I stood in front of my friend’s house alone. He’d handed over the keys as though they were nothing more than twisted shapes in cheap alloy, as though the act of supplying me with shelter was as simple as lifting a cup to your lips. Perhaps the act truly was so trivial to him; Ali was many things, destitute was not among them. In fact, of those various wayward souls that had composed our little circle in secondary school, Ali stood out as the Rich Kid. I think he felt some guilt about his family’s good fortune, perhaps that’s why he was eager for me to rent his house at far below market rates while he moved to Dubai for work.
Regardless, I was grateful. The timing was spectacular. My last relationship had just ended and taken my housing security with it. My factory wages and poor credit meant I’d struggle to find a place on my own, and my mother’s guest room was not where I wanted to be for any length of time. Ali would be out of the country for at least two years, which was plenty of time for me to replenish my savings. Perhaps I’d move out of Ferenbrooke, find some new town with new faces. I was halfway to that with Ali’s place anyway. It was in one of Ferenbrooke’s satellite villages, a charming hamlet called Ashingdon. Fetching stone houses painted onto a landscape older than God, ancient oaks and mighty blackthorns along either side of the river Feren, at its widest and wildest there two miles west of Ferenbrooke.
The move had been quick and painless, as these things go. My scant possessions were incapable of composing a burden between them. Three runs in the car and it was done, my odds and ends in boxes and bags ready to fill the space left my Ali’s pre-move clear-out. By God, the house felt empty. Ali had bought it in anticipation of a wife and kids. If things went well out East, maybe he’d come back with those. If not, surely a career man like him would find them quickly. I’d never aspired to such things, quite happy in my solitude, broken occasionally with trysts and dalliances with other lost boys like myself. I was happy for Ali, admired him in a way. He always knew what he wanted and he always worked towards it. I largely spun my wheels.
That first night, before unpacking, I scrubbed the place. Reckon I found ground-in filth that Ali had never seen. There had been more than a couple of owners of this house before him over the house’s century or so of life. One of those owners had been a mother with young kids. I assumed the little trinkets, the miniature cups and the little plates engraved with weird little pictures, had come from those children. I must’ve spent six hours on my knees, knocking loose other people’s lost memories from every nook and cranny. I’d never cleaned my own home like that; I’d certainly never dream of abusing my mother’s abode in such a vicious fashion. Something about it felt necessary, though. I felt as though my fresh start required fresh surroundings, lemon-scented and stain-free.
I took the little trinkets and placed them into a cardboard box, left that by the back door to deal with later.
By the time I was done, I was too tired to cook. I checked the apps and found a pizza place able and willing to deliver. One thin crust meat feast later, I sat in the near-empty sitting room and admired the garden. The grass needed a little TLC and the tree was about ready for the chipper, but nonetheless it impressed me. I’d never had a garden, grew up in a council flat and always lived in similar accommodations. The house was right on the edge of the village. There were neighbours either side, generic middle class families with forgettable kids and lovely dogs. On the other side of the tall fence at the back of the garden was gnarled woodland. I liked that. At least, I did at first.
The fence seemed aged beyond its years. I didn’t know whether the wood hadn’t been treated or if it just needed redoing, but it was tired. My eyes followed it from left to right, noting how it gently followed the changing height of that uneven, near-wild ground so close to the primordial forest.
That’s when I first saw them.
Tiny faces with black eyes, peering over the tall fence. At first my gaze passed over them, then it snapped back, just in time for those pale heads to dip back down below the top of the fence. It was so out of place, those two half-faces, that my brain had tried to disregard them, fold them into the background noise. But I had seem them.
I considered, briefly, that they might be the neighbour’s kids. But that didn’t make any sense. A baby wouldn’t have had a head that small. Besides, the fence was near six foot tall. No way small kids would be getting a look over that.
Unless there was something on the other side. Some platform, or ladder, or a tree stump.
I retrieved my keys from the kitchen counter and headed out the back door. For the first time, I stepped across that ill-fed grass and placed my hand on the fence. It felt frail. No way I’d be able to muscle over it to see the other side. I looked around. The garage had some of Ali’s stuff in it, perhaps a ladder. I searched through the jumble of keys and found a likely candidate, tried the garage lock. It resisted but came open with a little persuasion. The garage was musty, dusty, brown and crowded. Hard to believe it had only laid untended for three weeks or so. I took stock. Plenty of gardening gear, a bicycle, lots of boxes. Nothing unusual. I grabbed a half-rusted step ladder from just inside, leant against the brick to the left of the door, and returned to the tall fence.
One step up the ladder and I rethought a lot of things. It groaned under my weight, noisily sinking into the moist earth. Had it even been raining? I didn’t remember it. Regardless, I was sure the neighbours would hear me and I’d look an utter fool out here, climbing a four-foot stepladder to look into the forest. Not the greatest of first impressions. Nonetheless I persevered.
