The girl turned, grabbed him by the wrist. Come on, we've got to go this way because if we don't they will catch up with us. They will have missed us by now, be on our trail.
He did not resist, allowed her to pull him gently along. Winding paths through towering dark green trees, an occasional clump of grass or some ferns in those places where the sun found a way through. You got the impression that this coniferous monster was slowly swallowing you up and there was no way back. Ever.
Phil noticed his companion glancing behind her every so often, once stopping to listen. Total silence, even the corvines weren't calling any longer. Probably they had flown out to the fields for their morning feed, found death in a variety of forms and scavenged hungrily. A train of thought that led back to himself; Phil was aware how dry his mouth had gone, a sour taste on his furred tongue. He and the girl could end up like that, maybe not even dead when those filthy birds flew in, not enough strength to ward them off. Feeling your flesh being gouged by claws, sharp beaks ripping it from the bones. They always went for the eyes first . . .
The sun was up. Occasionally they glimpsed it through the dense fir branches, felt its heat. Next came the flies, black swarms which had possibly grown tired of feeding on stinkhorn. His companion seemed oblivious of them even when they settled on her, crawled over her face. Phil swatted at them ceaselessly, futilely. A kind of game which you couldn't win, like a rigged fairground gallery; you hit one but it didn't drop, buzzed angrily and came in at you again.
They had to emerge from the wood soon, surely. Phil knew the place vaguely although he had never ventured up here before, a skyline view from his parents' farm. Once his father had gone up there looking for missing lambs but Phil had stayed behind with his mother. The wood couldn't be all that big. If you kept walking you had to come out at the other end eventually. He wondered if the girl knew where she was going or whether she was just running blindly. He wished he could talk to her, make her understand things beyond the simplicity of sign language. No sign of life, not even a rabbit or a grey squirrel; a dead, dead place. A host of fears. Perhaps they were going round in circles, would still be in here when night came again. Their pursuers must realise where they had fled, might be in here now searching for them, crouching in the trees, listening for soft footfalls on the thick carpet of dead pine needles. Phil Winder found himself watching the uppermost branches of the trees as they passed beneath them. When he had been captured the attack had come from above.
Suddenly the fugitives were out of the trees. The path veered sharply to the right, then a left-hand bend, and before them were the familiar bracken—and heather-covered hillsides sloping steeply downwards. The other side of the Hill.
They stood there just looking at the scenery like a couple of holidaymakers who had spent the day climbing to the summit of a fell just to look back on the panoramic view. A patchwork of green quilt untidily stitched together with ragged hedgerows that had been mutilated by modern flail-cutters and which Nature was doing her damnedest to hide with lush new growth, farm buildings which had stood for a century or more, sheep grazing peacefully. Nothing untoward about it from this distance, you might even have kidded yourself that everything was perfectly normal, that the wood behind you had conjured up some awful nightmare but you were fast getting it out of your system.
But it was the sheer silence that told you everything wasn't all right, told you that it wasn't just a dark dream brought on by that forest. It was real.
A familiar scene viewed from a different angle. Phil Winder noted the farms and holdings, found himself working out their locations, their ownership. Gwyther's in the hollow, and if you followed the Hill right round you came to that new chap's place. He tried to remember the fellow's name. It eluded him. And then he found himself staring directly down on his own folks' farm, identification slow to filter through because he had never imagined it would look quite like that from above. The house, the yard, that dutch barn with just a few bales of last year's hay left in it whilst the growing crop was already starting to spoil in the fields. Sheer waste, but it didn't damned well matter any more, did it?
Jackie was pulling at his arm, the brief respite in her urgency over. We must not delay, they are surely not far behind us. Let us follow the valley; pointing, stabbing the air with a finger in an easterly direction.
'No,' he snapped, pointed at the Winder farm insistently. 'We can go there. That is my home.'
She didn't understand, was becoming frantic, pulling at his arm, making little grunting noises. We must hurry.
And that was when he hit her. A stinging slap across the face that jerked her head sideways, brought a yelp of shock and pain from her lips. Anger had him yelling, 'That's my bloody home down there and if I want to go back I will and you can go your own way.1 I don't want to go home, I walked out because of what happened there, but since I found out about the outside world I'm running back. To hide. To die.
Guilt and remorse came fast on the heels of his unleashed fury. 'Oh Christ, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you.' I did, I just wish I hadn't.
He saw the tears in her eyes, the way her body trembled.
She was trying to cry but it didn't come easy because out here crying was a weakness that your own kind took advantage of. If only he could made her understand; point down there to that farmhouse, tap your chest. My home. It might get through.
He didn't need to because her hand had found his again, a squeeze this time instead of an insistent tug. I'm sorry, it was not my place to protest against your will because you are now my man.
It was settled then and he knew that she would follow him down the Hill.
He had to keep reminding himself that it was only yesterday that he had left the farm. It seemed an age, like returning home for the summer vacation, wondering what had changed in his absence.
Jackie's grip tightened on his arm but she wasn't trying to dissuade him from going into the house, only showing her own fear of an unfamiliar dwelling-place. He saw her amazement at things like doors and windows, the smoothness of the stonework on the walls. Starting in alarm as the latch clicked, clinging to him like a child.
Phil glanced around, thought perhaps his mother and father might have returned. But they hadn't. Once you turned feral you didn't come back.
Jackie stood there watching him as he went to the kitchen cupboard, reached down a can of beans and a small square tin of corned beef, began to open them. He filled the kettle, discovered to his relief that there was still power coming from the generator. Jackie backed away a step as the kettle began an increasing hum up towards the boil. He gave a little laugh, the first time he had seen the funny side of all this since he had come up from the mine. How the fuck do you explain coffee to an Ancient Brit?
His first task was to work at putting her at her ease. After they had eaten he would look out some clothes for himself; he didn't need them but it would boost his morale. Then they would need to rest. He had not slept for thirty-six hours and he doubted if she had either.
Once again his inhibitions surfaced. Where and how were they going to sleep? There were three bedrooms upstairs, his own, his parents', and the spare room which was full of lumber. He didn't want to sleep in his parents' because . . . well, not after that, certainly. His own then, just a single bed.
'We'd better get some sleep.' He closed his eyes, made a pillow out of his pressed hands.
She nodded, took his arm again. Where you go, I go.