The headlights blaze and jump as the car bounces along the lane behind me, and the field is suddenly filled with their white fire as the car passes the gate that I have just hurdled.
They must not have seen me dart to the right off the road. For a moment I think that the pursuit is over as the lights move fast away down the lane, burning like a sunrise over the horizon of the hedge.
But then the brakes are on and the tires screaming. The engine protests at the speed of the reverse and the car draws back level with the opening to the field and it pulls right up close to the gate.
I had considered simply ducking to the ground at the base of the hedgerow a few yards along but they are worked up and angry and at least one of them is drunk and they are unlikely to surrender the search so easily. Instead I keep moving. Slower and more deliberate so as to make less sound but fast nonetheless and cloaked in shadow.
I hear car doors open and I can see them over my shoulder climbing the wooden bars of the closed gate to peer into the darkness. Looking over my shoulder is the risk I need not have taken.
I trip and an involuntary sound escapes me, more of surprise than pain. But it is enough for them and quickly the gate has been hurled open and the car revs and roars and sweeps into the field. As the headlights swing around to the line of the hedgerow and hit my back, I am counting the yards to the next hedge, the speed of the car behind me - which I have now confirmed is as I feared, a four wheel drive pickup truck, but what would I expect from a farmer? - and more importantly the height of the hedge. It is twice that of the gate that I cleared and is surely eight feet, maybe eight and a half, off the ground.
When I came in to this field I came right off the road and went left, resuming the direction of the road. There is an exit - two in fact - but they are at the bottom end of the field and I would have to have headed straight across. It is too late now, they are too close, and their vehicle too fast, too well suited to this terrain.
That hedge though. The way the land drops away in front of it, the thick foliage, solid branches of hawthorn that reach up in a tangle. From the foot of it to its top it must be closer to nine feet tall and from the look of it, impenetrable and un-climbable. This is, I suppose, its main function, to form an effective barrier.
They can see this too and press on looking to have me cornered.
'Poacher boy!' they shout. 'Poaching arsehole!'
There is fury in their voices, malevolence. They have retribution in mind and the thrill of the hunt has their blood up. I know this all too well. Its sharp scent curdles in my nostrils, makes me salivate and gag at the same time.
The gap is closing and though I push myself the harder, there are limits that I am finding that I cannot breach, no matter how unfamiliar and new these limits are.
As a rut in the earth breaks my stride for a moment I can hear them call again, louder and angrier than ever, spurred by my stumble.
'Know what we do to poachers round here do you?!?'
But I am no poacher. I am more hunter-gatherer, although I share this with poachers; I find that I will do almost anything when I am hungry, and the challenge and fear become part of it.
The chicken in my hand is limp but not dead. I have stunned it with a blow before taking flight, an improvised but apparently useful skill. It will awake though, and soon. I hope it does not do so before I have my chance to do what I need to.
Then, just as the truck headlights sweep up and down the line of the hedge in front of me as it bounces over a hump I spot something I had missed.
Nine feet of hawthorn hedge must be cleared, for there is no chance of turning aside now, no possibility for surrender. The truck closes the gap, closes it and changes angle, pulling left in toward me to box me in. They are pushing the speed now, quiet in the cab either because the bouncing vehicle has distracted them from their shouting, or because they have had a good look at me. Moving at this pace, anyone would be silenced.
But they are not deterred and I have only twenty yards left of ground ahead of me, maybe twenty behind and I wonder whether they mean to run me down rather than catch me. It doesn't really matter, I imagine that either outcome will be much the same.
I can hear the engine loud now, hear the hiss and rustle of the long grass sweeping the underside of their truck and above that I can hear their breathing. It will come down to these last few paces. These last two.
This one.
The animal trough stands waist high and is a dull metal construction with a box-like base and bars forming the upper half.
I spring easily onto this and vault up and to the left toward a tall ash tree leaning over from the next field. I am reaching arms out to the low bough even as I hear the sliding of the locked wheels on damp grass as the brakes bite. I spare a second for the driver's reactions. We have been playing chicken, both of us, with that hedge and his focus on me in between us has blinded him from the fast closing distance. He may bring the speeding vehicle to a halt, he may not.
My hands clasp on the branch and I swing myself up with the momentum, pull myself in close and hook my legs over it. As I settle onto my backside I watch the truck as the driver wrenches the wheel and the vehicle pivots sideways. Round tyres are designed to roll, not slide side-on and the truck pitches and bounces over the rough ground and then with a shearing, crunching impact, smashes into the trough, which is crushed like a tin can.
The truck does not roll, and the trough slams into the hedge, sandwiched. From the driver's side they spill out dazed and cursing.
And armed.
One of them carries a shotgun and is not slow to seek me out in the tree above them. Even with the imminent crash they could not miss my acrobatics. So there is no time to waste.
I bound along the branch, dart behind the trunk, which bears the splintering, shattering brunt of a thunderous shotgun blast, and from there I am almost level again with the edge of the single-track road, which I cover in one prodigious leap and vanish from their sight.
