Apex (Ben Bracken 2) Read online

  I can’t die a villain, scrubbed from Great Britain’s ledgers in the negative column. I just can’t. I only wanted to serve.

  Snap out of it, Ben. Now. Get this fire out. Busy yourself with shelter. Go.

  I can get maudlin at times, and introspective. Pathetic and helpless traits, but I know too well now that I am stuck with them. I hope to bury them for a while along with this rabbit carcass.

  When the fire is extinguished and dry earth scattered all over the site, and the rabbit bones and bits are safely subterranean, I make the short walk over to the conifer. In the failing light I can see its breadth and dark green fronds. I always felt they looked welcoming, in an open-boughed sort of way, and a childish recess of me likes the idea of sleeping beneath one. I strip off a large branch, easily as big myself, and a host of much smaller ones from irregular places around the parts of the tree I can reach.

  I intend to make a warm little coniferous pocket, suitable for only one, for me to wedge in beneath this tree. And I hope I sleep the night through. It will be as rough a nights sleep I’ve had in a while, but then I remember that last night was hardly The Dorchester.

  I crawl beneath the umbrella of the lowest branches, about a foot from the forest floor, and pull my branches and pack with me. I dig with my fingers a six inch trench, which takes me about an hour. I spend all that time trying not to let my mind wander. Once completed, I lie in the trench and cover myself with the fronds, and whip the dead leaves and dust around the base up around my sides. I use my pack as a cushion, and embrace the darkness. I lie still and concentrate on breathing.

  The depth of the forest seems to swallow me whole. I feel secure in my earthen bed, and I allow myself to slip deep into a subconscious velvet bed of simple, earthy green, and leave my mawkish compunctions for another time.

  SUNDAY

  8

  Agony. Absolute rasping, frothing agony.

  I feel burning, scorching heat rippling along my left arm, like a fuse was lit somewhere along my forearm and the spark is searing across the blue touch paper of my skin, right up to my shoulder.

  My eyes blitz open, witnessing only blackness, and I am struck with a fierce disorientation. Where the hell am I?! What the fuck is happening?!

  I force myself to sit up, but I scrape my face raw on the branches of the conifer I remember all too late. My face cheese-gratered, I roll onto my side then onto my front, shrugging off the foliage, grasping in the mud for something solid to latch onto.

  My hands full of dirt, I open my eyes again. And there I see it, silent in the murk. Disappearing from beneath the canopy, out onto the woodland floor. The instantly recognizable swish of a serpent’s tail, disappearing from view.

  A snake.

  Here, in England, I have been bitten by a snake. I must have been. This can’t be happening.

  Poisonous snakes on these shores are extremely few and far between, but I must be extremely careful. It could be an escaped zoo snake, on walkies from a terrarium, and might be a horribly dangerous import. I need to identify the thing. I scramble out to make chase, my arm screaming at me as I hoist myself up.

  It has not gone far, by the time I catch up with it. I can see it’s not big, but then again, sometimes the nastiest things aren’t. I’m not scared of snakes, but I will be now, considering the pain this thing has already inflicted upon me.

  It is about a half meter in length and predominantly brown, even in the moonlight dappling through the trees. Along its back is a darker brown patchwork of criss-cross scales, right up to a thicker broader head. I think its a common European adder, and relief washes across me. Adder bites are not considered to be too dangerous, that is if, the correct anti-venom is at hand.

  Which, of course, it’s not. Jesus. Nobody knows where I am, let alone myself.

  I let the snake skitter off into the forest, acknowledging that the deed is done now and no ill will towards the snake itself will undo the bite, nor the venom that is grappling through my veins this very second.

  I retrieve my pack from beneath the conifer, with great difficulty. Everything is an effort, even the short walk back to the tree. My mind, like a computer database, is trying to pull up everything I can remember about snake bites from my training. It is so difficult to do this through this haze of maddening pain, my teeth gritting back the boil of my blood.

