by Cavan Scott
Charlotte tapped the screen, flipping the camera forward to record the path ahead. Speaking in hushed tones, she brought the viewers up to date with the Shining Man phenomenon, recommending her other videos if they wanted to find out more. She’d add links later in the edit.
After a while she fell silent, the camera recording her progress. Most of this would get cut, but she had to keep the camera running, just in case. If something was going to happen, she hoped it would be soon. While all this would make a great vlog, the rain was already seeping through her jacket. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so cold.
Charlotte stopped. ‘What was that?’ she asked the phone, panning the camera around.
There had been a sound up ahead, a weird electronic chattering; quiet at first, but soon joined by a wheezing, grinding bellow that rose to a crescendo. She’d never heard anything like it.
She broke into a run, charging towards the noise. There was a light as well, a pulsing glow that flashed in time with the raucous growl; on and off, on and off, sending shadows skittering through the trees.
She skidded into a small clearing just as the light and sound show came to an abrupt conclusion with a tremulous, thundering thump.
The wood was silent again, the only sound the patter of the rain that fell on the large box that hadn’t been there this afternoon when she’d explored Huckensall for filming locations.
It was tall, roughly the height of a telephone box and made of wood, painted dark blue. White light streamed from windows mounted at eye level. Charlotte peeked in, but couldn’t see anything through the frosted glass.
Stepping back, she circled the box, sweeping her phone up and down so the camera could take in the square panels beneath the windows.
‘OK guys, this is bizarre,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know where this box has come from, or even what it is. It certainly wasn’t here earlier today.’ She pitched the camera up to make out words that were printed white on black above the windows. ‘Police Public Call Box, whatever that is. Some kind of mobile HQ? Seems a little pokey.’
She reached out, brushing her fingers against the wood, only to snatch them away again. ‘It’s vibrating … like an electric current was running through it. What kind of wood can be electrified?’
There was a set of doors, with a handle. ‘Well,’ she said, summoning up the courage. ‘Only one way to find out what’s inside …’
She yanked at the handle. It wouldn’t budge.
‘Locked,’ she told the camera. ‘But there’s a smaller handle here.’ She read the words printed on a white panel for the benefit of her viewers. ‘Pull To Open. Police Telephone. Free for use of Public. Well, I’m a member of the public, so …’
She pulled open the panel to reveal an old-fashioned telephone nestled in a small cupboard.
‘Hey,’ said a voice inside the box. Charlotte sprang back as the door unlocked and was yanked opened from within. ‘Don’t do that!’
It was a man in his fifties with a heavily lined face, a crop of grey hair and steel blue eyes.
‘Who are you?’ Charlotte asked.
‘I could ask the same question.’ His eyes fell on her camera mounted on its monopod. ‘Are you recording me? You’re recording me, aren’t you?’
His hand went to his jacket pocket, as another voice rang out behind him: younger, female and sort of cockney. ‘Who’s there, Doctor?’
‘You’re a doctor?’ Charlotte asked. ‘Doctor of what?’
The angry man waved the question away. ‘A Doctor of ignoring inane questions. Now scram. Vamoose. Do one.’
A girl appeared behind him, pushing the Doctor aside with an affectionate nudge. She had dark skin with expertly shaped eyebrows and hair piled up high on her head.
‘Have you heard yourself? “Do one?” Seriously?’ She smiled. It was a good smile. A cute smile. She stepped out of the box and pulled up the collar on her shiny silver jacket. ‘Nice weather for the time of year.’
‘Oh, and what time of year is it, clever-clogs?’ the Doctor asked, looking mightily peeved to have been shoved out of the way.
The girl looked up at the sky. ‘September?’
‘October,’ Charlotte corrected her.
She was rewarded by another smile. ‘Thanks. I’m Bill, by the way. And you’ve already met the Doctor.’ She leant in conspiratorially. ‘Don’t worry; he’s not always that rude.’
‘Yes, I am!’ the Doctor argued, shutting the door behind him.
‘I’m Cryptogal-UK,’ Charlotte told Bill, only to draw a puzzled look from the Doctor.