In the corner of this new field there is a stand of trees and at last I can squat down and shelter, catch my breath. In this moment of peace, I can claim my prize, which hangs limp in my hand.
Chapter 23
The show that Roth put on for them was one of strength and prowess. Carrying the tallest of the men up into the branches of the tree he spent some time resisting the urge to feed again, considered wounding or scarring him as he screamed to his friends below. But sense returned and Roth knew that he should not make such a point of drawing so much attention.
Already he was asking for trouble and though he felt confident and reckless in the strength he possessed, he also knew that a low profile would better allow him to enjoy it.
So he had let the man drop, watched and listened as he hit the ground, heard the crunching impact and the cry of pain on landing and then Roth moved quickly along the branches of the tree and away into the shadows.
He wondered whether they would report the attack, how a group of strapping young men would explain the beating they had all taken at the hands of one assailant. How that same assailant had carried their friend up into a tree and then dropped him out of it.
No, Roth thought, they would keep it to themselves. If he had injured himself in the fall he would most likely explain it as sustained on the field of play and they would all of them talk of it only amongst themselves in private.
But it left him unsatisfied and frustrated. He was restless again and the things he had been doing these past nights had thrilled and enthralled him, awed him at the breadth and scope of possibility. But there lingered some unscratched itch.
Something just out of reach, that seemed to drift and recede each time he tried to grasp hold of it. Something that had eluded him from the beginning and had shown itself to him only fleetingly and in snatches.
This incredible change had come over Roth, allowing him to become something extraordinary. But at what price?
And how?
Cha
pter 24
As a trophy it was not much to gloat over. Limp and cool the bird was probably dead, though not long. I supposed that the running and chasing across fields and hedges clasped tight in my fist had done for it. Choked it or broken its scrawny neck.
Either way, all the exhilaration I had felt earlier, all the contentment I had felt at alighting on this short-stop solution to my problem had drained away. Now I just felt a sadness and self pity creep over me as I looked down at it, knowing what I must do next, which just made that feeling worse.
When I bit, I bit down hard. Better to do it fast and certain and get it finished.
The blood was somehow thin and empty and immediately I had the sense that it would not achieve what I needed. That all I was doing was sitting in a cold dark field, drinking the blood of a dead chicken and trying to convince myself that this was somehow a necessary and rational thing to do.
I threw up then, but at by own instigation, fingers jabbed into my throat.
'Pathetic.'
The voice was deep and thick and otherworldly, and more to the point, very close by.
'We should just end this here. The point is made.'
I cannot see them in the darkness but the voices sound familiar. They were the ones I heard in the lane by the pub.
'You would like that wouldn't you?'
I had no idea if the question were for me but I answered it all the same. 'What I would like is for you to show yourselves.'
'You see, he's still afraid. He has no control over it, no idea what to do with it.'
If I had been heard, I had also been ignored.
'Just because it is slower does not mean it won't happen. He has postponed it but cannot do so any longer. Not now he knows.'
'He knows nothing.'
'He knows.'
'He is in denial and it will end him. Better that we simply bring a close to this before he starts advertising things.'
'Well if he is in denial, perhaps we should disabuse him of his misconception. Have him face it.'
'Very well. It might even be fun.'
'Laing? That's your name? Laing?'
Apparently I am part of this conversation now.
'It is. For a minute there I wasn't sure if you knew I was here. Now it seems you even know my name.'
'Good. Now listen. You need to hear this. You are changing. You know this?'
'I know something's not right.'
Right then a stomach cramp bursts across my midriff and I am consumed by it for long minutes. It rages across my ribcage, racks my shoulders and I can feel hot lancing pain running all the way to the tips of my fingers. Then one of the voices is in my ear and a hand is on my shoulder.
'That is the change that you are trying to run from Mr Laing. And it will only get worse if you do not deal with it. You must know what you need by now? You might not want to, but you know.'
'Blood?' I say, though I sound far less sure that it is the answer than I am. 'Blood for some reason, to help with my condition.'
The contemptuous one has been silent awhile. He snorts with derision.
'Well that's not exactly wrong is it?' says the other one and then returns his attention to me. 'You do need blood, and you do need it for your... condition. But this won't do it.'
I feel, rather than see or hear the body of the chicken tossed away into the darkness. Somewhere inside me I can feel a crumbling, breaking sensation, like a wall being demolished.
'What you did the other day was either ingenious or lucky but it worked. A deer is a large animal and it was terrified when you took it.'
'Who are you? Who are you fucking people?' My strength is returning as the cramp subsides and all these vague references to something I don't want to hear are testing my patience.
'We use whatever names are convenient, but you may call me Frost. My friend here goes by Stanford.'
'Stanford and Frost. Sounds like a law firm.'
'This,' hisses Stanford from his position several feet away, 'is just the kind of diversionary tactic you've been using for days to avoid facing the truth. Well you may want to run from it my boy, but trust me, it has caught up with you now.'
Frost's hand is on my shoulder and his fingers press harder. 'You know what the truth is Mr Laing. Stop pretending that you don't. How you face it is the real issue. What you do now is life or death.'
