“Are you coming, or what?”
“You’ve got to be joking. I can hardly see you. I’m not going in the woods in pitch darkness.”
“Get out the car, or I’ll drag you out.”
“I’m not a child!”
“Well stop acting like one. Have you got your mobile phone?”
“Why?”
“We can use it for light.”
“Seriously? I’d have to keep pressing the button every few seconds. And it’s not exactly bright.”
Angie grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her out of the car. “Any more of that attitude, and I’ll bury you here with your boyfriends, do you understand me? I swear on my life, I will. Now stop whining, and come and look at your mess.”
Kate wanted to slap her. No, more than that, she wanted to cave her head in with a shovel. How dare she treat her like this? They were supposed to be friends. But she was treating her like an errant five year old, and wouldn’t even tell her what was going on! And the idea of wandering around in the woods with nothing but her mobile phone backlight to guide them was ridiculous to say the least. They’d never find the place where the bodies were buried, yet alone see anything when they got there.
“Light!” hissed Angie. “Now.”
She pressed the button, and the backlight came on. She glanced at the screen. Four fifty eight pm. She grew uneasy.
“Angie, we have to go back. It’s nearly five o’clock. What time does it get light?”
“How the fuck should I know? You’re never happy, are you? One minute, it’s too dark; the next, you’re worrying about the sun coming up. Well the sooner we find those bodies, the sooner you can go home. Come on, press your little button again, and let’s get going.”
It was futile to argue. Kate pressed the backlight button again and followed her friend. She could barely see her, even though she was only a few steps away. Maybe she’d give up in a few minutes, and they could hurry back home again before dawn.
Despite the darkness, Angie appeared to know where she was going. Time and time again, Kate felt branches against her face, making her jump, more through anxiety than discomfort. The phone was worse than useless, however much she turned the light on. On one occasion, she actually walked into the trunk of a tree. Maybe it would have been better if she could have afforded an iphone, so she could have played a video or something, but she only had a basic phone for calls and texts. She rarely left home, so there had been no need for anything more advanced. The only way to keep the light on was to press the button time and time again.
Angie forged ahead, almost at normal walking pace. Deeper and deeper into the woods. Kate remembered the scene in Snow White where the huntsman was leading the little girl into the forest to kill her. Surely Angie wasn’t that deranged? But she had threatened her earlier, when she was still in the car. What if she’d bullied her out here so she could murder her and bury her with her victims? The ultimate irony. And unlike Snow White, she wouldn’t have seven quirky dwarfs to bail her out at the last minute.
No. Angie wouldn’t do that. She was her friend. A really bossy, clingy control-freak of a friend, who deserved a good slap round the face, but a friend all the same. She hadn’t done anything to upset her enough to justify a fate like that. Nothing apart from refusing to chain Mike to a bed, but that was hardly grounds for her execution, even in Angie’s fucked-up world. There had to be some other explanation. All the same, she wished she had something she could use as a weapon, just in case.
Angie stopped suddenly, and Kate bumped into her.
“We’re here.”
“We’re where? I can’t see a thing.”
“There. On the ground. Go and take a look.”
“You come with me.”
“Are you scared?”
“I’m alone in the pitch-black woods with a seething psychopath, at a spot where my six murder victims have been buried. Why would I be nervous?”
“If one of us is a psychopath, it sure as Hell’s not me! You’re the vampire, remember? You should thrive on darkness. Now get on with it, if you want to be back home before daylight.”
Kate took a couple of tentative steps forward, waving her left arm in front of her like a blind-man’s stick to clear any foliage in her path.
“On your knees,” Angie ordered.
“Do what?”
“On your knees.”
“Seriously? Angie, are we okay? You’re really starting to freak me out.”
She felt a hand on her shoulder, pushing her down into a kneeling position. She did as she was told. This really was starting to feel like an execution. She was out here in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. And Angie was being so hostile, so cold. She’d never seen her like this before (not that she could actually see her even now).
She turned the backlight of the phone back on, and held it face-down over the ground. It lit up a circle of grass maybe a couple of feet in diameter. There was nothing there. She looked up towards where her friend must be. “What is it? What am I looking for?”
“Did you just hear something?” Angie asked.
Kate held her breath, and listened. All she could hear was her own heart beating away in her chest. Surely it shouldn’t be that fast, that loud? What if she had a heart-attack? She’d never get to a hospital in time. She’d die here in the woods, surrounded by the bodies of the men she’d murdered. What a horrible way to go.
