by Mark Cassell
He squinted. “How about a camping trip for the honeymoon?”
“No chance, mister.” Her lips twitched in a quick smile.
Towering oaks surrounded most of their chosen campsite, interspersed by great rocks coated in a mossy fabric. One sheer rock face was almost as tall as their house and red paint hid beneath draping vines and ivy. Even out here in the middle of the countryside you can’t escape graffiti. The path they had followed—if they could truly call it that—cut back into the woods and towards the quaint village of Mabley Holt.
He hefted his own rucksack free and propped it against one of the many rocks that dotted the clearing. Like nature’s furniture some were as large as chairs, and no doubt the smaller ones would be used as such.
Kirsty crouched beside her bag. “I’ll get the tent up, you work out where you want your fire.”
“My fire?”
“Yeah, you love doing the caveman thing.”
He couldn’t disagree. The past year while saving for the wedding, their holidays were all about camping. He loved it, so did she. No air pollution, no light pollution. And as for the campfires, they connected with him on some primordial level. Somewhere deep within us all is that caveman who first discovered fire.
A small indentation in the grass would make the perfect fire pit, and some of the rocks shouldn’t be too difficult to shift into position. He strolled towards the nearest. Similar to the rock face, red paint coated its surface. Pete clawed away some moss. Despite the sun burning his neck, the rock was cold and moist, almost sweaty.
“That’d make a great tattoo.” Kirsty’s voice came from over his shoulder. She held a couple of tent pegs.
“My next one?” He scraped away more moss and traced a finger along the contours of the faded paint: dark red, like a cave painting no less, of an unfamiliar symbol of triangles and curves.
“It’s cool.”
“It’s peculiar,” he said and picked moss from beneath his fingernail.
She nodded.
He shuffled to another rock. “Looks like they’re all covered with similar markings.” He counted six in total, seven if you included the larger symbol on the rock face. Some were of circles and lines, others with triangles and arcs. He’d never before seen anything like it.
“Weird.” She turned away and knocked the pegs together. They chimed in a muted, dead kind of way. “Shame you can’t take a picture.”
“No tech.”
It had been his idea to hike this far out into the countryside, and Kirsty had immediately suggested leaving technology at home. Phones as well. They’d even joked about how a cigarette lighter was hi-tech compared to a box of matches, so made sure to bring only the kitchen matches. The gas lantern he’d grabbed off his parents was his favourite old-school gadget, even though it was bulky.
He dragged his bag away from the rocks ready to shift them when Kirsty began coughing, then choking. He lurched upright and dropped the bag. It fell sideways into the long grass.
Doubled-over, she clutched her chest and spat. Sacks of burst fungi streaked the grass like torn cloth. Black clumps covered her boots and peppered her jeans. Spores drifted in a dark cloud.
She coughed again and straightened up, her face twisted in a comical grimace.
“You okay?” he asked.
She dragged the back of a hand across her lips. “Tastes like crap.”
With the sun much lower, cold shadows had crept across the clearing and swallowed their tent. In the sunshine it was still hot but underneath the looming rocks Pete was reminded that it was, after all, only spring. They had a lot more camping trips to look forward to come summer.
He sat on a rock in front of the unlit campfire. It was his favourite rock. After erecting the tent and stowing away their supplies, he’d circled the clearing and removed all the moss from the rocks, satisfying himself in revealing each symbol in its entirety. As he’d shifted a couple to place around the fire pit, one—long and thin—broke in half. Kirsty had laughed and called him an idiot. She didn’t see the point in moving them.
“Can’t make a fire pit without rocks surrounding it,” he’d told her.
Now, beside him, Kirsty coughed.
He looked at her. “You feeling any better?”
Her eyes watered. “Yeah.”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about that teenager.”
“What teenager?”
“The one on the doorstep of the village shop. With his skateboard and muddy feet.”
“I’d forgotten about him.” She rubbed her forehead and frowned.
Pete pulled the box of matches out of his pocket. “He was a pyromaniac.”