‘What kind of name is that?’
‘What kind of name is Doctor?’
‘A good name. The best name.’
Bill grinned. ‘Don’t tell that to Nigel.’ She nodded at Charlotte’s phone. ‘What are you? Some kind of vlogger?’
Now it was Charlotte’s turn to grin. ‘Twelve thousand followers and counting!’
‘Wow!’ Bill looked genuinely impressed. ‘What do you do? Gaming and stuff?’
‘Gaming?’ the Doctor said. ‘In a wood?’
Charlotte ignored him. ‘Nah, I’m rubbish at games. I hunt monsters.’
‘That’s a coincidence,’ Bill said, pointing at the Doctor. ‘So does he!’
Charlotte swung the phone back round to the man. ‘You’re a vlogger too?’ It would explain the name, if nothing else.
‘Certainly not,’ he replied, peering into the trees. ‘Sounds awful.’
‘You do know what it means?’ Bill asked.
‘I’m not that old,’ he snapped. ‘Video blogging, on YouTube or what have you.’ He rummaged in his jacket pocket and pulled out a blue and silver device which whined as he swept it in the air, a green light flashing at its tip.
‘What’s that?’ Charlotte asked.
‘None of your business. What kind of monsters do you hunt?’
‘The real kind. Bigfoot. Nessie.’
‘Which one?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Which Nessie do you hunt?’
‘There’s more than one?’
‘I should know. I put them there.’
‘What?’
He spun on his heel to face her. ‘So you’re a Cryptozoologist. Hence the silly name.’
‘It’s not silly.’
‘And a Crypto-whatsit is …? asked Bill.
‘Someone who tracks creatures of myth or legend,’ the Doctor explained. ‘Life forms conventional science dismisses or ignores. Although most zoologists I know call them “cryptids” rather than “monsters”.’
Charlotte shrugged. ‘Monsters gets more hits.’
‘The question is,’ he continued, taking a step towards her, ‘what monster are you hunting tonight?’
‘There are other questions,’ Bill cut in as the Doctor peered at Charlotte with an intensity that made her want to run and hide, video or no video. ‘Like where we are?’
‘You tell me …’ he replied, as if setting a test.
Bill looked around her. ‘Well, I assume we’re on Earth, and by the look of that mobile—’
‘It’s a MeadowPhone 3,’ Charlotte told her, a little too eagerly.
‘Sweet. They were coming out in August, so it’s not far off when we left. Is it still 2017?’
Charlotte frowned. ‘Of course it is.’
Bill looked pleased with herself. ‘There you go. October 2017.’
The Doctor nodded in appreciation. ‘Not bad. As for where we are …’
‘Manchester,’ Charlotte offered.
He frowned at her. ‘Manchester’s a big place. Come on. The devil’s in the detail.’
‘Huckensall, on the outskirts. Near Sale.’
The Doctor gave her a tight smile. ‘See? That wasn’t too difficult, was it?’
‘Cool,’ Bill said, wrapping her arms around herself to keep warm. ‘Never been to Manchester.’
The Doctor shook his head, slipping his bizarre buzzing-tool-thing back into his p
ockets. ‘And this is what happens. I show them the stars and they get all giddy about Manchester.’
‘What’s wrong with Manchester?’ Bill asked as a scream broke through the trees.
The Doctor was already running in the direction of the cry. ‘I suggest we find out. Come on!’
Chapter 6
The Corner of Your Eye
Charlotte suspected that the Doctor was talking to Bill, but followed them anyway.
Someone was crying ahead. A kid, by the sound of it.
The Doctor disappeared down a bank. Bill barely hesitated before following him down the steep incline. Who were these people?
Charlotte started down the slope, slipping almost immediately. She crashed down the hill, landing with a jolt. Groaning, she looked around for her phone. The monopod had slipped from her hand mid-tumble. Where was it?
‘Here,’ said Bill, retrieving the handset from a pile of leaves and passing it over.
‘Thanks.’ She checked the screen. It wasn’t cracked, thank God.
‘You hurt?’ Bill asked, helping her up.