“What is it? What did you hear?”
“Did you know that there have been reports of some creature lumbering around out here after dark? Like a human, but big, and bad and ugly? Maybe it’s her. A hungry troll. Come to eat you.”
“Would you just fuck off and tell me what I’m looking for?”
“Sorry, couldn’t resist it.” Angie’s voice was softer now, a trace of humour having returned. For some reason, it made Kate feel more uneasy still. “You look so frightened. It was too good an opportunity to miss.”
“What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“There. A yard to your left. And a couple of yards to the left again. And about ten feet in front of that.”
Kate swept the phone over the ground like a mine-sweeper. Grass. Grass. More grass. But then, something else. Something bad.
She screamed.
There on the ground, a forearm was protruding through freshly churned earth. The flesh had been gnawed from it, like one of the barbecue spare ribs she had been munching on with Mike at the Chinese restaurant. Only the hand had been left untouched, giving it the appearance of a pale white glove.
She threw up over it. She always felt nauseous here; that was why Angie had started burying the bodies on her own. But this was worse than anything she had seen before.
She wiped the vomit from her face as best she could with the back of her hand. She wanted to run back to the car, but for some reason she felt compelled to stay, and find out just how bad this was. She probably wouldn’t find the car in the dark anyway. She got to her feet, skirted the arm which was pointing the way into the trees like some macabre sign-post, and dropped to her feet again. She couldn’t find anything at first, but after sweeping her free hand in a large circle across the grass, she felt something sticky poking up from the earth. She focused the phone on it. Even with the aid of a few seconds light, she wasn’t totally sure what it was. The remains of a foot, maybe? But chewed up. Horribly, horribly chewed up, so there was nothing left but bone and torn muscle.
The light went out on her phone. She swore. She tried again, without success. The battery had died. They were alone in the darkness with a half dozen partially excavated corpses. And the thing which freaked her out most was that Angie was laughing like the lunatic she was.
#
And then there was light. Bright light, right in her face, practically blinding her. She held an arm to shield her eyes from the beam. The light changed direction, illuminating Angie’s face from just beneath her chin, in the manner adopted by everyone who has ever told a horror story by a camp-fire.
“I am the troll of the forest! And this is where I feed!”
Kate stared back at her. She had a torch! She had made her tramp through the woods in pitch darkness, and all the while she had had a torch with her! “You bitch!”
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist it.”
“What have you done?” She gestured to the remains of her various victims, illuminated in the torchlight. “Was this part of your little joke, too?”
“What do you mean, what have I done? This wasn’t me. Foxes, I suppose.”
“Couldn’t you have buried them deeper?”
“That’s easy for you to say, sitting at home with your feet up, with a nice glass of AB negative to wash down your fish and chips. I’m the one who has to drag the bodies through the pitch black woods and bury them on my own. Have you got the faintest idea how hard that is? By the time I’ve got them here, the last thing I want to do is dig a six foot grave, with a marble headstone, thank you very much.”
“I offered to help.”
“You kept chucking up. We can’t have your DNA all over the place.”
“Can you even get DNA from vomit?”
“Kate, you’re sort of missing the point here. We’re surrounded by the half-exhumed bodies of your murder victims, and you’re wanting to discuss the latest advances in forensic medicine.”
“I can’t believe you had a torch on you all this time. I was terrified.”
Angie chuckled. “I was going to turn it on a few yards into the woods. I was furious with you in the car, but I’d calmed down by the time we got here. But then I thought, fuck it, she deserves this, leaving me to sort out her mess for her while she’s off shagging Window-boy. And being so rude to me, as well. Back in the car. You deserved everything you got. You’ve got to admit it was funny, though.”
Kate wasn’t going to admit anything. But now didn’t seem to be the right time to have a “domestic” with her so-called friend. There were bodies all over the place. Angie played the torch over the grass, and she counted four of them. The other two were thankfully still under the ground. With all the churned up earth and half eaten limbs, it looked like a scene from a zombie film, where the zombies had given up half-way out of their graves and decided to stay put after all.
“What are we going to do?”
“We put them back again. Deeper this time. I’ve got a spade in the boot. Clive’s keeping it company. We take turns to dig.”
“There’s no time. It’s nearly half five. We need to go home now.”
“And leave all these bodies all over the place? I don’t think so. You’re the one who’s always telling me I take too many risks. Well not this time, I’m not. We’ve got to get this done tonight.”
“Angie, please. I can’t do this now. We’ll come back this evening. No-one’ll find them here.”
