The Kielder Strain: A Science Fiction Horror Novel

by Rebecca Fernfield

  By the time Freddie has washed, dressed, kissed Hayley goodbye, and pulled on his bike leathers it is six-fifteen am, but still dark. He wheels the Kawasaki out of the driveway, and cringes for a second as the bike’s engine roars into life. They’d have to put up with the noise; a man has to get to work, it wasn’t that often he had to start so early, and they were on the outskirts of the village after all.

  Freddie manoeuvres the bike in the direction of the village, takes a quick glance back at the cottage, then releases the clutch. The bike powers forward and glides past Emily Carmichael’s cottage where light and movement catch his attention; Kathy is already at work. She is a good soul—washing a ninety-odd-year old’s backside day in, day out, wasn’t something he would be able to stomach. He shifts up a gear, passes the church, turns onto Main Street then rides past the shop where Sid had witnessed Freddie’s dressing down at the hands of Marjorie Maybank. The only light comes from his headlight and the orange haze cast by the sparse streetlights.

  Movement to the right, between two houses, catches his attention. He dismisses it; spotting the odd cat, fox, badger, or even deer, at this time of the morning wasn’t unusual. He increases his speed, being careful not to rev the engine; there was the odd house with a light on, but much of the village is still asleep. As he leaves the outskirts, passing the sign that proclaimed ‘Kielder Village’ and ‘England’s most isolated village’, a figure catches in the edge of his light then disappears. He swerves, nearly running into the verge, then brings the bike back to the left. As his headlamp illuminates the edge of the road and the woodlands beyond, yellow light flashes over a figure, highlighting its limbs and head for those seconds. Its arm rises to block out the glare, its teeth bared in an angry snarl. What the hell had he just seen?

  He changes up a gear, pulls down his visor, and opens the throttle. The Kawasaki revs and powers forward. He checks the mirrors. Nothing is visible. He checks either side, swinging his head round to peer beyond the visor’s limits. Nothing. He turns back to the front, focusing on the road ahead, attempts to process the bizarre images now stamped into his memory. That each of the figures had been female was obvious from their bare, and freely moving, breasts. Both looked human, but had been covered in – he grimaces – hair. It was particularly thick between their legs but appeared to cover the rest of their bodies too, even on their faces. And what had happened to their faces! The eyes had glinted in the dark, but when the light travelled across their bodies, the eyes were like dark pools of blood. What the hell were those things? The one that had raised its arms to cut out the bike’s light had drawn back its lips in a grimace to reveal sharp incisors that resembled fangs.

  Someone was winding him up. He wouldn’t put it past Craig to pull a stunt like this. Craig knew what time Freddie was leaving this morning. He’d also mentioned old Mrs Carmichael’s tale of seeing a stark naked wolfman jumping over Max Anderson’s wall. They’d laughed, said that it was the most action the old biddy had seen in decades, then got a little spooked when Hayley added that Kathy Oldfield had told her Billy had also seen one. They’d decided the whole village was getting over-excited, but now Freddie was seeing things too—unnatural things—things that shouldn’t exist. His chest tightens. Get a grip, Freddie. It was just a trick of the light. Yeah, two naked women running through the woods with their tits jiggling, snapping their fangs at him—just a trick of the light! He snorts with derision; the image of the two ‘women’ strong in his mind. One was lithe and young with small, pert breasts, and dark hair. The other was obviously older, a natural blonde with larger breasts. Both were muscular though—two body-building, hairy as fuck, butt-naked werewolves. Globs of snot spray from his nostril and stick to the visor as his eyes flit from side to side. Heart hammering painfully, Freddie pushes the bike forward, increasing the distance between himself and the village, and whatever was running in the woods.

  Pressure clamps down on his shoulder.

  He screams.

  Razors slice at his flesh.

  The bike swerves. He fights to keep it under control, snaps his head to look behind, and screams again as a clawed hand disappears back into the gloom. What the fuck! The bike wobbles. He straightens it, forcing himself to focus on the road ahead, then checks his right mirror. Pain stings his shoulder as the blonde wolfman – wolfwoman? - drops out of view. Heart pounding as though it will burst, he accelerates.

