The Wilds Read online

  Jason looked up and began to smile. He could see that his smile ignited even more anger in Pearce; for a few seconds he wondered if the detective would punch him, actually he hoped he would. They were in full view of the stations CCTV cameras. Jason nodded towards them.

  ‘Smile, Inspector,’ Jason said with a grin. ‘You’re on candid camera.’

  Pearce turned and saw the camera that Jason was referring to. Its unblinking lens was looking directly at them. He let go of Jason’s arm and, without another word, stormed off in the other direction. Jason waved at the camera and then turned and walked away, happy with the way the encounter had gone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The campfire burned brightly, creating a sphere of light in the pitch black of the marsh at night. Its heat tamed the cool wind that blew across from the north sea. Laying on a blanket, cocooned in its light and warmth, two young lovers kissed passionately.

  Julie Mears leant on her elbows kissing her boyfriend, Tim Lovecott. He groaned under her, his hands edging further up her side. They had started on her hips, but now were tentatively heading up her body. Just before they reached her armpits, Tim began to bring them inwards, toward the inviting swell of her breasts. She laughed and rolled away onto her back.

  She didn’t want to tease him intentionally, but she wanted to make him work for it. It would be her first time, rarity that she was around here, a seventeen-year-old virgin, and she wanted it to be special. Tim had been trying really hard. He had taken her out for a nice meal and then brought her out here where he had the fire and wine waiting. It was romantic, but was it enough? She needed time to think.

  She looked up at the sky above them. Out there on the marsh, there were no lights for miles except for their fire. The stars shone brilliantly in the sky. Looking at them often had the same effect on her; it made her feel awestruck and vulnerable at the same time. Their beauty was undeniable, but the sheer numbers involved, time, distance and so on, always made her feel small and insignificant. Her own insignificance was something she often pondered, but dealing with the infinity of space and the unending possibility of worlds out there made the whole human race seem insignificant.

  ‘Do you think we’re alone?’ she asked.

  Tim looked around.

  ‘I didn’t see any other cars in the car park,’ he said.

  She laughed at him in an affectionate way. Tim was pretty, and he was kind and romantic, but he was not what anyone would call an intellectual. He wasn’t stupid; it was just that he never questioned things. He never pondered on things that were metaphysical; he was only interested in what he could see and touch. She admired that in a way. She thought that she would probably have an easier time in life if she didn’t question everything all the time or worry about things that were beyond her control.

  ‘No, I meant alone in space,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe that this is the only planet with life on it.’

  ‘I guess the chances of us being alone are pretty slim,’ he said, ‘but the distance involved mean we’ll never find out for sure.’

  It was a typically pragmatic answer from Tim. They had been together for three months now, and she knew that she loved him and was fairly certain that he loved her. He had been so patient, so considerate. He had never tried to push her into doing anything she didn’t want to, despite the fact that he himself was not a virgin. He was a year older than her, but they mixed in the same social circle at college. When she had first set eyes on him, she had felt an attraction. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but with delicate features that made him more pretty than classically handsome.

  He had still been seeing that bitch Marie Walters when they had first met, but Julie had seen the way that Tim looked at her when he thought no one was watching. When Marie had proved her true colours by cheating on him, he had broken things off with her, and that very day he had asked Julie out for a drink.

  She looked at him now, the fire light flickering on his smooth, flawless skin, his blonde, wavy hair blowing a little in the wind. She decided it was the right time, there would never be a night more special than this, and never a boy more special than Tim. She leaned towards him and he looked at her with those sky blue eyes.

  ‘I need to take a leak,’ he said, ruining the moment.

  ‘So romantic,’ she laughed. He leant over and kissed her, then got up and wandered off. Within a few meters he was no longer illuminated by the light from the campfire, and he disappeared from view; it was as if the night had swallowed him.

  She sighed and rolled back onto her back and continued her star gazing.

  Tim wished he had put his jacket on before leaving the campfire; the warmth of it had disguised the chill in the air. His bare arms prickled with goosebumps as he wandered along the bank that ran for miles on the edge of the marsh.

  He turned back and saw that the campfire was just a glow in the distance. He had no reason for walking so far away, other than he thought that hearing him urinate might kill the mood a little. He undid his fly and relieved his full bladder, sighing with the relief.

  Tonight was the night, he thought to himself. It was in her eyes, tonight they were finally going to have sex. He’d done it before with Marie, but it had been awkward. He felt so relaxed around Julie, and loved her so much that he knew it was going to be amazing.

  In a sudden panic he patted his pockets. His hand found the comforting shape of the condom in his pocket. He had worried for a moment there that he had forgotten to bring one. That would have been typical of him, all of the effort he had put in, all of the preparation, would have been wasted. He had one, though, and all was well.

  Zipping himself up, he became aware of a heavy breathing behind him. Hot, foul-smelling breath hit the back of his neck. The breathing was not human, but whatever it was, it was big and powerful. Slowly he turned around, afraid of what he would see. He came face to face with a large cow.

