Janette’s lungs were beginning to fail her, her breathing was coming short and fast, and she’d long since lost the feeling in her legs. She had to stop, she just had to, how long had she been running now? Half an hour, forty-five minutes? To her, it felt like forever…She’d lost Tom what seemed like an age ago, and his shouts had died out shortly after…She didn’t want to think about him, she didn’t want to be distracted, but she couldn’t push him out of her mind; she’d loved him since she first met him, back when they were both at Oxford; they’d had so much fun in all those years since, she couldn’t bear to lose him now, not here in some unnamed forest to a pack of foul looking, evil beasts, he meant to much to h- Her mind reeled as she felt her legs fly out from under her, an intense pain shooting through the toes on her right foot and up through her leg as she smashed it into a rock that was hidden behind a soft fern. She saw the ground coming up to meet her, but she was going too fast to bring her arms up to protect her fragile face. She felt her nose crack as she hurtled face first into the forest floor, blood gushing down over her lips and into her mouth, the tangy metallic taste causing her to wince involuntarily and spit onto the ground. She tried to raise herself, and fell to the floor with a stifled cry of pain as she felt her shattered wrist scream under the pressure. She felt sick, a combination of pain and fear filling her with an unbearable nausea, as she listened intently to the forest around her, trying to pick up the tell-tale signs of approach. All she could hope for now, she shuddered to think, was that they’d given up the chase on her in favour of Toms bigger, meatier frame.

She never heard them come for her, their pads stalking silently towards the bloodstained patch of dirt where she lay, immobile; arm shattered, leg broken, muscles tired and atrophied from the long run. There was nothing she could do but scream in agony as the animals tore into her, ripping at her bloody carcass in a rabid frenzy.

One of the last things Janette saw in this world was the glint of a rare beam of dying sunlight streaking through the leafy treetops, reflected off a thick, studded leather collar.

* * *

Tom’s muscles ached, his legs were on fire and his tendons were beginning to seize up under the strain of the pursuit. He wanted to glance behind him, he couldn’t hear the beasts anymore, just the furious pounding of his own heartbeat in his ears but he couldn’t risk it. He knew how dangerous it would be to put a foot wrong in a forest this big, a situation this dire. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake now, if he did it’d only be a matter of time before the creatures caught up with him and ensured it was the last mistake he ever made…

He cut that train of thought off when the image of those muzzles, encrusted with the deep crimson-black of blood and ringed by that hideous, dark, dripping ooze came to his mind. He focused himself on running, the rhythmic pounding of foot on earth sounding so distant beyond the deafening sound of his own, living body. That helped, calmed him down and made him able to fight the pain harder. He began thinking about Janette, about how much he loved and admired her, how much he respected her and how much he wished he hadn’t convinced her to come up to fucking Scotland with him.

A scream cut through his reverie, shattering the trance like state he’d fallen into. His feet froze in place, but the momentum continued carrying his body forward and he fell, twisting as he went, hitting the earth with a dull thud. More screams pierced the dusk, and tears began to well in Tom’s eyes. He knew those screams, he’d heard them before but never so pained, so terrifying…; the animals had caught up with Janette, and she’d not been able to get away. Tom was conflicted, he was torn between self-preservation and a need to help his wife, he felt ill when he thought of those teeth tearing through her, pulling her apart and then, when they’d had their fill, coming straight after him like a bullet from a gun. After a time, the screams faded and stopped, and Tom knew that he had no choice now. With a grunt, he pushed himself to his feet, wincing at the pain in his legs, testing his muscles briefly to assess the damage the run had done to him.