  Ahead, the rising sun is turning the sky from navy to thin grey, and the forest sits as a thick band of jagged black turrets across the horizon. He checks the mirror again. Whatever had attacked him is nowhere to be seen. His heart pounds. Whatever had attacked him could go back to the village. His gut begins to twist. Whatever had attacked him could attack Hayley. Stomach knotted, he powers the bike forward, increasing its speed from eighty to ninety, then one hundred miles per hour. As the road disappears into another bank of trees, he slows and swings around. Behind, the forest looms black and the sky brightens. Before him is the road back to the village and whatever is crawling through the woods. He revs the bike then launches it forward, pushing the engine hard, and roars past the village sign at one hundred and sixty miles per hour. No hair-covered freak would stop him getting back home.

  Lois snaps at Kelly as they leave the road, leaving the wheels, noise, and man behind. Too fast to claw and grab. Too fast to pull to the earth and sink her teeth into his throat. Panting, Kelly bares her teeth as they run side-by-side and pushes against Lois. Rage flares and Lois jumps onto the woman’s back. The man was for her. Not Kelly-bitch. The power of Lois’ leap forces Kelly to the floor, and she sinks her claws into flesh as she straddles her back. Blood seeps from the wounds. Kelly snarls, snapping her jaws as she twists beneath Lois’ weight. Lois bites down into her shoulder as Kelly twists onto her back then sinks fangs into her neck, pinning Kelly’s head against a trunk. She bites hard, holding the woman in place, Lois’ hands gripping her shoulders. The man had been hers. Kelly-bitch should have waited—waited for permission. The woman quiets beneath Lois. She withdraws her fangs and sits back, staring down into Kelly’s eyes and growls. Mine. He was mine. Blood drips from her fangs, trickling to the skin through the light covering of hairs that sweep across her chest.

  32

  Freddie relays his terrifying story to a disbelieving Hayley as Javeen waits for Doreen to unlock the door to the village hall. Their breath billows as white clouds in the cold November air. Hands stuffed deep into her pockets, woollen hat pulled low, scarf wound tight around her neck and a thick, police-issue raincoat zipped with the poppers done up to the top, Javeen moves from foot to foot taking furtive glances at the trees that once formed an enchanting, fairy tale-like border around the village but now only appear dank and latent with terror. Despite the cold of the November morning, sweat is already making her underclothes damp. In her pocket is the sharpest kitchen knife she could find. She’d mulled over the weapon, knowing that carrying it would breach the law, but also knowing that leaving the house unarmed would make her far too vulnerable.

  Sleep last night had been non-existent as she’d sat and listened to every creak of the branches from the trees surrounding her cottage. Images of PC Oldfield’s snarling face smashing against the van’s window, her eyes rimmed with blood, and then the men firing round after round into her body taunted her, along with Anita - poor, poor, Anita - disembowelled and hanging in the tree.

  Anita and Jim sitting in the tree. K. I. S. S. I. N. G.

  Javeen grits her teeth. The damned rhyme just wouldn’t stop repeating in her head. It was morbid, grotesque, a sign of the hysteria that she is trying so hard to hold back. Her hand grips the handle of the hammer in her other pocket as she scans the road, walls, cars, and trees for any sign of movement. Come on, Doreen!

  With a shaking hand, Doreen unlocks the door and swings it open. A comforting waft of warmer air laden with the odour of cooking and floor polish waves over Javeen as she enters. The door swings to a close.

  “Could you loc
k it again, please, Doreen?”

  Doreen gives a quick frown that flickers with concern and turns to lock the door then rubs her gloved hands together. “I’ll put the heating on. It’s nippy in here and some of the older villagers will feel it.”