  Many of them roamed free on the marsh, stopped only by the turnstiles.

  ‘Hello, Daisy,’ he said.

  The cow stepped forward quickly, and opened its enormous mouth and mooed loudly in his face. In shock, Tim took a step back. Unfortunately his footing was awkward, and his ankle went over. He rolled backwards down the bank. There was a thud as he hit his head on a rock, and for Tim the lights went out instantly.

  “Where is he?” Julie thought to herself as she sat up on the blanket and looked around. She shivered despite the warmth of the fire. The light it cast made the darkness beyond even blacker.

  She heard movement off to her left, just beyond the reach of the fire light. She rose to her feet and peered in that direction, trying to see by the flickering light. Tim, she thought, he had circled around her and was now messing with her, trying to scare her. She wondered why boys thought that scaring a girl would get her in the mood for sex. They always wanted to make you jump and always tried to get you to go and see horror films at the cinema. Well she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had freaked her out in any way.

  ‘Tim?’ she called out into the darkness, trying to make her voice sound bright and easy.

  There was no reply from the blackness. She smiled to herself; he was determined she would give him that. She had a plan, though.

  ‘Don’t you want to join me?’ she said in as seductive a voice as she could manage.

  She slowly pulled off her top, revealing her ample breasts. Despite the warmth of the fire, the breeze and excitement made her nipples hard in seconds.

  There was a sound of heavy breathing from the darkness. Julie giggled to herself; she had his attention now. She laid down on the blanket.

  ‘ If you want more, you’d better come and get it!’ she called out to the darkness.

  She looked over and was surprised and a little offended to see that Tim had not come running from the shadows already.

  ‘Tim, I’m not going to lay here with my tits out all night,’ she said sternly.

  Still he didn’t respond. Fine, she th
ought, if he wants to play his stupid joke let him, but there was no way she was having sex with him tonight now. He would have to do a lot of groveling to make this up to her. She stood up and picked up her discarded top and pulled it back on.

  ‘It’s not funny, Tim,’ she said, annoyed.

  From the darkness there came a deep growl. She didn’t think that Tim was capable of making such a noise. Was someone else out there? She stared into the darkness. The growl had not come from far away; whoever it was must have been quite close. Terror came over her as she saw the two amber eyes flickering in the firelight. They were about four foot off the ground and advancing towards her.

  Although she could only see the eyes, she knew it must me some kind of animal. It growled again loudly.

  Julie screamed and set off running in the opposite direction, running into the blackness.

  Tim wasn’t quite sure where he was when he came around. He knew he was cold and damp, but it took a few moments for the events prior to his fall to reconnect in his mind. He sat up, reaching a hand to the back of his head. His wavy hair was damp, and he could feel the cut on his head. It stung when his fingers prodded it, but it seemed that the flow of blood had ceased.

  ‘Fucking cows,’ he said to himself as he tried to stand up. Half way up, he felt dizzy and fell back down on his backside before he was even halfway up. He rolled over and used his arms and knees to push himself into a standing position, much like a toddler would.

  He stayed on his feet that time, even though his head was swimming. He was pretty certain he would need stitches, and that he had a concussion. There was no way he was going to be able to drive to the hospital; he would have to let Julie drive even though she hadn’t passed her test yet.

  Julie!

  She was all alone by the campfire and would be cursing him by now, no doubt. A scream ripped through the dark night. Tim raced up the bank, despite the spinning sensation in his head.

  Julie ran blindly, she just kept going straight ahead. The growling behind her told her the animal had given chase. It thudded along the damp ground at a pace far greater than she could manage. The pounding thumps of its footfalls creating a rhythm. If she kept running the beast would soon catch up with her; she had to hide. It was her only hope. She ran down the far side of the bank, the one that edged the fields rather than the marsh itself. There in the darkness she found a thick hedgerow; she got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the bush.

  She crouched in there, covering her mouth for fear that her own panting breaths would give away her position. She heard the growls and thuds as the beast hurtled past on the bank above. Where the hell was Tim? Had he already encountered this thing?

  ‘Julie?’ The sound of Tim’s voice sounded quite distant.

  She almost shouted out in response and then stopped herself.

  ‘Julie? Where are you?’ He sounded scared. She longed to be with him, but she couldn’t force herself to move, and she feared that if she shouted out the beast would locate her before Tim.

  Tim was standing by the campfire, frantically looking for some clue as to where Julie had gone. There was none to be found. Everything looked the same as when he had left, with one exception; Julie was nowhere to be seen. He started to move off towards the car park, thinking that if she had gotten frightened, Julie may have sought refuge in the car. He stopped. He had the car key in his pocket. Turning around he decided that she was more likely to have gone off in the direction he had. Perhaps she had gone looking for him and had her own encounter with the same bovine terror that had caused him to fall down the bank. He set off at a steady pace, still feeling woozy from the knock to the head.

  ‘Julie!’ he called out again, cupping his hands to his mouth to amplify the sound. ‘Julie, where are you?’