  Why now!? Why!? This is just the worst timing for something like this to happen. I had the upper hand, the ball in my court, and the momentum. I was doing well, goddammit!

  I sit, and put my head between my knees, and try to calm down. Panicking will increase blood flow, and speed the hold of the venom as it cuts a blaze through my blood stream. My left forearm seems to be the source of the agony, and I shrug off my jacket and roll up my left sleeve to investigate.

  I am greeted by two weeping puncture marks, neatly side by side, like little crying eyes on my skin. I’m struggling to remember what I can about adders, snakes, snake bite management and an appropriate course of action at times like these. But the act of doing so occupies my mind, while I clean the wound with some water from my pack. Useful information drips into my present. The premier cause of trouble in animal bites, regardless of whether the animal was venomous or not, is the bacteria in the animal’s mouth at the time of the bite. Driving bacteria into your skin, thrusting it into your flesh, can lead to an infection just as life-threatening as any toxin. I must be mindful, and keep it as clean as I can.

  This is not the end. No, far from it. I am very lucky that the snake that bit me was an adder, however, in so many ways. So far from civilization, with no proper resources, a bite from a more venomous snake would doubtlessly kill me. But such is the lower toxicity of adder venom, I know I can make a decent stab at survival if I give it my all.

  I learned about snake care in Bolivia, in what feels like my previous life. I was visiting a marketplace, seeking provisions with which to stock my boat before I hit the river once more, and as I was admiring the colors, sights and sounds of such a vibrant, otherworldly setting, when I spotted a snake-charmer. I had never seen anything like that on my travels before, and found myself sparing a couple of moments.

  The snake in captivity was an Eyelash Pit Viper. It too wasn’t all that big, but you could tell that there was more to it than meets the eye. The way the snake was handled by its keeper was with a bizarre mix of disrespect, antagonism, love, deification and bullying. I couldn’t work out if the owner wanted to marry it or smash it on the head with the mallet he kept close by throughout his quirky little show.

  He seemed to give an in-depth talk to the onlookers, in Quechua with a peppering of Spanish in certain parts, about this particular type of snake. I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, but was amazed by the way he handled the thing. It was almost as if he was daring the snake to bite him, then at the last minute calming the viper and easing it back into a relaxed state. It was bizarre and mesmerizing.

  After his little routine, the finale of which was patting the viper on the top of the head, then offering his face to the viper by going nose to nose with it, I gave the man what I felt was a generous tip and asked him a couple of questions. We had an extremely broken conversation, which is now flooding back to me, leaking from wherever I had filed it away to.

  I asked him about venom. Miming a huge trunk and ears, I think he suggested it could kill an elephant. I asked about the fangs, and low and behold he showed them to me - he grabbed the snake by the side of its head and split its mouth apart with his finger.

  Inside was two curved fangs, and he explained in his inimitable style that regardless of where the bite-marks are, thanks to the curve and length of the fangs, the venom will have been deposited deeper into the tissue at an angle that is hard to reach. Sucking out the poison will only remove 20-30% of the venom, if you can even find the venom itself. Cutting out the venom is not an option, because you don’t know where the venom actually is thanks to the curve of the fangs. At best you’ll give yourself a nasty w
ound while you hack at the bite.

  The movies were all wrong. Nature is far more difficult to outfox here.

  How do I apply what I remember to my current predicament?

  A tourniquet, to restrict the flow of venom. That seems like a good idea.

  No, wait. If I apply a tourniquet, the venom will be concentrated in the one extremity, increasing the likelihood that I will lose function of the limb, and possibly the limb entirely.

  The problem is, I need anti-venom, and fast. But I don’t know where I can get it from. It might take me a while. If I localize the venom in this arm, with a tourniquet on my shoulder, the toxin will play havoc with the tissue of my arm. Ruddy, searing havoc. Losing the limb may become necessity.

