Guy N. Smith The Wood

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abyss that seemed to beckon her. Crying, her body screaming protests as this
stranger took her from behind, satisfied his lust.
Slowly it dawned on her that no longer were they coupled, that he was sprawled
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back in the driving seat, breathing heavily as though he had undergone a
terrific physical strain. She moved, her thighs caught against something hard
that clicked, creaked- The door handle, the door was swinging back on its
hinges, the fog coming in at her in wisps of icy vapour.
Impulsively, instinctively, she jumped backwards, felt mud beneath her feet
and wan moonlight eerily penetrating the dense fog.
'Hey, what the hell d'you think you're doing?' A yell of rage from the car,
strangely muffled.
Thelma Brown broke into a blind run, heedless of direction, only one thought
in her mind and that was to get as far away as possible from the man who had
done this to her. He might even kill her if he caught her.
She was aware of thick mire and splashing water, rushes that stood vertically
like inverted assegais, mist that blotted out her surroundings. Trees that
sprouted grotesquely, multi-armed ogres trying to bar her way as she ran
between them, plucking at her, scraping her naked flesh.
Panicking, running until she could run no more, lying beneath one of the
stunted trees and trying to listen above the noise of her thumping heart. A
movement to her left as though somebody threshed blindly in a deep bog? She
could not be sure.
Distant thunder ... no, it was continuous, not the right volume, more like a
series of explosions that went on and on. And on. The moon was brighter,
casting weird shadows, yet again the light was not right, instead of silvery
it was orange-tinted like the reflection of leaping flames or a stormy sunset.
Staring skywards she had the impression that the sun was rising, spreading an
aura of fire across the whole sky behind a smoky haze. Cowering, not wanting
to look any more but knowing that she had to, a kind of hypnotism.
And then, louder by the second, she heard the sound of an approaching
aircraft, a heavy lumbering mechanical bird that vibrated the air until it was
painful to the ears.
SEVEN
Andy Dark saw the rowing boat looming up out of the mist, its bows now only a
few yards from the marshy shore. He stared, tried to make out what was
happening through a curtain of swirling grey vapour.
The boat grated on the bottom and a man leaped ashore, struggled to pull the
cumbersome craft further up the beach; the others (there appeared to be four
of them) threw a length of rope which he fastened to an old tree stump. They
were all leaping out, talking in low voices, splashing to and fro in the water
as they began unloading boxes, wooden crates which they supported on their
shoulders with difficulty, stacking them on the soft grass, talking in low
muttered voices, glancing furtively about them the whole time.
Andy counted three men and a boy who could not have been more than thirteen,
moving, bustling outlines, details hidden by the fog. And only yards away
those men in their strange attire, their three-cornered hats pulled down over
their faces, watched and waited. Deathly cold, not a breath of wind now, the
light beginning to fail.
Andy Dark wished again that he had his watch; surely it could not be late
afternoon already. He had the feeling that time was a commodity that existed
only in irrational fragments in this place. These terrible mists were
responsible for it in some inexplicable way. Suddenly the Droy legends were no
longer wild tales to be dismissed lightly.
Andy crept forward another few yards, crouched down again behind a tussock of
reeds. Now he could see the newcomers more clearly and his mouth went dry.
Ragged clothing that had no place in the twentieth century outside museums or
theatrical costumiers, patched coats and rough homespun shirts, breeches
rolled up above the knees, wading barefooted in the water. Bearded features
except for the boy who was emaciated, terrible to behold. Some disease, it
could not be anything else, had eaten into the flesh on his face, a spreading
malignant rash that exposed the bone in places. Barely able to lift the boxes
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yet struggling to do so as though he was afraid of what might happen to him if
he shirked; cringing every time one of the others spoke to him. Gruff whispers
which the fog seemed to magnify. Hurrying, all of them glancing about them
fearfully, an obvious furtiveness, a haste to be finished and away.
Andy's flesh crept. Smugglers without a doubt yet this was no highly organised
trafficking. Had there been a motor launch moored close by, even a
conventional boat of some kind, he could have accepted the situation. But this
was like some dreadful nightmare, the product of a fevered brain.
Suddenly the hidden men leaped into action, on their feet and cutting off the
smugglers' retreat back to their boat. A scream; Andy thought it came from the
boy. Shouts, curses. A muffled explosion; somebody had fired a pistol but the
bullet appeared to have missed. A melee, struggling, fighting. The ambushers
were armed with clubs, crude staves into which nails had been hammered, the
points protruding wickedly.
A blow, one of the smugglers dropped and Andy saw the gaping head wound, a
deep gash that split right into the skull, splintering the bone . . . Another
was bent double, clutching at his groin, the third being held, screaming as
his captors broke his legs with their cudgels. Brutal mutilation, and then
came a realisation which had Andy wanting to burst into headlong
panic-stricken flight. There was no blood, not a single trickle of sticky
scarlet fluid from any one of the multitude of wounds!
Yet the sheer awfulness of the encounter held the conservation officer
spellbound. These savage brutes who were undoubtedly some kind of Customs
officers had turned on the boy. Two of them held him whilst a third raised a
nail-spiked club. Andy's instinct was to rush to the other's aid. He could not
stand by and witness a cowardly murder, but his legs refused to move. Whatever
his feelings he was forced to watch, not even able to turn his head 'away,
screaming mutely. For Christ's sake, you can't.
They had forced the boy's mouth open, were jamming the head of a narrow cudgel
between the stretched lips, the rusted nails ripping the flesh, gouging and
tearing at the skin. Twisting, pushing, muffling the cries of agony, shredding
gums and tongue, raking the back of the throat, clawing for the tonsils. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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