by Nick Gifford
Ben watched as the short blond man leaned into the doorway and spoke to whoever was inside. Seconds later, he backed away and a taller man emerged.
The man had shoulder-length black hair and a full beard that was flecked with grey. He was wearing loose brown trousers and a kind of cape wrapped around his shoulders. He walked across the clearing, staring at Ben.
Without comment, he reached round to the back of Ben’s head and grabbed a handful of hair. Tipping Ben’s head back, the man stared into his open mouth.
“Where are you from?” he asked in a deep voice. “What are you doing here?”
The man released Ben’s head. Ben straightened. He swallowed, his throat dry. “I... I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what happened, but I don’t belong here. I escaped from Kirby. They had me locked up.”
The man grunted. His dark brown eyes never left Ben’s face. “What are you doing here?” he repeated.
Other people were emerging from the shelters now. They must have heard the voices and realised that something unusual was happening.
“The doctor in Kirby said there had been some sightings of ... of normal people ... here in the woods. I didn’t know where else to go.”
The man turned on Robby and Zeb, suddenly. “Why did you bring him here?” he barked.
Robby raised his hands defensively. “We caught him following us,” he said. “Didn’t know what trouble he might cause us, roaming about in the woods like that.”
“What else could we do, Alik?” asked Zeb softly. “Send him back to the beasts?”
Ben looked across at Zeb, grateful that at least one of these people was prepared to give him a chance.
“Quite right, Zeb,” said another voice. Everyone turned to see who had spoken. A stocky, grey-haired man stood in a gap in the undergrowth. He looked very ordinary, but there was a confidence in his words that made everybody pay attention.
“What would you have done, Alik? Send the boy back to provide wild blood for the beasts?”
Alik shook his head, slowly. “I wouldn’t have put myself in that position,” he said. He turned to Robby and Zeb again. “You’re getting sloppy,” he told them. “Bringing trouble into the community like this. Any mistake you make out there could be all it takes to lead the beasts right here. You’d better tighten up, you hear?”
~
The community hall was an impressive construction. It was built from corrugated steel, bent over to form a semi-circular tunnel that must have been five metres high and twenty or thirty metres long. The whole thing was so well disguised with ivy and brambles that even close up Ben hadn’t realised how large the building was.
“This place used to be a farm,” said the older man. His name was Walter and he turned out to be Zeb’s father. It was clear that he was some kind of leader in this community. “The place was abandoned years ago. It seems appropriate to have taken it over and turned it to good use.”
Inside, the hall was gloomy and the air smelt of human bodies. There were maybe thirty people in there, and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at Ben.
Walter waved a hand towards the far end of the hall. “It goes right back under the trees,” he explained. “We pipe water in from the brook and in the winter the families tend to move in here to share the warmth. The building has smoke traps in the chimneys, you see, so the beasts can’t see the smoke from our fires.” Ben could smell cooking from the far end of the building and suddenly he felt sick with hunger.
In a louder voice, Walter said to all the onlookers, “This is Ben. He’s my guest.” He turned to Ben, again. “I expect you’ll be hungry?”
Soon, they were out in a small clearing in the early morning sun. Ben was tucking in to a bowl of some kind of corn porridge, made from grain harvested at night from local fields. He’d already eaten two boiled eggs.
Walter watched Ben eat for a short time, then he said, “Okay, Ben. We’ve given you food and protection. Now it’s your turn to pay us.”
Ben stopped eating, chilled by the man’s words. He remembered breakfast with Doctor Macreedie, and the eager, hungry look on the man’s face.
But Walter was smiling. “You must repay us with your story,” he said. “A stranger, lost in the woods: you must have quite a tale to tell.”
They listened as he recounted what had happened. Even Alik and Robby came to sit with them and listen.
When he told them about the doctor, he saw the looks of shock on the listeners’ faces. “He wanted to keep me locked up in his house,” Ben said. “He wanted to keep me for his family. He didn’t really seem to see me as a person at all: I was some kind of animal.”
“You were different,” said Alik, smirking. “Exotic. I bet he couldn’t believe his luck! He’ll be cursing you now.”
“Family is important to the beasts,” said Walter. “The doctor would have shared you with his ‘blood kin’, as they call them. You were lucky to escape when you did. Once they’ve started...”
“The place where you come from,” said a young woman with red hair and a scarred face. “What’s it like, again?”
“It’s ... safe,” said Ben. “You don’t have to hide out in woods. People live in towns and cities and there’s no such thing as ... as what you call the ‘beasts’. Except in stories about beasts we call ‘vampires’. Only, the vampires in stories are different. They only come out at night, and they’re frightened of crosses and garlic...”
“All just stories,” said Alik, dismissively. “If only the beasts were so easy to frighten!”
“It’s like stepping into a mirror and out of the other side,” said Ben. “Things are so familiar here, but some things have been turned inside out. I’ve lived in a town called Kirby for the last six years, but not this Kirby.”
When he looked up, he saw a vaguely disappointed look on Walter’s face, as if he didn’t believe Ben’s story.
