IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY
They had been ordered to go to a safe cottage located in Thetford Forest. It was situated off a main road at the end of a dirt track about a mile long: obviously ideal as a hideout. She wondered how they had come across it. They were to wait at the cottage for someone to collect them. Events had moved on.
They had been provided with a motorcycle and safety helmets. They had been shown a map and given verbal directions to the cottage. They had to repeat the location and directions back to their helpers three times. That ensured that they would not get lost.
They left once darkness had descended. When they arrived at the dirt track her companion switched off the headlight. They drove down the track by the light of the moon. The cloud that had brought all the rain had been blown to another unfortunate part of the country. That rain had left large puddles on the surface and in the many potholes. As they bounced over the track and through the puddles both their trouser legs got a thorough and uncomfortable soaking.
When they saw the cottage looming out of the gloom they knew they had reached their destination. Her companion cut the engine and signalled for her to go inside whilst he hid the bike out of sight around the back: as their helpers had instructed. She unlocked the door and as she pushed it creaked as if it belonged in some Hollywood horror b movie.
It smelled disagreeably fusty. Looking around in the scant light cast by the moon, to which her eyes quickly became accustomed, she noted that the living room was sparsely furnished. When her male companion came into the cottage she asked him how long it would be before they were collected. He stated that it could be anytime. However, he expected it to be during the night. Less people about and therefore less likely to provoke suspicion.
She admired her companion and had always found him to be supremely adaptable whatever the conditions. And they had experienced some widely varying situations over the last two years. Who would have thought that a provincial girl such as she would have undergone what she had.
They scouted the place. The kitchen had an empty fridge that was not switched on. The kitchen units were empty apart from a few old tea bags and a couple of battered pans. They attempted to switch on the calor powered cooker: to no avail. Her companion went outside. The canister was empty. However, he found a woodshed. He brought the dry wood to the cottage and lit a fire: thankfully they had found some matches in one of the kitchen drawers. They managed to boil some water and make a mug of tea. He had also discovered a generator but they decided not to switch it on. They felt the noise may draw attention to the cottage.
Dust everywhere. She had seen nothing but dust in many of the places that she had been in. However, in those places it was the norm. Here in England it bothered her. She felt a compulsion to clean the place. She knew her companion felt the same as her. Wiping the surfaces helped them to pass the time.
The girl kept on interrupting her dusting with looking out of the window. She divined that they would hear their colleagues scrunching over the dirt road and splashing through the puddles.
He told her to calm down. Constantly looking out of the window would not make them come any quicker. However, it would make time drag. It did not mollify her. Having tired of dusting she continued pacing fretfully from the fire place to the window every few minutes. She could sense her companion's mounting agitation. However, it did not stop her.
Suddenly she thought she had seen something out of the window. She didn't say anything because she wasn't sure. Yes she had seen something!
Four dark shapes were weaving their way silently to the cottage backlit by the clear moon! If they were their colleagues then why were they acting so suspiciously?
Before she had chance to alert her companion the door had been kicked in and two canisters fizzing smoke rolled across the floor. She could just make out shapes shrouded by the CS gas fumes walking through the door.
She put her hands across her face and dove through the bathroom door, locking it behind her. She scrambled onto the toilet seat. And groped for the catch of the small window. She could hear the intruders creeping about the sitting room and whispering to one another. She hauled herself up to the now open window and wriggled through it. As luck would have it she fell onto a rose bush. Her involuntary cry of pain drew the attention of the visitors to her location. Fighting through her pain she scurried across the open yard towards the comparative safety of the undergrowth.
Just as she reached the edge of the forest she heard something fly by her ear and lodge itself in the tree trunk just in front of her. It was a knife!
The thought that that they intended to kill her gave her an added impetus. She lunged into the undergrowth. Picked herself up and scampered into the forest. She crashed through bushes, some with thorns and some without. Branches whiplashed her face breaking the skin and drawing blood. Each a minor irritant in the general scheme of things. Although running for her life her mind still registered more mundane matters. She thought how wet she was from plunging through the sodden forest. Perhaps thinking of such matters helped to keep the mind sane.
