TWENTY

It was the silence Hutch gradually became aware of, though he decided against sharing the observation with the other two, who hobbled beside and behind him on the rapidly narrowing trail. About him, he imagined the forest holding its breath, in anticipation.

Since they had moved away from the derelict buildings, the birds had stopped their sporadic chatter. There was no breeze. Beyond the scuffling of their feet, the almost inaudible patter of rain, and the whipping of leaves against waterproof fabric, the forest had fallen completely silent around them.

It was a stillness that provoked a reaction, a response. He found himself looking with uneasy eyes into the thickets on either side of the diminishing trail. And had they just changed direction again? He wasn’t sure. In places, the trail now seemed to have disintegrated into deceptive-looking shadowy hollows. Areas that promised easier passage through the choking obstacles pushing them to either side of the faint trail; a vague path he often had to stare at hard to even recognize amongst the tangles of briars and pale green ferns.

The light had dropped; the canopy was so thick here. Again. He worried about Luke becoming lost. Stopped and wiped the sweat from his eyes. Was suddenly furious at himself for letting Luke just tear off on his own. ‘Stop.’

‘Eh?’ Dom asked, between his heavy breaths.

Phil stopped; his breath wheezed in and out of his bulk. Hutch heard him suck hard on his inhaler.

‘What is it?’ Dom whispered.

Hutch held up his compass, angled it away from Dom’s wet red face. North west. He wanted to scream. They were shuffling off course again. They were slanting up and back into the forest. Going deeper, not down and outwards. They had been turned around too incrementally for it to feel like a definite change of direction. But when? How had that happened? He would have noticed. Were he not so encumbered with Dom’s heaving uncoordinated bulk against his left side, he might have been more alert.

‘No good.’ He shook his head.

‘What isn’t?’

‘This direction.’ He let go of Dom and slapped his hands against his hips. ‘Shit.’

TWENTY-ONE

At first Luke thought it a natural outcrop of rock. They had seen plenty of boulders and even cliff faces on the first day of the hike, which suddenly reared up from the green earth. But once he’d pulled himself around the stone and torn some of the wet ivy from an inclined side, he saw the worn runes. They covered one complete side of the rock, and were ringed by an oval border, thick with petrified lichen.

He turned about, lowering and raising himself on his ankles to peer through the surrounding thicket that had overrun the rock. Between the mesh of dead wood and the thigh-high weeds that coated it, he saw another of the standing stones about twelve feet away from where he was crouching, and then another beyond it.

Breaking away from the face of the stone and lowering himself even further, he rediscovered the path that wound about the three stones but was now impossible to walk upright upon.

He tried to move forward, but his pack became immediately stuck in a branch and held him fast. Swearing through his clenched teeth, he reversed his body. Then removed his pack, groaning when the hot weight of it fell behind him, into the leaf mulch and dirt.

Against the ground, he crawled forward along a natural tunnel that had formed over the surface of the trail. Was it the trail? Yes. He stretched out an arm and followed the cartwheel rut with his fingertips. Small animals must have worn the tunnel through with their scurrying. Face down, he squirmed about and felt the cold damp soil embrace his chest and stomach.

He would move as far as he was able, to see if the foliage cleared from the path ahead. But this was the very last effort he would make in this direction. They’d already been travelling for four hours since sunrise and were no closer to getting out. Once he’d ascertained he had reached the end of the stretch of the track beside the standing stones, he would go back and tell the others it was time for the last resort. His plan. His idea. They could have been four hours into it by now. And it would take the very last of them to get out before nightfall, if they could even find the route they had come through the day before.

After twenty feet on his stomach the steely light suddenly brightened and the range of his visibility increased. He had reached the end of the natural tunnel, and could even look up above ground level.

He pushed his wet and bedraggled body on to its feet and broke through the lighter saplings about the exit. Lifting his legs high, to clear the thorns and nettles, he took a step forward into an area where the forest cleared of the thicker trees and presented an airier space of thigh-deep undergrowth and dwarf birch, with little growing higher.

The rain came down in silvery spikes. The jagged pieces of exposed sky he could see through the upper reaches of the wet spruce bordering and overhanging the clearing were bleak and dark with rain. A bit of white sky was all you got up here at about 5 a.m., then it just went grey. The path was somewhere beneath the undergrowth. It must have been, because it had once led to a building.