“It’s true,” said Ben. He had hoped these woodland people would be able to help him understand. He had hoped they might even know how to get him back to his own world.
But they didn’t believe him.
For the first time he started to accept that there may be no way back.
Walter was nodding. “You clearly believe that it’s true,” he said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
“It’s like the children’s stories,” said the red-haired woman. “Stories of worlds where things are different.”
“Only stories,” said Alik harshly, his tone ending all discussion.
8 How things are
For the rest of the morning Ben tried to sleep in the community hall, but despite his tiredness he couldn’t settle.
When Ben emerged, Walter put him in the care of his son, Zeb. “Show him around,” he told him. “Teach him the ways of the community, so he doesn’t get caught again.” He didn’t need to add: And so that he doesn’t lead the beasts back here.
Around the middle of the day, the two of them were sitting on the railway embankment, leaning back on some rocks to soak up the sun. As far as Ben could tell, they were a few miles farther north than the point where he had first crossed the railway, but he couldn’t be sure.
“You’d better watch yourself,” said Zeb in his soft voice. “Everyone listens to Walter, but it’s Alik that really makes things happen around here. If he doesn’t want you here then you’d better be real careful.”
Ben remembered the feel of Robby’s knife on his throat. “Life must be hard out here,” he said, changing the subject.
“We manage,” said Zeb. “There’s a lot of natural food in the woods. Deer, rabbits, eggs, fruit, mushrooms. We keep hens. We do some harvesting of local fields, too. As long as we don’t harvest too heavily from any one field we’re okay: a farmer sitting up on a combine harvester doesn’t notice a few bare patches in his field. They don’t notice a few cows milked at night, either. Some of us go foraging in town when we can.” He patted his jeans and grinned. “You’d think they’d learn not to leave clothes
out on washing lines overnight.”
“How do you survive out here, though? All it would take is a single mistake to lead them back to the community and it would all be over.”
Zeb shrugged. “We’re careful,” he said. “The woods are a big place and we make sure we don’t give ourselves away. Anyway, I reckon some of the beasts like it that way: their own colony of ferals somewhere in the woods. Every so often one of us does make a mistake and gets caught. A bit of wild blood for the beasts, a bit of sport. Maybe they don’t try too hard to find us – don’t want to spoil their fun.”
Ben thought of how farmers in his own world left little corners of woodland and hedgerow alone for game birds and foxes to breed in. Was that why Weeley Woods appeared to be bigger here? Were the ferals conserved for sport?
Zeb glanced pointedly at Ben’s jeans and sweatshirt, and at his smart new Reeboks. “So how did you get here, then? If you’re really from some other world...”
Ben looked away. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was telling the truth, though. One minute I was there – walking home across Barlow’s Patch. And then...” He remembered the storm, the sudden sense of rushing air, of being pulled apart. “And then I was here.”
Zeb seemed to accept this and Ben felt a surge of relief that this wild man of the woods didn’t argue with his account.
“That’s how it happened, is it? Just some freak accident?”
“I suppose so,” said Ben. “All I know is that my world isn’t like this. I don’t know what happened, but somehow I ended up here.”
Zeb nodded, but said nothing.
Into the silence, Ben said, “Thanks, Zeb.”
“Hmmm? What for?” Zeb looked awkward, uncertain.
“For speaking up for me: last night and again this morning.”
“Oh...” Zeb shrugged. “People are suspicious. Some of them reckon you’re some kind of spy,” he said. “But I told them if you were a spy you wouldn’t come here in new, clean, town clothes, would you? You stand out too much.”
Ben was about to ask why nobody but Zeb believed him, but he stopped himself. Why should they believe him? If someone had told him the same story a few days ago he would never have accepted it.
“I’m not mad,” he said. “And I’m not lying.”
“Maybe,” said Zeb. “But if you’re not mad and you’re not lying, what are you?”
~
Zeb was a good teacher, but Ben had a great deal to learn.
That first day, he led Ben away from the encampment. Once they were through the thick screen of holly, it was suddenly as if the camp had been imaginary. No sounds of people reached Ben’s ears, and there was nothing to see that might indicate occupation.
They might simply be strolling through the woods – out for a summer walk. For a short time, Ben allowed himself to accept that fantasy, but he knew it was not true. The tall man he followed wore a coarse cape across his broad shoulders unlike any clothing familiar to Ben from his own world.
They walked for some time along a narrow trail that could easily be taken for an animal track. Along the way, Zeb pointed out the different kinds of trees and plants, pausing occasionally to indicate animal – and human – tracks in the mud. All the names of the plants and animals, one after another... Ben knew he would never remember.
Eventually they came to a rest.
Zeb looked at him closely. “Okay,” he said. “Where are we?”
Ben shrugged, unsure of the correct response.
“An easier one: which direction back to the camp?”
Ben turned, but he realised that the twists and turns of the trail had fooled his sense of direction and he had not been paying enough attention to their route to have a satisfactory answer. He shrugged again. “I... I followed you,” he said, feebly.
Zeb’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I should just leave you here, then,” he said. “If I was Robby that’s what I’d do.”
