by Graham West
Blakely had made it clear to the local press that the park would close until autumn, and they would be giving holiday vouchers to any families wishing to return next summer, but his main concern was the missing guests. Ambulances stood by as the fire crews picked their way through the smouldering forest, looking for signs of life.
A reporter asked how he felt. Blakely told the guy he was totally numb, and the reporter nodded sympathetically but, unlike the rookie reporter from The Tabwell Herald, this middle-aged, grey-haired hack was a hardened pro, looking for the story behind the story. It was best to be guarded with his kind. Yes, someone might have started the fire, but no, Blakely had no idea who it could have been.
The hack had obviously done his homework on the way down. He brought up the locals who’d objected to the park and seemed to think if he caught Blakely early enough, he’d be upset enough to start flinging allegations around, but Blakely knew to keep his mouth shut. Once these guys got the beginning of a story, they were quite capable of making up the rest.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Darren still had a pulse, although Josie thought it was getting weaker. Jenny reached out to steady Kayla as she stumbled forward on the uneven ground, and their father moved tentatively, watching every step, still clinging onto Darren. Several hours ago—hours that felt like days—the orb had stopped and hovered above a tiny gap in the trees. Jenny imagined a road or track would run around the perimeter of the forest, but they found themselves in acres of open farmland.
It had been difficult to see in the dark. There were no streetlights nearby and the smoke from the fire had drifted overhead, blocking out the moonlight. They needed to get their bearings, and it would be better to wait a few hours till dawn and then head back.
Jenny’s heart sank as she peered into the inky blackness. She was pretty sure they were sitting on a grass verge at the edge of a ploughed field. It was impossible to follow the perimeter of the forest because the farmer had turned over what might once have been a footpath. Even without Darren, it would have been difficult, so they’d looked for the firmest and flattest ground they could find, which took them away from the park. Kayla thought it would be better to head for a road anyway. At least they’d be able to flag down a car. Surely someone would stop and call an ambulance.
They headed off as soon as light dawned, and by the time the sun appeared over the distant trees, the group were on a farm track.
“This has got to lead to a road,” Rob said wheezily.
Jenny glanced back at the smoke rising from the forest, wondering if the orb was still drifting overhead somewhere. But all she saw was a lark, hovering on the early morning breeze.
After a couple of miles, they came across a fork in the track.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Danni muttered. “Which way are we supposed to go now?”
“I’d go to the right,” Josie suggested. “It’s quite worn, so it’s more likely to lead to a road or at least a farmhouse.”
They all nodded in agreement—all except Bailey who still looked like a lost child. Darren was mumbling something none of them understood beyond the mention of Kevin Taylor.
“That’s all in the past, babe,” Danni said softly. “It’s okay. We’re all good.”
Darren shook his head. “No…you don’t…you don’t understand.”
“You sound pissed, hun,” Josie joked, trying to lighten the mood. “Tell us when you feel better.”
Darren groaned, hanging his head. “Taylor did this,” he grunted out.
“I think he’s a bit confused,” Jenny mouthed at Danni.
Darren’s left arm was around Danni’s shoulder but Rob was taking the brunt of his weight, and the strain was showing.
From the near-distance came a sound, and Jenny looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun. A vehicle, moving slowly, its roof visible above the hedgerow. Another track? But then, coming from the opposite direction, was a white van.
“It’s a road!” Jenny yelled. “We’ve found the road!”
***
“Of course we don’t know how the fire started!” Penny yelled at a young reporter who looked as if he were on a school outing and just happened to have a microphone with him. “And get that frigging thing out of my face!”
Blakely knew when his wife had reached the end of her tether. Unfortunately, the young bloke from the local satellite TV station didn’t. He was clearly out of his depth, but his media training had taught him not to back down. “How do you feel about the fire?” he asked.
Penny glared at him. If they hadn’t been facing several months under the microscope with the relevant authorities waiting to pounce, she might have laughed.
“How the hell do you think I feel? You’ve asked me two questions so far, and neither of them merit an answer, so why don’t you leave us alone?”
Blakely moved in beside her. “Look, I know you’re after a story, but we’ve nothing to tell you. We don’t have a clue how the fire started, and we have a park full of guests. They’re our priority at the moment.”
“We just need a statement, that’s all,” the reporter protested.
“Then go and stand by that tree with your cameraman and tell your viewers exactly what we’ve told you. If you want to speculate then speculate. Just do it somewhere else.”
“I know he’s a kid,” Penny mused, watching him walk back to the front of the hotel, looking like a wounded puppy, “but it’s just a job to him. This is our world, Dennis, and it’s falling apart.”
***
The road turned out to be a lane, which was almost as quiet as the farm track.
“God knows where this will take us,” Jenny said, “but Tabwell has got to be over that way.”
“I need…I need to sit.” Darren stumbled and almost went down.
Jenny groaned. She hadn’t intended to show her frustration, but Danni was on to it right away. “Give him a break, will you? He’s sick! Can’t you see that?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m worried about him too, but I don’t know how long we’ll have to wait for a car, and then we have to hope they’ll stop.”
