Apex (Ben Bracken 2) Read online

  The story left an indelible impression on me, and was the first thing that kept me truly awake at night. And now, in one of my darkest moments, of which there have admittedly been a few, the Devil’s Footprints have reappeared.

  And it seems I will be the first person to see what infernal creature made them, but not only that... it wants me. It wants to bring me down. If it’s a fight this creature wants, it’s a fight it will get. But I can’t help feeling overwhelmed and more under-prepared than ever.

  My God... It is real! The stories, the legends, the old wives tales... all based in truth and fact. Jesus Christ.

  I can’t believe this. I just can’t. Why me. Why now? After all this time, with no conclusions afforded such a myth before, why am I faced with such evil?

  What do I do? What is this thing?

  I need to get a fix on it. If it simply wants to pass through here, I will happily let it do so and simply take with me a story with which to keep my imaginary grandchildren awake at night. If I could only get a look at it to bolster the tale...

  The tracks are easy enough to follow. Hoof prints, one after the other, evenly spaced apart. Without warning, I feel eyes boring into me, from somewhere ahead, their sinister intentions pinning me to the spot. I have engaged the beast, without really having meant to.

  Shit. You idiot, Ben.

  I have provoked it. And it knows where I am. I slowly raise my eye-line to look at the foliage ahead, but can’t see anything amiss. I still feel it though. Cold but burning. Judging and measuring. What are you made of, Ben?

  My eyes are drawn higher, above the foliage, and all my horrors reveal themselves in full. No wonder I couldn’t see it down where I was looking. The beast is huge. My terror threatens to spill over, as I meet its still gaze. Its head is about nine feet above the ground, perched on broad shoulders. Its skin is clad in a dark fur, with a black, unnaturally-elongated face, which will haunt me until my last breath - however close that may be. Its nose is wet and jet black, thick nostrils gulping my scent. Its eyes are huge black billiard balls, just two deep pupils, that protrude nauseously from its dreadful warped skull. Atop its head, as if growing from its very skull like weeds, is a tight, close, tangled knot of jagged horns. It is hell personified. The devil behind the footprints.

  I can’t keep my terror at bay. I must transform my horror into fuel for this impending fight between man and beast. I must charge, and take the fight to my adversary. I have seen it. It is flesh and blood. Flesh can be cut and blood can be spilt. And when there’s no blood left, the beast will fall. Just like any other enemy.

  This abomination will be no different. It will taste steel at my hand, if it so chooses to take me on.

  It shakes its head, and bellows. The trees shake and my knees quiver as it screams at me, in a voice from another world entirely.

  Be strong, Ben. Show of strength. I scream back as hard as I can, long and clear.

  It hurts. My chest constricts as if in a spiked vice, and my head feels as if it might explode on the spot. My brain feels like its trying to scale the walls of my skull for escape, like ants in a bucket. But, I find myself struggling to catch my breath, feel my knees buckle, and, almost immediately, dirt on my face.

  I lie there immobile, undone pitifully by that last exertion, as I watch the devilish beast take a step towards me, knowing there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I close my eyes, and hope that the end will be quick.

  9

  The forest is whizzing by, flushing past my eyes, with a sense of detachment and futility. It is over. I fell to the beast. My dignity bled out to be forever lost on the forest floor.

  The beast has me in its whirlwind clutches, carrying me through the forest to its lair. It wants to savor me. The bastard.

  It smells artificial, in the beast’s grip. Unnatural, almost synthetic. I suppose that’s to be expected this close to something so beyond my comprehension. I try to peel my eyes from the blurred trees, but I can’t. It is too difficult, the zoetrope greens too transfixing.

  As if noticing my struggle, the beast speaks to me.

  ‘We are nearly there,’ it says, in a soft, almost parental voice.

  ‘Fuck you,’ I whisper, knowing that whatever I say will make no difference to my fate.

  ‘You are in a bad way,’ the beast says, again fooling me with how sweetly it speaks to me. I wish I could take a look at the beast, show it that it’s not fooling anybody. ‘We’ll have you in hospital soon,’ it whispers.

  I find those words rattling inside me, and breaking off a piece of recognition as they tumble. Hospital. No. Not now, after coming so far.

  I want to tell the beast ‘no’. No! No hospitals. Just you and me. It is typical of such a beast to taunt me with salvation.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No hospitals. Just you and me to the bitter end.’

  The beast doesn’t answer. It must be mulling that over. I hope, before it decides which way to end my life if it hasn’t already, that I have impressed it. That I have shown stoutness and dignity in the face of adversity. I hope so, because none of that will mean a great deal soon when it is feasting on my entrails.

  10

  A flutter of cool breeze wakes me, whispering furtively on the hairs of my arm. My head is thumping, a giant smashed cranial Easter egg, left to rot after a fall. My eyes peel open, crusty sleep unbinding with effort. I feel soaked, and disgusting.

