In the Devil's Name

by Dave Watson

  Phil fell backwards and tried to scramble away, a scream lodged in his throat. All the noise he could make was a strange choking whistle. As he retreated in dumb terror, shaking his head in futile denial of what he was seeing, the hand holding the torch came up and illuminated the blood stained tunnel.

  There stood Sam and Griff; naked, red skinned and grinning.

  They exploded towards him.

  Chapter 18

  Phil found himself running through the forest.

  He had no recollection of leaving the cave or ascending the rough path up the cliffs from the beach, only becoming aware of himself as he bolted in a sightless panic through the dark woods making small, childlike whimpering noises in his throat. Branches from the trees lashed at his face as he blundered on, stumbling over roots and stones, crashing heedlessly though bushes and underbrush.

  What the fuck just happened? What the fuck just happened? Oh, Jesus…

  He tried not to think about what he’d seen, but it was like trying to appeal to the wind not to blow on a stormy day.

  We eat this meat… in the Devil's name.

  Phil tried to block out the memory of Cairnsey’s dripping, impossibly loquacious severed head, but his traitorous mind kept replaying the image in hideously detailed clarity, scaring him more and more until he became aware that he was screaming as he ran.

  He could hear them behind him as they raced through the trees in pursuit. Sam and Griff. Hunting him. Calling his name and laughing. They didn’t sound like they were very far back.

  Phil looked back over his shoulder as he hurtled blindly through the thickly wooded forest.

  These are my best mates. What the fuck is going on here?

  Sudden blinding pain crashed through his head.

  Don’t pass out! Stay on your feet! Move!

  Phil crumpled to the forest floor in black oblivion.

  He awoke suddenly and sat bolt upright, expecting to see Sam and Griff standing over him wearing red grins, but he was alone again, lying prone in front of the large pine he’d run into at full speed.

  His head hurt like nothing he’d ever felt. Phil raised a hand to his throbbing temple and winced at the sudden bright flare of pain as his fingers touched the split skin. He could feel blood on his fingertips and more drying on his face. He started to get to his feet again but staggered; his legs unsteady and soft at the knees, and his pounding head swimming sickeningly. Leaning against a tree, Phil desperately tried to will strength to his legs. He had to keep moving. With every second he stood still, Sam and Griff could be closing on him. The panic that had fuelled his blind charge through the woods began to build again, and Phil pushed away from the tree, ready to continue his mad dash through the dark woods, weak kneed or not.

  A noise stopped him.

  Off to his left there was a soft rustle of leaves, then silence again.

  Phil froze; his heart pounding and his scalp crawling.

  Another crack of dry branches, a twig snapped underfoot. Closer.

  Phil was frozen for a moment, torn between the urge to bolt away into the trees and the simultaneous urge to hide. His legs still felt like soft jelly, and he realised that weak as he was with a probable concussion, he wouldn’t get far if he tried to run.

  The tree he’d run into was partially uprooted, and there was a narrow dark opening in the earth beneath the torn up base. Phil quickly dropped onto his stomach and squirmed forward until he was concealed in the dark muddy space beneath the half toppled pine. He tried to slow his breathing.

  Something was moving towards him outside, and Phil shuffled backwards until his back was pressed against the moist earthen wall of his hiding place. He tried not to think about the multitude of bugs that were doubtless crawling all over him and finding gaps in his clothes. Even as he had the thought, some many legged beastie scuttled coldly across the back of his neck. He shook in revulsion and covered his mouth with both hands to stop himself from giving voice to the whimpers of terror that he felt build within him.

  Moonlight filtered down between the treetops, and outside his shelter, Phil saw a shadow move stealthily among the trees, silent as a hunting animal.

  He became aware again of the throbbing of his head which pulsed painfully in time with his pounding heart, and he felt fresh blood running down his cheek. He remembered Griff after a first aid class once, talking about how even shallow head injuries bled like a bitch.

  The shadow outside his foxhole moved closer, and Phil could now hear a sound that accompanied it. Sniffing. Long drawn out inhalations like a wine taster would perhaps make when trying to distinguish a burgundy from a Bordeaux while blindfolded.

