Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel (3 page)

‘I hear you, arsehole. You just wait.’

Laughter echoed out at her. ‘You can’t catch me, I’m the fucking gingerbread man!’

Tully dodged around a tree trunk as thick as her own waist and plunged deeper into the woods. She could hear Toby’s feet thumping against the dirt, and wondered how he could possibly see anything without turning his torch on. Her brother had the vision of a cat. She
giggled, and tucked her phone into her pocket again. Didn’t want to drop it and spend the rest of the night looking for it. It was a good one, had all her music on it.

Another gleeful whoop from Toby and she dashed toward the sound of it, caught up in their old childhood game. A branch reached out and snagged at her hair, and she squealed, tugged, and took off again.

‘I’m going to catch you, you mad bastard!’ she called.

‘The gingerbread ninja is too fast for you!’ came the answer out of the darkness.

Laughter bubbled up and broke, Tully giddy. She pushed past another tree, and swung the torchlight wider, searching, but there was no sign of Toby.

‘If you get me lost up here, Toby, you’re going to be in deep shit!’ Her heart was jigging around in her chest but she kept going, slicing through the dim woods with her torch, alert for any sound from her brother.

A crack from above, and she screamed as her brother thumped down to the ground behind her. Strong arms grabbed her and a hand pressed over her mouth. She struggled and twisted, trying to twist around to see who held her, trying to make sure it was Toby. But the arms were made of steel, and the fingers tightened, mashing her lips against her teeth.

‘Shh,’ Toby hissed. ‘Look at that.’

The hand against her mouth relaxed, and Tully swallowed her heart back down out of her throat. It was only Toby. She wanted to hit him.

‘You bastard…’

‘Shh.’ He pressed her back against him and held her there. ‘Look.’

‘What? What the fuck, Toby?’

He pointed, and she followed his finger. ‘You see that?’

He could feel his sister trembling against him. 

‘What’s doing that?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Shine your torch on it.’ His voice sounded scratchy to his ears, and he wanted to shake his head, shake his eyes loose, because maybe then they wouldn’t be seeing anything.

The torch beam swung up and fastened onto the shrubs ten meters away from them.

‘They’re moving,’ Tully whispered. ‘Why’re they moving?’

‘I don’t know.’ Nothing else was moving. There was a breeze, but it was lethargic, hadn’t even nipped at their ankles as they’d run. ‘It’s got to be an animal.’

‘A big one, then,’ Tully said and pressed harder against him. ‘I’m not sure I want to see what sort of animal is up here shaking a bunch of bushes.’

Toby had to agree. ‘Back up,’ he said, and took a couple of steps ba
ckwards, pulling her with him. Expecting at any moment that something would burst from the bushes, eyes blazing, teeth bared. A stray dog perhaps, mean and half-starved. Something that would look at them and see midnight snack.

‘But what’s it
doing in there?’ The torch beam wavered.

The branches beat at the air as though the thing in their midst was shaking them, worrying them like a terrier with a rat between its teeth. Toby could hear the blood pound between his ears in matching rhythm.

Then another tree shook, to the side, a small sapling this time, growing on its own, and it was shaking, invisible hands rattling it, branches convulsing.

‘What the fuck?’ Toby hissed, tightening his grip on his sister. Tully swung the torch across to the sapling, but there was nothing there. Nothing moved but the tree, and Toby half expected to see it uprooted, thrown at them.

Then a third tree, on the other side, shaking as though someone was trying to strip the leaves loose. Toby bit down on his lip, felt blood, and swung his head wildly from shaking bush to tree, to third tree.

‘Let’s get the fuck out of here,’ he said. He
backed up again, then yelped as his back grazed the trunk of a tree standing behind him. He let go of Tully and groped for her hand instead, already tugging her away, back the way they’d come.

Another bush
trembled, then whipped back and forth in furious movements, this one closer to them. Toby could feel the flood of adrenaline in his system, overtaking the fuggy haze of the dope.

