The Dead Tracks

Chapter Twenty-nine

It was three by the time I found Derry Street — the nearest road to Hark's Hill Woods on its southern side — and it was a truly miserable network of terraced houses. Everything had a derelict, run-down feel to it, compounded by the fact that there was absolutely no one around. No kids playing. No people talking on doorsteps. Just a grey autumn still.

As the road began to rise, beyond the rooftops of the houses to my left, I could see the empty factories I'd spotted in the satellite photos. They too were deserted, but in a more obvious way: decaying brickwork, hollowed-out windows, some entrances boarded up, some lying open in an invitation to drug addicts, the homeless and teenagers on a dare. When the road dropped off again, the factories disappeared, but - a quarter of a mile on - I spotted a small alleyway where the terraced housing broke for the first time. A tattered sign pointed along it. It was illegible, blistered by the sun and worn by rain. A kid, about fifteen, was sitting on the steps of his house watching me. I parked up, got out of the BMW and set the alarm. The kid continued to watch.

I looked at him. Afternoon.'

He didn't say anything. His eyes flicked from me to the alleyway, as if I was about to do something stupid. I moved level with the entrance. It was paved until about halfway along, then became a gravel path. Beyond that was a bed of concrete, the half-demolished walls of an old factory still standing in places, almost defiantly. Even from where I was, I could see the place was a mess. Rubbish strewn everywhere, pushed into the corners where the walls still stood, or just left on the ground in the open spaces between them. The smell of bottles, wrappers, cans and bin bags came in on the wind.

'You're not going down there, are you?' the boy said.

I looked at him. Yeah. Looks nice.'

For the first time he smiled. 'It ain't nice.'

'Oh, I don't know.' I breathed in. 'It's mountain fresh up here. Not many places can give you that delicate aroma of rubbish dump and public toilet.'

He smiled again. I nodded a goodbye to him, and started along the alleyway. As I passed, he watched me, the smile gradually fading from his face. The Dead Tracks.'

I stopped. 'Sorry?'

'That's what they call it.' He looked from me, along the alleyway. 'The woods over the back. That's what they call that place: the Dead Tracks.'

On the other side of the factory bed, the entrance to the woods loomed ahead of me. It was completely overgrown. Nature had claimed back what was once its own, covering everything, eating away at its surroundings like a virus. Either side of the path, trees leaned in, forming a canopy. Further along, daylight stabbed through whatever spaces it could find, hitting the floor in squares of watery yellow light.

I started along the path.

The grass became more aggressive as the path started turning to mud, carving through the earth, breaking the surface like hundreds of fingers. The deeper I got, the less light there was. I looked at my watch. Three-thirty. In an hour and a half, the day would start to fade. By six, it would be pitch black under the trees.

Ahead of me, rain dripped from the leaves of a huge sycamore, hitting the mud like a distant drumbeat. Then a little way down I spotted something on the path: a train track, rusted by age, weeds crawling through its slats. It broke through the grass on my left, fed across the path and then disappeared between the trunks of two giant oak trees on the opposite side. It was part of the railway Dooley had talked of; laid but never completed. I carried on, the canopy breaking briefly above me.

Crack.

I stopped.

What the hell was that?

Suddenly, wind clawed its way out from the trees to my left, whipping across the path — and the temperature seemed to drop right off. Goosebumps scattered up my arms, down the centre of my back, and I felt a shiver pass through me like a wave. But then, as quickly as it had arrived, the wind disappeared again.

Swivelling, I looked back down the path.

'Hello?'

The route I'd followed had started to darken, as if lights had blacked out behind me, one after the other. But nothing moved, and no sound came back, and after a while I felt ridiculous. You're standing in the middle of the woods talking to the bloody trees. Get a grip on yourself

I turned and carried on. After a couple of minutes, the foliage started thinning — and then a clearing appeared on my left. It was about thirty feet long, running in a semicircle adjacent to the path. There were no trees, but it was awash in knee-high grass. It looked momentarily beautiful compared to the approach, and seemed like the first, and most obvious, place for the picnic that Megan had been promised on the website.

Then, through the corner of my eye, movement.

A blur, where the trail continued on past the clearing. I stepped back on to the path, and looked deeper into the woods. Everything was dark: the path itself, the trees lining it.

A branch broke behind me.

I turned and looked back along the way I'd come. In the woods to the side of the path, about thirty feet down, something shifted in the trees. The wind came again, cutting across the clearing in an icy blast. The whole time, my eyes never left the spot between the trees. But there was no other movement. No sound. Just the drip, drip, drip of rain. And then, when that stopped briefly, a pregnant hush, as if something was sitting behind the silence, waiting to scream.

I watched for a few moments more, then stepped further into the clearing and began looking around. I wasn't sure what I expected to find, but even when people vanished, they didn't vanish. And yet, ten minutes later, I'd found nothing, the light had faded a little more, and now I could hear thunder in the distance and see steel-grey clouds moving across the sky above me.

