Chapter Text
Twigs snapped underneath her bare feet as she ran. Leaves crunched, and the smaller creatures of the forest scurried and scampered in their efforts to flee from her path. An owl hooted indignantly from nearby, disgruntled that she had frightened away its midnight meal. One look at her, however, and it squawked and flew away. She ran on two legs until a phantom instinct told her not to: something buried by day but unlocked in the nighttime hours. She hinged forward and began running on all fours like a massive beast. A terrifying monster.
I am a beast. I am a monster.
It wasn’t a conscious thought, really. More of a sensation. Born at the base of her skull, it reverberated down her spine until it met the earth beneath her feet, and was left behind.
I am a beast.
I am.
I.
It became foggier with each loping stride until there was only the chase, the hunt, the driving force of running forwards. She weaved around great pines and dodged massive oaks. She could taste rain on her tongue, some already fallen, some yet to come. Mist curled like ghostly fingers around tree trunks and bare bushes. There was a crispness to the air that came only in autumn.
Autumn.
That voice in her head. She ignored it or tolerated it, but she could never be rid of it. She had tried before, tried running and howling and hunting. Nothing would silence that voice. It didn’t speak often, but when it did it always seemed to have the power to turn her into a stumbling pup. Something about it reduced her instincts to nothing but echoes.
She looked up and slowed to a halt. Clouds dotted the sky. She focused on one. Its eerie, puffy shape moved quickly, blown by a wind that reached only the highest levels of the atmosphere. It peeled back to reveal a full, bright moon. An autumn moon.
Another instinct came alive, something beyond her control. An impulse she couldn’t ignore. She gazed at the moon in wonder, revelling in its totality. She threw her head back and sang.
Villanelle awoke in her garden. It was a dead and dreary thing, with summer long gone and winter around the corner. She was laying amongst dirt and rotting plants. In the height of summer, it had been a bed of roses. Thorny remnants itched at her sides and back. She winced as she heaved herself out of the decaying undergrowth, as naked as the day she’d been born.
She rubbed at her head irritably. It pounded low and hard in her skull. She scowled and took stock of her body. A few scrapes, a couple of scratches, but all in all it could have been worse. It was certainly not the worst shape she’d woken up in. She rose to her feet and dusted herself off before walking serenely towards the manor, unbothered by the cold air and the morning’s frost under her bare feet.
Konstantin would probably be upset with her, in which case would refrain from putting on any clothes until he found her. That way he would be too uncomfortable to chastise and lecture her. She chuckled to herself. Considering what he knew about her, what she was, it never ceased to amuse her that nudity, of all things, was what made the man shy away from her.
She had killed people. She had killed people in the night and woken up the next morning none the wiser. She eventually found out from the reports that came in from town. Those mornings Konstantin would look at her with some odd mix of pity and awe, but he wouldn’t even peek at her naked body the times when she strolled around with not a stitch of clothing on her.
Villanelle smirked to herself as she reached one of the side doors of the manor. Konstantin had a faulty moral compass, to be sure, but apparently, this brand of chivalry mattered greatly to him. To her, it made no difference. There were worse things in the world than to be naked in one’s skin.
With an apprehensive look at the small stone building, Eve climbed trepidatiously out of the cab. She hauled her well-worn, battered suitcase out of the trunk and waved at the cabbie through the back window of the sedan. She had to turn abruptly to avoid the spray of dust when he sped off down the shoddy, cobbled road.
“Prick,” she muttered before she inhaled a cloud of dirt and began to cough.
It had been an awkward cab ride, to say the least. The man had tried to chat with her about where she was headed and why, but Eve was headed to a small village that barely counted as a speck on the map, and she wasn’t allowed to talk about her work, so those two avenues for chatter had dried up fast. Eve hadn’t been in the mood to reciprocate with conversational topics of her own.
Instead, she’d spent the majority of the car ride staring out the window, watching London be replaced by rolling hills and meadows. The countryside had sped by and Eve had watched as they’d passed around and through progressively smaller towns. She envied those people their tiny lives while she struggled to keep her head above water in the city.
She sighed, lost in thought, dust and suitcase forgotten.
Niko had left her six months ago. Or had she left him? She could no longer keep track of the narrative they told themselves, always laying the blame on one another, never resolving the real issue: that they just didn’t love each other anymore. How could you solve that, anyway?
Turns out, with a divorce.
And then, with her marital life crumbling around her, Eve had been informed by her boss, Carolyn Martens, that her coworker and closest friend, Bill Pargrave, had been killed. He had been investigating strange events in a small town in the English countryside. It was a hazard of the job, Carolyn had said, given the kind of work that they did. But it hadn’t made it any easier to accept Bill’s death.
