by Nick Gifford
Other than the occasional sound of a train, and a dog barking in the distance, he heard nothing.
There were plenty of signs that people had followed this path recently, but all the footprints in the mud could easily just be locals passing through. Did vampires go for strolls in the woods? Some of them had dogs to walk, so he supposed they probably did.
He realised that he didn’t even know what he was looking for. Would feral humans have shoes, even? Maybe he should be looking for the imprints of bare feet. Shut off from civilisation, these feral humans might be savages. Perhaps that was why the doctor had been so fascinated by Ben...
By late in the afternoon, Ben was hungry and dispirited.
He remembered watching television programmes about how you could survive in the wilderness, living off nature. They showed people scraping about for roots, finding leaves that could be boiled into tea or soup, finding berries and mushrooms. It looked easy on the TV.
But in reality Ben had seen no mushrooms. The only berries he had found were a few hard green blackberries that were nowhere near ripe. He didn’t know which plants were safe to eat and which would poison him.
Hungry or not, he would have to find somewhere to sleep.
Remembering the programmes, he found a fallen branch and dragged it so that it leaned against a tree. He should be able to balance smaller branches against it, and smaller ones against those and so on until he had a shelter.
It didn’t work like that, though. The thing kept collapsing.
He decided that it wasn’t worth it. It looked like being a dry night in any case. He would just have to take his chances with the weather.
~
He found an open area where he could see the stars through a gap in the trees. The undergrowth was thicker here, and he was able to pull loose grass together with fronds of bracken to make a kind of nest for himself.
The vegetation broke the hardness of the woodland floor for a while, but soon Ben was uncomfortable. The ground felt hard and cold. His jacket would have helped him stay warm but he’d lost that in Kirby. He was exhausted, but sleep remained a long way off. He couldn’t shake the images of the last two days from his mind. The bright red smears across Lenny’s face. Rachel smiling at him, laughing. The man with PURE OF BLOOD where his eyebrows should have been and the stink of beer and smoke on his breath. Most disturbing of all was the eagerness in Doctor Macreedie’s expression, the anticipation.
If Ben hadn’t taken his chance to escape he knew it would be all over by now: the doctor and the policeman would have bled him dry.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps they would have held back, keeping him alive so that they could come back for more of his blood another time, and another... another...
Woodland sounds broke through his dark thoughts. Scuffling and creaking sounds came from all around. The movement of the trees? The sounds of animals?
At one point, a sudden yelping sound startled him out of not-quite-sleep. A fox, he decided. A badger, maybe.
He wondered if the animals here drank each other’s blood, too, or if it was purely a human thing.
~
Later, he woke to cool drops of rain on his face. He opened his eyes and stared up at the night sky. Clouds were hiding the stars and everything was pitch dark. He raised an arm and there was a sudden stabbing pain across his shoulders and back.
Cautiously, he rolled onto his side, his body aching from sleeping awkwardly on the woodland floor.
He wiped the moisture on his face with the back of a hand, and paused to gather his senses.
He rose and moved across into the shelter of the trees, stumbling on the uneven ground and the tangle of bracken and long grass. He leaned against a tree, then sat, but the ground was muddy and the wetness instantly soaked through the seat of his trousers.
He went deeper into the trees. He found another place to settle against a tree, testing the ground with a hand before lowering himself.
He had no idea what time it was, but he sensed that there were still many hours until morning, and he had a long, uncomfortable night ahead.
~
He hurt.
He hurt in his muscles and in every movement of his stiff, aching body. He hurt in his dry throat, with every breath, with every attempt to swallow. He hurt in the depths of his empty stomach.
He hurt.
Dawn’s light had only recently stolen through the woods, and Ben had watched the steady emergence of shapes from darkness, of details etched into those shapes, and finally, of colour. Birds sang and he cursed their joyfulness. What right had they to be so comfortable in this awful wood, when he was sore and damp and still so very tired?
Ben thought again of those survival programmes he had seen on the television, and he wished he had paid more attention. He was hungry, but he knew that his most pressing need was something to drink. Without water he would not last long.
He stretched his arms and legs, trying to free some of the night’s stiffness from his body.
Back in the clearing there were puddles from the night’s rain and he squatted by one and looked into its muddy depths. He scooped some of the water out in a cupped hand and eyed the brown liquid.
He stood, shook his hand dry and looked around.
The trees’ leaves were shiny with moisture. He took one, pulled it over his open mouth and shook it, but only a drop or two of water fell. He licked the leaf, finding more of the moisture that way. He licked others, and then felt suddenly self-conscious and stopped. This clearing had formed where a tree had fallen, and now Ben found a puddle in a cleft in the horizontal trunk. The water was clearer and he scooped handfuls up to his mouth and drank gratefully.
When he had finished, he leaned against the trunk and gathered his thoughts. Would he be ill from drinking this water, he wondered? He had no choice, though.
He looked around to find his bearings, then headed deeper into the woods.