Charlotte could feel her face flush, despite the freezing rain. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ she lied, even though her elbow ached from where she had whacked it on her less-than-graceful descent.
‘Sorry, is something keeping you two?’
It was the Doctor calling from the bank of a brook that ran between the trees. He was crouching towards a small boy of about 7 or 8, who whimpered as he clutched his ankle. There was a girl too, a couple of years older, doing her best to put herself between him and the kid.
‘Leave him alone,’ she said defiantly.
The Doctor held up his hands. ‘I get it. Don’t talk to strange men. I try to do the same, but he’s obviously hurt, and I’m a doctor. Just ask my friends.’
Charlotte was shocked that he seemed to include her in that statement.
‘It’s all right,’ Bill told the girl. ‘We just want to help. What’s your name?’
‘Masie,’ she replied, still glaring at them both. ‘But we’re fine, really. I just need to take him home.’
It was clear that the boy was anything but fine. ‘They were chasing us,’ he snivelled, his words coming out in ragged sobs. ‘I fell down the slope.’
The Doctor’s glowing stick was out again, waving over the boy’s foot. ‘Nothing broken,’ he concluded. ‘Not even a sprain, but that doesn’t matter, does it? Because it hurts.’
The boy nodded. ‘It really does.’
The Doctor offered a handkerchief covered in question marks to the boy.
‘Don’t take it,’ the girl said.
The Doctor flicked his head towards Masie. ‘How old does this one think she is? 27? 45?’
The boy sniffed and smiled. ‘103.’
‘Hey,’ Masie complained.
‘Older sisters are the worst,’ the Doctor said, grinning back at the lad. ‘Perhaps I should ban them. I am the President of the World, after all.’
The boy laughed. ‘That’s silly.’
The Doctor grinned back at him. ‘Silly’s my middle name. What’s yours?’
‘My middle name?’
‘If you want. Or we could start with your first?’
‘Noah,’ the boy replied. ‘Noah Holland.’
‘Good to meet you, Noah Holland.’ The Doctor looked up at the girl. ‘And big sister Masie too. You don’t trust me, do you?’
She shook her head.
‘That’s fine. Totally fine. But you can trust Bill. That’s Bill over there with all the hair. Bill’s nice. Nicer than me, anyway. And she’s got a question for you, haven’t you, Bill?’
Bill crouched down beside Noah and nodded. ‘What was chasing you?’
That surprised Charlotte. Bill didn’t ask why two kids were out in the middle of the wood, or where they came from. She believed Noah’s story without question, and so did the Doctor. The two were tight, like a team. She felt a pang of jealousy.
Noah looked straight at Bill when he answered. ‘The Shining Man.’
Charlotte had dropped her smartphone down to her side as soon as they’d found the kids. Now it was up again, trained on Noah. ‘What did you say?’
The Doctor stood up and swatted the phone away. ‘Point that thing somewhere else. What’s wrong with you?’
‘No, you don’t understand,’ she argued. ‘That’s why I’m here! The Shining Men!’
‘And who are they?’ Bill asked.
Charlotte snorted. ‘You don’t know?’
‘That’s why she asked you,’ pointed out the Doctor.
Charlotte couldn’t believe it. ‘But … everyone knows about them.’
‘Bored of talking to you,’ the Doctor said, turning his back to her. ‘Going to talk to someone who really knows what’s going on.’ He crouched back down by the children. ‘Noah, Masie …. What’s a Shining Man?’
Noah shrugged. ‘I don’t know, they’re like ghosts or something.’
‘Ghosts?’
‘They’re these men who appear on street corners, with lights as eyes.’
‘I thought they weren’t real,’ Masie said. ‘That’s what Mum told me.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Adults have a habit of saying stupid things.’
Masie’s face hardened. ‘And then one took her away.’
Bill joined the Doctor. ‘A Shining Man took away your mum?’
Masie nodded. ‘That’s what we think. She said she saw one in the street, but never came home.’
‘She’s been missing for days,’ Noah added.
‘And then Noah had a dream that wasn’t a dream.’
