PROLOGUE #3
Kielder Forest, Northumberland
17th November, 16:42pm GMT
An hour had passed since Jake left the path, forty-five minutes since he had tried to find his way back, and thirty since he noticed the snapping branches and rustling leaves. He wiped away the sweat trickling at his temple. Shining the torchlight, he searched through the darkening woods for a way out. Each tree looked the same as the last. He fingered the map in his pocket, squeezing the paper between index and thumb. What the hell had he been thinking of coming here? It was all bloody Marston’s fault. He should have just ignored the man.
Another branch snapped, but this time it sounded closer. Startled, Jake pushed away from the tree and lurched forward. His boot clipped a raised root snaking across the forest floor, and he stumbled, dropped his torch, and caught his outstretched palm against rough bark. It gouged the soft flesh and Jake sucked in his pain through gritted teeth. “Goddamn it!”
Another branch snapped behind him as he reached for the light.
The hairs on his neck prickled, and he froze mid-bend. Heart hammering, he grabbed for the torch. He had to see it. Whatever it was, he had to see. Swinging the light in an arc, he checked the dark spaces, but the light barely made a dent in the thickening gloom. There was nothing but branches, low shrubs, and the roots that rose from the soil like thick and ugly worms. The sound of scratching came from a patch of low undergrowth about three feet to his left. He trained the light there. Leaves shook, and something scurried, then darted from the undergrowth—probably a rat. Jake sagged with relief. Idiot! Just calm the hell down. He took another quick breath to ease the tightness of his chest and leant up against the tree, his back pressed against the bark, and he shivered.
There was something dead about these woods.
When the light was better, when he still had his bearings straight, he could see between the trees to the decaying forest. There, rotting stumps and the massive up-turned roots of wind-blown trees, were grown over with bright green moss. The moss undulated, smoothing the harsh lines of the broken trees, and they sat like gargoyles leering from the gloom as a low and rolling mist spread across the forest floor. You couldn’t make the place creepier if you tried. Jake cursed Dr Peter Marston and his damned secret for the tenth time since he’d lost his way in the forest. No, it was before that. He’d cursed him when the sat nav had quit working and he’d had to follow the map. He’d cursed him yet again when the track had become impassable and then again when he’d had to climb over the rusting wire fence that marked the forest boundary. The fence, which ran in either direction, and as far as the eye could see, was hung with a large red sign painted with white lettering: ‘DANGER. FIRING RANGE. NO UNAUTHORISED ENTRY. DANGER OF DEATH’. He’d ignored the warning, determined to prove that the old man was sane, and that his damned boss was up to no good. If Dr Marston’s ravings were true, the sign was just another ruse to put people off from entering and, from the undamaged state of the fencing, it looked as though it had worked.
Once over the fence, Jake had pulled out the map he’d found in Marston’s belongings. His sudden appearance on the ward, drugged to the eyeballs under Dr Spellman’s care, complete with black-suited bodyguards – they couldn’t scream government any louder – and the almost coma-level sedation Jake was expected to monitor, had aroused his suspicions, and he’d held back some of Marston’s medication. Once he was lucid, the man had begun to talk. Not that he made much sense, but it was obvious he wasn’t as ill as Dr Spellman was insisting. Intrigued, Jake had listened to his ramblings and become convinced that the man was sane, perhaps a little odd, but nevertheless being forcibly silenced.
Jake had convinced him to share his secrets with the promise of lessening the tranquiliser dosage and Marston had obliged. It turned out that the wily old goat had hidden the evidence up his chimney. The contents of the soot-covered package, Marston’s research notes, were mainly indecipherable to Jake, pretty much a foreign language, but among them was a map to the facility, and enough information to confirm that this particular conspiracy theory had merit.
Jake fingered the camera in his pocket. When he had enough evidence, he would hand it over to the board, and it would be sayonara Hilary Spellman. The old cow had it coming, and Jake would take great delight in watching her marched off the premises never to be seen again. She deserved it. She was as psychopathic as the worst patients under his care and seemed to take an especial delight in humiliating him. Jake stopped for a moment. What if the board were in on it too? Then he’d go to the police or leak it online.
As insurance, he’d contacted an old friend and rising indie journalist, Ed Spinnaker aka The Conspiracy Freak, hinted he was onto something big, mentioned the government/military complex, and that if he didn’t contact him by Wednesday night something had gone terribly wrong and that ‘they’ had probably taken him out. He’d made it clear that he was in no way ‘suicidal’ and in fact loved life and that details of his discovery could be found in the kitchen drawer of his apartment next to the sink. His heart beat a little faster with excitement. Whatever—he’d make sure Spellman’s efforts at taking directorship were ruined either way.
He took another breath, tried to ignore the scurrying of unseen forest creatures, and peered closely at Marston’s map. It was pointless. He had no idea where he was. No idea if he was travelling north, south, east, or west. He stuffed the map back into his pocket and considered turning back but instead gripped the torch, clenched his jaws, and continued forward. The old man didn’t deserve what they were doing to him, and Hillary bloody Spellman didn’t deserve the directorship she was so desperately clawing for either. No, sir. He would keep on until he found the evidence he needed. Sure, it was creepy as hell in the woods, but monsters weren’t real, and the abominations Marston and his mad scientist mates had created were all - please let it be so - dead. He just had to hold his nerve—that was all.
Get a grip, tubby!
He checked for daylight above the canopy and rechecked the map; it was winter, so the sun would set southwest. The light, as far as he could tell, was brightest at his back and the institute was to the east. He stuffed the map back into his pocket and headed in that direction. The faint wheedling buzz of tinnitus grew a little louder and he wiggled a finger in his ear to ease it.