Nothing unexpected. Roughly three metres of cleared ground before the woods began. Well-trodden, perhaps a public path pre-dating the housing estate.
No little faces. No obvious method by which children could peek over.
I looked left and right, assured myself that no neighbours had seen my strange behaviour, then returned the stepladder to its home and headed back inside, briefly doubling back to put the box of other people’s junk in the garage. That night’s rest was fitful, broken and unsatisfying.
The next morning I woke at 6am with my alarm, cursing at the early hour. I should have booked off a few days for the move, but I didn’t want to lose out on any pay and holiday didn’t include my habitual overtime. I rushed about, moving through an abridged version of my morning routine. Coffee and a doughnut went in, excrement came out, the previous days’ t-shirt and underwear were replaced with worn work trousers and the uniform polo shirt. I considered my route to work from this not-yet-familiar location. A longer drive than I’d previously had, halfway through a side of the county I barely knew. I wasn’t a bad driver by any means, but I didn’t get my licence until I was 26 and I didn’t have quite as much confidence as those who’d started younger.
The roads, though dark, were clear. Once out of the village and onto the motorway, I flicked on the radio. The silence was just a little too much for me. The local station was playing the last minute of something that I think was current when my grandfather’s balls dropped. I could’ve got into it, but it faded out clumsily into the not precisely silken tones of some over-eager local disc jockey.
‘Ahh, you can’t beat the classics! We’ve got plenty more where that came from, but first, remember: we know you saw us. Mind your own business and leave us to ours, and you’ll be just fine! Poke your nose where it doesn’t belong, though, and you will live to regret it! Not for long though! Haha!’
I froze. My hands gripped the wheel like the proverbial crack-head on a pipe. A long beep from the horn of a hitherto-unseen car brought me back to my senses as I drifted into my neighbour’s lane.
I made it to work a shade early and spent most of the day watching every corner. I worked in a section largely by myself, usually ploughing through various podcasts to combat the monotony of factory work. That day, though, I forwent the earbuds and stayed keyed in to my environment. Around mid-morning, Tomasz turned up and bent my ear for a solid twenty, as was his habit. I asked him if he’d listened to the radio on his way in.
‘Yeah, Mike in the Morning, every day,’ Tomasz said. ‘I love it, the same music my parents played back home.’
That was the show I’d been tuned into.
‘Weird message after Sam’s Song, right?’ I ventured.
Tomasz screwed his eyes, tapped his chin theatrically. ‘Didn’t notice anything,’ he said, ‘perhaps your coffee hadn’t kicked in.’
I nodded. Why not? Shit sleep, unfamiliar roads. The stress of a move soon after the messy end of a relationship. A little mental wobble. Nothing to be concerned about. Seemed plausible.
‘You meet the new guy yet?’ Tomasz asked. He didn’t wait for a response before continuing. ‘Real weirdo. Moves like a puppet.’
Tomasz was prone to exaggeration, and was a tad judgemental. I didn’t hold it against the guy, but I didn’t accept his judgements about people, as a rule.
That afternoon, the new hire turned up. The first thing I noticed was how correct Tomasz was. Every movement was forced, jerking. Every footstep looked like his first. I assumed the guy had a condition of some sort.
‘Management says I should shadow you,’ the new hire said, toneless.
‘Yeah man, no problem.’
I worked as usual, taking care to follow procedure as the steel press machines did their work, loading and unloading sheets of metal with an appropriate amount of haste. Part of me wanted to set a good example for the newbie, the rest wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get in trouble for cutting corners. The newbie got involved a little here and there, picking up our little routines with surprising speed for someone who seemed so physically incompetent.
Towards the end of day, my supervisor popped down. ‘Hey man, the new guy is gonna be with you for the foreseeable,’ he said. ‘Figured we could use an extra pair of hands down here. Don’t worry, he won’t get in your way. For now at least, he’ll mostly just watch you.’
I nodded. I didn’t like it, preferred being by myself, but there was little I could do. Decisions about operations were far above my pay grade. And the newbie was quiet, at least. He watched me silently, every motion recorded by those grey eyes of his.
By the last scheduled hour, the watching was getting a little much. I couldn’t take a piss without the newbie following me to the hallway where our cubicles stood. I began watching the clock, resolving to skip overtime. I started watching the newbie, sure he was doing something strange at the edges of my peripheral vision. I was sure, dead certain, I saw him pull his bottom eyelid down level with his lip. And fairly sure there was nothing underneath, just a black void. But it was from the corner of my eye, nothing conclusive, and I did not entirely trust my senses. I was at severe risk of doing a Tomasz, judging the poor guy based on first impressions. He moved weird, acted a little weird, that didn’t mean there was anything sinister going on.