~
Soon, he came to the railway. Its steep, rocky embankment was ahead of him, cutting a straight line through the woods.
There was a fence at the foot of the embankment: two strands of wire to mark the boundary between woods and railway property. The path followed the fence for a distance here, and suddenly Ben remembered something his older cousin Sophie had once pointed out to him on a train journey to London. All along the track there were rambling apple trees, grown from the seeds in apple cores passengers had thrown out of train windows.
He swung his legs over the fence and scrambled up the embankment.
Sure enough, a short distance along and part way up the slope, he came to an apple tree. The fruit were hard and green and he had to pull hard to snap them from their stalks. It was too early in the summer for them to be ripe, but even so he bit into one. It was hard and he found it difficult to break a piece off. It was dry and bitter, too, but he managed to chew it, and to swallow, and he found that he wanted more.
He ate what he could of the apple, and part of another, and then he stuffed more under-ripe apples into his pockets.
Near to the top of the embankment he listened. Hearing no trains, he crossed the track and scrambled down the far side into the shade of the woods again.
~
The woods were different, here, to how he remembered them. He began to realise that they must extend much farther to the north and west in this strange world. No wonder the so-called ‘ferals’ could hide themselves out here.
He walked, stopping often to listen, but all he ever heard were the sounds of the woods, and the distant roar of the occasional train.
It was a long day, and despite the apples in his pocket and the occasional clean-looking puddle of water, his hunger and thirst grew.
It was stupid to think that he could find the ferals like this. Even if they really existed they would be well hidden. He might as well just call out at the top of his voice, asking them to come and get him.
But what alternative did he have?
He walked on, listening and loo
king for any signs that might indicate the presence of the ferals.
He stopped, late in the afternoon, tired and dispirited. He was thirsty again, and his stomach burnt with the sharp pains of indigestion, brought on by unripe apples or bad water or probably a combination of both. He did not know what to do, or where to go.
He realised that he had a stark choice: stay here in the woods and possibly starve to death or return to Kirby to whatever fate Doctor Macreedie and his kind might have in store for him.
He did not know which was the better option.
6 The Wild Ones
It proved to be another uncomfortable night.
He found a tree with roots that spread wide at the base of its trunk, forming a hollow. At first it was comfortable to sit on a layer of the previous year’s fallen leaves with his back against the trunk. Soon the hardness of the ground and the tree made themselves felt, as they had the night before, and Ben had to keep shifting, trying to find a position that was just a little less uncomfortable than the others.
As darkness crept furtively through the woods, Ben started to drift off to sleep, waking occasionally with an abrupt judder of his body and a racing of his heart.
At first, when he heard the voices, he was convinced it was still a dream.
His exhaustion had finally triumphed and he’d been dozing. And dreaming. In his dream he had been laid out on a hard stone bench in an operating theatre. Harsh lights shone down on him and his arms and legs were strapped tightly to the bench.
He could hear people talking, but could see no-one.
And then a face loomed, close to his own: Doctor Macreedie, his mouth and nose hidden behind a surgical mask, his operating gown stained red like a butcher’s apron.
“It’s okay,” he said, in the dream. “I’m a doctor. We just need to take a sample for a few tests.”
At that point in the dream, Ben was able to shift his head and look down at his own naked body. Coils of plastic tubing, red with his own blood, were attached all over his body with strips of surgical tape, and even then Doctor Macreedie drove another needle into Ben’s belly, attaching another tube: transparent at first and then coloured a sharp crimson from within.
“It’s okay,” Doctor Macreedie kept saying. “It’s okay.”
And all around, others mumbled and chanted, their words impossible to make out. Words bouncing around inside Ben’s head.
He opened his eyes. He could see the dark branches above him, silhouetted against the starlit sky.
He could still hear the voices, the words.
No! It wasn’t the dream: it was people talking, somewhere nearby in the woods.
Suddenly, Ben was scared. What if the voices belonged to vampires, looking for victims? Maybe they were searching for him – alerted by Doctor Macreedie and Sergeant Adams that there was a feral on the loose.
But the voices could belong to ferals. This was a chance he couldn’t allow himself to miss.
He climbed quietly to his feet.
Silence, then a gentle laugh, more low voices.
There were two of them, Ben guessed. They might be following one of the many tracks that criss-crossed the woods, but they could easily be following another, secret, route.
Ben stared in the direction of the voices.
Should he confront them, or should he try to follow them?
He would have to get closer, whatever he decided to do. Perhaps if he was closer he would be able to make out what they were saying. Then it might be easier to decide.
He crept through the woods, treading as carefully as he could in the darkness. It was hard to move fast and stay quiet at the same time.
They were moving more quickly than Ben. Getting ahead of him.
He kept going, not daring to move any faster in case they heard him.
And then he realised that they hadn’t spoken for some time.
He stopped.
He couldn’t hear any sounds of them walking through the woods. No voices. Not even in the distance. Had they moved so quickly that they had left him far behind?