‘They’re the worst kind,’ the Doctor said. ‘What happened, Noah?’
Noah’s words came out in a burbled rush. ‘She needed my help, and was covered in leaves, so we came here to find her and there were lights in the trees, and they chased us through the wood and—’
‘And you twisted your ankle,’ the Doctor said, calming him. He ruffled the boy’s hair, plucking what looked like an acorn from his curls. ‘Typical humans. Rushing into danger to help others. No wonder you’re my favourite species.’
‘What’s that mean?’ Charlotte asked, but Bill answered with a question of her own.
‘So what are they really? These Shining Men?’
Charlotte shrugged. ‘That’s what I came to find out. This is where it all began.’
‘In the wood?’ Bill asked, before looking over Charlotte’s shoulder. ‘What was that?’
Charlotte turned. There was nothing there. ‘What was what?’
Bill shook her head. ‘The place must be getting to me. I thought I saw something.’
‘Out of the corner of your eye?’ the Doctor said, standing up again.
‘Yeah. It’s nothing.’
‘Things in the corner of your eye are never nothing. Things in the corner of your eye are usually enough to kill you.’
Bill glanced down at Masie and Noah. ‘Doctor, you’re scaring the kids.’
‘I’m scaring myself.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Says the man who’s never scared!’
‘Never is a relative term.’ He nodded at the trees behind Charlotte. ‘Now, where was it?’
Bill pointed along the bank. ‘Over there, beside that tree with the box-thing.’
Charlotte looked at an old elm that the local wildlife trust had used to mount a bird box.
‘But I told you,’ Bill continued, ‘there’s nothing—’
Lights appeared behind the tree. Two lights, like eyes.
Charlotte brought up her phone. She wasn’t about to miss this, even though her camera seemed to have trouble focusing on the orbs.
‘It’s him,’ Noah snivelled. ‘He’s come back for us.’
‘The Shining Man,’ Charlotte said in awe. This was it, what she’d come for. She took a step forward and froze.
She was scared. Really scared, deep in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t even run. But she wanted to. Sh
e really really wanted to.
The eyes blazed in the night, and Charlotte heard a whimper. She thought it was one of the kids and then realised that it was her. Her cheeks were wet, but it had stopped raining. She was crying, her hands shaking, her legs going to jelly. She wanted for the ground to open up beneath her feet, for hands to drag her down into the earth to safety, anything to escape the awful glare of those two piercing eyes.
And then there were more, appearing behind every tree, along the top of the bank, on the other side of the brook. Dozens and dozens of glowing eyes, staring at her. Staring through her.
She dropped her phone, sinking to her knees. It felt as though the wood was contracting around her, the air itself pressing in tight, crushing, suffocating.
The Shining Men reached out as one, skeletal fingers searching for her. She rolled into a ball, waiting for their nails to rake against her skin. This had been a mistake. A terrible, stupid mistake, but it didn’t matter any more. The Shining Men had come for her.
She was lost.
Chapter 7
Working Undercover
‘What is going on here?’ said a voice from above.
Charlotte shook her head to clear it. That was a good question. She could move again. The fear and the terror had evaporated, just like that.
She opened her eyes. The lights in the trees were gone as well.
‘What are you doing with my grandchildren?’ said the voice that had scared the Shining Men away.
‘Nanny!’ Noah cried out from behind, trying to stand but collapsing in a heap again as his ankle gave way.
‘Allow me,’ said the Doctor, scampering up the bank to assist the woman who was struggling down towards them. She wore an anorak over her thin nightie, with walking boots on her feet and a woolly hat rammed over grey frizzy hair. The hat was soaked through, but the woman didn’t care as she slapped the Doctor’s hand away.
‘Don’t touch me.’
He snatched it back as if burned. ‘Suit yourself. I was only trying to help.’
She slithered down the bank, flashlight in hand, and rushed to the children. ‘Noah, Masie; what in heaven’s name are you doing out here?’ She folded her arms around them. ‘I was so scared when I found you gone.’
‘They chased us, Nan,’ Noah told her, resuming his seemingly inexhaustible supply of tears.