“No way. We can’t risk it. I’m not going to prison just because you’re a freaky vampire who wets herself every time the sun comes up. You wait here. I’ll go and get the spade.”
“Can you leave me the torch?”
“And you’re afraid of the dark, too? You really are the crappest vampire ever.”
#
Burying masticated bodies is never an easy task, but it is harder still with suspected broken ribs. At first, Kate tried to work through it, knowing that Angie would be in no mood for excuses. But within minutes, the sharp pain shooting through her chest had overwhelmed her, and she was in tears. She kept digging, as best she could. Angie chose to ignore her sobs at first, but after a while told her that she couldn’t bear to hear her blubbing like a baby any more, and ordered her back to the car.
She sat in the passenger seat. It no longer seemed quite so dark. She wasn’t sure whether it was because her eyes had grown accustomed to it, or whether sunrise was on its way. She wished she knew when dawn was due. Surely it was pretty late at this time of year? She could have Googled it if she’d had a decent phone, but her battery was dead anyway and the chances of having a signal out here seemed pretty remote.
The occasional car drove past. She felt self-conscious, sitting here by the side of the road in the woods. They were parked on the wrong side of the road, so that the headlights of the cars coming towards her shone into her face as they rounded the bend a few hundred yards further down the tarmac. Many were on full-beam, forcing her to shield her eyes. She hoped that Angie was far enough into the woods for the headlights not to pick her out.
She wondered what these drivers thought she was doing here. Maybe they assumed her driver had been caught short, and was relieving himself or herself in the woods. Maybe they assumed she was out dogging. She hoped not. She had no idea what she’d do if one of the drivers stopped and propositioned her. Lock the doors and hope he’d go away, she supposed. Or, if he wouldn’t take no for an answer, bang on the horn until Angie came to send him packing. She was good at that sort of thing. Maybe she’d even have her syringe handy, in which case she could save herself a night out looking for her next victim.
It was nearly six o’clock. Angie had been out there for ages. Maybe she should go back and have another go at digging to speed things up? But it had taken her ten minutes to find her way back to the car, and even then she had hit the road about a hundred yards further along than she had been aiming for. She’d never find Angie without a landmark to aim for, not even with the torch. And if she did find her, she’d have to give up digging again after a minute or two, and then she’d get another mouthful for being weak and childish. Maybe it was best to stay in the car after all.
She had to be back home soon, though, no matter what. It would be daylight before long, she was sure of it. Dawn couldn’t be much later than seven o’clock, surely, not even in January? It would take three quarters of an hour driving back (maybe less, as Angie could risk driving quicker with Clive safely out of the boot).
She cursed. Clive! Clive was still in the boot! When Angie eventually finished burying the others, she’d have to dig a hole for him, too. They would never get back in time. She’d be out here, in broad daylight. She felt her chest tighten. She tried to breathe deeply, before panic set in. She couldn’t be left out here, in the middle of nowhere, with the sun up. She couldn’t be.
She beeped the horn. Angie would hate that. She liked to be in control; she wouldn’t want Kate dictating how fast she worked. It’s your mess, she’d say, for the hundredth time. If you don’t think I’m working fast enough, you come and do it yourself.
Maybe she should have left her the torch. She could’ve worked quicker if she could see what she was doing.
Another car came round the corner up ahead, just as she was beeping. It indicated to turn off the road. Shit! It was stopping! What if they were doggers, or rapists or murderers? Or all three. She beeped the horn again, holding it down longer this time, desperate for Angie to come to her aid.
The car stopped in front of her, bonnet to bonnet. The lights stayed on, blinding her. She heard a car door slam. She tried to slide over to the driver’s seat, to put the keys in the ignition, ready to drive off if she had to. Where was Angie? She needed her back here, before something awful happened.
Someone was walking towards her. She was halfway over the gear-stick. She’d end up sitting on it if she wasn’t careful. She arched her pelvis upwards and managed to squeeze over it onto the driver’s side. Why did Angie drive such a stupid little car?
She could see the figure approaching the driver’s side door, but couldn’t make out any features yet. Maybe she could have done, if his stupid lights weren’t shining in her face. She clicked one of the buttons on the car-keys. Had she locked the doors, or pressed the “unlock” button? She couldn’t remember which was which in her panic.
He rapped on the window. She didn’t look round. She just sat there, facing the front, praying that the door was locked. “Go away,” she whispered to herself. “Go away.”
“Could you open the door please, Miss.”
