Savage Read online

  On this occasion, however, there was no obvious reason to feel this way; after all, he’d simply been strolling across an empty field. It was true that he hadn’t eaten for several hours and was perhaps slightly dehydrated, but these were surely unconvincing explanations for such a disorienting experience. He knew from his research that the human body could tolerate a much lengthier lack of sustenance before protesting with such palpable delirium.

  It’s the animal astir beneath the tenuous surface, thought Daryl, but was so preoccupied with regaining control of his riotous frame that he struggled to link this notion to any of his academic knowledge. The world around him—that shadowy pack of trees, and the half-glimpsed buildings just beyond it—swayed and lurched, like wet paint smeared across some immense canvas, dripping and staining, forming hideous imagery…

  And then, only seconds later, it was over. After staggering forward a few paces, Daryl’s sense of bewilderment passed, just as quickly as it had arrived. He stood up straight, his visual field stabilizing, his stomach becoming firm again. At last he didn’t feel like vomiting anymore.

  Had he contracted a mild form of food poisoning back in Durham? He wondered whether any of the other academics presently suffered in the same way. Nevertheless, while shaking his head to clear it of lingering unease, Daryl refused to indulge a slightly foolish suspicion that a rival delegate had deliberately spiked his food or drink with some illicit substance that resulted in this kind of disorientation.

  About a minute after suffering the attack, he started moving on. But after glancing up ahead, he noticed something decidedly unusual. The trees standing between him and the property now only fifty yards away looked…odd. Before suffering that dizzy spell at the heart of the field, he’d taken these trees for Hawthorns, the kind he’d observed many times while regularly visiting the Yorkshire Dales during childhood, with his overprotective mother and authoritarian dad. But the species he now observed in this wooded plot were nothing like that commonplace variety.

  He leaned back his neck, still trying to clear his mind of all its shaken perception. After closing and reopening his eyes, he found himself examining innumerable branches stretching away from bulky trunks, but none of them resembling any he’d ever witnessed in this country, nor even in foreign climes, where such vegetation had always struck him as pleasingly more angular.

  And this single descriptor—angular—certainly captured the nature of these strange new trees. Every one of them lacked the crooked curves of common species, and instead boasted perfectly vertical trunks, ruthlessly straight branches, neatly ruled twigs, and symmetrically precise foliage. It was like observing an artificial plot of woodland whose creator had attempted to achieve a geometric representation of trees, rather than a convincingly imperfect facsimile. And the farther Daryl ventured into this ostensibly fabricated area, the more the many crisscrossing limbs overhead resembled a mesh of man-made substances, lampooning their original subject with perverse exactitude.

  Seconds later, deeply unsettled in a way he was unable to come to terms with, Daryl glanced down.

  The vegetation on the ground appeared less disturbing, but considerably different from what he’d commonly seen in similar locations. All the grass underfoot boasted a ragged texture, like saw blades gathered together in clusters. The few rocks he could see possessed an implausible roundness, as if shaped by a sculptor who was unable to achieve rugged realism and had overcompensated with such impossible smoothness. The soil itself was hard and looked unnaturally flat, like a level field fashioned by a landscape gardener, but covered in dirt and densely compacted, so that it almost resembled unmodified reality.

  Almost.

  Indeed, that was the sacred watchword here. Although Daryl undoubtedly remained in rural Yorkshire, he seemed to have wandered into a curiously transformed region. He recalled his sat-nav unit failing to recognize the area, claiming he was only a matter of miles from the major city of Leeds. And yet how could this be? Daryl could certainly understand anyone getting lost in a wildly remote location, like certain places in the Scottish highlands or in the depths of central Wales…but here, in the highly populated north of England?

  Moments later, after looking only a few yards ahead, Daryl’s bewildered mind threatened to convert the nausea he’d suffered earlier into external evidence.

  An animal—a squirrel, it resembled, despite being much larger than one had any right to be—was splayed over a rock situated near the farthermost edge of this bizarre wood. Blood was splattered in neat patterns right across the impromptu sacrificial altar, but it was the severed body of the thing that Daryl, advancing quickly toward the sight, was now eager to examine.

  Had it been deliberately sliced in half? The damage looked as if it might have been caused by a falling weapon, but not one used commonly in the modern world. Had this been a sword, maybe? The severance was perfectly straight, directly across the center of the thing’s body, and this seemed to rule out any alternative explanation. If another animal had torn it apart, how could it have done it so neatly? And if a person had enacted the deed, what was the motivation? Woodland squirrels—if indeed that was what the oversized creature was—were hardly germ-carrying vermin or a danger to domestic animals and farmland stock. Perhaps it was just local children armed with ridiculously large knives who’d affected the damage…

  At that moment, Daryl tried hard to suppress less pleasant memories, involving many episodes at the comprehensive school he’d attended, where several bullies had bossed the place. Then he glanced ahead at the village that had now come more fully into view. It looked deserted in the deepening dark. And seconds later, Daryl, with images of blood and petty violence tainting his mind, felt even more uncomfortable than he had after first breaking down in this cold, lonely region.