She laughed but it sounded strained. “Yeah, he was.”
Pete recalled the smell of burning plastic as that kid sat there, dressed in black shorts and a red T-shirt, holding a Zippo lighter to an action figure. He’d been melting the arms from one figure onto the other. Both were such a mess it was impossible to determine which franchise they belonged to.
Kirsty coughed again.
“Time for the fire,” Pete said and crouched.
“You’ve been waiting—” another cough “—all afternoon for this moment.”
He struck a match and held it to the kindling. Flames curled and smoke drifted. He lowered his face nearer the ground and gently blew. The fire crackled and spread further around the base of the pyre.
When he looked up, Kirsty’s jaw was slack. Her gaze unfocused, gormless.
He laughed, then caught himself. “Kirsty?”
No response.
“Kirsty?”
Silence. Even the pre-dusk birdsong had quietened.
“Kirsty!”
Pete then spent what felt like the rest of the evening shaking her. Eventually his desperation became face slaps; gentle at first, then harder.
Dusk came, went, and something in the woods creaked, cracked and…
Splinters of trunk tore up the earth and a tangle of branches crushed the tent. Leaves whipped up into the night. Pete scrambled to his feet and almost fell into the campfire while Kirsty remained hunched on a rock, her eyes still fixed on middle-distance. Silent, unresponsive.
And now a great oak had flattened their tent.
The night pressed down. His hands clawed his head, tugged at his hat. “No!”
Silence.
He circled the campfire, again almost tripped, and ran towards the tent now hidden by the fallen oak. He dropped to a crouch. Resistant branches stabbed him as he scrambled on hands and knees. Leaves slapped him and twigs scratched his face. Squinting, the fire offering little light, he untangled the guy ropes. Some still fixed into the ground, others were missing. Finally, he reached the twisted canvas. The fabric was torn, pinned down by the tree.
Almost all their supplies and equipment were in the tent. He and Kirsty were lucky they’d not been in there, too. How had this happened? There was hardly any wind, especially with the surrounding rocks.
Cradled in the arms of that bastard tree, Pete lowered his head and closed his eyes. This whole trip had turned into a nightmare. His breath hissed between pursed lips, and his heart thumped at his temples. Remaining on hands and knees, he backed away from the tent they’d never get to sleep in. A stone bit into his kneecap. He grunted, clenched his teeth, and kept going.
Eventually, he pulled himself free and once again sat beside Kirsty on the cold rock.
What the hell was wrong with her? As earlier when she fell unresponsive, he considered finding the nearest house. If not a house, then perhaps he could return to the village. Their hike to this area had been long and he doubted anything would be open by the time he got there. Though you never knew with these sleepy rural villages; those ye olde-type pubs may pull all-nighters. In fact, he doubted if they’d even seen a pub on their hike. As far as he could remember, there was a dilapidated general store and little else.
But he would not leave her.
Through hair that clumped her forehead, her f
ace glowed orange from the campfire. He placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezed, and let go. After slapping her, he’d given up expecting response and even now it was as though he felt his palm tingle from where he’d hit her. He hated himself for that. He hated all of this.
He stuffed a hand into her coat pocket, hoping, hoping...and found the house keys. His fingers curled around a pencil-torch. They rattled as he tugged them free, and after detaching the torch, he replaced them.
“No tech,” he said to her as he twisted it.
The beam, thin, tiny, poked the darkness. The shadows refused to retreat. He circled the fallen tree, ducked beneath a splintered branch and once more headed for the tent. His scurry proved as difficult as the other side, however a little more of the tent was accessible. With the torch clamped between his teeth, he pulled out his penknife—thank God that hadn’t been in the tent. He sliced the fabric, ripped it wider and plunged an arm in. Left, right, further forward, and he felt the sleeping bag, tugged it. He kept pulling and the whole thing whistled as the surrounding branches stroked it. Rummaging blindly again, his fingers prodded something soft. It moved. He grabbed it… A loaf of bread. Seconds passed, blindly flailing, desperate; nothing else to salvage. Not even the lantern. At least they now had food. Plus there was a bottle of water over by the campfire. Ramming the bread in the sleeping bag, he wriggled out through tangled branches. The sleeping bag snaked behind him on his way back to Kirsty. It even hissed through the grass.