  “Are you here, Phil?” a voice asked from the shadows. It was Griff.

  Sniff sniff sniff.

  The shadow stepped out of the darkness into a small clearing. Griff stood ten metres away, holding a machete and sniffing the air. His entire body was coated in blood, as if he’d been rolling in it. His eyes seemed to glow, but that must be a trick of the moonlight Phil reasoned. Surely.

  “You’re here somewhere, mate. I can smeeell you.,” Griff crooned in a hideous singsong tone.

  Without really thinking about it, Phil silently scooped up some wet mud from the ground of the hollow in which he cowered and coated his face, smearing it painfully over the wound in his temple and trying to cover the smell of his leaking blood.

  That’s Griff out there. I’ve known him for ten years.

  “It’s nothing personal, Phil,” Griff said out in the woods, “You’re food now. That’s all. Meat. You didn’t take the trip. I’m still me, but now…” he tailed off with a strange almost regretful little chuckle.

  Sniff, sniff.

  Phil saw Griff suddenly snap his head in his direction and his blood froze. Griff sprinted forward at an impossible pace and Phil almost screamed out loud.

  Just as he expected Griff to come scuttling into his dark recess under the tree, he suddenly stopped and stood directly outside the hollow, his bloodstained knees a mere foot away from Phil's face.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  Directly overhead.

  There was a sudden frustrated bellow, a chilling animal like noise that was not even close to human, and then a frantic chopping as Griff began frenziedly hacking at the tree. Phil could see a storm of woodchips falling around his friend’s ankles.

  After a full minute, the hacking stopped, and Phil heard Griff panting raggedly, then Sam's voice was calling out somewhere further back in the dark forest.

  “Did you find him?”

  “No, just blood on a tree,” Griff called back.

  They sound so normal. Like they’re looking for a lost Frisbee or something.

  Phil heard Griff move away. His muscles, wound tense as a coiled spring, relaxed and he let out a long shuddering breath. He wanted to sleep. His mind and body felt stretched beyond their means, and all he wanted to do was curl up and seek shelter in oblivion. Cairnsey was dead, but not so dead that his disembodied head hadn’t been able to speak to him. Sam and Griff had lost it and were now hunting him, apparently for food. It was all too much. He closed his eyes, and felt himself starting to drift away…

  No, he told himself and forced his eyes open. If he stayed he would die. He knew that for sure. He had to get out of the woods. It was only a matter of time before his friends found him.

  Phil wearily crawled forward, hesitating before he emerged from under the lopsided pine tree, and listened. The only sound was the wind blowing through the treetops and the creak of branches.

  Phil crawled out from the dark recess like a nocturnal animal from its burrow and stood in a shaft of moonlight.

  He tried to get his bearings. Looking around, all he could see was dark forest in every direction. He didn’t even know from what direction he had come, nor could he tell how long he’d ran through the woods after escaping the caves before his senses had returned. He couldn’t hear the sound of the water on the beach, so he assumed he must have run for some dis
tance away from the coast. Other than that, he was completely disorientated.

  There was the sudden sharp crack of foliage from somewhere back in the forest to his left. It didn’t sound close, but there was definitely something there, and it was approaching.

  This time Phil decided to run.

  He looked at the maimed bark on the tree trunk where Griff had hacked in frustrated fury at the bloodstain left over from his collision. Using this as his only point of reference, Phil ran into the woods with his back to this marker, hoping beyond hope that he was going back in the direction he’d come.

  Chapter 19

  As he fled from the uprooted pine, the panic that had gripped Phil subsided enough for him to think practically. He made a conscious effort to slow his pace and began moving quickly but quietly, every once in a while pausing and listening for signs of his pursuers.

