Guy Smith: The Wood

'golden oldie' that the DJ had played, one that went back well before Carol Embleton's time.

'A thumb goes up, a thumb goes down., hitchin' a ride. '

The headlights dazzled her, had her averting her eyes, temporarily blinded. The tempo of the engine changed, slowing, braking, pulling up alongside her. She heard the passenger door click open. A Mini. The driver was leaning across, just an outline. Nobody else. It wasn't the yobs from the hall.

'Nasty night to be out for a stroll,' a friendly voice, an accent that she could not quite place, certainly not the Droy border twang. 'Or do you do this for exercise every night?'

'No,' She found herself stooping, sliding into the empty passenger seat, glancing in the back as though she half expected to find those village louts hiding on the floor. But there was nobody. The upholstery smelled as though it had recently been polished, the kind of smell a meticulous car-owner might take a pride in. A snug place on a wet autumn night. 'I've been to the disco in the village. When I left it was a nice dry night and I felt like a good walk home. The long way round,' she added and laughed. 'That'll teach me a lesson.'

'No boyfriend?' Joking, pushing the gear lever forward into first, gliding slowly away from the grass verge.

'Not tonight. We've had a tiff but I expect everything will be OK tomorrow.'

Now why the hell did I say that? It won't be OK tomorrow because I'm getting out of this place before I get involved again. Bye, Andy, your ring's in the post. Your ring, not mine.

Carol glanced at her companion, saw the profile of a man who was surely not much older than. Jeez, does Andy have to come into everything? He appeared to be wearing a suit but no tie, the wings of his shirt collar neatly turned over on to his lapels. A short, weft-trimmed beard. No, not thinning at the crown, that would have been just too much to accept. He's not a bit like Andy and I don't want him to be. She almost said 'No, that's not quite right, everything won't be OK tomorrow because I don't ever want to see him again', but it would have sounded silly. You don't go around spilling out the intimate details of your love-life to some stranger who comes driving along in the night.

'There's a stile in the roadside hedge about a mile further on up the road,' she said. 'If you drop me off there it's only a few minutes walk to my home.'

'Fine.' She thought he smiled at her but his features were bathed in shadow.

'What's your name?'

'Carol. Carol Embleton.'

'Mine's Jim. I'm heading north, I'll probably drive all through the night. It's nice to pick somebody up for a few minutes chat, breaks the monotony.' He was dawdling at 25 mph, seemed reluctant to increase his speed. Carol put it down to him being grateful for a brief companionship. Even at 25 mph she was going to get home an awful lot quicker than walking. On their right she saw the start of Droy Wood in the glare of the headlights; twisted, stunted trees that seemed to reach out into the road with their gnarled boughs as though trying to halt lone travellers. She shuddered; that was one place she'd never been in, never wanted to go in. She could not ever remember Andy telling her that he had been in there. It was one of those damp depressing places you didn't go and not just because of the local legends.

'I was thinking of stopping for a few minutes just to smoke a cigarette.' The speedometer needle had dropped to just below 20 mph now. 'If you've got a minute or two to spare I'd be grateful for your company. It's going to be a long lonely night for me. I envy you your nice warm bed.'

The hairs on the back of Carol Embleton's neck pricked and her stomach muscles seemed to contract. She caught her breath and when she spoke there was a slight quaver in her voice. 'I… I'd rather not, if you don't mind. My folks will be sitting up waiting for me and my boyfriend could be round at our house waiting to try and. and make things up. (Liar.) Last time I went off on my own. he'd rung the police before midnight. It caused a lot of bother.'

'We'll only be five minutes.' He swung the wheel hard over, drove on to a kind of lay-by bordering the wood, a patch of rutted mud, chewed up by the tyres of parked heavy vehicles where passing long-distance lorry drivers had been forced by their tachometers to take a break. A few courting couples perhaps from the village on occasions. But tonight it was empty.

'No., please. '

'We won't be a minute or two.'

'I can walk from here, the stile's only a couple of hundred yards up the road.' Carol fumbled for the door handle, felt a surge of panic, and then strong fingers closed over her wrist. Cold fear, she could not even manage a scream and she had not located the door release.

'I only want to talk,' The stranger's soft tones would have been reassuring in any other place, any other situation, if his grip had not been twisting the flesh of her wrist with the ferocity of a Chinese burn. 'You see, I don't get a chance to chat much, and when you're on the road most of the time, often driving by night and sleeping by day, you get lonely. You need to talk to somebody. else you'd go mad.'

'Yes, I. suppose you would. 'She was pressing herself back against the door, wishing it would suddenly fly open and catapult her outside. Then she would run, and run. And run.

'How old are you?' He leaned closer to her and she smelled his breath, a sweet peppermint flavour as though he had been chewing gum recently.

'Twenty.'

'And I'll bet you're not a virgin, eh?' A loaded, insistent question that anywhere else would have brought an angry retort from her lips. But not here.

'No. I'm not. But I'm not a sleeparound either.'

This boyfriend you've had a tiff with… he fucks you regularly?'

She turned her head away, didn't want to look into his eyes. It was probably a trick of the intermittent moonlight the way they seemed to glow, shine with a frightening lusting madness. 'We have a… a relationship.' There was a lump in her throat that was making speech difficult. She swallowed.

'He isn't the only guy who's screwed you, though, is he?' 'Look, I

'Answer me!' A hiss, a blast of peppermint-flavoured breath hit her. 'All I want you to do is to answer my questions.'

'All right.' Carol Embleton was trembling violently now, shaking with sheer terror. 'No, I first had sex when I… I was just sixteen. A boy out of the village. Just the once, and I never had it again until I met Andy. Now that I've confessed, let me go!'

He was silent for a moment, reaching across her with his free hand, fumbling in the glove-box in front of her until he found what he was looking for. She saw him withdraw what appeared to be a crumpled handkerchief, pressed it into her right hand. It was damp and warm.

'Do you know what that is?' His voice was barely audible now. 'Go on, tell me. Have a guess if you don't know.'

'It's. it's a man's handkerchief,' she replied. Oh God, he was mad. If only Andy would suddenly come walking out of the trees. We had to pack the filming up, too damned wet. Have to try again another night. But Andy Dark didn't come, and he was not likely to.

'Dead right.' A little giggle and then his tone reverted to that lusting whisper again. 'But that isn't all… you see, I masturbated into it about ten minutes ago, just before I picked you up!'

The soggy handkerchief dropped from her fingers: revulsion and fear. Oh please God, no. You read about these guys in the papers every day, tell yourself they don't really exist and even if they do, you'll never meet up with one. And suddenly for Carol Embleton it was all stark, terrible reality.

'My name's James Foster.' A chilling note of pride in his voice. 'You may have read about me, seen my picture in the newspaper. You couldn't very well miss them. I raped a girl and the judge let me off. There was an outcry because the public don't understand, don't even try to. I raped another girl last week and now they're scouring the country for me. You see, I killed her!'