One day he had been there, her friend and primary support during her divorce. The next day, he was gone. Swept under the rug and forgotten. Carolyn hadn’t seen the point in continuing Bill’s work in the town, a rundown village called Blackmoor, and had planned instead to close the case for the foreseeable future. When Eve had caught wind of that plan, she had cornered her boss in a dingy hallway in their building and had insisted that she be allowed to go to the town and wrap up the loose ends herself. Carolyn, not one to turn down someone who was willing to put their own neck on the line, had agreed to let her go. That had been two weeks ago.
Having finally arrived, one look at Blackmoor had Eve wondering if she’d made a huge mistake. The town, if it could be called that, was small and rustic. In the late afternoon sun, it looked like the scene from a postcard depicting some World Heritage site. Eve had trouble imagining how a place like it could still exist in the modern world. She felt wholly removed from time, standing on the side of the road with her trusty little suitcase.
The decaying cobblestone street on which she stood drew a narrow line between a smattering of stone buildings that looked to be on the verge of collapse. One huff of breath from the big bad wolf and they would all fall down in an instant. Most of the rooftops were lined with ceramic tiles in various shades of brown, orange, and red, although Eve caught a glimpse of a few thatched roofs down the way.
Thatched roofs. She was beginning to feel as though she’d walked into the early 19th century.
Beyond the main road, there wasn’t much else to see. A few buildings tucked away here and there, sheep bleating in the distance from a nearby farm. The weather was warm and pleasant for autumn, but she’d been warned that it would get cold overnight. Her suitcase was packed with turtlenecks and pants, and a pair of warm mittens too. She hoped it would be enough. Blackmoor clearly wasn’t a place to do any kind of shopping.
The distant barking of a dog pulled Eve out of her thoughts and reminded her that she was still standing motionless in the street. The building she had been dropped off at was two storeys of narrow stone with a steeply slanted tile roof. It seemed sturdy and well taken care of, which she supposed was the least she could ask of a place that looked as though modern architecture had completely passed it by. Affixed to the front wall of the house was the building number: 18. Eve didn’t think there were more than twenty buildings in the entirety of Blackmoor. Below the house number was a small wooden plaque. It read:
Turner Residence and Guestrooms
The house was going to be her hotel, of sorts. Her accommodations had been arranged by Kenny, her tech wizard coworker and her boss’ son. He would be her main point of contact with the outside while she stayed in Blackmoor. She was already looking forward to calling him just to remind herself that modern society still existed.
Unsure of what to expect of the Turner Residence and Guestrooms, Eve trudged up to the door with her suitcase in tow. She tried the handle and when she found it locked, she raised her hand and knocked on the thick wooden door.
Several moments passed and no one answered. Eve sighed and tried again, rapping her fist harder. She was ready to try a third time when she finally heard the sound of a deadbolt being unlocked, and another mechanism, maybe a chain, being unfastened as well. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel. Clearly, the owners were concerned about security, which was at once both reassuring and worrying. Eve couldn’t imagine what kind of crimes would be taking place in a backwoods town like Blackmoor, but she supposed that was what she was there to find out.
The door opened to reveal a young man in his twenties. His short, unruly brown hair framed a smug-looking face. Eve immediately found it annoying. It wasn’t a conscious decision, some instinct just told her that this smarmy kid would irritate her, somehow.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, it’s Eve Polastri, I’m booked to stay in your guestroom.”
The young man looked her up and down and grinned. “Of course.” He stepped aside and welcomed her into the house with an exaggerated flourish of his hand. “And what would bring a woman as lovely as yourself to the shithole that is Blackmoor?”
Eve fought the urge to roll her eyes and stepped into the house. The front entryway had been made into a crude sort of lobby, with a desk to one side and a couch and area rug opposite. Straight ahead, Eve could see a hallway that extended to a small kitchen. To the right were a set of old, wooden stairs that led to the second level.
“I’m here for work,” Eve told the man as she glanced around. “So am I upstairs or..?”
“Ms. Polastri-”
“’Eve’ is fine.”
The man grinned again. “Eve, please, I have to check you in first. Then I can give you the grand tour.”
Eve really did roll her eyes that time and turned to face the young man who was so expertly getting on her nerves. He was dressed in a sweater with a collared shirt underneath, and a nice-looking pair of corduroy pants. He looked too pretentious for Blackmoor. Eve cocked her head. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Hugo.” He flashed a smile.
