Wake Wood

by K. A. John

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Beware those you love the most

  Still grieving after the death of their young daughter Alice in a frenzied dog attack, Patrick and Louise Daley leave the city to try and find some peace in the Irish countryside, and the village of Wake Wood seems like the perfect place to start again.

  But the residents are guarding a terrifying secret: they can resurrect the dead. However, the rules are strict: they will bring Alice back only if she has been dead for less than a year; and, after three days, she must be buried.

  Desperate to see their daughter again, even for just three days, the Daleys agree to everything. But they have been lying from the start. And by the time the villagers realise, it’s too late. Alice is alive and she does not want to go back …

  About the Author

  K.A. John lives on the Gower Peninsula in Wales with her husband, cat and whichever of her three children chooses to visit. A full time writer with several pseudonyms, she also writes historical fiction as Catrin Collier and crime as Katherine John.

  One

  ALICE DALEY FELT extremely pleased with herself as she left home to walk to school on her own for the very first time in her life. It was her ninth birthday. Only one more year before she reached double figures. Then she’d be really grown-up, although she doubted that she could feel any more grown-up than she did at that moment.

  She stopped at the gate, turned and looked back at her mother framed in the front doorway, before glancing up at her father who was leaning out of the bedroom window. She gave one last, perfunctory wave – the goodbye wave of an adult.

  Alice had won two arguments that morning, both by stating her case calmly, logically and sensibly as her father had taught her. The first with her mother, who’d wanted to walk her to school – as if she were still a child. The second with her father, who hadn’t wanted her to take her birthday present to show her classmates.

  She looked down at the hamster in the cage she was carrying.

  ‘Of course you want to meet all my friends, don’t you …?’ She hesitated. ‘I think I’ll call you Howie. Do you like the name, Howie? I think Howie the hamster sounds good.’

  The small creature poked his nose inquisitively through the bars and looked up at her. Alice stroked his nose with her thumb and carried on walking, but she slowed her step when she reached the high wooden gates that walled off her father’s veterinary surgery and yard. She set the hamster cage down, carefully looked up and read the brass plaque affixed to the door.

  VETERINARY CLINIC, PATRICK DALEY, MRCVS.

  She adored her father, was proud of him, and she nursed an ambition to work alongside him. Both her parents had told her that she was good with animals and, false modesty aside, she knew they were right. From an early age she’d watched her father soothe and calm sick, injured and terrified animals and had tried to emulate his technique. He’d warned her that the university course was long, but told her that if she worked and studied hard, one day her name would be up there beside his on the brass plaque.

  Her smile broadened as she imagined it.

  ALICE DALEY, MRCVS.

  The gates towered over her. She clutched her packed lunch and debated whether or not to enter the yard. Her father had told her about his latest patient when he’d given her the hamster for her birthday. He’d been called to an emergency in the early hours. A ‘big noisy dog’ had needed life-saving surgery.

  In her experience, big noisy dogs, even ones recovering from an operation, were hungry. And her mother had packed her an extra – and entirely unnecessary – sandwich on the grounds that ‘nine-year-olds needed to eat more’.

  She glanced at her watch. She could spare ten minutes.

  Humming the last song she’d learned in school softly under her breath, she stood on tiptoe and reached up to the combination lock. She entered the numbers – her father’s, mother’s and her own combined birth dates, so none of them would forget it. Then she braced herself.

  The gates were heavy, even for her father. Alice leaned against one of them with all the weight and strength she could muster, and then she still struggled to open it wide enough for her to slip through. The hinges creaked and groaned when the gate eventually swung back.

  The pens in the yard were empty, her father’s patients still bedded down in their inner cages. She headed for the last pen on the right. It was the largest, the one reserved for the biggest dogs.

  Alice fingered the new silver chain around her neck, a birthday present from her mother, before opening the latch on the pen. She whistled.

  ‘Come and see what I’ve brought you.’ She unclipped her lunch box, fumbled at the tie on the plastic bag that held her sandwiches, tore open the extra one and took out the slice of ham.

  There was still no sign of the dog. She stepped inside and shouted, ‘Come on, slowcoach. I know Daddy’s made you better. Aren’t you hungry?’

  The first she saw of the massive German shepherd was his eyes. He peered out of the opening that led to the inner cage and eyed her suspiciously.

  ‘There you are. Look what I have.’ She held out the ham.

  The dog continued to stare at her. Suddenly, without warning, his mood changed. His ears flicked back; he snarled, bared his teeth and sprang into attack mode. Growling savagely, he knocked Alice to the ground and closed his jaws on her neck.

  Alice screamed. Just once. There was no time for more.

  The dog clamped his teeth tightly together, breaking into and tearing Alice’s fragile, delicate skin. He bit down viciously, tore a lump from her soft flesh and spat it aside. Alice saw droplets of blood flying through the air. The pain was excruciating.