Crack.

I span on my heel. Exactly the same noise as before. And now something else too, just behind it. Is that whimpering? Ahead, in the direction I'd come, trees moved. Leaves snapped and turned. Rain hit the path.

Then I sensed something behind me.

A shape darted into the clearing, about twenty feet from where I was standing. The grass moved. Left to right, then back. Whoever it was, was crouched. The shape moved another couple of feet and then stopped again.

The grass in the clearing settled.

Silence.

'I can see you,' I said.

I couldn't, but I took a step forward. My heart moved in my chest, as if it was readjusting; readying itself for a surprise. Another step. A patch of the clearing, about six feet in front of me, moved. Grass rustled. Shifted left and right again.

'I can see you.'

Silence.

Then: a scratching noise. I took a step closer, glancing down the path. Around me, the woods suddenly seemed bigger and darker, as if awoken by the imminence of night. More scratching. Definitely whimpering.

Then a dog emerged.

It hobbled a little, pushing between two clumps of waist-high grass either side. It was just a silhouette against the pale green of the clearing. As the first hint of dusk had started to settle, the brightness of the grass was the only thing pushing against it.

The dog moved gingerly towards me.

Even as a silhouette, I could see it was shaped like a greyhound: small, narrow head; a belly that curved up towards its hind legs; no body fat at all. It stopped about six feet from me, its face obscured by the developing shadows. I dropped to my haunches in front of it and held out a hand.

'Hey boy,' I said gently. 'Is it you who's been running around?'

Thunder rumbled again. I glanced up through the gaps in the canopy. In the distance, the clouds seemed to close up, obscuring the sky.

The dog licked my hand.

I looked down at it.

'Fucking hell.'

I jumped to my feet and stumbled back, my eyes fixed on the greyhound. It took another couple of steps towards me, its right hind leg dragging in the mud.

And then it was no longer a silhouette.

One side of its face had no fur on it at all. Flesh glistened in whatever light was left in the woods, a sliver of teeth showing through even though its mouth was closed. As it took another step to me, I could see there was something else in the flesh on the side of its face: a square of pink, at odds with the red of the sinew. It took me a couple of seconds to work out what it was.

Skin.

The dog hobbled forward some more.

'Who did this to you?'

It moaned a little. But now I realized there were other noises as well: wind passing through the trees, falling rain, grass whispering as it moved. I looked along the path, into the advancing darkness. Dooley might be right about this place.

The dog made a soft whimpering sound.

I turned back to it, dropped to my haunches again and slowly made a movement towards it, so it knew I offered no threat. But it hardly flinched. It seemed lethargic and distant, and just looked from my hand to my face; a slow, delayed action.

'Who did this to you?' I said again.

It turned its head slightly, grey fur matted with water. Then I saw its eyes fix on something, over my shoulder, back the way I'd come. I turned. Trees moved, rain spotting against the canopy. Soft sounds played in the background.

'What can you see?'

Standing up, I had a view of about thirty feet in either direction. Thunder stomped across the sky. Five seconds later, lightning flashed, freeze-framing the clouds. The dog whimpered and moved towards me, brushed against my leg. I touched its head and felt my fingers run across the dried flesh of its face. Its nose arched upwards, into the cup of my hand.

'Come with me,' I said to it quietly.

It hesitated at first and then — when I beckoned it - it followed me, its leg stiff and dragging in the grass of the path. I moved back the way I'd come. Around me, all I could hear now was a constant patter as rain started to hit leaves, like hundreds of footsteps coming from every direction. A little further on, I could see the gate again. I picked up the pace, but — as I did — I felt the dog hesitate. I looked back. It was standing still and had turned to face back along the path into the woods.

'What's the matter?'

It didn't move. I stepped towards it.

'What can you see?' I asked.

It sniffed the air, as if it had picked up a scent. I dropped down and placed a hand gently on its back. It didn't move. Rain hit my hand and ran off on to its coat.

'What can you see?' I said again.

It whimpered once more, for longer this time. And then it started moving off, back along the trail, its leg dragging behind it. I whistled gently for it to return to me, but it either ignored me or couldn't hear me.

Thirty seconds later, it was gone.

I paused for a moment. Tried to see into the darkness to where the dog had gone. I hadn't really thought what I would do with it once we got back to the car, but it needed to be looked at. It needed to see a vet. I whistled louder this time, but the rain and the wind and the noise of the woods took the sound off into the night. For a moment, I thought about going back for it — but then a strange feeling passed over me.

Like someone was watching.

I gazed along the track. Eyes moving from one side of the woods to the other. There was no movement and no sound. But the feeling of being watched didn't disappear. It buzzed just beneath the surface of my skin even as the sounds seemed to wash out of the trees and the dying embers of the day gave way to evening.

And then, finally, the Dead Tracks settled.