The Dead Tracks

Sona

Sona woke. Next to her, Mark was lying on his stomach, the sheet gathered at the small of his back, breathing so quietly she could barely hear him. On the floor, their clothes were scattered everywhere: a blouse, a skirt, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a jacket. Shoes at the door. Underwear still clinging to the ends of the duvet.

She sat up and caught sight of herself in the reflection of the mirror. Naked, and still a little conscious of it, even though they were nearly six months into their relationship. It was a feeling that was slowly starting to pass. Mark made her feel good about herself in a way few men had before. That didn't mean he complimented her a lot either, but she'd made allowances for that. He was incredibly shy, so different from the other men she'd known, and she liked that about him. She'd always had reactive men before. Men who told her she was beautiful and then ended up tearing her heart out. She found Mark's stillness — his sense of quiet — new, exciting and secure.

She headed to the bathroom and closed the door, looking at herself again in the mirror. In her twenties she'd done a little modelling and, as she'd passed into her thirties, she'd lost none of her looks. The blonde hair, blue eyes and high cheekbones could still turn heads, even if she saw changes elsewhere. Maybe a little more weight than she should have had. A few more lines at the corners of her eyes. Some of the definition around her stomach had gone. She'd be thirty-six in two days, and knew she had imperfections now. But she'd found a man who was able to look past all of it.

A man she was falling in love with.

They'd been driving for about twenty minutes when Mark told her she could remove the blindfold. Sona reached up and pulled the tie away. Her head throbbed slightly. She wasn't sure if it was the start of a headache, or the sudden switch from dark to light. Sun poured into the car as she looked around, and saw they were in a parking space on a narrow residential street. Identical terraced houses ran along either side of the road. Most hadn't been maintained with any sense of pride: paint blistered on windowsills, plants were dying in small concrete yards, broken gutters hung loose.

'It gets better,' Mark said, turning to her. 'Promise.'

'Where are we?'

'I used to come here sometimes.' He pointed a finger towards a small alleyway running between two houses further down. It was the only break in the buildings, on either side, for as far as they could see. To the woods down there.'

'Woods?'

Mark killed the engine.

'They used to make munitions in this area during the Second World War, at a factory further up the road. This whole place was once one of the centres of British industry. Now look at it…' He studied the houses opposite. When he turned back, he glanced at Sona and smiled. 'Oh shit, I've just turned into my dad.'

She laughed. He smiled, then reached down to the side of his seat. A second later, he brought out a single red rose. 'Happy birthday, Sona,' he said quietly.

She took the rose, a cream ribbon tied to the stem. Something moved across his face — as if he was on the verge of telling her something important.

He wants to tell me he loves me.

She waited for a moment, and when it didn't come, leaned into him and kissed him gently on the lips. 'Thank you, baby,' she said. When she drew away, she saw the same expression. 'Are you okay?'

He glanced towards the alleyway, then turned back to her.

'I just…' He paused. 'I'm just really…'

In love with you.

She smiled and squeezed his leg, kissing him on the cheek.

He nodded to the back seat. 'I hope you're hungry.'

She turned. She'd heard him sliding something into the back after he'd blindfolded her and guided her to the car. Now she could see it had been a hamper.

'Shall I take you to our picnic spot?' he asked.

'Yes,' she said, her voice trembling a little. 'I'd love that.'

Mark led her away from the car, carrying the picnic hamper. They turned into the alleyway and followed it until it opened up on to a concrete bed with a series of half-demolished brick walls across it. She realized then that it had once been a factory. To her left and right were more ruined walls, remnants of another age; some still just about standing, some nothing but piles of bricks and dust, grass and weeds crawling through the foundations.

Rubbish was dumped everywhere: beer bottles, drinks cans, crisp packets, sweet wrappers, dustbin liners full of rotting food. The smell was awful.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'It really Does get better.'