“Hugo,” Eve repeated, committing the man and his name to memory. She supposed she shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk to a local, especially one as chatty as him. “Well, check me in then, I guess. Maybe while you do I can ask you a few questions about the town?”
Hugo grinned his cocky grin and walked over to the desk. He pulled out a small binder and began leafing through. “What would you like to know?”
“Any murders recently?”
Hugo coughed loudly in surprise before he looked up at Eve, his face an image of shock. “What- what kind of work are you here for?” he stammered.
“I’m investigating a recent death. A homicide, I believe.” Eve took a breath and decided to dive right in. “This man-” she pulled a photo of Bill from her jacket pocket, “-was here about a month ago. He died here. I believe he was killed here, actually. Would you happen to know anything about that? Have you ever seen him before?” She tapped the photo with her finger.
Hugo was completely taken aback. His eyes darted from the photo of Bill to Eve and back to the photo. His mouth worked noiselessly until he found the nerve to clear his throat. “I- uh, I haven’t seen that guy, I swear. I heard about a death a while ago though. Maybe it was him? It was, uh-” he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “-it was pretty grisly, I heard. It was at the Westfield Farm Campgrounds, outside of town, I think.”
Eve kept her face expressionless as she took in the information, but internally she was feeling a rising excitement. Not even one day in town and she was already making headway. She put the photo of Bill back into her pocket. “Thank you, Hugo. That’s very helpful. Now, how about checking me in?”
Hugo swallowed and nodded hurriedly, turning his attention back to the binder on the desk. “Polastri, room 2, upstairs.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a small iron key. “Here’s, uh, here’s the key to your room.”
It was obvious that Eve’s questions about a possible murder had thrown the young man off his game. Eve let her lips pull into a slight smirk as Hugo tried to compose himself.
“So, uh, the rooms upstairs on the right. We have another guest right now in room 1, across the hall-”
Eve raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Another guest? Popular place.”
Hugo ignored the comment, still put off-balance by the topic of murder. “The guest bathroom is shared and at the end of the hall. We provide breakfast in the morning between 6 and 10 and dinner in the evenings at 7:30. This-” he pulled another key from the drawer, “-is your key to the front door, which is locked at all times. Please remember to lock it when you leave the, uh, the house.”
With that, he handed Eve the keys. Just as she was about to turn and head upstairs, he added hurriedly, “The manor.”
“Excuse me?”
“The manor. It’s, uh, it’s a big mansion a little way out of town. Real creepy place. Everyone here says it’s cursed.”
“Does anyone live there?”
Hugo nodded slowly. “A young woman and some old man, I think. We hardly ever see them so I, uh, I don’t know much else.”
Eve did her best attempt at a warm, thankful smile. “Thank you, Hugo. That’s all very helpful information to have.”
“Yeah, no problem, Eve.” As he said Eve’s name he seemed to collect himself, a bit of his cocky attitude returning. “And please don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything while you’re here.” He had the audacity to wink at her. Eve almost wanted to applaud him on his brazenness.
“Right.” She turned away before he could say anything else, and set to carrying her suitcase up the old, creaking stairs.
The second floor of the house somehow felt narrower than the first. The beige walls with their faintly peeling paint weren’t doing it any favours. The hallway was short and split into three rooms: room 1 on the left, room 2 on the right, and the bathroom at the end of the hall, just as Hugo had said. Eve set her suitcase back onto the floor and unlocked the door to her room. She stepped inside and immediately closed the door behind her. Inspecting it, she found that it had two deadbolts. Again, she wasn’t sure if they were a comforting sight or not.
Turning back to face her room, Eve took it in with tempered expectations. Sure enough, the room was nothing special. Plain walls framed the room which held a narrow single bed, a wooden bedside table, a small wooden dresser, and a square window that looked out onto the roof of the neighbouring single storey house.
Eve eyed the bed dubiously before collapsing heavily onto the edge of it. A small digital clock sat on the nearby table, next to an old lamp. Its dull, red numbers displayed the time: 5:49 pm. Eve sighed. It was too early for dinner, too early for sleep, but she didn’t much like the idea of staying in her dingy hotel room for two hours just to eat and go to bed immediately afterwards.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and debated giving Kenny a call. A few seconds later, she decided against it, and instead opened the web browser to search for information on the Westfield Farm Campgrounds.
The internet was slow. In the corner of its screen, her phone displayed just one measly bar of service and an archaic 3G network logo. Eventually, the webpage loaded, and she found the basic information she’d been looking for. The campsite was located a short distance away from Blackmoor, and the directions to get there were relatively easy.