Darren eased himself down onto the grass bank at the side of the lane while the rest of them stood like meerkats, waiting in silence. Bailey had found some comfort in Josie and clung to her arm.
Half an hour passed before the sound of an engine drifted across the fields towards them. There, in the distance, they saw the cab of a tractor above the hedgerows.
“Please, please be coming this way,” Danni muttered.
“He’s got to,” Jenny said, hoping the driver wouldn’t swing into a field before he got within half a mile of them. Their eyes remained fixed on the cab as it moved, snail-like, along the lane. It passed the only opening they could see before disappearing behind by a row of conifer trees, but the sound of the engine grew louder. Danni yelped with joy as the tractor appeared around the corner, its tyres skimming the verges on either side of the lane.
Josie stood, waving her arms as the farmer brought the vehicle to a halt. He was a young man with jet-black, spiked hair and a pale complexion; he looked like he’d be more at home behind a fender Stratocaster than the wheel of a tractor.
He glanced down from the cab. “You lot lost or summat?”
Josie stepped forward, dwarfed by the giant wheels. “We just got out of the forest. We need an ambulance for our son.”
The farmer glanced over at the smoke, still rising in the distance, then at Darren who sat with his head between his legs.
“Have you got a mobile?” she asked impatiently.
The driver grabbed an old Nokia from the dashboard. He nodded at Darren. “What’s up with him?”
“We think he’s got a concussion,” Danni said.
Darren looked up. “What’s happening?” His voice was barely audible.
Danni bent down and kissed him gently on the forehead. “It’s okay, babe. You and me are going to be just fine.” She looked up at them and smiled. “We all are.”
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Part Two
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It had been three weeks since they’d left Mosswood. Three weeks since Jenny had arrived back at the park to find her distraught husband desperately trying to pacify their son. Jake had been pale and confused, having convinced himself he’d lost his wife. Bailey had been reunited with her sobbing mother, who was so relieved to see her errant child that any thought of chastisement had been forgotten.
Darren had been allowed home after an overnight stay in hospital. They were happy the blow to the head had not caused any internal bleeding. The X-rays and scans were clear, and he’d been dispatched with strict instructions that he must inform his doctor if there were any further attacks of dizziness or headaches.
They’d found the charred remains of Liam Garret’s body in what was left of the tiny cottage. Three-quarters of Mosswood had been destroyed, but the locals had suffered nothing more than a smoky haze hanging over their town for several days. The national rags carried the story on the inside pages; Jenny suspected that if a young worker hadn’t lost his life, it wouldn’t even have warranted a mention, not when a celebrity had been caught with the first signs of cellulite on her thighs while holidaying in Marbella.
Jenny had two new numbers in her phone. Nicky Rosales and Laura Nelson had wanted to know what the hell was going on with their kids, and she had been promoted to the dubious position of chief expert in the field of paranormal activity. Bailey had told her mother about the strange ball of light that had led them through the forest, and now Jenny was waiting for the inevitable call.
It was for those reasons she came to be sitting in the antique familiar armchair, watching Sebastian Tint cradle a glass of brandy. The old guy was still going strong. He still had all his faculties, and his mind was as sharp as a razor. He loved Isaac and had proved to be more like a grandfather than godfather. For a man who had lived on his own for so long, he’d taken to the role with an energy that surprised them all.
Isaac found Uncle Seb’s wrinkly skin particularly fascinating, stroking and prodding and pulling his face as if it were some kind of comfort blanket. “He can take this old stuff home with him,” Sebastian joked. “As long as the man upstairs gives me some new material to dress these old bones.”
It was difficult to imagine Sebastian as a young man, although Jenny imagined he’d been quite handsome in his day. There was something about his face that age could never malign, and she often found herself equally as transfixed, listening as he spoke with a voice that carried the profound wisdom born of a deeper knowledge than could ever be learned in the universities at which he’d studied.
“So these apparitions you saw,” he said. “Did you sense they were hostile?”
Jenny had focused on the orb at the time; everything in the forest felt hostile. “They appeared to be spreading the fire.” She called the images to mind. “They swooped like birds, then they’d hit a tree and it would explode into flames.”
Sebastian nodded, taking another sip of brandy. “If what you tell me about the boy—sorry—I’ve forgotten his name…”
“Cody Nelson.”
“Yes, Cody. If the spirit of some woman warned him not to venture into the forest then it’s obvious something happened there, possibly a long time before Amelia was born.”
“So you don’t think it’s connected with Jacob Root’s body?”
The old man shook his head. “According to the diaries, Amelia’s father refused to tell her where he lived. My guess is he was trying to protect her from something.”
“Do you think he knew what had gone on in the past?”
“If he did, he was unlikely to have told his daughter. He would not want to frighten her.”
“But if the place was haunted, why did he continue to live there?”