  A pang of guilt waves over Javeen; a large proportion of the village’s population were pensioners, some still fit and full of energy, but a good number elderly. They would struggle to make it to the meeting. She hopes now that they stay indoors. What has she done? Calling the villagers out like this would make them all easy prey! Her heart taps a faster beat, her bowels suddenly queasy. Get a grip! Stay in control. She takes a breath to calm herself, releases some of the tension across her chest and walks to the rows of stacked chairs. Being busy, thinking of the meeting, and how she would deliver the ‘news’, will help her keep the horror of yesterday at bay.

  As she finishes setting out the chairs, a knock comes at the door. Andy. She smiles at him with relief though his face remains grim.

  “Morning, Jav.” His usual smile has disappeared.

  “Morning, Andy.” It’s as though they haven’t been … intimate.

  Through the doorway she can see other villagers making their way to the hall; they have about thirty seconds of privacy at most. He’s gone off her! “What’s wrong?”

  His jaw clenches and he shift his gaze around the room, a frown settling between his brows?

  “Andy? What is it?” Dealing with a mardy bloke is the last thing she needs. “I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you, but yesterday was-”

  “It’s Topsy.” Javeen’s relief is instant. “She’s missing. She never goes off. I let her out in the back garden last night. She was wary at first, but desperate, practically crossing her legs. I watched her disappear to the end of the garden. She’s clean like that; doesn’t like to do it in the garden, only right at the end. I trained her to go down there to do her business when she was a puppy. If we don’t go out for a walk then she goes down there.” He’s gabbling, obviously on edge. “I watched her go Jav. She didn’t come back.”

  A stone sinks in Javeen’s belly. Topsy is - she swallows - was, a beautiful Springer Spaniel that Andy treated as well as he would a precious child.

  “This was last night?”

  “Yes. About ten o’clock. I stood at the door waiting, but she didn’t come back. I called her. Went down with a torch to find her.” Javeen’s stomach knots. “The garden backs onto the woods but there’s a hedge at the bottom and a gate. She was nowhere, Jav. Do you think it was those lynxes?” His voice rises in pitch. “I’m not buying into the whole ‘wolfman’ hysteria. Do you think they could have attacked her like they did Thomas Burdon’s sheep?”

  “I-”

  The figures of Billy Oldfield, Jack Renwick, and Simon Carter darken the door’s window. Javeen unlocks the door, asks them to take a seat.

  “People are arriving, Andy … Can we talk afterwards?” He nods and takes a seat as more villagers arrive. Low chatter fills the room, mingling with a hum of anxiety and tension. People smile politely at one another, though no one laughs, and Javeen wonders what gossip has gotten around so far. Billy Oldfield had walked in with a new confidence, shoulders squared – a man vindicated. Beside him, his wife Kathy helps the Reverend Baxter to sit.

  By nine o’clock, the small village hall is full, although she estimates that at least half of the villagers have remained at home. She checks across the room, taking in the sea of faces. At some point it would be useful to take down their names, an inventory of sorts, in case anyone else went missing.

  Moving to the front of the hall, the room falls silent. She coughs to clear her throat. “First of all, I’d like to thank you all for coming here this morning. I realise that my call for a meeting was short notice and likely to have caused a good deal of anxiety. I apologise for that.” She scans the room, shoulders back, making eye contact where possible—making her best effort to appear in control, the voice of authority, despite the tremors that run through her fingers and seem to shoot up her arms. She takes a breath. There is no point hiding the truth, keeping it from them. She’d thought hard about how to present the information to the villagers, she doesn’t want to frighten them, but they need to realise just how much danger they are now in. “There is no easy way to say this, but the exit routes out of the village appear to have been blocked off.” A murmur spreads through the crowd.

  “You called us here to tell us about roadworks?”

  “Not just roadworks. There’s something up in the woods.”

  “Yeah. Wild bloody animals that have no place in the forest. Lynx UK-”

  She tries again. “The road to Stannersburn has been block-”

  “You’re not wrong. But why the hell you have to call a meeting about that-”

  “Listen to the girl!”

  “Pah! You listen. I tried to get through last night. I tried the old road as well. The same. It’s just roadworks. I even talked to the workmen. They’re doing it at night so as to cause the least amount of disruption.”

  Murmurs.