  He needed help, and cursed under his breath as he realised that his mobile phone was in his jacket pocket. He remembered removing the jacket when they’d been back in the caves, aeons ago. With this realisation, Phil became aware for the first time that there was a chill in the night air, but he’d been too afraid and pumped full of adrenaline to feel it until then. He’d been thinking only of evading and escaping from his pursuers, and had not even noticed that he was without his jacket; wearing only jeans, his beloved Rangers football shirt and trainers. Shivering now, he continued forward, praying that he would soon find his way back to the road.

  After what seemed like hours, he caught the faint briny scent of salt water and seaweed on the air, and hope bloomed in his chest. Phil recklessly abandoned the furtive manner in which he had been moving and started running again, heedless of the noise his passage made.

  As he hastened forward, Phil became aware of a new scent in the air; that of wood smoke, and seconds later he stumbled out of the underbrush into the clearing where they had set up the tents earlier that evening.

  Phil could hardly believe his fortune. Falling to his knees, he could have wept in relief, but again the natural instinct for survival kicked in, and he forced himself to his feet once more, exhausted though he was.

  The fire they had lit had died, but a thin tendril of smoke still rose from the charred wood and ashes. The tents seemed untouched. No one had been here since they’d left to go down to the caves.

  Phil forced himself to think.

  Okay. Car keys. Find Cairnsey's car keys.

  He prayed Cairnsey had not had them with him down in the caves. He would not go back down there.

  We eat this meat in the Devil's name…

  Phil forced himself to concentrate on his current situation. If he let that fearful memory get a hold of him again, the little calm he’d forced upon himself would be lost, and he felt he would just sit down and gibber until someone found him, dead or alive.

  With trembling fingers, he unzipped the flap of the tent Cairnsey was sharing with Griff and located Cairnsey's backpack. A quick search through the pockets proved fruitless. He briefly looked through the rest of the tent. No car keys. Phil did however find a torch and Cairnsey's mobile phone.

  He switched the flashlight on and doing his best to stop his hands from shaking, began flicking through the phonebook on the mobile until he found his home number and pressed the call button.

  Please let him be in, he prayed.

  “Hello?” His dad's voice, groggy with sleep. Phil almost broke down in tears of relief.

  “Dad, it’s me. Something’s happened… the lads… Cairnsey’s dead… they’re chasing me… trying to kill me…”

  “What? Who’s chasing you? Where are you?” There was real fear in his father's voice.

  “Bennane Head… they took his fuckin’ head off, dad… please help me… please…”

  There was a sound. The rustling of leaves from the direction of the woods at the edge of the clearing.

  Shaking, Phil peered cautiously out of the tent opening.

  Griff came hurtling out of darkness beyond the tree line as if fired from a cannon, machete raised high and howling in an inhuman, blood freezing shriek. His eyes were locked on Phil.

  He knew he was too tired to run anymore. His only hope was to fight.

  Phil burst out of the tent and grabbed the first thing that came to hand that he could use as a weapon; a piece of firewood from the pile Sam had collected earlier that evening, thick as his wrist and a foot in length. How much good it would do him against his insane, machete wielding friend, Phil didn’t know, but he didn’t think it would be all that much.

  Griff ran at him, screaming like a banshee, and swung the machete at Phil’s head. More out of paralysing fear than as an evasive manoeuvre, Phil fell backwards, feeling the blood stained blade part the air inches above his head. He landed on his rump and instinctively swung the short log at Griff’s knees. The thick piece of wood connected, and Griff staggered to the side with a grunt. Phil scrambled to his feet and backed off, holding the cord of wood before him like a short sword, staying out of the reach of Griff’s far more formidable weapon which he swung back and forth casually.

  Griff advanced on him as he chopped at the air with the machete, grinning and shaking his head.

  “What you thinking, Phil? You going to kill me with that wee log? Bash my head in? Thought we were mates, you and me? Come one, buddy, give me some random maths question.”

  “What the fuck's going on, Griff?” Phil asked in desperation, hoping he could talk to his friend and make him snap out of this madness.

  “You wouldn’t understand it if I told you, mate. You didn’t take the trip.”

  “Griff your head’s fried, man! Cairnsey’s dead. You get that? He’s dead,” Phil shouted.

