Stranger in the Woods: A tense psychological thriller

by Anni Taylor

  With a guttural shout, Stella bucked her head backwards, smashing him in the chin. She ripped herself loose from his clutch.

  The last tiny pocket of light extinguished inside the lamp.

  An angry, cheated roar burst from Peyton’s lungs.

  I knew that Stella had gone.

  I closed my eyes. Go, Stella. Run hard. Don’t stop. Please don’t let him catch you. Please don’t let him….

  He raced after her.

  She was fast, but he’d caught up to her before with ease.

  Stella, run….

  Twisting myself around, I half-sat, clutching my stomach. How bad was the wound?

  Your guts are cut open. His words rang in my head, shrill and loud.

  If he caught Stella and did what he said he’d do, he’d be back to make sure I was dead.

  I refused to allow Peyton to come back and take my last breath. I was an easy target here. I struggled to my feet and then blundered out into the night.

  The moor stretched out, impossibly wide and long.

  Each breath came shivery and shallow through my throat.

  “Where are you?” Peyton’s voice thundered through the dark air. He wasn’t far away—somewhere between me and the long stretch of land that ended at the McGregors’ house.

  I crouched to the frozen ground. He wasn’t looking for me. But I didn’t want him to see me.

  Peyton ran a short distance, then stopped and headed in the other direction.

  He didn’t know where Stella was. If he knew, he wouldn’t be running backwards and forwards. Somehow, she’d managed to evade him.

  Where could I go?

  The only answer was away.

  My arms tight across my stomach, I ran through the snow.

  The ground grew sticky, thick.

  My legs sunk in.

  In an instant I knew where I was. The peat marshes.

  I tried to walk my way out, but in the darkness, I just waded in further.

  Terrified, I attempted to wrench myself around. Get out of here.

  I fell onto my hands and knees. Mud and snow enveloped me.

  The strong beam of a torch swept from side to side.

  Peyton hadn’t had a torch. It wasn’t him.

  “Isla!” called the voice.

  Alban.

  Terror flashed white in my brain.

  Are you the one who sent Peyton to the church, Alban?

  You knew me from before. You said I’d run from you.

  How do you know me? What was I running from?

  What did you do to me?

  41

  ISLA

  The torch’s beam came to a stop on me.

  Alban gave a shout, charging up the hill and across the stretch of moor.

  “Isla!” He ran straight in, arms closing around my body. Hauling me out.

  He tore off his overcoat and set me down on it. Then ran the torch’s light over me, a dark smear of mud across his forehead. “Isla, what happened?”

  I’d gone numb. Crawling deep inside myself. I shrank back, wanting to tell him to stop touching me. To leave me. I couldn’t form words.

  “Please tell me,” he urged, shrugging off his jacket and placing it over me. “How did you end up in here? Did someone do this to you?”

  The glow of Alban’s torch arced across the night as he drew back, illuminating two figures. Peyton was standing dead still, Stella in his grasp, holding a gloved hand tight across her lower face.

  “Stella,” I breathed, involuntarily.

  “You saw Stella?” Alban’s face creased in a deep frown.

  He rotated his light, shining it where I was looking. But the moor was empty in that direction, now.

  Alban made a hasty call. “Kirk, you okay now? Good. I think Stella has been sighted up here, after all. Yeah. And I found Isla. She’s hurt. I’m not sure, she’s not telling me anything. I need urgent help up here. We’re on the Braithnoch moor, near the peat marsh. Yeah, next to the old house.”

  Could I trust his phone call? Believe that he was bringing help? Kirk had been unconscious on the ground the last I’d seen him, so was Alban really even calling him? Peyton had made a fake phone call when he’d pretended to call Aubrey and Diarmid. I’d suspected nothing. And could I trust Kirk, anyway? I didn’t know any of these people. Why had Peyton thought it so amusing that I didn’t know who’d sent him to the church? Who had it been?

  Fingers trembling, I grabbed Alban’s torch and shone it around in a circle, jerking the beam from place to place, searching for Peyton.