Luke stood still and stared across the clearing at what presented itself to him on the other side. A church. And what he had just crawled through was a cemetery. A very old one too if the graves had been marked by standing stones.

TWENTY-TWO

None of them said anything when Luke reappeared, without his rucksack. He’d been careless rushing back to find them; a deep scratch was hot and inflamed down his left cheek. It had bled along his jaw line and coagulated. And he was unaware that the tree branch that had lashed into his mouth had cut his top lip and painted his teeth with a scarlet film. Dom and Hutch just stared at his wild eyes, breathless attempts to speak, and at his wet and cut face.

On his way back from the cemetery, he had been gripped with an urgency that made him feel hot and loose and angry inside. He’d begun punching branches that hung across his return path; had even stopped to smash flat some small toadstools. Because getting back to the others had been harder than his leaving of them, as if the forest forbade it. He was reminded of his dream and was not grateful at all for the recollection. He’d stopped a dozen times and unhooked the sharp ends of broken branches from his jacket. It was now torn under one arm. He could not remember the undergrowth being that bad coming the other way. The constant hampering and snagging of the foliage, and his uncoordinated stumbling through it, made him hot and dizzy with a rage familiar to him, and always unhealthy. He had cursed the wood, cursed Hutch, cursed Dom, cursed this world and his reduced position in it. He’d boiled. And every step of the way back to the others, his thoughts had been dark with the image of the decrepit broken church in the dismal wet world.

And when he found them again, he could not believe how slowly the other three had been moving, how little ground they had covered since he had been away. He felt as if he’d had to retrace his steps all the way back to the same place where he had left them.

Luke straightened up from where he had been bent over to catch his breath. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

‘What happened?’ Hutch asked.

‘Eh?’

‘Your gear? Where is it?’

‘I dumped it. Was slowing me down.’

Dom looked at Hutch and frowned, as if this act of madness confirmed a belief he had long held about Luke. ‘What the fuck you going to sleep in then?’

‘Not permanently. Just so’s I could get back to you guys faster.’

‘Why?’ Hutch said, with a nonchalance that annoyed Luke. ‘You find something?’

‘Because …’

‘Because what?’ Dom asked.

What the hell was wrong with them, ambling down the path like this? Dom and Hutch had been smiling about something when he reappeared. He even thought he had heard them laughing from a distance. ‘Are you even taking this seriously? ’ he asked and immediately wished he hadn’t when he saw Dom and Hutch’s surprised faces. Phil stood behind them. He had more colour in his cheeks now, but looked at Luke with a mixture of disappointment and caution. The hood of his coat was half off his head and made him look ridiculous.

‘’Course we are, you silly arse,’ Dom barked. ‘Think I’m enjoying this?’

Hutch said, ‘Dom,’ quietly. But there was something in that rebuke, something about Dom’s flat, stolid, scowling face; and something in Hutch’s supporting grin, that made Luke think his vision had lightened, as if the terrible pressure of rage that suddenly filled his body again had forced the darkness out of his eyes. He felt weightless and could hear nothing but a hot rushing through his ears. His voice seemed to originate from somewhere outside of his head. He didn’t recognize himself in his own voice, as if it was a recording played back to him, to his embarrassment. ‘You call me that again and I’ll put you on your fucking arse.’

He watched his own progress, as if disembodied, as he walked three steps up to Dom, whose face went pale and stiff as if he’d been forced to look at something unpleasant.

A remote part of Luke remained conscious of what the other bigger part of himself was now doing on instinct. It was the rage he brought back to them from the trees; the endless wet trees that would never let them go. And it demanded an eruption from him. ‘Did you hear me, bitch?’ he shouted into Dom’s face and watched a droplet of froth from his own shouting mouth hit Dom’s cheekbone.

‘Luke!’ Hutch shouted from beside him. ‘Woah!’

But he was not to be brought out of this trembling mad place until something snapped him out of it. With both hands, he shoved Dom backwards, hard. Dom lost his balance and dropped his weight onto his bad knee and then fell sideways into the undergrowth. Something swished behind Luke and hard fingers clamped around his biceps. He was pulled back and away from Dom, his feet clearing the ground at one point. All the strength seemed to leave his body for a moment. He scrabbled to find his feet when Hutch let him go a few feet down the trail.