‘We have to go,’ he said. ‘It’s circling around us.’

‘What is it?’ His sister’s voice was a hoarse cry but he didn’t bother to answer, didn’t have any answers anyway. He gripped her hand tighter and pulled her with him, turning, dodging the trees behind them, hearing the whistling of tree limbs as they shook on every side.

‘Through here, quick,’ he said, and she was coming, feet slapping the earth right behind him, the light from the torch bouncing up and down as they ran.

They were away from the shaking bushes, but time had slowed down, and Toby was in a dream, running through air as thick as syrup, pressing against him, slowing him down. Tully was screaming something, but he couldn’t tell what it was, her voice was distorted. He kept his grip on her hand though, and the forest grew around them – how far in had they come, playing their stupid game? They were too old for games, for horsing around, chasing each other like a couple of kids.

They broke through into the clearing like breaking through a bubble and the real world rushed back in, Toby’s heart thumping against his ribs like a battering ram. He slowed, and risked a glance behind him.

‘Oh my god.’ It was Tully, her hands pressed against her mouth, eyes riveted on the woods where they’d burst through into the clearing. ‘It’s an orb. A really fucking big orb.’

Toby didn’t know what it was called, but he didn’t like the look of it. Grabbing Tully by the elbow, he dragged her backwards, further away across the clearing. The light – orb –
hung suspended at the treeline, bouncing softly up and down, for all the world like it was watching them.

‘Stop. Stop, Toby,’ Tully said. ‘I have to get a photo of this.’ She’d dropped the torch, was struggling to pull something out of her pocket. Her phone. Her hands shook as she raised it towards the light at the woods, and Toby heard the click of the camera over the harsh rasp of his breath.
The camera clicked again.

‘Oh shit,’ Tully said and backed up, stumbling into Toby. He grabbed her with a steadying hand.

It was coming towards them. Moving away from the trees, making for where they stood rooted to the spot watching. It grew bigger as it came, a swirling, misty grey glob of light that stretched as though reaching for them, moving faster and faster, there was no way they could outrun it, though Toby pulled Tully back with him, turned, got his feet moving, dragging her with him.

But it was faster, and by the time it was on them,
it was the size of a man. Tully screamed, maybe Toby did too, she wasn’t sure. He stumbled though, and tripped, falling to the ground, Tully coming with him, landing half on top of him, knocking the air from his lungs, leaving him with only a gasp instead of a scream as the mass passed right over them.

It disappeared. Evaporated. Gone as soon as it touched them. Left only an impassive moon, and the hard glitter of stars looking down on them as they lay in the grass, smelling the waft of sea breeze from down the hill.

Toby lay back and stared at the sky. He could feel Tully’s eyes on him, knew they were wide and frightened. His own felt as though the lids had been peeled back permanently. He felt around in his mouth for enough saliva to wet his tongue, to speak, but he couldn’t think of any words.

‘I am never going ghost hunting again,’ Tully said, pre-empting him. He tried a nod in agreement. ‘What was that thing? I’ve never seen anything like it.’ She moved, and knelt over him, her fair head blocking out the moon. ‘What was it, Toby?’

He didn’t have any answers. It had all happened so fast – had it even been real? Tully bent her head and fiddled with something in her hands. Her phone. Her torch lay forgotten in the grass beside them, the light an elongated oval on the ground.

‘I got it!’ she said. ‘I caught it on my camera.
Look!’

Toby didn’t want to look. He slithered out from under her and stood up, eyes going automatically to the tree line. Had they really seen something? Had something really chased them out of the forest and across the clearing? The Enchanted Forest. He didn’t know about enchanted, but definitely haunted.

‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘Find the others, and go.’

Tully was standing too, head swivelling. She reached out and touched Toby. ‘My hands are shaking so
bad,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Everything on me is shaking, I think all my screws have come loose. It feels like all my screws have come loose.’

Tully’s hand clenched on his sleeve. ‘It went right through us, or would have if we hadn’t fallen.’ She was looking back at the trees again. ‘I want to go home.’