  3

  The village, which appeared to consist of only a single high street, was dominated by a church whose spire reached way above the roofs of all the other buildings. There was also a large hall in which Daryl assumed local dignitaries must host events, a small school with a symmetrically chalked playground, several clustered shops, and a large number of cramped terraced houses.

  Crucially, there was no sign of a service station where he might acquire a drum of petrol or even pay a mechanic to drive him out of the village and then tow back his car to fill from a pump.

  Despite his obvious disappointment, he was intrigued, as well as slightly unsettled, by the absence of activity he observed while strolling along the high street. The several stores—a bakery, a greengrocer’s, a butcher’s, and a number of other standard village outlets—boasted dark windows, their owners clearly having left for the day. Daryl checked his wristwatch; it was 7:30, that naturally quiet period between a working day and a recreational evening, when folk put on their best clothes and got ready for a night out.

  But now something else began to disturb Daryl. There were no cars parked either in the high street or along several short lanes leading to housing beyond the village’s commercial front. He’d expected to spot at least a few vehicles stationed neatly against the curbs, but there were none at all; it was as if the residents made little use of transport and perhaps had everything they needed here. Maybe all the produce sold in the shops was sourced from local enterprise: bread baked at home, vegetables grown in allotments, cattle slaughtered at nearby farms.

  Daryl glanced elsewhere, feeling more and more troubled. Most of the property surely dated back to the Victorian period, exhibiting sombre facades and imposing entrances. Its architecture was free from fey adornment, evoking the kind of rarefied stature favored by chaste dwellers. In the windows of several buildings, or standing in the yards of many others, Daryl noticed more examples of that unusually angular vegetation, potted plants or small bushes whose wild form had been seemingly tamed by precise pruning. The few trees he saw occupying neat patches of greenery amid all the housing bore the same geometrical exactness as those in the woodland leading into this village, their branches and tw
igs too straight to be wholly convincing, jutting squarely away from artificially upright trunks.

  His anxiety reaching a new level of unease, Daryl exhaled with haste, his heart rate running at a considerable canter. But then, after reaching the end of the high street and noticing another cluster of weird trees opposite the junction, he spotted something that, in any other circumstances, would surely be reassuring: a pub. Or at any rate, Daryl thought it was a pub. A sign hung over its narrow entrance—THE TEMPERED WOLF, it read, bearing a portrait of the predatory animal standing peaceably beside an elegiac lamb—and although the building’s windows were masked by netting, Daryl was certain he’d just spotted movement inside, as if somebody had looked out to observe his reticent approach.

  Although he’d never been fond of visiting pubs, he liked an occasional drink, often while spending some peaceful time alone with Frederique at his apartment. A glass or two of wine tended to relax him, making him less pernickety about his girlfriend’s relaxed manner, the way she sometimes left items of clothing around his home or grew more intimate than he was entirely comfortable with… But now his mind was wandering again; he ought to focus on his more immediate task: getting a drink and maybe something to eat, before somehow arranging for his car to be refueled.

  The pub would surely have a telephone. He might even get a reception on his mobile inside; residents of this tiny village would almost certainly use mobile phones, keeping in touch with distant relatives living in less exclusive locations than here… Stepping swiftly up to the entrance, Daryl removed his own handset. It was now almost fully dark on this cold autumn evening, but even as he reached forward to open the pub’s door, he sensed that the warmth clearly existing beyond it was far from welcoming.

  4

  Although it was obviously a pub, nobody inside appeared to be drinking alcohol. After stepping inside and shutting the door, Daryl noticed a handful of people standing at a bar and holding what appeared to be cups full of non-toxic beverages, like tea or coffee or hot chocolate. To either side of him, seated at innumerable tables, other folk nursed tall glasses of what was clearly fruit juice or fizzy soft drinks. There was little noise in here, just an exchange of muffled banter from a doorless room to the right, which looked like a games area clearly occupied by well-behaved youths. But the drinkers in the beer lounge were mostly silent, even though, while beginning to pace across it with mounting discomfort, Daryl heard a few errant whispers among the group and observed at least one person nudge another suggestively in the ribs.

  As several men and women parted to make room for him at the bar, Daryl was unable to avoid noticing how strikingly attractive all the pub’s patrons were. They were clearly not only lucky beneficiaries of good genes, but also immaculately turned out, each dressed variously in smart suits, neatly pressed dresses, elegantly knotted ties, buttoned cuffs, and polished shoes. But contrary to Daryl’s expectations, none of them seemed self-conscious about exhibiting this level of sartorial refinement in such a relatively modest location, and simply stood or sat there, observing him with half-formed smiles. Indeed, Daryl might have felt welcome, as if he was being warmly greeted, if not for the intimidating absence of noise in the lounge.

  At that moment, a break of pool balls from the nearby room filled with youths lessened the tension, which had probably existed only in his mind anyway. It freed up a tightness that had developed in his throat, allowing him to speak to the man standing behind the bar—the place’s landlord, presumably.