‘You fuck!’ Dom struggled to his feet; all chubby arse, shirt pulled out, and clumsy stiff movements. Then Dom was coming at him, the limp gone. Hutch was knocked aside. The whites of Dom’s eyes were going pink to red. His freckled knuckles moved slowly then made a wet slap sound against Luke’s mouth that he felt like a push, not a blow, but it made his top lip instantly go numb. Is that it, he thought. Is that all a punch feels like?

They seemed to stare at each other for a long time, until the idea that he had been struck mingled with the supporting notion that this was a contact that stated he should just continue to accept Dom’s jibes, criticisms, bullish rants, and his disregard for anything Luke had said since they had met the night before the trip. But this role assigned to him in their little group hierarchy was not one he would accept any longer.

When he swung his fist from the left, he’d taken his arm back enough to make his shoulder go tight, lock and then release his hand like a spring. Dom’s arm didn’t rise quickly enough to defer the strike, and Luke’s knuckles impacted with a loud smack under Dom’s right eye.

Dom’s head snapped back, and his expression was one of bewilderment and distaste. Luke’s second fist came in from the other side. He watched his own arm, in its wet khaki sleeve, whip about quickly to make his hard fist strike Dom again, this time on the jaw. He had been aiming for the jaw.

Dom went down quickly, and didn’t get his arms out to break his fall, because his hands were still clutching at his face.

Hutch and Phil took a step away from Luke, almost cowering. They looked at him like he was a dangerous stranger. They were shocked. Frightened of him. But he wanted to keep on punching. He wished Dom had not gone down so fast. Then he could feel the satisfaction of hitting his face really hard again, and again, with clenched fists.

It had not hurt his hands at all and the sudden release of energy, twinned with Dom’s fall, gave him a sudden lunatic rush of euphoria. His body seemed to re-form itself again into a tight, stable and defined frame; his whited-out vision rushed back into his head, and returned to full colour; his hearing cleared as if a blockage of warm bath water had just drained out. He realized he was panting so hard he had started to wheeze.

Dom sat up with his legs splayed and his head dipped over his chest. Both of his hands were clutched around his mouth. No one could see his face.

Dom was crying. He was so angry, he was actually crying. ‘I’ll not spend another fucking minute with that bastard!’ From where he sat on the fallen log, Luke could hear Dom’s voice penetrating through the trees. It was high-pitched now and squealing.

‘He can piss off in the opposite direction … No I fucking won’t … It’s not you who’s had that bastard have a pop at you … That loser’s a headcase. He always has been. That’s why he can’t hold a job down for five minutes. And why he’s always single. Makes sense doesn’t it? He’s a twat. I don’t have the patience for him any more. Who does? He needs to fucking grow up. I’ve no time for the stupid bastard.’

Then the terrible heat was back inside Luke’s body and he was suddenly crashing and stumbling back to where Hutch and Phil were holding Dom, out of sight. His teeth were gritted so hard Luke regained enough control of himself to know that a tooth could snap at any moment and fill his head with a white lightning of agony. He unlocked his jaw.

‘Keep it up, you fat fuck!’ he bellowed as he came into view and watched Phil and Hutch scrabble aside. Dom put two hands up and shouted, ‘Piss off!’

This time he was punching so quickly between Dom’s raised palms, he immediately felt something rip at the base of his neck, then go tight and hot. Three punches littered across Dom’s face and Luke felt a nose slide and then snap under his knuckles, like the wishbone at a Sunday roast. The fourth and fifth blows struck the top and back of Dom’s head as Dom collapsed into the undergrowth. He curled himself into a ball on the floor and pulled both arms over his head. The last punch hurt Luke’s little finger, the knuckle above it, and the bone behind the knuckle. He put the hand under his armpit and stepped away from Dom.

‘Another word. Another word …’ He tried to speak but was breathing too hard to get it out, and his voice was trembling with emotion.

‘Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Take it easy. Shit.’ Hutch was talking quickly and holding Luke’s shoulders now with iron fingers, leading him away.

‘Any more from him, and I’ll put him out of the game. I swear.’

They walked together, away from the other two; Hutch’s hand around his elbow. Dom had not uncurled himself from the ball. Phil was crouched down, talking to Dom in a low voice, but Luke could not hear what he was saying.

‘Jesus, Luke. Listen to yourself. You’re talking like a binton. A chav. This isn’t you. What the hell?’