Sebastian smiled ruefully. “We are talking about the late 1800s. He had a home provided by his employers. If he’d turned it down, where would he have gone?”
“But that kid, Bailey. She went really weird and started that fire like she was possessed. Even my dad started behaving strangely after he came out of the forest. Why wasn’t Amelia’s father affected?”
Sebastian shrugged. “Maybe the spirits had their targets, or perhaps some are more susceptible to them. You said Darren was fine, and he was there with your father all the time, wasn’t he?”
Jenny nodded.
“I don’t have all the answers. I wish I did. I’d speculate there’s someone in Tabwell who knows exactly what happened in Mosswood. Perhaps Mr. Blakely should do some digging before he opens that park up to the public again.”
***
Alex had thought about moving back home several times over the past few weeks. An eerie silence had fallen over Mosswood. The hotel was empty, and the only people he saw were wearing either fluorescent jackets or suits.
At least he still had a job, so maybe it was better to stay onsite. Blakely had been good to the resident staff, finding work around the grounds with the promise that he’d try to keep them employed until the place reopened.
The grounds had to be maintained, the rooms continually checked, and the pool was there for them to use in their leisure time, but the evenings still dragged. Alex glanced at the slip of paper on the bedside cabinet. In his mind, he could still see the old lady with the amazing eyes and thought it might be a nice gesture to take her for lunch and thank her for her concern.
His hand trembled as he punched the number into his phone. What if she was some kind of cougar who still thought she could pull a man young enough to be her grandson? He held the phone to his ear and listened as it rang out. Everything will be okay, he assured himself. Even if she was a bit loopy, an old lady was hardly going to be dangerous, was she? And besides, he could do with some company.
“Hello? Who’s speaking, please?” The voice on the end of the line didn’t belong to the lady who had sat opposite him in the restaurant. It may have been her daughter, or even her granddaughter.
“Oh, sorry. I have a piece of paper with this number on it. My name’s Alex, and I think your mother may have given it to me.”
“My mother?”
“Yes, or grandmother?”
“I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?”
“Alex. There must have been a mistake, I’m sorry. You’re obviously not the person who left me with this number.”
“Hang on a minute, what was her name?”
Alex glanced down at the scrap of paper. “She didn’t leave a name. Just a number.”
“What did she look like? I mean, how old was she?”
“I’m not sure. She was quite old, but she had really blue eyes, the kind you can’t help but notice.”
Alex heard the girl breathing heavily into the silence.
“I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes,” she replied. “I’m just…” Her voice sounded strained.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Did she have white hair?”
“Er…yes.”
“And did you notice if she had a gold tooth?”
“On the right? Yes!” Alex replied, relieved the mystery woman hadn’t given him a wrong number.
“Oh my god,” the girl breathed. “It’s my grandmother.”
“That’s great. She was lovely. She really—”
“No! You don’t understand.” There was another brief pause, and then she said, “Alex, I hope this isn’t some kind of sick joke, because it’s not funny. My grandmother died three years ago.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Early reports from the fire department suggested they were also perplexed by the ferocity of a fire. It would have taken several months of blazing sunshine to turn a damp forest into a tinder box, and even if an arsonist had gone in with a tanker full of petrol, they’d not have succeeded in causing such devastation.
Blakely knew better than to start talking about haunted woodlands when even a casual remark would leave him open to ridicule. Right now,
he wanted to exhume Jacob Root’s body with as little fuss as possible. His ex-foreman and the builders who had found the remains nearly three years ago could be relied upon to oversee the demolition of the cycle shelter under the ruse they were planning something bigger in its place.
There would be no funeral, no minister, no service. The coffin was going to be a simple wooden structure, unpolished with no brass or inscriptions. Jacob Root would lie alongside his daughter, the grave unmarked; the only people with him at the burial would be Blakely, Penny and Jenny Adams.
***
Kevin Taylor lay shivering on his bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. Now he knew what death looked like. He knew how it smelled, too. It had stared him in the face and threatened to take him down, but somehow he’d crawled back to safety. As soon as he’d reached the gate to the cycle trail, fresh air had filled his lungs once more. No one had noticed him as he’d brushed himself down and walked out of the park, throwing his wristband into a bin by the exit.
He’d not slept properly since. Maybe it was some kind of bug. He rarely got them because his body had built up an immunity from spending most of his childhood avoiding dog shit and bins overflowing with decaying food along with the inevitable army of rats and mice.
The house he shared with the Romanians wasn’t warm, even in summer, but he’d never felt this cold. The new quilt wasn’t helping, and he’d never, ever worn a sweatshirt to bed. But sleep scared him. It scared him because he always ended up back in that fucking place, drowning in thin air and ducking around the shadows that hung from the branches like demonic bats. But it wasn’t the shadows that really freaked him out; it was the voices in his head, whispering and wailing.
Maybe those voices had saved his life. Perhaps he wouldn’t have found the will to escape if it hadn’t been for that fear. He knew, even now, with a rational mind, those shadows were waiting for him to die.