will only take a moment,’ he said, still approaching.

Vera slipped her hand down to the table and wrapped her hand around the knife’s still sticky handle. She knew that she would have to use it again. Altman had no idea that he was rapidly advancing on his own demise. She looked at the fat man in that tatty yellow sweater and then back down at the knife in her hand.

A scream startled her. She looked back up. Altman was no longer approaching, instead he was lying on his back desperately trying to fight Miko off as he tried to rip out his throat. Miko had obviously seen him approaching and sensed danger. He had had several big meals recently, what with the insurance salesman and the slut on the marsh. Not to mention her neighbour. All of these things she had to deal with; she had to clear up his mess.

Hunger, however, had not motivated him to attack Altman, she was sure of that. As always he was defending her. That was why he had made that first kill all of those years ago. The people of this town saw her late husband as a hero, just because of what he had done during the war. They had not seen what it had done to him inside. To his mind. He had come back a deviant. He had become a sadistic lover, biting her and hitting her whenever he had gotten the chance. She had grown to enjoy the experience. In fact, it was only after the war when he was beating her for sexual pleasure that she had achieved her first orgasm. The darkness that corrupted him had also corrupted her. That is why they had been so unlucky with children. God, if he existed, was punishing them for their perversions.

After the circus business had ended and they had come back to this dark hole of a town, things had gotten worse. Her late husband, the heroic Harold Pritchard, had developed a taste for abusing young girls. She had caught him red handed, literally, with a local village girl. The poor thing had been terrified. Vera had told her to leave and not to tell anyone. She had gone at Harold with her fists, but he was much stronger than she was, and he overpowered her.

In all the years of sexual deviance there was one thing she had never let him do, one boundary that she refused to break. After he had overpowered her, Harold decided he was going to take that too. The pain was immeasurable as he forced that vile act upon her. Her screams woke Miko, who at the time was little more than a baby, but he was strong. He ran into the room and pounced on Harold’s back. He clamped his teeth down on the back of the man’s neck and Vera had heard his spine shatter in Milo’s mouth. Harold had slumped to the floor. He had died almost instantly. This had not stopped Miko, though, for what seemed like hours he had attacked Harold’s corpse with tooth and claw, throwing him around like a rag doll, eating parts of him an tearing others off.

In the end there had been nothing to do but collect the body parts together and take them out into the field. She told the authorities that it had been a threshing accident, that Harold had been drunk and must have got himself caught up in the blades. It was pronounced death by misadventure. Miko was kept hidden from the world, her golden boy, her protector, but also now a man eater.

Altman was losing the battle; he was trying admirably to fend off Miko, but her golden boy was much stronger than the fat man could ever hope to be. Miko would wear down his strength eventually, and it would all be over. She noticed with great alarm that Miko didn’t seem as strong or fast as usual. His movements looked awkward, as opposed to his usual lithe grace. Then she saw the wound on his shoulder. It was bleeding, a lot. Her poor baby had been shot.

Vera watched as the fight went out of Altman. There was a scream as Milo’s teeth pierced his throat; this quickly turned into a wet gargle, and in turn quickly to silence. The thrashing stopped and Miko ran off into the night. He seldom slept in the house since he had grown up, but she always knew he was out there, ready to protect her at the drop of a hat. In turn she would do anything to protect him. She threw on her coat and headed outside. She wished he had stayed around, she needed to look at that wound on his shoulder. From a gunshot he could easily bleed out, or it could become infected.

Altman was fat, and now he was a dead weight, it took her a long time to drag him to the barn. The smell of the place was always overpowering to her, but Miko got upset if she got rid of any of them. So the body of the vet turned monster hunter became another resident in the charnel house that was Milo’s barn. She put him on the floor next to the slut from the marsh. All in all there must have been fifty corpses, or parts of corpses, in various states of decomposition.

Tim prowled along the bank, as much a hunter as the beast he sought to kill. The night was clear and the moon, now three quarters full, afforded him a lot of light. It illuminated the marsh in its unreal silvery glow.

The weight of the gun should have been bothering him, but he was too determined to care, like he was too determined to care about the icy wind whipping his face. None of that mattered. Nothing mattered anymore, only avenging Julie.

He walked past the spot they had the campfire. It seemed so long ago, a different life almost, but it had been less than twenty-four hours since they had been here, since they had been together.

He looked at the ashes on the ground, all that remained of the night, the sadness that had gripped him all day tried to return as he remembered lying there on the blanket with her, holding her in his arms, kissing her. Everything had seemed so perfect, magic in the air as they say, but in an instant it was taken away.