  Alban shoved his phone back into his pocket. “What the hell’s going on tonight? I found poor Kirk out cold on the ground earlier. Hamish punched him. The world’s gone mad.”

  My torch light illuminated two figures.

  Peyton was right there.

  A short distance behind Alban.

  He still had his hand over Stella’s mouth, preventing her from crying out.

  “No,” I breathed.

  Alban whirled around, springing to his feet. “Peyton? What—?”

  Peyton dropped his grip on Stella. For a moment, I thought he was going to let her go. But when I focused on his face, I saw it was the last thing on his mind.

  “He’s going to kill you,” Stella cried, her voice thin against the storm, pitched high with terror.

  Peyton punched Stella hard to the side of her head and shoved her to the ground. She collapsed instantly.

  “What the fuck?” Alban advanced towards Peyton, stopping dead as Peyton brought up a knife in his fist.

  “It’s her.” Peyton told Alban, glancing in disgust at the crumpled girl lying on the snow. “All because of her. I didn’t want to do any of this. We were friends once, Alban. But I can’t let her destroy everything.”

  With a yell, Alban ran at Peyton.

  The two of them went down onto the ground, locked in a struggle.

  Gasping, I trained my torch’s beam from the men to Stella. Stella hadn’t moved, a spatter of dark red liquid on her white doctors’ coat—my blood from when Peyton made her stab me.

  People could die from a single punch to the head. And she was just a young, fragile girl. Please don’t die, Stella.

  I wanted to get to her and move her off the ice. All she wore was that thin coat and an even thinner hospital gown underneath.

  Snow began falling again. I could see the moon.

  With the moon reflecting on the falling snow, the night lightened by degrees. I had a clear view now of the two men wrestling with each other.

  I knew what Peyton’s intent was. He was sticking with his plan. Stella had to die last. He needed me dead first and then Stella. Alban would die, too, because Alban had gotten in the way. Then Peyton would cut Stella’s wrists and force her to jump off the hill’s steep edge. He’d make her take the knife with her—to make her look like a killer. And then Peyton would go home to his parents’ house, with no one the wiser. He’d clean himself up, dispose of his blood-soaked clothing, hide any bruises.

  A single thought pierced my mind.

  Get the knife.

  I crawled onto the ice. My limbs frozen and locked up. My head still faint. The wind was whipping the snow with a furious rage.

  Keep going.

  Alban punched Peyton’s face, making blood spurt from his mouth and ear. But Peyton still gripped the knife.

  It was a fight to the death.

  I inched closer.

  Almost there.

  Peyton rolled Alban onto his side, landing a sharp punch to his temple. He lifted the knife up high.

  Breath sucked dry from my lungs.

  He’s going to kill Alban.

  I needed a weapon. But there was nothing here.

  There’s snow.

  Gathering up an armful of ice, I threw it hard at Peyton’s face.

  It was enough. Just enough. Alban forced Peyton’s arm down.

  The knife skidded away. I grabbed it.

  Moonlight glistened in the sheen of sweat
on Alban’s forehead as he punched Peyton again, his eyes grown wild.

  Two figures ran up the hill towards us.

  Kirk first, then Hamish barrelling up behind.

  Kirk heaved Alban off Peyton and dragged him to his feet.

  Hamish helped Peyton up. “What the hell’s Alban doing to you?”

  Alban spat blood on the snow. “That animal just hit Stella. He had a knife.”

  Kirk released Alban, shining his torch over the ground, finding me holding the knife and finding Stella lying still.

  “Hold him!” Kirk instructed Hamish.

  Hamish’s mouth dropped open as he obeyed, grabbing Peyton. Peyton struggled, but Hamish was stronger.

  Kirk handcuffed Peyton’s wrists behind his back.

  Hamish’s expression swapped from confused to incensed as he caught sight of Stella, a string of swear words exploding from his mouth.

  “Get on your knees.” Kirk shoved Peyton forward, making him fall to all fours. Kirk stripped off his own coat, throwing it to Hamish so that he could cover Stella.