Ahead of them, carved like a mouth into a line of huge fir trees, was the entrance to the woods Mark had talked about. Everything was overgrown. As they moved past a warped, broken gate and along the path, trees leaned in over them, their foliage thick and dark. Grass was everywhere, sprouting up waist-high around the tree trunks, and breaking through the cracks in the gravel path. The further in they got, the less defined the trail became until, eventually, the gravel turned into hard mud.

'Everything's so thick,' she said.

'Yeah. Nothing ever seems to die here.'

Sona glanced right. Through a gap in the trees, she could make out huge letters on the side of another factory: munitions. There was row after row of smashed windows, jagged glass still in the frames, nothing inside but darkness.

'I always think they look a bit like eyes,' Mark said.

She nodded. What a creepy old building.'

He put his arm around her shoulder and brought her into him. 'Don't worry - I'll protect you from the scary factory.'

She laughed, and gave him a playful slap on the shoulder.

Crack.

A noise from behind them. She stopped. Mark walked on a couple of steps, his arm slipping away, then he paused and turned to look at her.

What's the matter?'

She looked around her. Wind passed through the trees, whispering gently as the leaves fluttered against the branches.

'Sona?' he said, taking a step closer to her. 'Are you okay?'

She took his outstretched hand.

'Sona?'

Finally she looked at him. "Yeah. I guess I'm fine.'

They carried on walking. The path was starting to arc left, moving in a gentle curve. Before long, the hardened mud started to disappear beneath their feet, and in its place came more grass. But then Sona spotted a clearing about eighty feet in front of them. The canopy wasn't as thick, and sunlight was punching through the branches and leaves in hundreds of pollen-filled rectangles. It looked beautiful.

'Wow,' she said. 'Look at that.'

Mark smiled. 'That's our picnic spot.'

When they reached the clearing, he started to unpack the hamper, laying down a blanket on the knee-high grass, and removing packets of biscuits and cheese.

Sona looked around her. 'How do you know about this place?'

'I used to come here as a boy.'

'Are we far from home?'

Mark looked up. 'Not far.'

'It's so quiet -'

Crack.

The same noise again. Like fallen branches snapping and breaking underfoot. And now something else too. A sound behind it. What is that?

She stared across the clearing. Where the trees began again to her right, it was dark: hundreds of trunks gradually fading away into blackness; thick, tangled branches preventing sunlight getting through from above.

'Can you hear that?'

Mark continued unpacking. 'Hear what?'

She looked back at him. 'It's like a…'

He glanced at the spot she'd been studying, and back to her. 'Like a what?'

'Like a…' She looked worried now. 'A whimpering'

She turned back to the woods, her eyes narrowing.

Then something moved.

A skittle of darkness darting between tree trunks. She took another step forward, leaning slightly, trying to look beyond the initial row of trees. It moved again. Swapping between cover, one trunk to the next.

'There!' she said. 'Did you see that?'

Mark stood and fell in beside her.

'Something moved in there.'

He was turned to her now.

'Is it an animal?'

No response.

'Mark?' More silence. She turned to him. 'Mark?'

Something flashed in his eyes, the same expression she'd seen earlier. He wanted to tell her something important again. But it wasn't that he loved her, just - she suddenly realized - as it hadn't been earlier. It had never been a look of love.

It had been a look of regret.

'I'm sorry, Sona.'

'Sorry for wha—'

He grabbed her around the neck and yanked her into him. Locked his arm around her throat and clamped a hand over her mouth. As she tried to scream, he squeezed harder with his fingers so that no sound escaped. Then he pulled her down with him, her legs desperately kicking out as she hit the grass. She looked up, her eyes pleading, trying to find a trace of the man she'd known for almost six months. Instead, he released the arm from her throat and punched her in the side of the head.

She rolled over, dazed. On to her back.

When she opened her eyes, Mark was standing over her.

'I can't do this any more,' he said, looking away at something.

And then everything went black.