Red Snow
Larraine S Harrison
Copyright © 2017 Larraine S Harrison
Copy Editor: Kate Campbell
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Acknowledgements
1 The Stalker
2 Red Snow
3 Storm
4 Frog-Eyed Sprite
5 Fire
6 A Seventh Birthday Card
7 The Special Envelope
8 A Newspaper Cutting
9 The Intruder
10 Rosa
11 Tom
12 The Fugitive
13 Life and Death
Acknowledgements
With thanks to all my family for their support and practical help with the editing and production of this book. Thanks also to my grand-daughters Esther and Ivy, who love stories. I hope they will enjoy reading this one.
1
The Stalker
Stalking the boy next door in the middle of the night was a dangerous thing for a twelve-year-old girl to do, but Megan just had to find out where he was going.
She looked at the bedroom clock. It was ten minutes to midnight; time to get ready. She tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach. Whilst the thought of what she was about to do terrified her, it also excited her and took her mind off all her troubles.
She got out of bed, pulled her red curly hair into a ponytail and put on her warmest clothes for the cold winter night. Moving towards her bedroom window, she climbed up on to the broad window sill so she had a good view of the street outside. Then she waited.
A few minutes later, a dim light came on in the bedroom of the house next door. Thirteen-year-old Ryan got out of bed. He got dressed, put a torch and a phone in one of his jacket pockets, swung a bag on his back and turned out the bedside light. Creeping along the landing to his grandad Bill’s bedroom, he peered inside. When he was satisfied that Bill’s hearing aid was on the bedside table, he set off down the dark stairs, holding the handrail to guide him. Once in the kitchen, he switched on his torch. Bill’s dog, Skippy, raised her sleek head and stared at him with her huge brown eyes.
‘Stay there, Skippy,’ Ryan whispered. ‘It’s OK.’
The old dog wagged her tail weakly and went back to sleep. Ryan reached in his pocket and pulled out his door key. Then he carefully unlocked the back door and moved swiftly out of the house.
As soon as Megan saw Ryan in the street, she sprang into action. She could hear her father snoring in the room next to hers as she moved with hurrying steps down the softly carpeted stairs. Once in the hallway, she stepped into her boots, took the spare key from a nearby shelf, put on her woolly hat and opened the front door. Seconds later, she was following Ryan down the street. He was some way ahead, so she knew she would have to run to catch him up. Megan was small for her age, but she was a good runner and within minutes she had closed the gap between them. Then she hung back. She needed to keep Ryan a safe distance away before slowing her pace to match his. Keeping her eyes on him all the time, Megan walked close to the houses. If he should look back, she would flatten herself against a garden wall or push into a hedge for cover.
It wasn’t long before Ryan reached a point along Oakton Road, where there were no more houses and no more street lights. With only the moon to light her way, Megan now had to walk a little closer to Ryan, to keep him in sight. Although this increased the risk of her being seen, she was determined not to lose him. It was at this point that something crossed her mind. If Ryan continued along this road, he would eventually reach the entrance to Oakton Hall, with its security lights and CCTV cameras. If he were to pass this entrance, she would have to abandon the stalking. There was no way she could risk being caught on camera. But before Ryan reached the security lights, he turned off the road onto a footpath into Oakton woods.
Megan used to visit these woods with her mother, when she was a young child, but she hadn’t been there for many years. A network of circular tracks snaked up and down the steeply wooded slopes, but she knew that if Ryan kept to the footpath, he would eventually come out onto the main road to York.
She hesitated for a moment. The woods were dark and forbidding. She was afraid of the dark, but to walk back alone on an unlit road was probably just as scary. With this in mind, she took a deep breath and followed Ryan into the woods.
Along the right-hand side of the moonlit footpath, part of an ancient stone wall cast a shadow over the path, making it difficult for Megan to see. On the other side of the path, the dense, dark pine trees sloped upwards, sending strange whispering noises into the midnight air. The beam of Ryan’s torch told her that he was still walking the path ahead, but the overarching shadows of the trees meant that Megan could no longer see him properly. Afraid to use the small torch in her coat pocket, in case it attracted Ryan’s attention, she stumbled along the path, following the beams of Ryan’s torch. But the path was winding and when Ryan rounded the bends, the torchlight disappeared altogether, leaving Megan following blindly until the light reappeared.