  No, I must change tack. If I can get 20-30% of this venom out of my body by sucking it out, then that is 20-30% less venom that my body has to deal with before I can get proper care - which I must acknowledge, I need. I can’t jimmy anti-venom out of twigs, dirt and ingenuity. I need medical care to survive this.

  I place my mouth directly over the two adjacent puncture marks, and suck hard. Nothing. I can feel no movement, any suction. Nothing significant. I try again. And again.

  A feel a subtle bitterness on my tongue that I almost miss thanks to to throbbing in my arm. Unmistakable. I wonder if it is from the wound itself, but I am unsure. I suck at the bite again. Yes. I can taste it, a bitter harshness, that tastes like I always imagined the color black would taste like. It is a rancid but pure paradox of flavor. Animal kingdom meanness and evolution, right on the tip of my tongue.

  I pull away, unable to bare the taste anymore, and spit. I swill my mouth with water. I know venom would be fine if ingested, as it is distinctly different to poison. My stomach acids would break it down just like food. But if there is, say, a cut on my gum, or a sore somewhere in my throat that I don’t know about, the venom will enter the bloodstream again.

  I wash my mouth again, to be sure.

  I don’t know how much of the putrid elixir I managed to remove, but it will have to do. I need to get up, get moving, find civilization. I must work out a plan, an idea of who to approach when I actually reconnect with humanity. I’ll need to take chances. After all, this venom is not going to leave my body by itself. It will sit in there, dwell, nestle down, and take me over. It will kill me if I do nothing.

  Part of me, in a strange, sadomasochistic, begrudging way, respects the snake. The first adversary that has got to me on this strange journey. I grab my trusty duct tape, and, through blurring vision, tape up the bite. I check my watch, and see that it is 2.30am. I’ve barely had a couple of hours rest!

  I get up. Instinct urges me to reapply my camouflage, but common sense suggests that the sooner I am seen by someone, the better. No time for that now. I need to find civilization and a sympathetic soul. But which way to turn? Where to head now? Which is the quickest way to find humanity from where I stand?

  If I continue in the direction I have been heading since yesterday, I will eventually come across signs of human life. But that may be as far as another 30 miles away, across taxing terrain which will surely weaken my body, tag-teaming with its venomous sidekick to bring me down like a trophy. I try to picture a top-down map of Exmoor National Park in my head, and try to imagine where I am. But whenever I try to forge clarity in my mind, frantic claws rip at my nervous system, forcing me to focus on beating the pain back and not the task at hand. I can’t concentrate. The pain is too great.

  I start walking, hard and purposeful, keeping the venom at bay with activity. I stomp a course through the forest, the verdancy blending into a snotty, swirling, sickly mulch. I focus on my steps, which will be my route survival, and their rhythm. To occupy my wandering frantic mind I try to keep my steps in time to an imaginary beat, like a primitive ritualistic dance to keep evil away. I could sure do with that now.

  It is, of which there is no doubt, a time for mental strength, and discipline. Panic is no good. I try to calm, visualizing relaxation, freshness and soothing images. I picture a fresh white linen sheet flung out to float down onto a kingsize bed, imagining my mind in such a state of mental refreshment. But as soon as the sheet lands, a giant, bloody fishhook rips up through the bed, smoldering with impossible black flames, angry embers spitting everywhere, and it retreats with fury - bloodily ripping the sheet, the bed, the whole happy image, down into a hellish abyss of pure pain.

  I physically shake my head to rid the image. I try to start again, but the exact same thing happens. A sheet. White, floating linen. An explosive fishhook, blood spraying, the scene destroyed. Pain again.

  I start to run, as if I could leave it all behind. The landscape is transforming in front of me. Slight rises of the forest floor become jagged mountain peaks, too difficult to cross. Hanging branches become the long, swirling tentacles of land-borne octopi, huge and gnarled, reaching for me.