He’d come back for her; he had to get out now, but he’d come back for her. And when he did, he’d bring the police, the army, the special fucking forces and he’d make sure they put down every single one of those mongrel animals, as slowly and painfully as possible. With that thought, he began to run again, slipping once more into the hypnotic rhythm of his footfalls…

It was dark before he reached the edge of the forest, the dusk had descended into deepest black and the beauty of the stars in the sky was a sight that Tom thought he would never see again. He could hardly breathe, his legs were in more pain than he could’ve possibly imagined and his mind still reeled from the loss of his wife; but he knew that it wasn’t over yet. He could see in the distance the ambient glow of electric lighting and he began to jog towards it. The fields around him were sodden and deceptively steep; descending into a valley that cupped what looked to be a small village, quaint and homely. Tom had to stop several times on his way down into the valley, and each time he did he turned to scan the tree line for any sign of the pursuing beasts. Every time he turned, Tom expected to see the pack of creatures flooding out of the tree-line, their slavering jaws dripping a mixture of spittle and coarse black goo on the grass, pads battering the earth as they come thundering towards him, but each time nothing came and he was allowed to resume his descent unmolested. After what seemed like an eternity of stopping and starting, he made it into the glow of the old fashioned, Victorian era streetlamps.

Tom quickly got his bearings; he remembered this village from the local ordinance survey map, it was Hornsley or Halsley, something with an H. He saw, in the centre of the village a pub, with a quaint old sign hanging over the door swinging slightly in the mild breeze that blew through the cold night air. Tom lifted his watch to check it, and found the screen cracked and broken; taking the fall on his side, he must’ve caught it on a rock and destroyed the mechanism because, as he lifted it to his ear for further inspection, he noticed he could no longer hear its tick.

The village was quiet, nothing sounded but the wind rifling the leaves in the nearby trees and the distant grumble of muted chatter coming from the pub. Tom looked around, up and down what served as a main street for the incredibly small settlement. There were no public phone boxes, not even the nostalgic tall red ones that seem to be the staple of quaint country hamlets all over England, so he decided that his best bet would be to go into the bar and get near some people, that might perhaps soothe away the feeling of unease that had crept over him since his arrival in the village.

The pub had a large door, made of a hardy, battered oak and painted a peeling green colour spotted with the odd smear of black dirt; the sign above it was too old and weathered to read clearly, but Tom could see that, around the edges it bore the same mottled green hue that covered the door. Tom hesitated; he knew it was foolish, but he’d heard too many stories and seen to many TV shows to not be unnerved by the situation. Maybe it was just shock, maybe he was still thinking like a caveman, but he couldn’t help but feel that he wouldn’t be welcome here, in this picturesque, alien environment, so far away from the city where he and Janette called home. He brushed his feelings away, remembering his wife’s last sounds as his face hardened into a grimace and he pushed at the door.

The light from the pub flooded out into the street as Tom opened the heavy door, temporarily blinding him as his eyes became accustomed to this dramatic change in illumination. He raised an arm to shield himself from the glare as he stepped into the warm building and shut the door behind him. The chatter in the bar began to peter away into silence as the locals turned to look at the stranger who had disturbed their nightly peace. Tom thought that he must’ve been a sight, covered in sweat and dirt, face lined with pain, limping slowly into the bar; but he didn’t care, and he didn’t stop moving until he was standing, face to face with the barman.

“I – I need to use your Telephone.” He said, startled by the weakness and strain in his own cracked voice, he leaned on the bar, letting it support his full weight and breathing a sigh at the temporary respite it offered his legs “I can pay you…”

“Here,” The barman, who must have been working down in the cellar before Tom came in, as his hands were covered in grimy oil, lifted an ancient rotary telephone up from underneath the bar “And don’t worry, it’s free. I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Tom tried to make his call, pushing 999 into the old style, spinning mechanism but the phone wouldn’t respond; all he could hear through the ear-piece was the shrill dial tone and the harsh racks that were sent through the machine when the numbered dial was spun. The barman set down a glass of clear water on the worktop in front of Tom, who was still trying in vein to get a call through to the police.