As the light faded the trees grew blacker and the night colder. Jake zipped his jacket to beneath his chin, making the collar snug around his fat neck, and pulled up the hood. It gave protection against the branches and their sharp needles. The grey forest light quickly faded and, far from the light pollution of cities and towns, the night was dark, and the sky sprayed with a million glittering and intensely white stars.
Tarmac scuffed beneath Jake’s boots, and he stepped out onto a road.
“Yes!” He pumped his hand in the air with triumph.
White mist billowed around his face as sweat trickled down the centre of his back to the crease of his arse. He checked up and down the road. If he took the left, then the road should lead him to the Institute. If he went right – he swung the torch – if he went right, it should … the road was headed off by a thick bank of trees. He frowned and checked the map again. According to Marston’s map, this road led from the forest and back to the B456. He swung the torch to the left; the road stretched out, but a glimmer of white reflected in the distance. He stuffed his free hand into his pocket and strode towards it.
As he walked closer, he made out the shape of a rectangle. White paint reflected yellow in the torchlight and seemed to hang in the air but, as he approached, writing became evident. Another sign. This one read, ‘BIOLOGICAL HAZARD. CONTAMINATED LAND. ENTRY PROHIBITED.’ The sign was pitted with age and the fence it was screwed onto, rusting. Below it another sign had been added in case the first wasn’t enough to put you off. ‘DANGER OF DEATH. ELECTRIFIED FENCE.’ He snorted. Another ruse, but whoever put it up meant business; unlike the fence at the forest’s perimeter this one was made of solid metal panels and reached to more than twenty feet high. Deserted sentry boxes flanked either side of the road where it met the fence, guarding a padlocked gateway. Like the sign, they showed signs of age and their peeling white paint had become patterned green with algae and lichen. Moss sat in humps on their corrugated rooves.
Jake shrugged off his rucksack and pulled out the bolt cutter. The wheedling buzz in his ears intensified then disappeared as though a switch had been flicked. For a moment he considered that the fence may actually be electrified then dismissed the thought and caught the chain between the bolt cutter’s blades. It sliced through the link like a knife through butter and the padlock dropped to the tarmac with a clank. The heavy metal panel that acted as a door slid to one side with surprisingly well-oiled ease and stepped through to the other side.
The door slid shut behind him.
With a flash of dread that plummeted to the pit of his stomach like a particularly dense turd dropping into a well, he realised there was no handle on this side of the door.
Turning back to the forest, a tranche of dark earth at least thirty feet wide, and littered with the stumps of felled trees, sat between the fence and the forest. Nothing had grown in their place. Where the rotten trunks and fallen branches had been blanketed in moss on the other side of the fence, here they remained black and petrified. The tranche of earth was a desolate expanse: no ferns, no undergrowth, no lichen, no fungi. Between the wall and the edge of the forest, the land was completely barren.
A tree ahead shuddered, its branches creaking, and the faint buzz of tinnitus returned. Jake swung his torch to look, noticing a pair of eyes reflected from deep inside the tree’s canopy. Suddenly, the air filled with a screech and flapping of wings. Startled, Jake broke into a run, stumbled, regained his footing, swore at the bird, then marched along the road at a more sustainable pace. His knees, weakened by years of carrying multiple pounds of excess fat, creaked with the effort. Bloody Marston! He decided to find the Institute, take his photographs, get his evidence, then get the hell out of the freakish place. Pulling at the straps of his rucksack for reassurance, he trained the light along the road.
“Shit!”
The road with its crumbling tarmac now sprouting with grass, disappeared back into the trees.
A branch creaked to his right. He gritted his teeth - stupid birds, stupid rats! - and stepped into the forest. On the other side would be the Institute and maybe - please! - people working late at the office.
Something scratted in the undergrowth behind him. Louder this time—something bigger than a rat. Calm it, Jake! Could be a badger, or a fox. He swallowed as his throat suddenly dried. From somewhere deep in the forest another tree creaked, another branch fell, and the wind blew through the canopy.
Bloody shitting Marston!
He swung the torch and trained it in the direction of the noise. A pair of eyes shone from the trees—level with his own. Heart beating hard, he tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry. He gripped the torch as the eyes continued to stare. They were too large for a rat, and foxes didn’t perch in trees.
The eyes disappeared and rotten wood cracked in the undergrowth.
Training the torch back into the forest, he pushed his way through, picking up speed. Jake could no longer hear the creaking trees. All he could hear was his own breath and the throb of his pulse pounding in his head. Behind him a branch snapped. He swivelled. The eyes had returned. It was following him, whatever ‘it’ was. Unable to restrain himself, he began to run. Footsteps pounded behind him. He pushed past another branch no longer caring if it caught at his jacket or his face.
It was behind him; he could hear its breath.
Faster!
A dark figure appeared at his left, running through the trees. Jake crashed to the right, breath coming hard. Now running blindly through the woods, batting at low branches, his boot caught against a root, and he slipped. The soil gave way to a steep bank. He fell and tumbled down the slope, fingernails filling with soil as he clawed the earth. Rocks bruised his buttocks and thigh, and worming roots knocked against his shins as he grabbed for trunks and branches to stop his fall. Leaves crunched and clung to his jacket, and soil pushed against his lips and into his mouth as his cheek scraped the ground. He stopped with a thud against a thick trunk, winded and battered, the torch still in his hand.
Sour, fetid breath blew warm on his cheek.
He swung the torch to see.
Only inches away, with fangs glistening in the light and blood-red eyes staring with ravenous hunger into his, was something no longer human.
The beast snarled, and Jake’s scream died in his throat as it lunged.
In his final moments he realised that Bloody Shitting Peter Marston wasn’t insane but that he had been wrong; the creatures had not been exterminated!
More........!