  This is some kind of fresh hell. I try to compose myself, and bring my watch into focus. It takes a Herculean effort, and I eventually pull the face up to my own using two hands, straining as if the watch was loaded with weights. Then the numbers dance, leaping and cavorting, the second hand daring them as it turns, a game of ‘what’s the time Mr Wolf?’ between once-fixed numbers and a pursuing, staccato second hand. I try to isolate the smaller hour hand.

  Where is it? I can’t.... There. It’s there.

  I try to look to where it is pointing, but the distance between the smaller hand and the numbers it points to becomes a desert of concentration, constantly interrupted by jutting, dancing intrusion. I eventually make it. It’s just gone 12.

  In the red haze of my bubbling blood, I eventually work out that I have been like this for some 9 hours. Time has burned past in a feverish dream. I have no idea how far I have come, what direction I have gone in, and what has happened to me.

  All I can really pinpoint for sure, is that I am in a lot of trouble.

  Alarm. The hair on my neck stands on end, instinct ripping me straight and upright, enlivened by my highly trained sixth sense. I drop to the deck, and scramble through the earth into the nearest patch of overgrowth.

  I am not alone. There’s someone else out there.

  Have my pursuers finally caught up with me? Have I been stomping back towards them, and eventually presented myself to them, their prey placed in their lap with a bow on top.

  I hear a crunch in the wilderness. A light snap of a soft footfall. It is not my pursuers. I just know it. This is different. I recognize what it is like to be hunted. And that’s just what is happening now.

  I have a new enemy, one that seeks to take advantage of me in my moments of weakness.

  Well, I aim to make whoever it is realize that they have bitten off more than they could ever possibly chew. Perhaps my pursuers have employed a master tracker, or an elite team?

  No. There is one. Only one. It’smano a mano out here. Pure combat, nature’s way, martial law. Just the forest, the earth, and our separate wills to survive.

  The pain in my arm recedes, overtaken by this new challenge. Finally, my mind is occupied. A cruel part of me wishes this foe had shown up sooner.

  More soft footfalls. Soft, tentative feet on a forest floor filled with things that can betray your position. I turn in the direction of the footsteps, look and listen.

  Nothing. It has stopped. With great care, I reach into my pocket for my multitool, and slide the knife out of its compartment. I grip the blade between my teeth, my eyes never wavering from the direction of the footsteps.

  Silence. Time passes. The forest is eerily quiet, the wildlife paying its respects to the dance of combat that is taking place in their midst. This quiet is all-entrenching. A vacuum of impending bloodshed.

  I move through the undergrowth nimbly and dexterously, my nose never far from the dirt, my eyes scanning and filtering. Something feels out of place, skewed and off-centre. It’s strange. I feel like my brain is struggling to cope with the task, a cerebral firewall stopping from con
necting simple dots efficiently. I keep low, and try to move with as little noise as possible, and that’s when I stumble across the track.

  There in the moist dirt ahead. Freshly imprinted, the moisture still visible in the dark complexion of the mud. Two thin curved prongs. It’s a hoof. And there’s another. Side by side.

  As if walking upright on two fucking legs.

  Before I know it, the racehorses of my darkest dreams bolt from their stables and race across the rolling hills of my already-sieged mind. Images of horror and hellish beasts fill my retinas. I am in the presence of devilry. Of evil. Of the beast.

  It’s a tale locked in my subconscious, swapped between children in hushed tones at primary school. ‘Do you know about ‘The Devil’s Footprints?’, they would ask. It is a tale rooted so deeply in British myth and folklore that here and now it comes racing back to the foreground as if I just heard about it. In the 1850’s, people awoke on a snowy morning to find curved footprints across the Devonshire countryside. They were unbroken, one after the other, of a hoofed creature walking upright. The tracks went on for 100 miles, across roofs, over high walls, through meadows, and towns. Not a solitary step was missed. The source of the mystery was never solved.