After some time, Ryan stopped in a clearing, where the footpath forked. Megan remembered that the right-hand fork led to a woodyard and two gatehouses. There was a bench at the fork, made from an old log. From where she was standing, Megan had a good view of Ryan as he sat uneasily on the bench, but if he were to shine his torch back along the main path, she would be seen. Thinking quickly, she stepped off the path into the damp, soggy undergrowth. Even though she was some distance away, she could see that Ryan had placed his torch on the bench and was now unpacking his bag. She thought that if she headed far enough back into the trees, she could make her way round towards the bench, so she would end up just behind it. From this position, she could watch Ryan without being seen.
Threads of moonlight filtered down through the webbed branches making it just possible for Megan to see her way through the trees, but it wasn’t easy. The tangled brambles that twined the woodland floor, scratched mercilessly at her legs as she crept softly through the undergrowth, like a cat stalking its prey. When she finally reached the trees some way behind the bench, she noticed a narrow track leading up the slope. Stepping over the track, she positioned herself behind a large tree.
Ryan had his back to Megan, but she could see that he had placed a number of things beside him on the bench.
She could see something that looked like a water bottle, but to her annoyance she couldn’t make out what the other things were. She couldn’t see what he was doing either, but whatever it was, it seemed to be taking a long time.
There was nothing else she could do except stand and wait. She pulled her hat down over her ears. The night was growing colder.
Several minutes later, Ryan began to put things back into his bag. Megan braced herself ready to follow him, but this was a move she was never to make, because in the next few seconds, the stalking would be over.
As Ryan placed the last few items in his bag, something terrifying happened. A high-pitched screech rang through the woods, tearing into the silence – a deeply lonely sound, ringing through the woods, like the cry of a tormented animal. Megan watched helplessly as Ryan grabbed his bag and ran as fast as he could back along the path until he disappeared from view.
Then there was silence; a strange, eerie silence, broken only by the scuffling of some small animal as it hastened through the undergrowth. Megan stood motionless. Her mind was reeling. She could see nothing out there, so which way was she to run?
Then a second cry arose, similar to the first, piercing through the night with a haunting shrillness. It echoed around the woods so strangely that it was difficult to know exactly where it was coming from. Megan took the small torch from her pocket. Frantically circling the beams, she illuminated the trees one after another, searching for some clue as to what had made such a chilling sound.
It was then that she saw it. A dark shape, moving in the distance. A large four-legged creature, curling its way around the trees. Standing as big as a very large dog, it had the head of a huge cat and a long bushy tail. Silently, softly, weaving its way around the trees, the cat-like creature was moving ever closer to where Megan was standing. She switched off her torch, but she could still see its fearful outline, moving slowly towards her. She had no time to lose. A creature like that with a keen sense of smell would soon know she was there. She cursed herself for being so stupid. Why had she put on a white coat? If she tried to run, it would attract the cat’s attention. The only thing to do was to hide, in the desperate hope that the cat would wander off.
Slowly and carefully, she inched herself round towards the back of the tree, holding on to the bark with her small gloved hands. Shuffling her feet, one small step at a time, she kept her eyes constantly on the prowling cat. She was about halfway round the tree when the cat made a sudden stop and looked towards her. As it sniffed the air, she caught a glimpse of its piercing eyes, glowing golden in the moonlight. She stood very still and held her breath. Could it smell her fear?
Seconds later she heard a sound coming from the direction of the woodyard. It was a woman’s voice calling out in a shrill tone: ‘Miaow Miaow Here! Miaow!’
As the woman’s torch came into view, Megan ran blindly towards her shouting:
‘There’s a big creature! A huge cat or something. It’s over there!’
She turned to point back to where she had seen the creature, but in her panic, she stumbled over a fallen log. In reaching out to save herself, one of Megan’s hands landed on something sharp. She winced as the pain shot through her wrist. Her blood felt strangely warm as it seeped through her woollen glove, onto the cuff of her white coat. Within seconds she felt an arm around her.
‘It’s alright!’ said the woman, helping her up. ‘It’s OK.’
At that moment, they both looked up, just in time to see the creature slowly turn its long body and creep away, back into the darkness. Then it was gone.
The woman helped Megan towards the path. As she reached down to pick up the large bag she had dropped on the ground, Megan caught sight of the woman’s hair. It was silvery grey and it hung down her back in a long plait.
‘Come with me,’ said the woman. ‘We’ll soon have you cleaned up.’
Megan eyed her warily. She would never have gone with this strange woman if she hadn’t recognised her. The woman had once come to Megan’s school to talk about the badgers in the woods. Megan couldn’t remember her last name, but she knew she was called Irene and she lived in one of the gatehouses. By now Megan’s hand was hurting badly. She just wanted to go home, but she was afraid to go back along the path after seeing the big cat. So, saying very little except to whisper ‘Thank you,’ Megan followed Irene back to the footpath.