  The world darkened. Bright morning turned to grey-tinged night. As the light faded Alice heard footsteps. She looked up … saw her daddy and, behind him, her mummy. They were running … She closed her eyes, knowing that now she would be all right.

  Two

  FEW PEOPLE HAD reason to visit Wake Wood other than those who lived four-hour drive away from the bright lights and hustle of the city. The tiny Irish town was no more than a speck on the map in the midst of acres of thick woods interspersed with clearings of agricultural land, accessed by narrow winding lanes that connected the isolated hamlets, farms and smallholdings that surrounded it.

  Rural life did not mean ignorance of the times and modern technology. When farming revenues fell, more than one Wake Wood farmer made use of the government subsidies that were available to those who were prepared to site wind farms on their land

  No one denied the turbines stood taller than the surrounding trees and – every bit as brash, noisy and incongruous as their detractors had feared they would be – along the edge of the wood that bordered the town limits.

  ‘A blight on the landscape’, or so the detractors who’d fought against their advent said. ‘A necessary accessory to combat carbon emissions,’ declared the bureaucrats and Green
Party members, who were happy to place the turbines anywhere except within sight or earshot of their own homes.

  ‘A much needed and welcome source of income,’ the locals agreed when they saw their bank balances climbing out of the red. The small number of tourists and travellers who’d ventured deep enough into the countryside to discover Wake Wood before the wind farm had been erected generally had recalled little about the place afterwards. Later, they remembered the wind farm and little else.

  Guide books that covered the area highlighted the ancient woods surrounding the town and mentioned a prehistoric circle of tall, thin standing stones, its origin long since lost in the mists of time. But the delights of Wake Wood were only available to the day tripper. No hotel, motel or even humble bed and breakfast within a thirty-mile radius had made it on to any lists of recommended places to stay, for the simple reason there were none.

  The local farmers had never been exactly content with their income from farming, but neither had they been desperate enough to increase it by offering bed and breakfast to nosy outsiders who would inevitably ask questions. The inhabitants of Wake Wood were used to the place and the strange noises that echoed through the woods late at night – and occasionally even during the day. Things happened in the town that they realised would appear odd to visitors, and the last thing they wanted was strangers poking and prying into the town’s affairs.

  As for those tourists who did drive through the town, the most common opinion was ‘A small town lost in a time warp’. Some might add ‘picturesque’ or ‘quaint’ to their description. Those with an imagination activated by Stephen King’s horror films set in rural communities on the other side of the Atlantic labelled it ‘creepy’. More mundane and observant travellers occasionally remarked that Wake Wood was in its death throes. Over half the business premises in the main street had their doors and windows boarded up. A smaller proportion of unoccupied houses had also been sealed against vandals, and as for the remainder, few residents appeared to possess the money or inclination to maintain their homes in a good state of repair.

  Yet despite the dire state of cattle and arable farming – the only real labour-intensive industry in the town – people remained tied to the place. Their reasons for staying were a mystery to the casual traveller. But not to those who’d been born there.

  Wake Wood was more than just another small Irish town, more even than home. It was an ancient place full of secrets that had to be carefully guarded from one generation to the next if the close-knit society was to survive in anything resembling its present guise.

  The one thing every person in the place agreed on was that they had to be very careful of the invitations they extended when necessity dictated they add skills or professionals to their community.

  To quote Mick and Peggy O’Shea, whose families had farmed in Wake Wood for generations, ‘People who come to Wake Wood have to be “right”.’

  The O’Sheas didn’t have to define ‘right’. Not to their neighbours. ‘Right’ was something all natives recognised when they saw it, and they saw it rarely outside of themselves. They were certainly quick to mark its absence. But suspicious as they were, all of them had to accept that from time to time they needed the new blood of ‘incomers’ to keep the town alive.

  In living memory, very few people had moved into Wake Wood, settled into the town and adopted its ways. Far more had tried and failed.

  So if anybody had told Patrick Daley at the time he qualified that he would end up not only living in Wake Wood, but trapped in the town with no prospect of ever escaping, he would have laughed at them. But that would have been before sheer desperation had led him to reply to Arthur’s advertisement.

  Due to ill health of present owner, full and free partnership in thriving rural and farming practice in small west-coast Irish town offered to qualified young veterinary not afraid of hard work. Excellent prospects and remuneration will be given to the right applicant.

  Two years before he’d had a loving wife he adored, a beautiful young daughter, a covetable Georgian town house – complete with original features – and a growing city veterinary practice. In short, everything a man with his qualifications could wish for, except the knowledge that the happiest days of his life were coming to an end and all he’d be left with was a yearning to recapture them.

  And now – now he was alone, lonely and adrift in Wake Wood. But, if everything went according to his carefully laid plans, not for much longer.

