With effort, and the help of Kathy at his elbow, the Reverend Baxter stands and turns to face the villagers. “I saw two of them. They came into the churchyard and walked right up to me. They … seemed to be to be human, but so much changed that you could no longer believe that they were.”
“I told you! I told you!” Billy shouts.
“If they’re not human, then what are they?”
“They … I do believe the male was Max Anderson-”
A snort of derision.
“The woman looked,” he swallows, “though her face was distorted, the creature looked like Lois Maybank, Marjory’s daughter.”
The room erupts once more.
“If I could ask for quiet, please!” Javeen shouts above the noise then waits for quiet to return. “I understand that this all sounds … fantastical-”
“A horror movie, more like.”
Javeen continues. “I am able to corroborate the Reverend’s experience with my own. The three creatures-”
“Three!”
“The three creatures that attacked the team of police officers in the woodlands did bear striking similarities to Doctor Anderson and Lois Maybank.”
“The other? You said three.”
“The other, I now believe to be nurse Kelly Gray.”
“Iain said she’d been bitten.”
“Where is Iain.”
“He went up to the cottage after we were in the police station yesterday.”
“Did he come back?”
Fear ripples through the room.
“What do these creatures look like?”
“Well …” Javeen hesitates. What she’s about to say sounds ridiculous even to her own ears. “Well, they seem to be mutated-”
“Mutated! What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Please, PC Latimer. Ignore them. Explain what you mean by ‘mutated’.”
“Well, and I know how this sounds, it’s hard to believe, even I struggle, and I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“Get on with it!”
She won’t hold back, no matter how odd it sounds. “They have fangs-”
“Fangs! She’s really taking the piss now.”
“And their eyes are … God, their eyes are monstrous—filled with blood-”
“This is a joke! It has to be.”
“And … and they’re covered with hair.”
“Shut up, Latimer. You know this is bollocks, right? She’s talking bollocks. It’s a cover up. How much did they pay you Latimer? Hey?”
“Cover up? What are you talk-”
“The Lynx Trust? Huh? How much did they pay you to make up this cock-and-bull story? They killed my sheep, them lynxes did, and you’re here trying to cover it up. They won’t get away with it, I promise you.”
“Mr. Burdon. I assure you-”
The room erupts. A woman begins to cry, and grabs her husband’s coat. He slips his arm around her. He turns to the room with a snarl, “Shut up, the lot of you.”
Chaos! It’s turning into chaos. In all of her imaginings of how this would go, this is not a scenario she had imagined. Panic? Yes. Tears? Yes. Anger? Yes. Disbelief and being accused of lying, and worse, being part of a cover up? No.
“Honestly, Mr. Burdon, I-”
Freddie Barnes moves from his position against the wall, steps next to Javeen, and faces the villagers. “She’s telling the truth.”
Despite the boom of his voice, the noise in the room is too loud, the people too concerned with voicing their opinions, to listen. He shouts louder this time, his voice a deep rumble. “She … is telling … the truth.” The bickering and worried voices stop. All eyes turn to Freddie. “I saw them … this morning. When I left for the rig, it was still dark, and I was followed out of the village by two … creatures … female creatures. One of them tried to pull me from my bike.”
“Rubbish!”
Freddie shrugs his overcoat from his shoulders and turns his back to the crowd. Beneath the overcoat, his jacket flaps where the leather has been slashed.
“Followed out of the village?”
Javeen can hardly breathe.
“Fake! He’s in on it too.”
“Freddie would never lie about a thing like that!” Hayley shouts and steps beside him.
“Oh, really? Him and his mate Craig are well known about the village for their pranks. He’s the first to brag about the latest stunt they’ve pulled.”
“Show them, Freddie! Show them what the monsters did to you.”
Silence.
Freddie shrugs off his leather jacket. Beneath it is an undamaged shirt.
“See! See, I told you. He’s a fraud.”