'You have perhaps a day or two,' Stanford says, 'certainly no more than that, not in your state, not outdoors like this. What you have to look forward to if you do not do what you know you must, is an intensifying of that pain and madness that you are feeling. It will take you over and destroy you Mr Laing, of that I cannot be clearer. You will not survive if you do not face this.'
'Or indeed,' adds Frost, 'you may prefer to let it consume you. Many do. Many simply cannot face the alternative. Few get past the first days and weeks. They get taken by the sun or the hunger, or they give themselves to it when they see what is required.'
'Blood,' I say the word flatly and it feels strange and new on my tongue.
'It is all that will sustain you now. You won't be taking down deer or livestock on a regular basis or living rough. Already you look like a tramp even considering the wash in the lake and the change of clothes.' Stanford has a tone that suggests not just impatience, but that his time is being wasted and his effort too.
'You have been watching me?'
'Some of the time, yes, and following. We have observed your reaction, monitored you. We didn't want to intervene. But your behaviour has been dangerous and reckless and we cannot risk exposure.'
'What Mr Frost is leading toward is not just to tell you to pull yourself together and stop drawing so much attention to yourself and what you are, but to tell you that if you don't, we shall.'
The threat is delivered dispassionately which still shocks me in spite of the course and content of this whole conversation.
'The choice is yours to make Mr Laing. What is it to be?'
Chapter 25
What happens across the course of the following days I can only recall in snatches.
When I failed to deliver a response - was in fact unable to, was paralysed with shock - Stanford announced that they should simply 'end the charade' and moved toward me with a menace and intent that was palpable.
Frost stepped in and convinced him that they would leave me to consider my decision a while longer but made it clear they would be watching me and then dissolved into the night.
I was not able to spend too long pondering all this, these numerous revelations, because the cramps kept on returning, stronger and longer.
They were right about the chicken too. In a desperate attempt to stay the pain, I found the dead bird in the grass and tried again to drink but it bounced off my stomach and I threw it up again.
With a few more hours until sun up I began to weigh my options. I realised that I was lost now and would struggle to recover my back pack and sleeping bag. Having left the village after the pub I had had to wander some distance before finding a farm and from then my movement was all haste and hurry and in the darkness, the fields and lanes blurred and I lost track of myself.
I reasoned that I could try to retrace my steps but there were angry men with shotguns and a crashed pickup truck out there along that route and in any event, I was not confident that I could pick up the trail.
There between the racking cramps I was afforded moments of clarity that terrified me. I needed to hide, and felt every bit as certain that I would not survive the sunlight as I had been comfortable with it days before. Frost and Stanford had swept back the curtain in my mind and I knew what truth it had concealed. Had probably always known.
But I'm a reasonable, rational human being. Or at least I was. Some truths are hard to accept, particularly the truth that you know to be impossible.
Now though, now those delusions of medical conditions and magical nutritional supplements to make everything right again were laid bare. You can convince yours
elf of almost anything if you want enough to believe in it. But any truth can only ever be camouflaged or concealed, it cannot be altered. You can try to turn your back on it but it will still be standing there behind you next time you turn around. Breathing down your neck.
What I did next would be life or death, as Frost had assured me, and as more and more pain assailed me I began to move, trying to stay ahead of the panic.
That sleeping bag had been a comfort blanket too, and now I was stripped down to the clothes I stood up in and my rapidly shredding wits.
I recalled more fields and a forest. For a long spell, as I was ambushed by a particularly severe burst of pain that felt as though each tendon and sinew in my body were being tightened like piano wire, I simply curled up next to a badger sett. The animals ventured out curious but bolted away when they got close enough to see and smell. It crossed my mind to try to crawl after them into their tunnels but the holes looked small and the idea of passing a day burrowed in with frightened wild animals seemed desperate and extreme, even then.
A car almost struck me as I stumbled across a road. I had a moment of naked fear when I assumed that my pursuers had fixed their pickup and reloaded the shotgun but a screech of tyres and a shout of 'Pisshead' out of the window dispelled the notion, though not enough for the thought to go entirely. As the pains stretched ever longer, with scarcely any respite, my thoughts became clouded and confused and as my vision blurred with the onslaught, I began to conjure demons from the mist.
Lights in the darkness became that rampaging truck, any movement in the gloom was surely Stanford returned to follow through his intentions, or the gun wielding men taken to pursuing me on foot.
Then it was over. After a long, agonising, semi-conscious day, with the heat scarcely bearable the sky darkened and I woke, the pain subsiding a little, in the cellar of a farmhouse.
How I got there I could not say. For some time I moved in the darkness trying to recognise something down there, something that would trigger off a memory of my journey down into this place.
But there was nothing I remembered and I could hear above me the sounds of people going about their evening. I waited there, long painful hours, for the sound to stop. Desperate as I was, I could not bring myself to simply walk out into their house and whatever might await me. In my mind there was a large family, grown sons, as burly and stern as their father, all seated in the kitchen surrounded by heavy pots, sharp knives and bubbling pots on the Aga.