  “Oh, hi there,” Daryl said, hoping the words he’d tried to express with liveliness would eliminate some of the attention from the people either standing or seated around him. Then, swallowing awkwardly, he quickly continued. “I’m afraid I’ve hit a spot of bother. My car has broken down in a lane nearby, just across a field beyond some woodland outside your fine village. And, well, I was wondering whether there was someone hereabouts who might help me get it going again.”

  “Do you plan to order a drink?” asked the landlord, a burly man with a perfectly groomed mustache, not unlike a hedge in one of the gardens Daryl had observed on his way to the pub; it was neat to the point of symmetrical, fussily trimmed. “That’s the way we conduct matters here. We have an established routine, you see: a series of inviolable protocols. That way, everyone knows what they’re doing, and nothing can go wrong. Do you understand?”

  Two things struck Daryl about the eccentric way the man had spoken. First, his voice was crisp and measured, like some old English TV presenter’s, the Received Pronunciation of the Oxbridge crowd. Second, and perhaps most disconcertingly, he’d appeared to speak on behalf of all his clients; his use of the pronoun “we” and the phrase “established routine” had almost certainly referred to everyone in the bar, and maybe even in that adjoining room, where youngsters continued to clatter balls across a pool table.

  Did all the villagers, as if sharing some kind of herded mentality, think identical thoughts?

  This thought made Daryl feel even more uncomfortable, and so he quickly responded to the man behind the bar, who was now gazing at him with unblinking eyes.

  “Ah, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I’ll have a…” He hesitated, realizing how unwise it would be to ask for an alcoholic beverage; he might soon be driving again, after all. Nevertheless, an even greater hindrance to this resolution was that the place didn’t appear to sell booze. Clearly nobody around him was drinking anything intoxicating, and there was no stale smell of ale in the air; there weren’t even any beer pumps in front of the landlord, which was surely unthinkable in any conventional pub. Then Daryl finished, “…I’ll just have an orange juice, please.”

  The man responded with a suspicious gaze, taking a glass from an unseen shelf beneath the bar and immediately beginning to pour a glass of juice from a bottle he’d conjured from another. Then, after placing the brimming vessel on the bar, he snapped his gaze Daryl’s way. “A pound precisely, please.”

  This phrase’s alliterative force alarmed Daryl, but he quickly pushed a hand into one pocket and produced the requisite money. The landlord’s voice had just put him in mind of the way his father had often addressed him as a child…and there’d never been any protest there, not at all; despite his mother’s best efforts at offering smothering comfort, Daryl had often been too terrified to even speak to the man.

  After relinquishing the coin and then collecting the drink from the bar top, Daryl paced hurriedly away, sipping anxiously while examining the fifteen or twenty people loitering in his peripheral vision. They’d all become silent again, which enhanced the tension he sensed lurking below the surface of such ostensible calm. Should he say something to break the unusually taut atmosphere? Surely he wasn’t the only person here who perceived it, but who else seemed likely to intervene? Now the episode felt as if he’d stepped into some cliché horror movie, with all patrons about to issue melodramatic exhortations, instructing him to “keep off the moors.”

  He’d readily do so, of course, but first he needed to get his car up and running again. Indeed, he should tackle this problem immediately. By now, he’d lost his appetite but knew he could eat later, when he’d finally fled this weird place. After sipping from his drink, he turned to the modest crowd of onlookers and said, “Can anyone else please put me in touch with—”

  But that was as far as he got…because then, sneaking up on one of his blindsides like a sword-wielding killer, someone took hold of his arm.

  5

  Daryl whirled, his emotions rising as high as they ever had during his carefully monitored life. Most of the people standing around him shrank perceptibly back, as if he’d just hinted at his capacity for retaliatory violence if matters threatened to run that way…but this of course was unlikely. He was about as aggressive as the Queen of England.

  When his startled gaze finally adjusted, however, he found himself looking at an attractive young woman who’d clearly emerged from the games room beyond the wall running along one side of the beer lounge. The girl was ho
lding no drink, but her breath bore a sweet smell, like fruit freshly plucked from some fine tree. She was maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, and as pretty as any chaste Renaissance portrait Daryl had ever admired. Her smile was broad, her eyes bright with irrepressible health… Daryl could even admit to feeling a bit aroused by her, but he knew this might just as easily arise from his mounting anxiety, in what was becoming an increasingly strange episode.

  “Are you one of…the undisciplined?” the girl asked, and seconds later, all the other people around her and Daryl—all her fellow villagers—inhaled a collectively alarmed or astonished breath.

  Daryl turned to observe his companions, and was greeted by the same number of immaculately turned-out people, looking both disapproving and intrigued. It was as if they’d just been embarrassed by the teenager’s openness while secretly applauding her audacity. Flickers of interest danced deep in the corners of their staring eyes. All their angular bodies—not unlike the trees and plants outside, now Daryl considered the matter—seemed to twitch with suppressed curiosity. Nevertheless, each of them upheld their postures of hostile scrutiny. Daryl continued to feel watched, evaluated, reduced to a consensually negative deduction. And that was when he knew he must speak.