He slid the torch into a pocket. “Got food.”
The loaf he placed at her feet, and the sleeping bag he wrapped around her legs, over her arms. He sat beside her on another rock, the jagged surface biting into his arse.
The wind caught the fire and threw smoke his way. He coughed.
Earlier, as they’d trekked through the countryside, a burnt smell stole the fresh air. Having rounded a copse, the ruins of a manor house squatted blackened on the distant landscape. The sunshine and the spring colours potent enough to sharpen the scene. Even from that distance, they saw police tape flapping on the wind. Piles of charred masonry heaped in the surrounding gardens. Sunlight glinted from shattered panes and what may have been a car wreck or two.
Kirsty had said, “Bet that was an impressive inferno.”
Pete now stared into their dying campfire; no more logs to hand. Shadows teased the surrounding rocks and made the strange markings dance. He reached out, saw his hand shake, and squeezed Kirsty’s thigh through the sleeping bag. With his other hand, he raked fingers through his stubble. He eyed the fallen oak. What a mess.
He stood, torch spearing its pathetic beam into the woods, and went in search of more logs. Out from the circle of warmth, immediately a chill drove through his clothes.
Twigs snapped beneath each footfall and he came to a rocky ledge overlooking a slope. It was a kind of basin, maybe even a bomb crater, now cupping only rocks and trees. From the rim, the fallen tree cleaved rocks in two and spread its devastation behind him, out into their campsite.
The light flickered, went out.
Darkness swallowed him.
He shook the torch then slapped it in his palm. Popping the battery compartment free in a sticky mess, a sweet metallic smell burned his nostrils. The battery fell out and landed with a rustle of leaves.
“Ridiculous,” he whispered into the dark and stuffed the useless thing into a pocket.
His feet stiffened. The knowledge of a short fall somewhere near fired iron rods up his legs. His stomach somersaulted. Looking up, he spied moonlight through the ceiling of branches. He didn’t need the torch, already his eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. He backed away from the slope.
A foot slid sideways.
His arse landed on a tree root. Pain shot up his back. The basin—the crater—yawned wide. One hand slid in something wet, sloppy. At first he thought it was mud but in the faint light he saw a rotten log. Millipedes and beetles seethed. He yanked out his hand in a spray of insects.
He shivered and kicked out. The crater widened and gaped, darker, and he jerked and smacked his head on something behind him. Colours flashed across his vision. The darkness reached up and out to grab his stomach. One hand clamped the fence post he’d banged his head on. Rusted barbed wire tore into his palm. He winced.
That vertiginous tug ceased. Finally.
His heart pulsed in his throat, and he stood. Earth and leaves and sticks fell from his clothes, stones clattered into the crater. Pain throbbed from where he’d landed, and the cut on his palm stung. He scowled at the hollow log and the mass of insects.
He couldn’t return to camp without fuel for the fire and so with extra care, he collected as much dry wood as he could carry and headed back. His body ached with every step. Like a beacon in fog, the campfire beckoned through the trees. The glow barely lit Kirsty’s lowered head. Hair draped across her blank stare.
He stacked most of the wood beside the fire, saving two small logs to drop onto the embers. In seconds tiny flames flickered and curled.
“You’ll be alright in the morning,” he said to Kirsty.
Her lips parted, her head shot back, then forward, and she shouted what sounded like, “Turn them off!”
She slipped sideways, away from him. Her head smacked the ground inches from a small rock—one with what looked like the number eight painted on it.
Pete scrambled towards her and snatched the rock away. “Kirsty?” he whispered from a dry throat. “Kirsty, talk to me.”