  Javeen remains silent and looks out across the gathering. They had to be told. She stuffs trembling hands back down into her pockets, fingers the handle of the knife. The room fills with murmurs. She coughs. “It’s not just … They’re not roadworkers.” The room quietens.

  “Well? Who the hell are they?”

  “Two days ago,” she scans the room, cheeks burning – this was going to sound outrageous, unbelievable, they would think she was lying. “Two days ago, I entered Kielder Forest, to the west of the village, with PC Stuart Langton in order to commence search efforts for Lois Maybank and … another missing girl.”

  “Two girls!”

  A mumble shifts across the crowd then dies to silence as she continues.

  “One of the girls was found.” A relieved murmur. “Unfortunately, the girl appears to have been mauled to death and has died of her injuries.” She won’t tell them poor Anita had been eviscerated, her entrails and organs missing.

  Gasps.

  “It’s them lynxes. Burdon lost three sheep—gutted they were.”

  The noise level in the room increases. Javeen holds a hand up and it quietens once more.

  “There is perhaps evidence to suggest that a lynx, perhaps more than one, has been set free within Kielder.”

  “Told you! I told you.”

  Javeen holds her right arm up again. “However, there is something far more dangerous in the woods than a lynx. The girl PC Stangton and I found had been … mutilated, and I believe it was by the same creature that killed Mr James Kendrick.”

  Another gasp. “Jim’s dead?”

  “What about his girl? His daughter’s missing too. Is she dead?”

  “I can only confirm that Mr Kendrick is dead. Killed by the same … monster-”

  “Monster!”

  “Monsters! For crying out loud. What are you talking about?”

  “She means a killer. Is there a serial killer out in the woods?”

  Javeen takes a deep breath. Killers – plural – but not the type you’re thinking of. “I have reason to believe …” No, not reason to believe, you know! She takes another breath. What she’s about to tell them is beyond belief—they’ll think she’s a raving lunatic. They might laugh at her. Dismiss her.

  Thud!

  33

  Javeen startles as the door swings open - why the hell wasn’t it locked? - and sighs with relief as Freddie Barnes steps into the hall, clutching Hayley Wilson to his side, and the door bangs shut.

  “Mr Barnes, could you please, lock the door.” Javeen ignores the frowns from Conrad Shelby in the front row as he reacts to the high pitch of her voice.

  Without noticing Javeen’s request, Freddie strides across the room clasping Hayley close to his body, his hand locked to hers, his frown set with deep crevices between his eyes. His body language screams discomfort.

  She tries again. Louder this time. “Mr. Barnes. Could you lock th
e door behind you? Please?”

  A murmur through the group.

  “She’s locking us in!”

  “What the hell is going on?’

  Freddie catches her gaze, nods, pulls Hayley with him back to the door, and turns the keys in the lock.

  The tightness across Javeen’s shoulders bites as she waits for Freddie and Hayley to settle at the end of the first row of chairs before speaking once more. She takes a breath and continues to address the villagers. “Yesterday, I entered Kielder Forest to the west of the village along with a team of police officers in order to locate the body of the murdered girl as well as to search for Doctor Max Anderson and Lois Maybank, both of whom had been reported as missing.” She stops to catch her breath and let the information sink in. The room is attentive, all chatter stopped. “The team consisted of four police officers and a police dog.” She swallows, forcing down the quiver rising in her throat. “I am the only one who returned alive.”

  The room gives a collective gasp then erupts into noise as a barrage of questions is thrown at her.

  “Who killed them?”

  “What the hell killed that many people?”

  Chairs scrape.

  “Are we safe?”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Please … Please. Let me speak. I can only answer your questions one at a time.”

  “Let her speak!” Billy Oldfield bellows as he stands. “There are monsters up in the forest. I’ve seen one.” The room quiets. “Nobody would believe me, and yes, I admit I was drunk, but I saw what I saw.”

  Kathy rises beside him. “Emily Carmichael’s seen it too. And so has Reverend Baxter.” She gestures to the elderly man in the seat beside her. “He’s seen it up close. You have, haven’t you Reverend.” The room lulls to silence.