  A night gale howled around his isolated stone cottage, rattling the doors and windows and hurling the branches of the surrounding trees against the walls. When he’d spoken to Arthur earlier that evening, his partner had warned him to expect wild weather.

  Arthur had been right. He shivered as a draught cut across the landing. The living room would have been warm and cosy with its open log fire but he was sitting in the master bedroom, which he deliberately kept cool.

  He was sick with apprehension. He’d spent months preparing for the events he’d set in motion. But had he planned for every eventuality? Failure would sentence him to a lifetime of loneliness. But could he – would he – find the courage to do what was necessary when the moment came?

  He moved restlessly from his chair and went to the window. If his plan didn’t succeed he’d lose everything he cherished except his memories. Memories of his precious loving family … his wife Louise …

  As a young man, he hadn’t believed in love at first sight until he’d seen Louise. One glance across the crowded student-union bar of the university during Louise’s first week in college had been enough. He’d lost his heart. If she’d asked him to be her slave he would have sacrificed everything he had, including himself, to her without question. To quote one of his closest friends, Louise had ‘touched him with the barmy wand’.

  Wherever Louise had gone, male heads had turned. But it hadn’t been her long blonde hair or stunning slim figure that had captivated Patrick. It had been her dark blue eyes. Every time he’d gazed into them he’d felt as though he were drowning.

  The most amazing miracle was that after crawling around campus in her wake for an entire month, she’d suddenly noticed him. They’d moved in together at the beginning of her second term, lived together for the next three years until they both graduated from their respective courses, and married the week after they’d been given their diplomas.

  They’d made so many plans. He’d wanted his own veterinary practice in a historical and beautiful old city, Louise her own pharmacy. They both wanted a rambling old house, dogs rather than dog, cats rather than cat, maybe horses – dependent on spare time – but one definite ambition was a large family. At least four children, possibly six.

  They’d soon discovered real life meant compromise. The house they’d bought with the maximum mortgage the bank would allow had been beautiful, old and rambling. It had also been in need of expensive renovation that had ruled out any prospect of them taking a holiday for three years. But on the plus side, it had had a yard and outbuildings that Patrick soon had converted into a surgery.

  The pharmacy had never materialised. Louise had accepted a position with a high-street chain of chemists – a temporary job while she’d looked for suitable premises to set up her own place. But pregnancy had tempered Louise’s ambitions. There’d been no point in starting up a time-consuming business just as she was about to embark on motherhood.

  Patrick had set up his practice, worked hard, and by the time their daughter Alice had arrived he’d been making a comfortable living – so comfortable it had enabled Louise to give up work and become a full-time mother, wife and homemaker.

  Alice had proved to be the best gift either of them had ever been given, so small, slight and fascinating, yet a combination of them both. She’d inherited his colouring and Louise’s beauty. Her skin had been as white as porcelain, her eyes large, dark, questioning, intelligent – just like Louise’s but brown, not blue. Her beautiful hair had been long, like strands of silk, but black
, not blonde.

  Alice, so fragile, so vulnerable – the first of the children they had planned, and, because of Louise’s medical problems, their last.

  Crippled by an emotional pain that transcended anything physical, Patrick returned to his chair. Oblivious to his surroundings and the temperature, he stared into his open veterinary instrument box.

  He picked up a scalpel and ran his thumb along the edge, drawing a thin red line that dripped blood. It didn’t even hurt at first. The blade was sharp enough to cut cleanly through soft pink skin. Slice the fat beneath it, sever and divide nerves and tensed, hard muscle …

  But would he find the will and the strength to wield it? He’d soon find out. The waiting was almost over. He listened to the water flowing in the shower in the bathroom. A soft, steady murmur below the wails of the wind, accompanied by the occasional splash as a body moved beneath the spray.

  It had been months since he’d shared the house with someone. Long, desolate months, but if he succeeded he wouldn’t be alone again. Not in his lifetime.

  Soon the water would be switched off … and then …

  He listened hard with every fibre of his being. Was it his imagination or was there really a tapping? Was someone knocking at his door? He checked his watch. Surely not at this hour. Not straight after the ceremony.

  His business partner, Arthur, was his nearest neighbour, and he was miles away. Besides, Arthur had been with him, helping and supporting him throughout the ceremony. Surely now Arthur and all the others would respect his privacy.

  The sound appeared to be coming from somewhere above him. Birds on the roof? In this gale? Or a banshee? If it was, now would be the time to look up and discover whether they really were old hags or exquisite young fairies.

  He steeled himself, leaned back and stared. A skeletal tree branch was bouncing wildly on the skylight, hitting it intermittently and lightly. So lightly, the sound was reminiscent of a child’s fingers drumming against glass – or the wings of a small plastic bird …