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Missing…
The sun was shinning and the woods were quiet, nothing moved. She thought it was strange that no birds seemed to be flying or singing at the moment, even the air remained motionless.
Not a breath of wind, most peculiar, it was quite breezy when I got out of the car.
She brushed the thought from her mind and continued along the path, the single thought turned into a stream coursing through her mind, had she prepared everything, was everything turned off, would she need something else. She didn’t want to get anything wrong before she and her 6 month old son went on their first holiday.
I didn’t like that replacement babysitter…
The more she thought about it the more it made her uneasy, call it motherly intuition or just an over active imagination, whatever it was she had to get back and collect him.
She was about to turn back and return when something in the distance caught her eye, but when she looked again she couldn’t see anything.
Maybe it was a shadow or something.
Her dog started to pull on the lead, he was straining to go after it, her arm was aching as he continued to pull.
“Will you stop pulling” she shouted as she tugged back on the leash.
The dog twisted its head violently and managed to break free, running off before she could react. She called after him but he was obviously after something far more exciting, she watched as he darted to the left and into the bushes out of sight. She jogged over to where the dog had disappeared and saw an old wooden style overgrown with fern and bracken; she could not remember seeing this before but with everything on her mind that did not surprise her.
The path that stretched off into the distance looked overgrown but not completely impassable, as she climbed over the style. She pushed through the outstretched bushes clustered along the track. The high trees on both sides blocked the sunlight and kept her in shadow making her somehow feel smaller than usual.
Where is that damn dog, he couldn’t have got far.
Momentarily she stopped and the immediacy of her situation reasserted itself, was it panic or was there something else, she had to leave now. The thick forest on both sides made it hard to determine where she was; let alone the damn dog. Standing still she felt a cold chill crawling up her legs and it was then she noticed the temperature drop, a cool breeze started to blow past her, she pulled her lapels up to protect her neck.
She called her dog’s name, but as her voice tailed off she heard no sign of the animal. A strange sound carried on the cool breeze, it sounded familiar but she was not sure what it was. The path stretched as far as she could see, the trees eating it up in a strange swirl of colour and shimmering light.
Her apprehension had something else to hook onto, her dog failed to make its presence known and she continued to feel decidedly uncomfortable standing on the path. Turning back she walked to the style, but even after a few minutes she was no closer to it. A tingling at the back of her throat told her something was very wrong.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed some movement, but again when she turned to face it nothing was there. To compound her mounting concerns the strange whistling sounds returned. Staring into the forest her vision greyed out, then she felt slightly light headed, it was as though she was being swallowed up by the trees.
Without further delay she turned and ran for the style, it could not be more than ten yards away, but as she ran forwards it never got any closer. How could this be, the surroundings were moving, but she was getting no closer to the style.
From behind her the whistling noise was getting louder and as she craned her neck round to see what was there, a grey shadow shifted just on the edge of her vision. Her lungs were burning now as she tried to reach the style, panic gripped her as the whistling had now reached a crescendo. She stopped running and closed her eyes.
The seconds stretched as she waited, but nothing happened even the noise had stopped. Slowly she opened her eyes, half expecting something to be in front of her, but to her relief all had returned to tranquillity. She would worry about what had just taken place when she was driving away in her car to collect her son.
Further down the path she saw something move, was it her dog, she watched as it moved again. She tried to call out but found her voice was mysteriously muted. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a shadow move, the sick feeling in her stomach lurched again as she realised it had only been a momentary respite.
She felt a pain stab at her waist and caught sight of a shadow, the pain increased and she had to stop moving and close her eyes. When she opened her eyes the pain had subsided slightly, it was then that she noticed the movement just inside the confines of the tightly bound forest, it seemed to be alive with grey shadows swirling and twisting between the trees.
The pain in her waist returned with a vengeance, she could now feel it spread across her body. She looked down, but as her eyes settled on her waist she wished she had not. She could not see her hand, her arm seemed to have been cut off by her body. She pulled it forward and slowly saw it reappear from inside her waist. Lifting her hand up to her face she saw what had happened to her, The pain increasing with every passing second and then everything slowed down. She watched as the colour drained out of her hand and it slowly became a smoky shadow.
Her attention was caught by the slow movement of the undergrowth just up towards the path. She looked through the fog of pain that had started to envelope her body, to see her dog casually moving out of a bush, it sat down at the style and looked at her slowly wagging it’s tail. She tried to call to it but no sound came out, only a thin wispy mist.
She was hit by another burst of pain and she screwed up her eyes and fell to her knees. As the pain slowly subsided she opened her eyes and looked straight at the babysitter on the other side of the style. In some confusion she watched, not quite comprehending the sight in front of her; the babysitter was cradling something.
She watched as the babysitter turned the bundle towards her and then she saw her son smiling. When she looked back at the babysitter’s face she was taken by surprise, there looking back at her was a mirror image. She tried to call out but the pain took over again. She caught one final glimpse of her son before the babysitter turned and walked away; the dog walking by her side his tail swishing in contentment.
Any attempt by her to call for help was drowned out by the chorus of triumphant whistling that had reached a crescendo. Through the haze of pain she saw shadows all around her, closing in, the air thinner as they approached, the pain had almost overtaken her. In her mind she screamed out her son’s name.
Silence…
A cuckoo could be heard in the distance, its repetitive song seemed to trigger the other birds and before long the forest was alive with the chorus of life, the sun shone down the path, the forest felt tranquil again.
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