She looked to her right. Her heart sank. It was a police-man. She had visions of Angie wading out of the woods with a shovel, caving in his head. She’d done something similar once before, after all, right back when all this had first began. She had beaten a man to death with a hammer. But not a police-man, Angie. You kill a police-man, and they’ll do whatever it takes to find you. To find us.
“Miss?”
She opened the door. She tried to give a bright and breezy smile. She failed dismally.
“Did you want me?” he asked.
She looked confused. Maybe he was a dogger after all. But surely police-men didn’t go in for that sort of thing. Not in uniform anyway.
“Want you?” she asked.
“You beeped me,” he pointed out. “Quite insistently, the second time.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve – I’ve been sick. Look, there’s some on my coat.”
“That’s okay,” he smiled. “There’s no need to prove it.”
“I just pulled over for a few minutes. I’ve not done anything wrong, have I?”
“No, no, of course not. You’re feeling better now, though?”
“Yes. Much better, thanks. I’m sorry, this is going to sound like a really strange question, but do you happen to know when sunrise is?”
He gave her a quizzical look. She gave him a sheepish grin in return; it was all she could do, as she couldn’t really explain the question without making herself look even stranger than she must seem now. He looked at his watch. “I’m not sure. About an hour or so, I think.”
“Thank you. Thank you.”
“No problem. I’ll follow you up the road for a few miles. Make sure you’re okay.”
He slammed the door, and went back to his car. He reversed a few yards, to allow her room to pass him by. She sat there for a few seconds, thinking. What to do? If she stayed here, it would look really suspicious. But if she drove off, leaving Angie in the middle of the woods, she would go mental. Seriously bloody mental.
The police officer flashed his lights, signalling to her that he was ready to move off. She turned the key in the ignition. The engine came to life. She looked around. It definitely seemed lighter. She couldn’t stay here. It would kill her if the sun came up when she was so far from home.
The lights of the police car flashed again. He was impatient for her to be on her way.
Lights on. Indicate. Pull away.
She drove off, the police car carrying out a tight u-turn and following at a respectful distance behind her. She couldn’t see her; it was too dark, and she had to keep her eyes on the road. But she could sense Angie watching her in silence from the cover of the brooding trees. She had abandoned her friend and accomplice in the middle of nowhere. Angie was not going to be happy about that at all.
#
The police car followed her for about ten minutes. Surely he had to keep to the Ashford area, she thought? Surely he’d have to turn round and go back to his home town? Eventually, he did. That left Kate in a dilemma. Should she go back and face the music? Or should she drive home and worry about Angie later on?
If it was still dark, she’d have gone back in a shot. She hated the idea of leaving Angie in the woods on her own. But it was definitely getting lighter. Twilight, did they call it? Like that film? If she turned back now, she’d have no chance of getting home before sunrise.
She pulled over. She had to go back. She couldn’t leave Angie back there in the woods. Her friend would have come back for her, no question. She did a three point turn – not the brightest idea on an A-road, but she didn’t want to waste further time finding a junction. And headed back to the layby she’d left earlier.
There was no sign of Angie by the road-side when she got there. She wandered into the trees, calling her name, unwilling to lose sight of the road in case she got lost. She shouted out her name as loudly as she could. If the policeman came back now, he’d probably have her committed. No reply. No sign of her anywhere.
She went back to the road again. She sat in the car. She checked her watch. She turned the ignition on. Petrol was low. An eighth of a tank, maybe a little more. Was that enough to get home without stopping to fill up? She didn’t want to stop. For one thing, she probably smelled of sick. But far more importantly, time was ticking by. If she was going to have any hope at all of getting home before sunrise, she would have to leave now.
Maybe Angie’s hitchhiked already, she thought. When I charge my phone back up, I’ll probably find a message from her telling me not to worry, that she’s on her way home already. Get yourself back home before it gets light, the message would say. I’m fine.
She had come back, after all. She’d waited here. She’d wandered around in the trees, calling out like an idiot, without so much as a whisper in reply. Angie must have gone home already. There was no point waiting around any longer. It was time for her to go home, too.
She set off again, desperately hoping that she wouldn’t see the police-car from earlier. She drove as quickly as she could legally drive, conscious of the fact that she still had a dead body in the boot. She spent most of her time checking how light it was getting, whilst casting the occasional worried glance at the fuel gauge. Should she stop if it went down to zero, or should she keep going? She’d heard that you could keep going for miles on an “empty” tank, but what if she ran out of petrol? With a co