‘What are you doing out here alone at this time of night?’ asked Irene sharply.
‘Have you run away from home or something?’
Megan was shocked at the suggestion. ‘No! I was just following someone.’
It was easier to see by the light of Irene’s large torch and so they quickly reached the point where the footpath widened out into a narrow road. Not far along this road was a woodyard, with huge piles of cut logs and large up-ended tree trunks. As they rounded a slight bend in the road, a tall stone arch came into view, with a gatehouse on either side. These gatehouses were once cottages, guarding the old entrance to Oakton Hall, but they had now been converted into modern houses, with their own gardens. Megan noticed the large skip in the garden of the gatehouse on the left-hand side of the arch. It was piled high with builders’ rubbish.
‘Come on,’ said Irene, steering Megan towards the gatehouse on the right. ‘This way.’
Although this gatehouse was fairly small, it had a large garden to the side and back, surrounded by a high hedge. Megan wondered if the black car parked outside the house was Irene’s, but she had no more time to think, because Irene was already opening the front door.
‘You can leave your boots in here,’ said Irene, dropping her large heavy bag onto the hallway floor. Megan obediently took off her boots. She decided to keep her coat and hat on, just in case she needed to leave in a hurry. She followed Irene into a large kitchen, where she peeled off her blood-stained glove and washed her wounded hand.
‘You look frozen,’ said Irene, handing Megan a large plaster. ‘Put this on your hand and then go in there. I’ll put the fire on.’ She pointed to a small sitting room leading from the kitchen. Megan really wanted to go home, but as Irene had been kind enough to help her, she didn’t feel she could refuse.
As she entered the room, Megan couldn’t help but notice the many ornaments, books, and framed photographs, all untidily displayed on tables and shelves. A large black and white photo of a man standing by an old sports car hung on the wall above the fireplace. His face looked familiar, but she couldn’t think who it was.
‘Sit here and get warm,’ said Irene gently as she lit the fire. ‘I’ll get you a hot drink.’
It was when she was left alone that Megan began to tremble. She began to realise what danger she had been in. If the big cat had attacked her, she could have been badly injured or even killed. She glanced at a clock on the wall. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning. She began to relax a little. The cat hadn’t harmed her and there was plenty of time to have a drink and get back home before her dad woke up.
Warming herself by the fire made her feel a little better and after a while she began to take a closer look at Irene’s room. There was something strangely familiar about it. She glanced at the shelf beside her chair, where a collection of cat ornaments were arranged in a line. There were several large china cats, a couple of smaller brass ones and a tiny wooden cat with sparkling eyes. But most unusual of all, right at the end of the shelf was a small wicker basket containing three white hand-knitted cats. Megan thought she might have played with a basket like this when she was a small child. As she looked at the cats her eyes were drawn to a small photo in a silver frame on the shelf above. She stood up, intending to take a closer look.
‘I see you’ve found my cat collection,’ said Irene, as she passed Megan a mug of tea.
Megan sat back down and cupped her cold hands around the warm mug. She watched as Irene sank into a big leather armchair on the opposite side of the room. Her
weather-beaten face looked tired and wrinkled, but her blue eyes were bright and sharp.
She spoke in a soft voice. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Megan.’
‘I’m Irene. How old are you Megan? Ten or eleven?’
‘I’m twelve,’ said Megan indignantly.
‘That’s far too young to be wandering alone in the woods, in the middle of the night?’ said Irene. ‘What were you doing?’
‘I was following a boy called Ryan,’ explained Megan. ‘He’s come to live next door with his grandad, while his parents finish doing up a house in the next village.’
‘And how old is Ryan?’ asked Irene.
‘I think he’s thirteen.’
Irene’s eyes widened. ‘That’s also too young to be going out alone at night. Where was he going?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Megan. ‘That’s why I followed him.’
She paused to sip her drink.
‘You need to tell me a bit more than that,’ said Irene.
‘It started one night last week, just after midnight,’ said Megan. ‘I heard next door’s gate creak and when I looked out of my bedroom window, I saw Ryan setting off down the road, with a bag on his back.’
‘Are you often awake at midnight?’ asked Irene.
Megan nodded. ‘I don’t sleep very well.’
‘How long was Ryan gone?’ asked Irene.
‘I went back to bed before he came back,’ said Megan, ‘but the next night I stayed awake and he was gone at least an hour.’
Irene shook her head in disbelief. ‘You mean he makes a habit of going out at that time of night?’
‘Yes,’ said Megan. ‘He’s been out every night this week.’
Irene looked astounded. ‘So, you just decided to follow him, did you? Didn’t it occur to you that you might be putting yourself in danger?’
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