The drive home started well. Clear weather, middling traffic. Soon as I crossed the border south though, I felt weird. I followed my SatNav through a village frozen in the ’70s, a strange little place where the people stopped and watched as my lonely car drove through. A winding country road led to the motorway, and along it were an array of fields that gradually gave way to woodland. I hated the woodland, couldn’t help but find echoes of faces among the leaves and branches. By the time I hit the motorway, I was damn near ready to wrap my head in tinfoil.
I knew I was getting crazy, knew that stress and change was getting to me.
Which made it so much harder when I got home, fell through the door, breathed a sigh, sat myself on the sofa with a bottle of beer, and saw the writing on the fence.
You weren’t supposed to see us
I leapt to my feet, dropped the beer. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a rolling pin, took a breath, steadied myself, and headed back to the living room.
The writing was gone.
Had it ever been there?
Yes, it had been there. It had.
I exited the house into the garden, marched towards the fence. I ran my hand along the panel where the writing had been, noted the uneven roughness, as though the surface had been clumsily planed. Sure enough, there was wood dust on the ground. Wood dust and shards of glass. I turned to look at the window of the garage, next to its door. It was broken. I rushed to it, peered within. The box of old trinkets I’d found had been knocked onto its side, the contents gone. Other than that, nothing seemed to be missing. I reached inside for the stepladder, pulled it out through the window. Broken glass drew beads of blood from my arms, but I felt nothing outside of the rage and violation that filled my skull and pressed outwards, threatening to pop mu skull.
I was being fucked with. I had been robbed.
I intended to find the little fuckers.
The stepladder sank into the ground again as I set it against the fence. The soil was always so wet there, rain or no. I climbed up, tossed my rolling pin over the tall fence, followed it myself. I’d intended to swing over with some semblance of grace, land in a crouch. Unfortunately the fence had other ideas. It collapsed beneath my weight, sending me to the ground in a heap, snapped wooden panels and posts tearing my work clothes and scratching my legs.
I swore and scrambled to my feet, retrieved my rolling pin, and marched into the woods.
My courage began to fade three steps beyond the treeline. Very little light got through those aged branches, and glancing over my shoulder, I could barely see civilisation. It was as though I’d walked a great distance into the midst of the trees and bramble, and spent some time doing it. The sky had darkened without me noticing.
With every step my feet grew heavier and my resolve waned. I began to notice the stinging and aches from my scratched and bruised body, began to smell the stink of my work clothes even as my nostrils were filled with the whispers of flowers and moss.
I considered turning back. Until I heard the laugh. A tittering, high-pitched little noise composed of many small voices.
‘Who the fuck are you?!’ I shouted into the woods. ‘Why are you messing with me?!’
I couldn’t tell what direction the laughter came from. I made my best guess and marched that way, muttering obscenities and threats.
The laughter began to alternate with crowded whispers. It was impossible to make out what was said, but the tone was mocking.
The rage boiled up again. Visibility was so limited in those woods, tightly packed trees and brambles providing ample hiding places. How would I ever find the little bastards?
They weren’t children. I didn’t know what they were, but they weren’t children.
I picked a direction and marched forwards, sparing no attention for the brambles that tore at my ankles. I screamed into the woods, wordless and bestial. The woods responded with a hushed silence. For the first time that day, I felt alone.
Briefly.
Three small deer, muntjacs I think they’re called, ploughed into my left side. The first got the back of my knee, the second leapt up to collide with my torso, the third’s hooves caught my head as I fell to the ground.
Sparkles obscured my vision. The woods span around me as my eyes opened and closed of their own accord. I was fading, drifting away from the waking world. The last time I remember my eyes being open, I was sure I saw a clutch of strange little faces staring down at me.
I woke up in a bed in A&E, at Ferenbrooke’s main hospital. I was alone for a few minutes, curtains drawn closed around my bay. I was incredibly dizzy, felt like I could float away. Before long, a nurse joined me. She looked tired, almost haunted.
‘Glad you’re awake,’ she said, ‘we were worried about you. You took one hell of a knock on the head. Don’t worry, no permanent damage as far as we can tell, but you’ve been out almost half a day. Very odd.’
‘How did I get here?’ I asked.
‘Someone found you and called an ambulance. He’s in the waiting room, actually. Want me to get him?’
I nodded. Made sense to thank my rescuer.
The nurse spun on a heel and left the bay. When she returned, the new guy from work was with her.
‘I’ll give you two a minute,’ the nurse said, backing out of the bay and shooting a concerned look at the new guy, who had an index finger in his left nostril up to the third knuckle.
I opened my mouth, closed it after a moment. I had no idea what to say. Why was he there? Did he live near me? Had he been following me?
The new guy pulled his finger from his nose and stepped closer to the bed. I shuffled to the end furthest from him. He leant across, placed one huge hand on my chest, fingers splayed apart farther than conventional anatomy would allow.
‘Stay out of those woods,’ he said, ‘for your own safety.’