  I’d had everything wrong. Peyton was the only bad one here. There was still confusion, still questions unspooling in my head. But the rest of them weren’t like Peyton. There was no evil brotherhood that tied them together.

  I must have misunderstood what Alban said to me before, in the house.

  “Someone better talk.” Hamish stared from Kirk to Alban, wrapping Stella in the coat and gathering her up in his arms.

  Alban helped me to my feet. “I think Isla might be able to tell you, when she’s able to.”

  The knife dropped from my frozen hand. I held both arms across my middle. “Peyton tried to kill us both. Please check Stella. Is she breathing?”

  “She’s breathing,” Hamish told me. “I better get an ambulance here for her.”

  “No services can get through right now,” Kirk told him. “The roads are closed. I spoke with Tash just a short while ago.”

  “Well that’s a pile of shite.” Hamish’s eyes narrowed as he turned to Alban. “How’d you know Stella was up here? I heard Kirk on the phone to you and I heard him mention Stella. So, I followed him.”

  “I came looking for Isla,” Alban told him, wiping sweat-soaked hair back from his face. “I thought I heard a scream. I found her. Then Peyton landed a king hit on Stella and pulled a knife on me. That’s all I know.”

  “Fuck.” Hamish exhaled a long stream of white air. He lifted his chin around to face Kirk. “Kirk, sorry man. I shouldn’t have decked you before. You were just doing your job.”

  Kirk stared back, unwilling to accept his apology. “Get your niece out of the storm. Pronto.”

  Hamish nodded contritely, backing up a step and then rushing away with Stella.

  “Okay,” Kirk breathed. “You look hurt, Isla. Did Peyton hit you in the stomach or something?”

  Peyton turned his head to stare at me, fear in his eyes. He attempted to get to his feet.

  Kirk kicked him hard in the centre of his back. “I told you not to move.”

  “Peyton stabbed me,” I told Kirk.

  “Stabbed?” Alban bent to lift my ripped jacket, scraping the mud away. “Hell. Hell. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Trails of bright blood streamed out where the peat mud had been scooped away.

  Kirk eyed the cut. “That’s bad. I think maybe the mud was packing the wound and stopping the bleed. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay up here until an ambulance can get through, Isla.”

  “But we’re in a damned storm,” Alban exclaimed.

  “She could bleed out if you move her,” Kirk said. “I’ve seen it happen. Take her to the shelter over there. Keep the cut sealed any way you can.”

  “If there’s no other choice,” Alban said. “Jess has a medical kit at home. She keeps it in the laundry.” He pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. The screen was smashed. It must have happened during the fight. Alban tried making a call, then shook his head. “It’s broken. Could you get someone to get the kit up here?”

  “Okay. Maybe Hamish could run it back.” Swinging his head around, Kirk watched as Peyton tried to struggle to his feet again. Kirk seized Peyton’s arms. “I have to take this one down to the house and restrain him there.”

  “Kirk,” I called. “I just want you to know something. It was Peyton—at the church. He was the one with the tattoo. He admitted it to me. But there were two of them. I don’t know who the other one was.”

  If I died tonight, I wanted it known who’d been there at the church—at least the one person that I knew of.

  Kirk considered my words. “Okay. We’ll get that sorted later.” He marched Peyton away.

  “What’s that about a church?” Alban gathered up his coat and jacket from the ground. “No, tell me later. I’ve got to get you to the old house.” He attempted to lift me.

  “I can walk.”

  “Maybe, but you shouldn’t. So, you’re not.”

  Alban took me in his arms to the ruins.

  He placed a torch on the shelf and then laid his jacket down on the floor. He placed me gently on top, then put his jacket over my frozen body. I drew shallow breaths, afraid that deep breaths would make blood flow faster from the knife wound.

  Alban then ran out and returned with a load of spongy-looking moss and snow. He tried to clean the cut with the snow, then laid the moss gingerly over the cut and held his hand firmly on top. I don’t know if this is the right thing to do or not. But it’s all I can think of.”

  “Your neighbour…Charlie Keenan…told a story about Griogair and the peat on the battlefields. He said it saved his life.” I gave a brief smile.