Freddie turns to face the crowd and begins to unbutton his shirt. Javeen has the uncomfortable feeling of hysteria rising once more. The thought of this man, undressing as though for a striptease, in the village hall in front of the Reverend and a large collection of his godly congregation, makes her want to squeal with laughter. She takes a breath. Hysteria, it seems, is an affliction that this new level of stress has birthed within her. As the final button is undone, a collective gasp, along with a titter from one of the older ladies, rises. The man is broad-shouldered, with abs you could run your fingers over. Freddie turns and shrugs the shirt from his shoulders – his very muscular and tanned shoulders – Javeen bites her lips, hoping that Andy can’t see the rise of a flush on her cheeks. The room gasps. Beneath the shirt, scratches, nearly as long as the ones on his jacket, rise as red welts along his back. She grimaces; they really should be seen to by a doctor.
“Freddie, those wounds need-” A sudden thought rocks her senses. “Freddie … did they bite you?”
Their eyes lock. Javeen pushes down the urge to run out of the hall whilst simultaneously scanning his body and calculating the time between the attack and now. Jenny had turned so quickly. Freddie looks normal without any sign of blood in his eyes.
“No. Just scratched.”
Javeen can’t hide her relief. “Thank God!”
“More like thank Kawasaki.”
“Huh?” Javeen scans her memory for the deity Kawasaki.
“My bike.”
Javeen sinks a little – idiot!
“It’s fast—that’s all that saved me.”
Freddie faces the villagers as he pulls his shirt back over his shoulders. “These creatures are real. I know it seems impossible—like something out of a film, but two creatures ran after me out of the village, tried to pull me off my bike. I was doing about forty-”
A snort. “Forty miles per hour? Nothing can go that fast.”
“A leopard can.”
A murmur.
“Perhaps one escaped from a zoo?”
“They weren’t leopards. The only reason I got away was because the bike could go faster. I lost them at about sixty.”
“Impossible!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“So, we’re talking about … werewolves?”
“I don’t know if they were, but the women that chased me had fangs, and like PC Latimer said, their eyes were just black, and they were covered in hairs too.”
“Naked?”
“Yes.”
Sniggers.
“So,” a teenage boy pipes up. “They were hairy … down there?” He gestures to his groin.
“Kyle!” The boy’s mother glares. He lowers his head, and sniggers into his chest, his shoulders heaving.
“Sorry!” the mother offers. “He’s just immature.” She glares once more at her son, then trains her eyes on Javeen, waiting for her to continue.
“I know how this sounds. But I believe we are all in grave danger from these …” She can’t say it.
“Wolfmen.” Kathy offers. “That’s what Emily called them.”
“They do look a bit wolfish.”
“OK. Wolfmen.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Conrad Shelby hugs Moira, his wife, a little closer as he stares directly at Javeen. From his face, she can tel
l he’s genuinely concerned, not confrontational like some of the others. She can understand their disbelief, she can even understand the way their fear is presenting as anger, an anger that is directed towards herself.
“The first thing we need to do is secure our properties—make them as safe as possible. Don’t go out alone. Don’t go out without some form of protection. Keep to the curfew.”
“Is that it? That’s your great plan to save us against these ‘wolfmen’ that you’ve admitted killed an entire team of police officers, savaged a poor, innocent girl to death, and ran at speeds no human could achieve when they tried to attack Freddie?”
Javeen shakes her head. Poor, poor Anita. What else can they do? She searches for an answer. Struggles.
“And don’t forget Jimbob!”
“Yes, and they killed Jimbob.”
“We need to get out of the village. Not sit here waiting to be attacked.”
“We need to evacuate.”
“But aren’t the roads closed off?”
Chairs scrape against the floorboards.
“It’s just roadworks.”
People stand then make their way with hurried steps to the door.
