The Grampound Times

• Parish Council
• Location & Maps
• For the Visitor
• History
• Trades & Services
• Home

The Grampound Times
-recent editions

Edition 47

More Links

NIGHT STROLLER Part 2
(A short story by SIMON FANN – all copyright reserved to The author)

To the side of the path rose a large slate incline.  Wilf’s eyes scaled the expanse of rock to its uppermost overhang, protruding like the crest of a breaking wave.  He considered the grey sky above this pinnacle and stroked his chin.   A treetop parliament of crows stared back, shaking their heads in judgement.  The pitter-patter echoes of raindrops on leaves were initially slow, like an audience unsure whether to applaud, before the auditorium suddenly erupted and the deluge commenced. 
Wilf hastily concluded that scrambling up to the overhang would provide the best available protection.  The incessant downpour scythed Wilf’s visibility as his fingers gouged through moss seeking leverage.  Through the torrent he espied movement heading back towards the path and pulled focus on an indiscernible grey subject.  For a split second the rain paused in mid-air as Wilf watched breathlessly.  There was something indelibly familiar about the size and demeanour of the hunched figure.  He was consumed with a sudden need to follow it, but could make no headway against the elements. 
“Stop.  Wait” he yelled at the image, the piercing rain biting into his forehead.
The shrouded figure halted and slowly turned its glowering face in his direction.   The eyes were shadows but Wilf knew them as if they were his own.  He stared incessantly at the contours of the ashen face distorted by the rain.
“Emily” was the only word to escape his lips. 
The figure leaned towards him, its face scowling contemptuously before the vision was lost as the trenchant rain froze and became hail.  Wilf’s hands were stung as he clawed at the mud and roots to pull himself towards the vanished form.  He knew his shaking body was in no state to fight the storm further.  Dog and master hauled themselves up until they reached the rock crest and established meagre recourse from the pelting weather. 
After twenty minutes the downpour ceased, leaving a crepuscular veneer of grey gemstones that proceeded to melt before Wilf’s eyes.  The air was charged with an invigorating energy; the aroma of natural vegetation was augmented.  Slowly the sounds returned – drips of water falling from branches, the calls of smaller birds brave enough to venture out, then the cackle of larger relatives. 
“Ha!  Is that the best you can do?” he yelled, taunting the clouds.
Replenished, Wilf marched out from his refuge.  After ten metres the drenched surface of pine needles and earth gave way beneath his feet.  He tumbled down the sharp gradient on a different and far quicker route than had formed his ascension.  The  undulating freefall deposited him feet first in an exposed culvert causing painful spasms to pulsate up his spine and disperse throughout his entire body.  Disorientated, he gradually sat up to examine the throbbing pain in his right foot, finding it immovably trapped between a slab of rock and a rotund tree stump.  Tugging with both hands at the rough edged slate he established it was unwilling to yield from its earthbound vault; the stump was equally substantial and wider than any he had prized from gardens with scaffold poles. 
How stupid, he rebuked himself.  Why did I come down here today?  Why wasn’t I more careful when the rain stopped?
“It will be alright, Kellan” he tried to convince both himself and the sensitive dog that knew its master was in difficulty.  If only I could relive just the last ten minutes and go a different way….  Wilf looked around.  Soon all visibility would drop dramatically and with it the temperature.  No-one else will be out here this evening was his justifiable conclusion.
Everyday noises that had hitherto promoted his love of walking now afflicted his ears: the creaking of trees, the displacement of leaves, a distant lowing of cattle.  The latter loudened as more animals joined the impromptu chorus.  Kellan’s ears pricked up.
“No, girl, stay!” ordered Wilf, but the cattle’s invitation proved irresistible to a working breed.  She bounded off in the direction of the farmer’s fields until the jingle-jangle of dog tags could be heard no more.
Wilf cupped his hands to shout when a shrill scream pierced his nerves to the core.  He jumped bolt upright.  There was no secondary noise, no follow up to what Wilf knew instinctively to be the wail of a living being in terrible pain.  Although he had not heard such sound before, he was positive of its origin.
“Kellan…….Kellan ……..come here, girl” he called unconvincingly.  Only the crows’ black eyes twitched in response.  Exhausted and drained, he collapsed back to a supine position, the coldness of his mooring now eating deep into his trunk.
Time passed – it could have been minutes or hours.  He drifted inexorably back to the climb up the cavern slope in the downpour with Kellan.   Though a sceptic of paranormal activity Wilf could not dismiss the transparent image. 
Perhaps it was a warning – Emily said she would watch over me here; she was leading me back to safety.  I should have followed her. 
Scattering pheasants broke his self-absorption, though this time when he glanced skyward the tree-tops were invisible against a cloudless azure sky.  A fulsome moon beamed back at him – it’s going to be a clear, cold night.  Shivers struck like contractions, each one longer and more pronounced than the last.  Maybe I should just give up –at least then I’ll see her again soon.
Wilf recoiled at the thought of resignation and slapped his chest to stay awake.  Such exertion provoked a moment of inspiration as his trembling hands smacked against a bunch of keys.  His elation doubled on finding that the attached one-cell torch still worked.  The weak beam exposed hovering gnats as a troupe of poor man’s fireflies. 
Moonshadows crossed the ground.  Wilf watched the emboldened stars and presumed he would never have a better opportunity to count them.  Drawing in piles of leaves to promulgate a minimum of insulation his hands fell suddenly still.  Like the radar screens he used to watch Wilf’s peripheral senses registered an unidentified blip on the horizon.  Carefully he directed the torch towards a rustling to his left.  Sweat ran on his cheeks and a swift beating centred in his throat rather than his chest. 
Another twig snapped.  Wilf swung his hand around a split second before his head.  The light had just enough time to fall perfectly on two opaque emerald circles before they withdrew into the enclosing darkness in attendance with a bulky shadow. 
More alert and in touch with his senses than had been the case for twenty years Wilf listened to the sonorous growling.  He knew the cat was large, maybe a puma, more likely a panther.   
The torch swung rapidly in random directions seeking its prey as, no doubt, he was being surveyed by it.  Finally his eyes picked out a black shape amid the trees.   The animal’s body sunk low as it inched towards him, utilising the dismal ray as a flightpath.  Wilf stretched out his right hand desperately seeking any makeshift weapon.  The beast raised its head scornfully and with a resplendent roar bared its fangs.  At this range Wilf did not need any torch to envisage the size of the cat’s incisors and he pictured the sight of Jake’s ruptured cattle.  Such a mangled mess of flesh would be all that would be found of him.
Events unfolded to Wilf in slow motion as the animal quickened and sunk its rear haunches to pounce…TO BE CONCLUDED IN THE NEXT EDITION OF GRAMPOUND TIMES