  “Ach. I know that story. Don’t worry, I didn’t get this idea from a Griogair myth. Peat moss was used on thousands of men during the First World War. It’s good stuff, apparently.” He sounded confident but he looked worried. “I hope it works, Isla.”

  The wind blew in with a fury from over the mountains, screeching over the moor like hungry ravens, finding its way into the ruins everywhere. My head felt lighter than it had before. Every part of me felt weak.

  “Are you okay? Isla, please, open your eyes.”

  I hadn’t realised I’d shut them. “I’m awake. I’m okay.”

  He watched snow spiralling in through the crumbling archway for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m sorry as hell that all this happened. I can’t explain what happened with Peyton. He’s always kept out of trouble. Unlike Diarmid. He must have had some kind of psychotic snap.”

  “He’s been bad…for a long time.”

  A look of confusion crossed Alban’s face and he stared at me. “I had no idea.” Alban wrinkled his brow. “Isla, what was it you were telling Kirk about Peyton’s tattoo?”

  How did I explain? “I remembered the tattoo…from before,” I started. “Bad people locked me away…hurt me. At an old church. I know now that Peyton was one of them.”

  “Christ. He locked you away and hurt you? When? I don’t understand. Did this happen this morning?”

  “No, not today. First, please, tell me—what does the tattoo mean?”

  “It means nothing. It was a stupid spur of the moment decision, one drunken weekend when we were lads. We all have it.” He stared downward, repositioning his hand on the moss. “Me, Rory, Kirk, Hamish, Peyton, and Diarmid.”

  “Peyton wasn’t in the photo….”

  “Photo?”

  “The one on the wall in your house.”

  “Ah, okay. He was away with his father the day that was taken. That was when you got scared, wasn’t it? When you saw that photo. I swear to you that the tattoo doesn’t mean anything bad. Look, the cross part of the tattoo simply represents the divider between the four properties. If you were looking at them from the sky, you’d see a cross. Hundreds of years ago, as Griogair’s family grew, he divided the properties into four equal lots. The legend goes that a rose bush was planted in the spot where the four properties intersect. So, that’s the rose part
of the tattoo. Rory is distantly related to the original Braithnoch family, so he got a tattoo as well.”

  “That’s all it is?”

  “I swear to you on my life, Isla. That’s all it is. Now, you must tell me what Peyton did to you. I need to know. Now.”

  “I don’t know what he did. My memory…is fuzzy. It happened…years ago.”

  “Years? But you—”

  “Just listen. Please. I travelled to Scotland once before. Two years ago. Something happened to me back then. Something very bad. My mother flew over and brought me back to Sydney and it took me a long time to recover. I completely lost my memory of my time here. But I’m starting to remember small things.”

  “My God.” He exhaled then, staring up at the patch of sky through the open part of the roof. “Now I know for certain that it was you.”

  “Alban? What do you mean? Are you saying that you knew me from before? You did, didn’t you?”

  I waited breathlessly.

  “It was brief,” came the answer. “It was in a nightclub. We met and had a dance together. I was pretty drunk. And so were you. We went outside and talked for a bit. It was summer. I asked for your number, but you ran away from me. And that’s the end of the story.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You said you’d never been to Scotland before. I even questioned you about that, and you assured me it was your first visit. You reminded me of that girl, but I thought my memory was wrong. Like I said, it was a brief meeting, and I was drunk. And you looked different. Your hair, for one thing. Your hair was red last time and you had a different hairstyle, or something.” He sighed in confusion. “I thought there was the tiniest chance that it was you, but you didn’t want me to know. I couldn’t work it out.”

  A question formed in my mind that embarrassed me. But it was ridiculous to be embarrassed while my insides were slowly bleeding out.

  “Did we…spend the night together?” I asked.

  “You mean, did we sleep together?”

  “Yes. That.”

  “No.” His reply was swift. “We didn’t go anywhere together. It was just a dance and a chat. Like an idiot, I poured my heart out. I’d had way too much to drink. I’m sure I scared you away.”

  “Was that what you meant when you said to me, don’t run away from me again?”