A sudden sound of footsteps nearby.
A voice: “Following us, eh?”
Someone grabbed a handful of Ben’s hair and pulled his head back so that his face was tipped up, his throat exposed. He started to cry out, but a gloved hand smothered his mouth, trapping the sound.
He felt a hard line against his throat. The blade of a knife.
The voice again, closer now: “One false move and I slice you. Okay? Maybe I’ll slice you in any case. Give your kind something to feed on.” He chuckled.
For a few seconds rough hands searched him, patting down his body, going through his pockets.
All Ben could see were the trees and the stars and part of the gloved hand clamped over his face.
“Come on, Robby,” said the man who was holding Ben. “You kill it and the place’ll be swarming with them.”
“Not if we dump it some place else. You mind it doesn’t bite your hand.”
Instantly, the grip on Ben’s face eased a little. “I–” he gasped, but he couldn’t say anything more.
There was a pause, then the man called Robby who appeared to be the leader spoke again. “You should know not to come stalking us out here.”
“I–” Ben tried to speak again. The grip on his face eased, and suddenly he could speak. “I’m not one of them,” he gasped. “I’m not a vampire.”
“A what? What are you talking about?”
Still, with his head pulled back by a fistful of hair, all Ben could see were the stars and trees.
He tried to think. In a world where blood-sucking was normal maybe they didn’t need a special label: the townfolk weren’t “vampires”, they were just people.
“I don’t suck blood,” Ben croaked, struggling to speak with his head pulled back. “I’m a feral. You’ve got to believe me!”
The gloved hand changed its grip and pulled Ben’s mouth open wide.
“Maybe he’s telling the truth,” said the man who was holding Ben.
“I don’t know,” said Robby. “It could be a trick. Just because he doesn’t have the teeth for it, it doesn’t mean he’s not a beast. He talks like them and he uses their word for us: he calls us ‘ferals’.”
“I called you that because I’ve just escaped from them and that’s the word they used.”
“So what are you doing out here in the middle of the night, then?”
“I don’t belong here. This isn’t my world. I don’t know why I’m here, but where I come from there’s no such thing as...” He stopped and then started again, trying to explain. “I came to the woods because they said that what they called ‘ferals’ had been sighted here and I thought it was my only chance.”
The grip on Ben’s hair eased and he was allowed to straighten.
There was a short man standing in front of him: Robby. He had long blond hair and he was wearing a dark coat and what looked like jeans. There were bulging bags nearby. The man saw Ben looking at them. “Been foraging in town,” he explained. Then he added, “That’s a fancy story you tell. But what makes you think you can just walk in here like this? Do you think we’re stupid? Listen, kid. My big friend here is going to let you go and we’re going to point you in the right direction. You keep walking until you get to Kirby and you forget you ever came here, right?”
“But–”
“I should have sliced you right away,” said Robby. “A lot easier all round.”
The second man released Ben and moved round to gather up the bags. He was tall and heavily built and he didn’t want to meet Ben’s look.
“They had me trapped in a room,” said Ben. “A doctor and a policeman. They wanted to keep me so they could drink my blood. If I go back...”
The short man pointed back through the woods. “That way,” he said. “Seven miles to town.”
“They’ll kill him,” said the tall man. “And they won’t do it quickly,” he added.
“I should have kni
fed him straight away,” said Robby softly. “Come on, then. But you walk in front of me, kid. I want to watch your every move.”
7 The People of the Woods
They walked until the sky was greying over with the first light of dawn.
The taller of the two scavengers, Zeb, led the way, setting a fast pace – deliberately, Ben suspected.
Ben fell several times, stumbling over roots and unexpected bumps in the ground. Each time he fell, Robby poked him with a booted foot, and told him to get up and walk.
After a time, the frequent twists and turns had made Ben lose all sense of direction and it was as much as he could do simply to keep up with the ferals. He guessed that they must be taking him on a roundabout and difficult route to their camp: a route so devious that he would lose his bearings and would never be able to remember it.
And then they were suddenly there: the encampment was all around them.
The narrow track they had been following had reached a dense barrier of holly. Ben thought the path just stopped, but ahead of him Zeb slipped through a parting in the dark green wall.
Ben followed him through the gap.
They emerged in a clearing. The open sky and the early morning light made it a little less gloomy than it had been in the woods, but still it took several seconds for Ben’s eyes to adjust.
At first it looked pretty much like any other of the many clearings in Weeley Woods. Young trees forced their way up through tangled heaps of brambles and honeysuckle. There was running water: a stream, out of sight in the undergrowth.
Then he began to make out the regular shapes of buildings. There were shelters scattered throughout the clearing. The brambles and honeysuckle had been trained to grow over them, disguising them from onlookers.
Ben could hear hens somewhere, but he couldn’t see where.
Robby pushed him in the back. “Get moving, kid.”
At the centre of the clearing there was a grassy area that was free of brambles and shelters. Zeb and Ben waited there while Robby went to one of the nearby shelters.