  For a start, it seems I’m in a bed. Alive. I have a bit of clarity back, it seems. A bit of myself has returned after a long fractured departure. I have no recollection of how I got here, nor the events leading up to when I must have lost consciousness.

  It is dark. And I remember the snake bite. I judder to an upright position, getting more of a feel for the room I am in. I’m in kind of a cot bed, in what looks like a darkened... laboratory? There are polished surfaces, glass tubes, computers, all glinting blue from a light source peering through a glass-paneled door in the corner. I can even see a microscope back there on a gleaming chrome workbench. I’m an a very swish, high-end lab of some kind.

  Any thoughts that I am in a hospital have been immediately eradicated. But somehow, I have evidently been cared for, as I peruse my body. I am still dressed, which is a relief, and in the low light I can make out that I am utterly filthy, and have caked the once-white sheets of the bed in mud, sweat and grime. They are black and stinking. Much like myself. My jacket has been removed, and my left shirt sleeve has been rolled up. The snake bite, or where I assume it is, is now covered in a surgical dressing, held in place by micropore tape, as is the cut between my toes. And in the back of my right hand, is a canula leading to an IV drip at the foot of the bed. I follow the tubing up to a half full bag of clear white fluid labelled ‘saline’. On the windowsill at the foot of the bed, sits three other empty IV packets. I’ve obviously been a thirsty boy.

  A voice cuts into the dark, immediately fraying my nerves.

  ‘Welcome back’ it says, in hushed female tones. I dart my head towards the source, my eyes scouring for the speaker. She must have been here the entire time.

  ‘Hello?’ I say, as a shuffle behind me gives away her position. She, whoever she is, moves around to the side of the bed so I can see her.

  ‘You are suddenly being a lot more pleasant towards me. It makes for an agreeable change,’ she says.

  I am confused. I don’t remember ever seeing or speaking to anyone. All I remember is a struggle, a descent and a brush with.... darkness.... and evil. I struggle for words but I don’t know what to say at all.

  ‘I have helped walkers out in the park before, when they have got themselves into a sticky patch or two. But none of them have ever told me to ‘fuck off’ before,’ she says.

  She reaches for a wheeled stool from beneath the nearest work bench, and scoots it to my bedside. I see a slender female form, in jeans and a dark jumper. As she sits, and faces me, she presents a woman of studious fire. Wire-framed glasses magnifying huge chestnut eyes, dark hair up i
n a hasty pony-tail and neat features arranged on olive skin. Lithe, tall with a taut athletic frame, even when folded onto the chair.

  ‘If I said that to you, I am very sorry’ I say, trying to pull myself up. ‘And I am very sorry for the mess I have made here.’

  The woman smirks. ‘Yes. I’m not sure how I would explain this if it wasn’t the weekend. But the centre will be empty until Monday, so Sunday will now become laundry day.’

  The centre?

  ‘Where am I?’ I ask, measuring her for an honest response.

  ‘Well, I wanted to take you to the hospital, but that didn’t go down all that well. That only made you more angry. And you were already a bit... wound up. I saw the snake bite, recognized the symptoms, so I figured I had what I needed to patch you up here. Besides it was Saturday afternoon when I found you. And forgive me, but I’m not sure I would have made it in any case. The weekend traffic is terrible round here in summertime. You needed anti-venom. Fast. We had everything here that could help in the short term’.

  There is a hint of South Eastern Europe about her accent, a soft lilt of something possibly Balkan.

  ‘I am very grateful, Miss...?’ I ask.

  ‘Doctor...’ she says.

  ‘Doctor...?’

  ‘Ridgewell. But since it’s the weekend, just call me Amina.’

  ‘Thank you for everything, Dr Ridgewell.’

  ‘You are welcome, Mr Miller.’

  That throws me. She has been through my things, obviously, and found my fake identity. In fact, where are my things? A bolt of panic fires deep within as I check my shorts pocket -

  ‘All your things are safe. As is your little trinket,’ says Amina, eyeing me with more than a hint of suspicion. ‘It’s quite a lovely little piece you have there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Where is it, Dr. Ridgewell?’ I can’t stop the seriousness from my voice, which I can see doesn’t surprise her at all. She might know more than I do at this point.

  ‘Like I said, it’s all safe,’ she replies with strength.

  ‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ I reply. ‘What happened to me?’

  ‘Well, if it wasn’t so life-threatening, it would have been funny,’ she says crossing her legs and smoothing her jeans, even though there are no creases in the first place. ‘I was in the forest on my rounds, and I heard a man - you - howling, like in a madness. I followed the sound and saw you, filthy and enraged, screaming at a young stag on a brow above you. Poor thing was terrified.’

  ‘A deer?’ I ask, confused. I have a memory of something...