  She heard Tim calling out to her once more. She covered her own mouth when she nearly cried out for him. This would only bring the beast back to her. What the hell was that thing that had chased her? It seemed too large and heavy to have been a fox. She wondered whether it was a feral dog. Whatever it was it had given chase like it planned to attack.

  Where was it? She had not heard anything apart from Tim in some time. Had it carried on running along the bank when she had slipped down the side? Or was it lying in wait for her outside the confines of the hedgerow? She feared the second option too much to call out in response to Tim, but his shouts were getting nearer. There was no way that he would find her hidden here. She decided that she would cautiously sneak out of the hedgerow and run towards the sound of Tim’s voice, hoping that if she was careful the beast would not hear her, or find her.

  ‘Julie! Answer me!’ Tim called out again, his voice sounding more frantic the nearer he got.

  He wasn’t that far away now. She steadied herself, taking a few deep breaths to try and calm her nerves, although the way her heart was thumping in her chest she knew it would not do much good.

  Slowly she began to inch forwards, her hands and knees in the cold mud. Thorns scratched her body. She had been too scared to notice them on the way in. She had crawled far deeper into the hedgerow than she had noticed, and moving this tentatively it was taking forever to reach the edge. Finally it came into view.

  She peered from her crouched position, only her head exposed to the night air. The darkness around the hedgerow was all consuming. There was only the slightest amount of moonlight that enabled her to distinguish the top of the bank from the night sky. It would be impossible for her to see Tim until he was passing her by. The only real light she could see was the distant glow of their campfire. Had she really run that far? It had all happened so fast, and she had been so frightened that she had not noticed the distance she had run.

  Though it was dark, she could see no sign of the beast. She had to make a run for it. She would run from here, straight up to the top of the bank, and then she would run towards the fire, towards Tim, towards safety.

  The first sound she barely registered; the laboured breathing could easily have been her own. The second sound, though, that deep growl, there was only one explanation for that. The beast was right behind her in the hedgerow.

  Sharp claws tore into her flesh, dragging her backwards. The pain was intense and she had time for one scream before it was on top of her, its jagged teeth closing around her throat, ripping flesh away. Then she could no longer scream, no longer breathe, she could only watch through tear-clogged eyes as this unimaginable horror chewed on her flesh, as she drowned in her own blood.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Karl sat listening as the detective spoke to him and his mother. He could see from her face, that his mother had stopped listening a long time ago. She looked pale, frail, and smaller than he remembered her. It had not been that long since his last visit home, six months, maybe seven. Then he remembered that this was October and he had not been back to visit them since last Christmas. He felt instantly guilty.

  His mother had looked worse when he had arrived at the house the previous night. Her eyes had been red and swollen, and he suspected that she had been crying all day. This was hard for her, she and Phil depended so much on each other. Phil was her favourite child. Karl was far too much like their father, a constant reminder of the man who had abandoned them.

  When he had arrived home the previous night, he had spent hours comforting her. He wondered if she was wishing it was him that was missing and not Phil. Though he was sure she wouldn’t actually wish any harm upon him, he was also certain that she would rather harm befell him than Phil.

  Now as they sat and listened to Detective Chief Inspector Pearce, he could see that she was withdrawing even further into herself, her mind’s way of protecting her from having to face the possibility that Phil was gone for good. Karl knew that if this was the case it would be the end of her, and there was nothing that he could do to change that. His only hope to help her was to find Phil, alive. At that moment, that is what he vowed to himself he would do.

  ‘So now he has been missing for mor
e than twenty-four hours, we can start to officially investigate Mr Morgan’s disappearance,’ Pearce said in a voice that carried experience and authority, but something in his eyes made Karl feel that Pearce knew that the search would be futile.

  ‘What does that mean exactly?’ Karl asked.

  ‘It means that your brother will be put on the missing persons database, which is accessible to police forces all over the country,’ Pearce explained. ‘Posters will be put up, maybe even a TV appeal.’

  It all became too much for his mother, she could no longer listen to this. Karl watched as she left the room, crying silent tears.

  Karl turned to Pearce.He could feel anger welling up inside him, anger at his brother for disappearing like this, anger at himself for not being able to do more, and anger at Pearce for not doing enough. He felt it in the pit of his stomach and in the pressure building up in his forehead.

  ‘Is that it?’ he said to the detective. ‘That’s all you’re going to do? What about searching the area?’

  Pearce looked at him as though he were an angry child who needed putting straight.

  ‘Mr Morgan,’ he said, his voice barely hiding the patronising tone. ‘We have searched the area around his car, there was no evidence to suggest foul play.’

  ‘What about his bloody car?’ Karl exploded in anger, standing up and looking down on the police man. Pearce did not like this, he stood himself, using his height advantage to regain the power in the dynamic.

  ‘It looks as though he may have hit, or been hit by, something,’ Pearce said. ‘He could have had an accident and staggered off with amnesia. We’re checking all of the hospitals just in case.’