It did not take her long her long to cotton onto the fact that her pursuers were not only following her but gaining on her! Closer and closer they seemed to be getting!
Sodden though the ground may have been it did not prevent the twigs on the forest floor from snapping with the racket of a whiplash, or so she thought! It did not stop leaved branches she pushed past springing back with substantial swishing and swooshing sounds.
Sometimes with people in her situation a heightened rationality kicks in that brings a degree of order to the sense of self-preservation.
That rationality told her she needed to be quiet. She stopped. Heard her pursuers following her for a moment. Then silence ensued. She carefully fumbled around the forest floor and found a sizeable piece of rock.
She threw it towards a large tree. She heard a grunt. It did not make her feel happier. They could work out her location from the direction that the rock had traversed.
She caught on quickly. She moved slowly, silently and stealthily from where she had previously stood.
She lost her footing;. Fell underneath a bush. The earth formed a kind of crater and in the middle was a hole. Too big to be a rabbit hole she divined that it was a fox hole.
She heard her pursuers stalking her as quietly as possible. Even more ominously they had some high intensity torches. Very gently she scooped some leaves over her body until she was completely covered.
Closer and closer they came. The beams from their torches touching the ground nearer and nearer. She felt sure that they would be able to hear her heartbeat. To her it sounded like the amplified heartbeat at a Pink Floyd 'Dark Side of The Moon' concert she'd gone to: an age and a lifetime ago.
Three of them stood not too away from the bush. They whispered to one another. Their conversation told her that they were so called comrades. Why did they wish to kill her and her companion? After all they had always done what was asked of them. They had been loyal servants. To what end?
After what seemed an age they moved away, gently knocking the branches and bushes and shining their torches. They had said that they did not have much time. They had to get back to her comrade and deal with him before getting back to London.
She deliberated what to do. Wait until light. She would then make her decision. She curled into a ball in the damp leaves and fitfully dozed.
Meanwhile, the young woman's pursuers had returned to the cottage. They had her companion to deal with.
They had opened the windows so as to dissipate the CS gas fumes. They cursed the mosquitoes that seized the opportunity to rush into the building attracted by the odour of human flesh and blood.
They irritably swatted the irksome culicidae.
Once the gas had dispersed they shut the windows and shuttered them. They did not want to take the risk of any chance passer-by looking in nor did they wish for any sound to get out.
They turned their attention to the woman's comrade.
They had sealed his mouth with gaffer tape and seated him in a chair in the centre of the sitting room. They had nailed the chair to the floor. His hands and arms were tied under the chair with handcuffs. A respirator was put on his head and the respiratory tube shut closed. He began to suffocate because of the lack of air. He struggled to take off the handcuffs and as a result seriously injured himself. A strong pressure began to build in his head. He felt as though his eyes had popped out. Gradually, the voices of the butchers, his comrades? advising him "to take a deep breath", and their laughter seem to move far away from him. He flew into an abyss of darkness. He awoke slowly and heavily. Some incoherent sounds become words. ... Gradually, he understand that he had just died, visited the other world, but then again risen from the dead.
They questioned him further as to whether anyone knew who he and the young woman were. Each time he cried out a denial they did not believe him. They replaced the gaffer tape and cut off a finger. They were immune to his muffled cries and bulging eyes.
Three times he answered in the negative and each time they severed a digit. Dawn approached and they needed to be on their way. One took a pair of pliers, ripped away the gaffer tape and crushed his tongue to a bloody pulp. They delighted in his pain. Finally, another slit his throat. They left his broken body and mind to slowly die.. And die he did, very......very.... slowly. Nonetheless, he had sufficient time to wonder why? He had sacrificed everything. He had been an obedient servant. Why? Why? Why?
They also left the pliers and the knife on the table.
The young woman heard their car start up and the engine noise disappear into the distance.
She waited a few hours until daybreak before leaving her foxhole. She had decided what she was going to do.