“No!” Javeen shouts. “Please! Everyone, sit down.” Javeen is losing control. As more people head for the door, her plea is drowned out by the excited, fearful chatter of the villagers. Some remain sitting, some look around, pondering what to do. “They’re not roadworkers. Please. Sit down.” The hall empties and, unheeded, Javeen runs fingers through hair that has been neither washed nor brushed. Her fingers pull at the strands making it even more dishevelled. Only seven people remain; Billy and Kathy Oldfield, The Reverend Baxter, Freddie Barnes, Hayley Wilson, Andy, and herself.
“That went well.”
Javeen sags and sits down with a thud.
“What now?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
34
Matilda ‘Tilly’ Stangton pushes out through the village hall doors into the cold November morning. Where the hell was Stuart? Javeen had assured her that he hadn’t accompanied her into the woodlands where the other officers were killed – her knees buckle – she leans up against the wall. She’d said he’d gone into town but not returned. Now, given what she’d heard in the village hall, how Freddie Barnes had been attacked as he’d tried to leave the village, she’s almost certain something has happened to Stuart on his way to town. Her mind searches for an explanation. Unable to stomach any of them, she grows numb. One thing is for sure. She isn’t going to wait in the village for whatever lies in the woods to kill her too. She grabs Barry Johnson’s sleeve as he pushes past.
“Barry. What are you going to do?”
“We’re leaving.” Belinda, his wife, butts in, pulling her coat around her, slipping her arm through her husband’s.
“Come with us, Tilly.”
The wife frowns. She always had been a jealous woman. If she only knew what she and Barry had got up to when they were teenagers! Has he told her about their relationship? Is that why she’s jealous? Does it matter?
“We’ll leave at two pm.” He says decisively. “That’ll give us time to pack up a few things.”
“We’re going to stop with relatives in Newcastle until this all gets sorted out.”
Barry rolls his eyes. “Let’s just get out of the village. Susan may not have room for us. We can go to a hotel.”
His wife nods. “Or even go on holiday. I’ll pack out passports.” Her worried frown has turned to a smile as she looks beyond Tilly’s shoulder to the road ahead and their house. “We could do with a holiday.”
“I’ll follow you, then.”
Allan Jenkins leans in from behind Belinda’s shoulder. “Leaving at two, did you say?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Mind if I tag along.”
“No. Please do.”
A small crowd gathers around Barry and Tilly and for the next ten minutes the villagers discuss the practicalities of leaving as a convoy. Some want to head north to the Scottish border, whilst others want to head south and onwards towards Newcastle and the midland counties. Allan Jenkins decides that an impromptu visit to his daughter in Spain is essential to relieve his wife’s stress. She clings to his arm, jittery, her eyes flitting about the treeline.
As Tilly makes her way home, twenty-five villagers have agreed to travel in convoy in seven cars to the southern border, and she has decided to ask Mavis, who doesn’t drive and whose husband died last year, if she would like to accompany her. She can’t leave the woman behind, she’s more family now than her own. Living in the isolated village, raising their daughter without her own mother around - God rest her soul - it had been a godsend to be taken under Mavis’ large and generous wing. She’d become a surrogate grandmother to her daughter – thank goodness she was currently away at university – and almost a mother to Tilly as well. Stuart hadn’t bonded quite so well, but he was a taciturn old goat anyway and didn’t even bother with his own mother. Not that she could blame him; Mrs Pamela Patricia Stangton was just as taciturn as he was, like mother, like son.
By two o’clock. Tilly has packed an overnight bag, complete with toiletries, and checked that she has her purse. She has also checked the oil and water levels in the car. There are sandwiches, biscuits, a flask of tea, and another with hot water, coffee, mugs, and all the fruit she’d bought last week. She has emptied the fridge and put all the perishables in the bin. The door is locked, the curtains drawn, and Mavis is in the front seat wrapped up warm with her favourite woolly hat. In short, the car is ready for an escape. She pulls the door open and slides in behind the wheel.