  ‘Yes, a young one,’ she continues. She cocks her head to one side, as if trying to gauge my reactions. ‘You passed out into the dirt, and the deer bolted, probably grateful for its life. I went to you, and saw fever and dehydration instantly. I found the snakebite and brought you back here.’

  ‘And here is?’ I ask, tentatively.

  ‘The field centre for the Exmoor National Park Authority. We manage and monitor the ecology of the park from here, with a rather middling grant from the government.’

  The word ‘government’ jangles immediate alarm bells, but before I can ask anything Amina continues.

  ‘Hold on, it’s about to get very exciting,’ she says with dry sarcasm. ‘We have one of the first cases in the country of Verticillium Dry Bubble, here in the park. I was out collecting samples, on a sunny afternoon, when I came across your little scene.’

  Catching my confusion, she clarifies.

  ‘VDP is a fungal disease, affecting mushroom crops. We are trying to find out how and why it got here. I’m a microbiologist working on the project. Not what I had in mind when... well, here I am.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘And the snake bite?’

  ‘You should be fine now, but you still need to get to hospital for the all clear. It was a nasty one. You had fought the venom off by yourself for a long time, with little water or nourishment. You were in a state of extreme disorientation, dehydration and hallucination. It nearly killed you. We had the anti-venom here, which has done the trick, along with a box full of saline.’

  I am suddenly very grateful, and relieved, and I can feel myself relax, only a little. The awful encounter with the beast, that I can only remember in fragments, was nothing more than a hallucination. My weakened mind encountered a deer, and filled in the hysterical blanks.

  ‘Thank you very much, Amina,’ I say. ‘I really mean that. And I am so sorry for all the trouble I have caused.’

  ‘No harm done,’ replies Amina.

  ‘Who... knows I am here?’ I ask, hesitantly.

  That seems to alert Amina a little, and I can understand why. That’s the kind of question someone asks when they don’t want to be found. But she seems more than capable - hard, even. Worldly. Not to be messed with. I’ll need to gauge where her loyalties lie, and her answer to my last question will give me more than a fair indication.

  ‘Nobody. The centre is empty at the weekends. Not a lot happens around here’.

  I’m pleased with the answer. It is open, even, non-committal.

  ‘Why does it matter who know you are here?’ asks Amina. Her face is open, her eyes wide, feigning an innocence to her question. She is no fool, this one.

  ‘I’d rather... this was kept quiet,’ I reply, testing the waters warily. But she could have told someone already, even if she says she hasn’t. She seems all too aware that there is more than just a haphazard motive to my being stranded in the woods. I was indeed there for a reason, and she seems just as curious to work out why.

  ‘I guessed that. Why?’ She still retains that non-judgmental gaze, which, matched by a softening tone, goes some why to make me want to let my guard down. I mustn’t forget that, above all, this is a government facility, and there has been more than a whiff of crooked government in this adventure so far. Keeping careful is a priority.

  ‘Like I said, I’m grateful for the help,’ I say, weakly shifting my legs around the side of the bed. It’s not easy, since they feel as reliable as soaked papier mache.

  ‘You are not that talkative? Neither would I be if I had been running around all over the countryside for the last couple of days. But, I still want to know about the trinket.’

  Rumbled. She knows the earring has significance, but how? Have the authorities chasing me revealed the reason for their pursuit to the public? Surely not...

  ‘Why do you ask?’ I venture.

  ‘Well, look at you. You are a rough man. The kind of man who takes it upon himself to trudge through wilderness and cake himself in mud to keep prying eyes away. You carry barely anything with you, except for only the basics. Your idea of a first aid kit is a roll of industrial tape. A trinket bearing an exotic jewel is not the kind of luxury item I would associate with a man like you.’

  ‘Ouch. Thanks, I suppose.’

  ‘I noticed it, when I dragged you onto the bed. I fished it from your pocket, so that you wouldn’t damage it in the night while you were tossing and turning. As I got it out, I realized it was already damaged, your trinket. It is not gold. A solid gold earring doesn’t crumble simply in a pocket.’

  ‘You sound like you’ve been given enough crap jewelry to know a knock-off when you see one.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You’re right. I don’t know my jewelry.’

  ‘So that makes you either very sentimental... or it is the reason you have been keeping such a low profile,’ her eyes finally show a glint of mischievous purpose. ‘And I bet it is the latter.’

  I look at her as hard, but I know I can’t muster the strength to really glare. I really don’t feel physically well enough to argue with her too vigorously. My body is craving quiet and cold water, in the immediate aftermath of the fever.

  ‘You do know that it’s not a jewel it carries, don’t you?’ she says.

  Even through the mental fog, her words pierce the veil bringing with them immediate intrigue. My reaction must have already betrayed my surprise, as her own
eyebrows rise above her glasses.

  ‘You didn’t know?’ she says.

  I shake my head, literally not knowing what to say.