  Griff just laughed.

  “Of course he is. I took his fuckin’ head off with this,” he held up the machete, still advancing towards Phil. “Don’t look so upset though, mate. He was already dead by that time. I didn’t actually kill him. He was already… hungry when he died. After that he was just food, like you are now. Me and Sam, we ate a good bit of his leg before we heard you in the cave. You know how good it tastes, Phil? Raw, hot flesh? This is no bad trip, mate. This is real.”

  Phil kept backing off, shaking his head in denial, tears streamed down his face and he was sobbing like a frightened child.

  Griff laughed again.

  “How’d you like it when he spoke to you, Phil? Eh? Cairnsey’s bloody, smiling head? Bet you’ve been trying not to think about that, eh? Could drive you mad, a thing like that. Thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it. Your mate's severed head. Talking. In the Devil’s name, Phil.”

  With impossible speed, Griff suddenly sprang forward again with a guttural growl and slashed at Phil with the machete. This time Phil couldn’t evade the blow, and a terrible pain flared as the blade sliced into his upper left arm, biting deep and breaking the bone beneath. Griff’s head snapped forward like a striking snake, his mouth fastened on the wound and Phil felt teeth madly gnawing at his flesh. He screamed, and finding strength in his pain and terror, somehow managed to bring the short log around in a short arc with his right hand, striking Griff on the side of the head. The impact was enough to dislodge Griff’s teeth from his arm, and Phil’s flesh tore as his friend’s jaws were ripped free, blood leaping from the deep, mangled wound. Snarling like a beast, Griff raised the machete high over his head, about to bring it sweeping down on Phil’s scalp. Still screaming, Phil brought the short log up in a quick movement, catching his friend square on the chin. Griff stumbled backward, tripped on a tent rope and went down, losing his grip on the machete. Like an animal, he was instantly on his feet again and groping for the weapon, but Phil closed in and swung the cord of wood with all the strength he could muster, this time crashing it hard into Griff’s temple and sending him sprawling senseless in the grass.

  Phil dropped the log and in a daze walked over to the machete lying on the ground. His left arm was numb now, and blood poured in a steady stream fr
om the deep, ragged gash just above his elbow. His vision was starting to go grey at the edges and he was aware he would lose consciousness soon. He bent down and grasped the handle of the machete with his right hand.

  As he straightened up, he heard running footsteps and an animalistic snarl close behind him. Without conscious thought, with the very last reserves of his fading strength, half mad and howling himself, Phil spun towards the sound, blindly bringing the machete round in a backhanded swipe.

  There was a sudden impact that Phil felt all the way up to his shoulder as the foot long blade bit deep into something, and the snarling and footsteps abruptly ceased.

  Phil turned round and saw Sam, naked and caked with dried blood, drop to his knees then keel over in the grass, the blade of the machete half buried in the side of his head just above his right ear. He was grinning.

  There is only so much a mind can take, and as Phil watched his best friend’s body slump to the ground and lay still as stone, something in his brain shut down. His eyes glazed over and an unnatural calm seemed to wash over him. He was partly aware then of a cold feeling creeping through his bones, and his dislocated mind recognised this was an effect of shock mingled with blood loss. On autopilot, his vision coming from the end of a long grey tunnel, he walked on brittle legs back over to the tent, crawled wearily inside and found Cairnsey's mobile lying on the groundsheet.

  “Hello? Hello? Phil? Phil, can you hear me?”

  His dad. Hysterical.

  “Hi dad,” he said in a faraway tone. “How you doing?”

  “Phil, thank God! Are you okay? What the fuck’s happening there? I heard shouting. Are you okay?”

  “I’ve killed Sam dad he was my best friend and he was going to eat me, and I killed him with a machete I think maybe I’ve killed Griff as well they turned into cannibals dad and they killed Cairnsey and cut his head off and ate his leg and they threw it at me and then he spoke to me and then they chased me and now I’m cut in the arm and there’s lots of blood and I think maybe I’m going to die here dad and I’m scared…”