‘Right now,’ Toby agreed, and picked up the torch, sent the beam swinging around the clearing, paused it where they’d come crashing out of the woods. None of the trees were shaking. He was though. The light trembled in his hand, and with his other, he smoothed down his hair, rubbed his neck. ‘I want a shower,’ he said. ‘That thing touched me. I want a shower.’ A hot one. A really hot, long one, and he thought he might use a whole cake of soap getting rid of the dirty, contaminated feeling. ‘Let’s go.’

No disagreement from Tully. She walked close to him, huddled into his side, phone clutched in one hand. Toby didn’t know if he’d ever be ready to see the photograph she’d caught of the thing that had ambushed them. He was glad this had put his sister off her ghost hunting.

‘I never expected to see anything,’ she whispered. ‘Not really. Not here. It was just a lark. When you said let’s come up here, it was just for a laugh. That’s all.’

Toby knew she was talking mostly to herself, and let her without answering. He’d never expected to see anything either.

Matt and
Lara were sitting in the grass where they’d left them, clothes back on, cigarettes in both their mouths. They looked up and grinned when they saw them approaching.

‘See anything? We heard you guys screaming.’
Lara’s teeth shined in the moonlight.

Toby reached down and plucked up her pouch of tobacco, set about rolling one. He couldn’t feel the tissue paper in his numb fingers.

‘You heard us screaming and didn’t do anything?’ Tully was hugging herself, and looking around, nervous. ‘We saw something all right.’ She glanced at Toby. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

He nodded, managed the neat little twist that rolled the tobacco into the cigarette paper and licked the sticky edge, handing the pouch back to
Lara. Not waiting for any of them, he turned for the car. Tully followed him.

‘Hey, wait up!’
Lara jumped up. ‘You really saw something?’

‘I photographed something,’ Tully said.

‘What?’

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ Matt said.

Toby’s skin prickled as the path entered the woods again. He could feel it pull tight over his bones, and patted his pocket for a lighter. The act of lighting a cigarette calmed him, and he sucked the smoke into his lungs with deep concentration.

He waited by the car as the others argued over the existence of ghosts. At last
Lara unlocked the doors, and they piled in. Tully leaned forward and shoved her phone between the seats at her best friend. Toby reached up and pushed down the door lock.

Lara
looked at the photo, then turned wide eyes towards Toby’s sister. ‘What is it?’ she asked in a hushed, awed tone.

Tully just shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But it was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.’ She turned to Toby. ‘What about you?’

There weren’t the words to answer that question. He shrugged and turned back to the window, smoking and eyeing the trees.

‘Let’s get out of here,’
Lara said, passing the phone over to Matt. ‘I can’t believe we were out there while that thing – whatever it was – was out there. It could have been looking at us. I was naked for Christ’s sakes!’ She shot a look at Matt. ‘That’s the last time we do the wild thing outdoors.’

‘
This could be a photo of anything,’ Matt said and twisted around in his seat to look at them in the back. ‘It’s just a blur. You took a photo of the moon for all I can tell.’

Tully snatched the phone from him and hunched over the screen. ‘You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d been there, Matt. It was terrifying.’ The car took a sharp turn around a corner, and Tully was thrown against her brother. She looked at him. ‘You tell him, Toby. Tell them what happened.’

He shook his head, and concentrated on his cigarette. He didn’t want to think about what they’d seen. He much preferred ghosts in the abstract.

Straightening up, Tully held up the phone with the picture on the screen. ‘We were just having fun,’ she said, and Toby wondered how many stories started with that –
we were just having fun.
‘I was chasing Toby through the woods, when we saw something.’ She paused and shook her head. ‘It was freaky, real freaky. Everything was still, right? And then this bush started shaking as though there was a bloody elephant hiding in there.’ She chewed on her lip in the dimness of the car. ‘No, not an elephant. A lion or something. Something with sharp teeth and claws made for ripping.’