“Turlamov,” she murmured. Her eyes showed little of the whites. Dark, impenetrable.
He wiped hair from her damp brow. What did that mean, Turlamov?
Kirsty’s eyes looked like that of a drug addict. Indeed, it was more than that, they reminded him of something else, someone else. He didn’t know who…and then it came to him: the teenager they’d seen in the village. The kid who’d sat on the doorstep burning stuff with a Zippo, bare-footed and with mud-caked clothes.
Pete reached for the loaf of bread. Opening it, his fingers sank into something sticky. Sweet, putrid. He coughed as the stink shot up his nostrils. He threw it behind him and he heard it land against the rock with a wet slap.
How could that even happen? It had been fresh when they’d bought it.
The only thing they now had beside his penknife and a torch without batteries, was the water bottle cradled between a couple of rocks. The flames reflected in the plastic. He grabbed it and unscrewed the lid. Kirsty still laid on her side but he managed to hold the bottle to her lips. She drank some, even licked her lips—finally some response.
She swallowed and said, “Thank you.”
Those words, those two ordinary words heard every day, filled him with hope. He brought the bottle of water to his own lips and guzzled.
And spat it out into the campfire. The flames hissed.
Bitter water dribbled down his chin and he wiped it with the back of a hand. He spat again and tossed the bottle aside. It sloshed and inverted, and gushed into the tall grass.
He wrapped the sleeping bag tighter around Kirsty. Drinking the foul water couldn’t be any worse than inhaling those spores. She now looked as though she slept, peaceful and huddled against a larger rock. He’d leave her for the moment, see what she was like in an hour or so. He could still taste the bitterness. How had the water turned like that? What with the mouldy bread, too… He eyed Kirsty, then the fallen oak. Pushing himself to his feet, he stretched. There was no way he could sleep.
At the edge of the clearing, black shapes hid in the grass alongside rotten fence posts. More of those damn shrooms. Knowing they’d caused Kirsty’s catatonic stupor, he made certain not to tread on them. He headed to the fallen oak. Following its length back into the woods, he saw how it cleaved the rocks. A lance of moonlight silvered the rock and there, hidden beneath years of moss growth, were more red markings similar to those in the clearing.
At the base of the felled tree, amid the heaved earth, roots twisted with great rusted
hoops. Chain-links as thick as his arm and as large as a dinner plate. Pete reached out, curling his fingers around one. Although the mud was cool, the metal itself was warm. Hot, in fact…
Voices drifted towards him. From the campfire. Was Kirsty calling for him? He let go of the chain-link.
There were two voices. Someone was there that could help them…
He jogged back to camp.
Kirsty was sitting upright and looking up at someone. It was the teenager. He wore the same T-shirt and shorts he had earlier, and still was without footwear. Behind him, his skateboard leaned against the rock face where his shadow jittered. The fire was much larger now and Pete assumed the kid had placed the remaining logs on it—Kirsty probably hadn’t, although she looked lucid enough. Through hair that clumped across her face, her eyes were still dark and almost sunken in their sockets.
Pete approached. All he heard was his own breath.
The teenager held the plastic mess he’d created when they first saw him. It had four arms, two legs, and a molten lump of a head.
Pete stood before them. Thoughts tumbled through his head.
When the kid spoke, his lips barely moved. “Time’s up,” he said. Fire reflected in his dark eyes. They were like black marbles. He held high his modified toy, then hurled it into the fire. Flames roared.
“What—” The stink snatched Pete’s voice and he coughed.
The kid’s toes dug into the earth.
“Kirsty?” Pete knelt in front of her.
She said nothing.
From behind him in the woods, something cracked and echoed.
The earth shook and Pete almost fell as he turned. An earthquake? In the south-east of England? He knew these things happened occasionally, but... He glanced at the fallen tree. Had there been another one earlier?
Something in the woods snapped and crashed.
More rumbles. And the clattering, splitting sound of tumbling rocks made him wince. He had to get out of there. And what the hell was the kid doing here?