Ben looked at him and he knew that he might easily do just that. Despite his kindness there was something edgy about Zeb, a wildness that was more animal than human. Survival was instinctive for these people and the safety of the community would always come a long way ahead of Ben’s welfare. They wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice him if they had to, even Zeb.
“Walter asked you to teach me the ways of the community,” Ben said. “If I learn how to survive out here then I’m less risk for all of you.”
Zeb nodded. He took Ben by the shoulder and turned him to one side. “North,” he said. “See the algae on the tree trunks? It grows best in the shadow on the north side of the tree.”
Sure enough, the green smudges on the bark were densest on one side of the nearest trunk.
“If you’re in doubt, listen for the trains. You can always get your bearings from the direction of the trains.”
Zeb didn’t let up until the evening started to close in.
They ate with Walter and some of the others, and gradually Ben began to learn the names and relationships of the people he had joined.
And that night he slept. He was warm and dry and he felt safe. Even the floor of the big community hall didn’t seem so hard, as he settled down next to one wall and closed his eyes.
~
When he woke, his body hurt with all the muscle-pain and stiffness he had come to expect from sleeping on a hard floor, and yet somehow it did not seem to matter.
He felt as safe as he had ever felt in this strange world and there was a chance – however slim – that these people might accept him. Walter had offered him the woodlanders’ protection. Zeb had started to show him the ways of feral life.
He recognised the strange feeling that he had woken with this morning: it was hope.
Out in the clearing, one of the women waved him over to join a small group and a young girl handed him a carved wooden bowl filled with steaming corn porridge.
A short time later, a small boy with shaggy, shoulder-length hair, said, “Will you tell us again? Will you tell us what you telled us again?”
Ben hesitated, but all seven of the children had turned to him now. “Okay, okay,” he said, laughing, as an excited chatter broke out around him. “I’d been to see a friend and I was walking back across Barlow’s Patch. There was a big storm building up and it started to–”
“No! Before that!” cried the girl who had given him the porridge. “Tell us about the world where there aren’t any beasts.”
He stopped, and thought.
He thought of his parents, of Stacker and Arthur and Gav, of the skateboard park and the after school football knockabouts.
“I...”
He didn’t have the words. It hurt even to think about all he’d lost.
“It’s just a normal world,” he said. “People like us – we live in houses, in towns and cities. We go to school. There are good people and there are bad people, but there are no beasts. It’s–”
A sudden commotion cut him off in mid-sentence as Robby appeared in their midst. Suddenly Ben was sprawling in the dirt. His ribs throbbed where Robby had kicked him.
Tears and grit stung his eyes as he peered up at his attacker. Ben held his arms out in a feeble attempt to defend himself.
Robby had a knife – probably the one he had held to Ben’s throat not so long ago. He stood over Ben now, looking at him along the length of the blade. “You’ve been told,” he said, in a low voice. “We’ve heard enough of your lies and stories. Are you listening? You start stirring up trouble and you’ll regret it.”
Zeb came, then.
He put a hand on Robby’s back, and said something in his ear. Robby glowered at him, then turned and walked away.
Zeb leaned over, offering Ben a hand.
Ben stood, and brushed himself down. His ribs still throbbed where Robby had kicked him. He noticed that the children who had been listening to him had all been shepherded away by one of the adults.
“You need to watch out,” said Zeb, smiling awkwardly, trying to reassure Ben. “Stories
can be dangerous things if people start believing in them. You should keep a low profile. Some people don’t think we should have taken you in, and they don’t want you telling stories you don’t understand.”
Stories. That’s all his words were to most of the woodlanders. “Do you believe me, Zeb?”
“You’re not one of us,” said the tall woodlander. “So you must have come from somewhere else. I don’t believe and I don’t disbelieve, but what I do know is that you’re here and you have a lot to learn. If you want to survive out here then you need to stop stirring up trouble – forget about whatever went before and concentrate on now, okay?”
Ben nodded.
“Come on.” Zeb turned and walked away. Ben followed, and soon they had left the settlement behind.
They walked some distance in silence and then paused in a patch of sunlight. Zeb touched Ben’s arm and pointed. Ben tried to see what it was that he was indicating and then he realised that he was alone. Zeb had used that moment of distraction to vanish.
Panicking, Ben recalled their first trip out into the woods when Zeb had appeared to consider abandoning him. He calmed himself and looked around, hoping for some sign of where his companion had gone. He listened, but heard nothing that helped him.
And then a hand fell on his shoulder.
Ben twisted, gasping, ready to flee, until he saw that it was only Zeb.
“You have to be able to conceal yourself at an instant’s notice,” Zeb said, patiently. “And you have to be able to move silently.”
Ben shook his head, amazed at how Zeb had so easily deceived him.
“Which way to the camp?” Zeb asked.
Immediately, Ben pointed through the trees.
Zeb clapped him on the arm. “You’re learning, you see?”
Ben grinned. “But I still have a long way to go, right?”
~
On the way back, they came to a point where their narrow trail crossed a broader path and suddenly Zeb plucked Ben’s arm and pulled him into cover.
Ben peered at him in silence. He listened, but heard nothing out of the ordinary.