Mavis is quick to speak.
“Kane Barley said that Kathy Oldfield had told him that the wolfman that attacked Jim Kendrick had fangs and dragged him off into the woods as though he were a ragdoll.”
“Uhuh. Didn’t she say it was Max Anderson?” She turns the ignition.
“And Emily said he was hung like a donkey.”
Tilly snorts. “Emily said that?”
“Aye. She’s getting a bit crude in her old age.”
“Well, she is over eighty, perhaps nearly ninety. I’ll forgive her.”
Mavis pulls the blanket closer over her legs. “Do we have anything to defend ourselves with, if we get cornered by this well-endowed and hairy beast?”
Tilly can’t help but burst out laughing. “Mavis!”
“Tree loppers perhaps.”
“Mavis!” Tilly creases with laughter, squeezing her legs together, glad that she’s got a fresh panty liner on. Things down there hadn’t been quite so reliable as they should be since the birth of her daughter. “You make everything better. Do you know that?”
Mavis’ turn to chuckle. “I try my best. They say it was Max Anderson; no wonder Laura always had a smile on her face.”
Spittle flicks to the steering wheel as Tilly bursts with laughter.
“But in all seriousness, if there is a maniac on the loose out there, well-endowed or not, we should have something to protect ourselves with.”
Mavis is right. What do they have? “Give me a minute.” Tilly steps back out of the car and heads for the garage. Five minutes later she returns with a selection of Stuart’s tools. He was fastidious about keeping his shed in order, and everything had a place. His obsession with its organisation had driven her nuts but, on this occasion, she was thankful; the tools were easy to find, clean, and very – where necessary – sharp.
As she slams the door shut, having selected a weapon each for them to carry, and laying the remainder in the boot, Conrad Shelby, Moira in the passenger seat, and then Amy Carmichael pass in their cars. Conrad’s back seat is piled with what looks like duvets and pillows, whilst Amy’s is filled with her children. Tilly slips into gear and pulls out of the driveway, joining the small convoy as it leaves the village. Mavis looks to the trees nervously. She grips Stuart’s chisel tight and rubs her thumb along its length.
“You
alright, Mavis?”
“Yes, of course. Just hoping for a sighting.”
Tilly laughs. “You’re incorrigible, Mavis.”
“I try my best.”
The women laugh for a moment then fall silent. Tilly presses the radio to on. The crackling of untuned radio waves fills the car. She attempts to tune it whilst keeping an eye on the road. Silence is interspersed with white noise. Mavis remains patiently quiet as Tilly sighs, frustration mingling with an edge of fear; she really couldn’t bear to be blocked from the outside world like this. The severing of communications, whether it was voices from across England on the radio, or the movement of images on the television has made her feel hemmed in—as though they are all trapped in a bubble. The feeling was only compounded by having not being able to talk to her daughter; their daily chats were one of the highlights of her lonely days. The talk of the roads being blocked off had only increased that sense of isolation and she’d begun to appreciate the claustrophobic’s anxiety at being shut in, even though there were wide-open spaces all around her.
She switches the radio to off, biting back her unease. Ahead four cars lead the way, with Conrad Shelby at the front. With him at the helm, she can rest a little easier; he was a true leader, a former Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force, and still carried himself with the innate confidence of a man of that position, despite having being retired for the past nineteen years. Tilly has a secret crush on him - fuelled by the man’s uncanny resemblance to an older version of Cillian Murphy - that she barely even admits to herself. That he shared a name with one of the actor’s more intensely appealing characters was a joy that she hugged to herself.
Behind, the convoy of cars has grown. “Looks like most of the village is leaving!”
Mavis twists to look back down the road. “There must be at least twenty cars behind us.”
“Good! They’ll have to let us past the roadworks.”
“They will. And if they won’t let us past on the road, then we’ll just have to go around them.”
The Kielder Strain: A Science Fiction Horror Novel Page 18
