Guy Smith - The Wood

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.'