She had not simply left him, as the police had tried to suggest. She had been attacked and taken away by a man eating big cat, an aberration that should not have existed in this place. This was the heart of rural England, not some far off land. Big cats didn’t roam this country. This one had no place here, and it had no place killing his girl. Tim was going to even the score. He didn’t know how many people this thing had killed, but if he had his way, after that night it would kill no more.

Jason finished his second drink. The beer was going down too well. He had the car here, and he knew that if he lost his licence his job would be impossible. He supposed he could walk home or get a taxi. He looked to Karl who was just finishing his drink. He decided that if Karl wanted another, he would walk home, if not he would leave now and take the car.

As if reading his thoughts, Karl lifted his arm to look at his watch.

‘I better head home,’ he said. ‘While I’m still sober enough to drive Mum’s car.’

The decision had been made.

‘No worries, mate,’ Jason said. ‘I’ll pick you up at half eight in the morning. Get some sleep, it’ll probably be another long day.’

Karl stood and smiled wearily.

‘Will do,’ he said, ‘Cheers, Phil.’

Jason was shocked. He looked at Karl, wondering if the other man had even noticed his mistake. At first there seemed to be no acknowledgement of it on his face, and then he shook his head.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I meant to say, “Cheers, Jason.” I’m just so tired.’

‘Okay, mate,’ Jason said smiling. ‘See you in the morning.’

Karl waved and wandered away. Jason watched him as he left the pub. He didn’t like what had just occurred. He could see that he and Karl were becoming friends, and this didn’t bother him. He didn’t have that many real friends anymore, and he got the impression that Karl could use some too. However, the faux pas of calling him by his brother’s name worried Jason. Was Karl starting to see him as a surrogate older brother? As Jason had pointed out earlier, Karl was still in denial about the fate of his brother; none of it seemed real. If he shifted those feelings onto Jason he could continue to ignore whatever had happened to Phil.

Jason shook his head, maybe he was over analyzing things, but it was certainly something that he needed to keep an eye on.

He got up from the table and headed across the bar to the rear door that led to the car park. As he passed the bar, a hand was put on his chest. He looked and saw Malc, even more drunk than he had been that afternoon.

‘Now then, Mr Flynn,’ he said with a shit eating grin, the smell of the whiskey on his breath was strong enough to make Jason’s eyes moisten. ‘Have you found that bleedin’ monster of yours yet?’

Jason had neither the time or patience for another encounter with this piss taking, narrow minded, old drunk.

‘This town is full of monsters, Malcolm,’ he said pushing the drunks hand off his chest. ‘You just have to know where to look.’

‘According to you, even in your own family,’ Malc said, his eyes boring into Jason with accusations. ‘We all know what you said about your uncle.’

‘I write what people need to know,’ Jason said, feeling his anger rise. ‘The truth! Regardless of whether it’s about my uncle, my mother, even my best friend.’

Malc let out as rasp of laughter that sent spittle spraying across Jason’s jacket.

‘Truth, my arse,’ Malc said then carried on chuckling.

Jason felt his hands balling up into fists. He had taken more than enough shit from this idiot over the years, and he had had enough. It would be easy as well. After all the old fucker was so drunk he would barely have to touch him to make him hit the ground.

There was a tap on his shoulder. It distracted him enough to relax his fists as he turned around. Ben Lindley was stood in front of him. It was the first time in months he had seen his old friend out of his uniform. He was wearing his civilian clothes and a worried expression.

‘What’s up?’ Jason asked.

‘I just need a quick word,’ Ben said, ‘In private.’

‘Sure,’ Jason said and followed Ben over to a quieter corner of the pub.

‘I just wanted to tell you I’m going away for a while,’ Ben said. Jason noticed the way he kept looking around the pub; he was looking to see if they were being watched. His paranoia was contagious and Jason found himself doing the same.

‘Why?’ Jason asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Pearce saw us talking earlier, and he threatened me about it,’ Ben replied.

‘How?’

‘He said that if he found out I was giving you information, he’d ruin my career.’ Ben looked apologetically at him. ‘I can’t risk that Jason, I’m sorry.’

‘Of course you can’t,’ Jason said, putting a reassuring hand on the other man’s shoulder.

‘The way I see it, I’m due some holiday, so I think I’m going to get away until this case blows over.’

Jason gave Ben’s shoulder a little shake.

‘Alright, mate, I can understand that,’ Jason said. ‘Have fun, and don’t worry about Pearce.’

Ben shook his head.

‘You’re the one who needs to worry about Pearce,’ he said. ‘He’s really got it in for you.’

Jason smiled.

‘I’m not worried about him,’ he said. ‘I’m close to the one person in this town he’s actually scared of.’

Ben looked confused, then registered what Jason meant and smiled.

‘I’ll call you when I get back. We’ll go for a drink.’

With that they said goodbyes and Jason headed out of the rear door into the car park.