“Not working?” Said the barkeep, tentatively

“No…No it’s just getting the dial tone…” Tom picked the glass of water up and raised it to his parched lips. He hadn’t realised just how thirsty he was until now, and he gulped down the water as if it was his first drink in weeks; it had a strange tinge to it, the kind you get when you drink the water in a foreign country.

“It…Well, it does that from time to time, I’m afraid.” The barman said, raising his greasy hands as if to say ‘Sorry, but there’s nothing I can do’

“I have to make a call,” Tom said urgently, his words beginning to slur dangerously, his breathing quickening in alarm “My wife…in the forest…” Tom’s vision was swimming, his sight blurred and his arms felt like lead. He couldn’t keep his eyes open as, with a thump, he fell to the boarded wooden floor unconscious.

* * *

“What do we do with him?” Tom was barely awake, slipping nauseatingly in and out of consciousness, but the voice, edged with a harsh Scottish accent, drifted to him clearly through the ambient noise of hooting owls, screeching insects and howling wind.

“We take him to the forest.” Said a second voice, this one much deeper and gruffer, with a wheeze that spoke of old age

“I don’t know ‘bout you, but I’m not one for going into that place at night.” Said the first man

“Be that as it may, we take him there and we leave him, and we’ll say no more about it. Bill,” there were noises like the shuffling of heavy feet across loose dirt “Angus, take him to the Tree.”

Tom felt his arms and legs being lifted, and as he swung back and forth with the motions of his captors, he fell once more into blackness.

* * *

Tom awoke slowly, the sun peeking into his vision every time he dared to open his eyelids. He felt the pull of gravity on his body, and the pressure of thick ropes, binding his wrists and arms. His grogginess was replaced instantly by the pang of fear, and his eyes sprung open to reveal a canopy of earthen browns tinged by the heavy glare of the overhead sun, he saw soil, leaves and trees as far as his burning eyes could see. He couldn’t think, he was overcome by the sight of the forest he’d tried so hard to escape. He tested his restraints automatically, finding himself to be bound tightly to the trunk of a large old tree, bigger than any he’d seen whilst running through the densely packed countryside. He groaned audibly and, as if it were a signal, the forest began to move around him, the shadows of the trees falling apart, detaching, becoming a horde of cats, dogs, squirrels, mice and a variety of other, grotesquely macabre woodland animals, all with one thing in common: a ring of thick, sickening black ooze around their mouths dripping down, soaking their fur and clinging to their feathers. Tom noticed the smell of them, the smell of death, of decay, of fetid flesh and rotten skin. It was all he could do not to vomit as wave after wave of nauseating stench washed over him.

Tom expected to be jumped on, ravaged, and ripped to pieces by the deformed army of perversely befouled creatures, but rather they just stood there, watching him intently, their beady eyes brimming over with the viscous black substance, making it look as if they were crying, sad to see him in such a position.

“Hello Tom,” Said a sweet voice from the shadows of a tree bough, directly opposite the large oak to which Tom had been tied “I’m so glad you came back for me…”

“Janette! JANETTE!” Tom tore at his restraints, ripping the flesh on his wrists and ankles in his futile struggle to free himself “JANETTE!”

“Shhh baby, don’t worry,” She said, as she stepped forward out of the shadows and into the light of the clearing. Tom felt hot tears burning down his cheeks, as vomit rose from the pit of his stomach. His Janette was gone, her flesh stripped away, organs hanging from vicious open wounds, coated in that evil, cancerous black filth that ebbed from her body like lifeblood “Don’t worry, honey. It’ll all be over soon.” She cooed, advancing towards him her arms outstretched.

“No,” Tom cried, sobs wracking his chest “Please god no, not you Janette, please no.”

“Shhh Tom, shhh” She reached out her hand to him, stroking the side of his face with her greasy, blackened palm. Tom felt the grime move over his face, sliming its way to his mouth and nose, seeping in through every pore and infecting him with a disease that nothing but death could cure; he was part of it now, part of the creature, part of the forest, part of the earth…part of everything… “It’s all over now, Love…”