Luke sat down on the fallen log where he had been a few moments before. His hands were shaking so badly Hutch had to take the packet out of his hands and light two cigarettes. One for each of them.

‘Calm down. Take it easy. Just relax. Cool your boots. Man, what has got into you?’

Luke didn’t speak, just smoked the cigarette in quick inhalations until he felt sick. So much cortisone and adrenaline had leaked into his empty stomach along with phlegm and cigarette tar, he thought he might throw up. He unzipped his coat down to the waist, and bent over. Sucked in the cold wet air in great heaving lungfuls. He’d never felt so drained in his life. He started to shudder.

‘Well, I guess that is the official end to the holiday,’ Hutch said after a few minutes’ silence.

Luke started to smile, felt ashamed, and then found himself laughing in silence. Hutch was smiling too, but only as part of a thin and pained expression. He shook his head. ‘Didn’t know you had it in you, Chief. God knows I’ve thought of giving Dom a shoeing over the years, but people like us just don’t do things this way. What were you thinking?’

Luke looked at Hutch and saw the disappointment in his friend’s eyes, the permanent estrangement. You could never come back from an event like this. Nothing would ever be the same again. He knew his friendship was over with all three of them.

‘Shit,’ he said and shook his head. He had to take a moment and swallow hard several times, otherwise his eyes would well up and he’d start crying. A lump closed his throat down. It would be impossible to speak for a while. He stood up and walked away from the dead and fallen tree.

‘What am I doing here?’ Luke said, further down the path. Hutch had followed him, his head bowed, his face pale and long with the strain of dealing with them all, on top of the situation they were in. They were forcing him to be a parent, to make every decision.

‘I couldn’t even afford to come. But I won’t have him call me a loser.’ His chest was going tight and he wanted to say so much to justify what he had just done, because of how Dom made him feel, but it wasn’t coming.

Hutch looked at the sky and blinked as the rain hit his face. ‘I better get back to the walking wounded.’

‘He doesn’t know anything about me any more. Nothing. None of you do.’

‘He doesn’t mean anything by it. No one does.’

‘Am I being a prick?’

Hutch looked at his feet and sighed.

‘You think so too. It’s OK. Say it. I don’t give a shit any more. I’m happy to take off now, Hutch.’

‘Don’t be so free with the crazy talk. We’ve had enough of that.’

‘I meant to get help.’

‘We’re not there yet. Not by a long chalk. This is just a setback. And I do wish you’d all just chill out a bit. This really isn’t helping.’

‘I’m sorry. I just lost it.’

‘You don’t say.’

They couldn’t look each other in the eye. They looked at the earth, at the sky, at the endless trees and bracken all around them that were all utterly indifferent to them.

‘Man. I went for miles, H. I reached the end of the line and got scratched to buggery. To find a way out. And when I came back … I just got so angry. I lost it. Because … you’d hardly moved. Like there was no urgency.’

‘That’s crap, and you know it.’

‘I meant—’

‘They can’t walk. They’re both broken. I was just trying to keep their spirits up. Keeping them talking and trying to take their minds off the situation.’

‘And I fucked it.’

‘Totally.’

Luke sighed. Touched his face where Dom had hit him. It wasn’t even sore, just puffy. ‘I had so much to tell you.’

Hutch turned his head to the side. ‘See a way out?’

Luke shook his head. ‘Nah. And it just gets worse. All of this shit.’ He kicked at a bush.

Hutch closed his eyes and made a groaning noise. Then opened his eyes and sighed. ‘Next year, we’re renting a caravan.’

‘I was just about to throw the towel in and come back when I found a cemetery.’

Now he had Hutch’s attention again.

Luke nodded. ‘Tors, standing stones, whatever you call them.’

‘Rune stones.’

‘Rune stones. All overgrown. In a big thicket that I crawled under. But on the other side of it is a church.’

‘You are shitting me.’

‘I’m not. A really old church. Like one of those buildings we saw in Skansen. In the housing museum. And the forest clears up a bit around it.’

Hutch’s face brightened. ‘Let’s go.’

They walked back along the track towards the others, who were still out of sight. Luke slowed down. ‘I’ll keep a low profile and walk out front.’

‘Good idea. But it means I’m now stuck in the rear with the fear again. Cheers.’

Luke was about to laugh, but Hutch wasn’t smiling as he turned and walked away.