Eve stood up and checked her jacket pockets to make sure she had everything she might need: the keys to the house and her room, and her wallet. She was travelling light, it seemed. She slipped her phone into the pocket with all the rest, wheeled her suitcase into one corner of the bedroom, and made for the door.
As she stepped out of her room, Eve caught sight of movement across the narrow hallway. A woman, presumably the other guest, was closing the door to her room behind her. Between the door frame and the door itself, Eve could see the sliver of a face, of nervous-looking eyes. Eve acted on instinct, waving awkwardly. “Hi, I’m Eve.”
The closing of the door paused, and Eve watched as the woman peered through the narrow opening at her. “Hello, Eve.”
Eve thought the woman’s voice sounded Russian, and she could just see tendrils of wispy brown hair framing her face. “And you are?”
The door shut abruptly. Eve stood confused for a moment before she let out a huff and turned to lock her door. She muttered under her breath as she did it, put off by the rudeness of the other woman.
Trudging down the stairs, Eve caught sight of Hugo in the lobby. He was lounging on the couch with his phone in his hands, his lips pulled into what Eve had now assumed was his characteristic smirk. She made a mental note to ask him more about himself later, maybe over dinner. Questions like why he was living in Blackmoor when he had the bearing of an Oxford-bound prick. Eve reached the bottom of the stairs and cleared her throat expectantly. Hugo looked up from the couch.
“Hi, Eve.” He grinned. “What can I help you with?”
“I’m going to visit that campsite you mentioned, Westfield Farm? Any ideas on how I can get there? Blackmoor doesn’t seem like it’d have a car rental service.”
“Oh,” Hugo rose from the couch. “Actually we let guests use our car here at the Turner Residence and Guestrooms.”
Eve raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. “Really? You just let strangers take your car?”
Hugo shrugged. “My mum and dad don’t use it too much, and they know Blackmoor isn’t exactly a bustling city. Every so often when guests come through they want to drive out to a picnic spot and appreciate the local landscape.”
“That seems both highly irresponsible and ill-advised.”
Hugo shrugged again. “Haven’t had any problems so far. So, you need the car?”
Eve felt uneasy about taking the Turners vehicle but she didn’t have any other way of getting herself to the campground. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Great-” Hugo brushed by her and began walking down the hall to the back of the house. “-Right this way then.”
He led Eve through the doorway she had seen when she first arrived. As she’d suspected, it did lead to a small kitchen. The room had vinyl countertops over wooden cupboards and cabinets, and an old electric stove next to a fridge. What struck Eve most was how clean it was, as though it had recently been washed and wiped down that afternoon.
Hugo must have seen her looking because he turned over his shoulder and told her, “My mum’s a clean freak.”
“Hm.”
To the right of the kitchen was an open archway which led to a small foyer at the back of the house. Several pairs of shoes lay scattered to one side, and Eve understood that this was the back door of the house, and presumably the Turners’ main entrance and exit.
“Lots of shoes,” Eve pointed out casually. “Is everyone home?” She found it odd that she’d had yet to meet any other members of the Turner family, although she supposed she had only been there a short while.
“Mum and Dad are sleeping,” Hugo replied as he slipped on his shoes. “My sister’s probably holed up in her room reading a book.”
With that, Hugo unlocked the back door and led them outside. Eve noticed that the back door had several deadbolts, just like the door to her room.
“Why all the deadbolts?” she asked as Hugo led her along the back side of the house and towards a car parked on a small gravel driveway. The rest of the backyard was occupied by long, yellowing grass, and a small storage shed stood in one corner.
“Oh, uh,” Hugo didn’t turn to look at her, and Eve got the distinct impression that he wanted to avoid answering her question. “People are superstitious out here, and, uh, paranoid is all.”
“Hm,” Eve hummed. She wanted more information. Her curiosity was growing inside of her but she reigned it in. Her first order of business was to investigate what had happened to Bill. All other curiosities could wait.
“So, here it is,” Hugo announced as they reached the car.
It was a small, grey sedan. It looked old but in decent condition, with no rust spots or paint chips or broken windows. Hugo pulled the key out from the pocket of his pants and handed it to Eve. “Should be okay on gas, but try not to let it get below a quarter tank because the nearest fuel station is about fifty kilometres from here.”
Eve took the key and glanced at the car apprehensively. “You’re really just about to give me your family’s car? Has anyone ever stolen your car before?”
Hugo looked at her and grinned. “Well, no. We have your information, remember? Eve Polastri from London. I have your phone number. If you ran off with our car we’d just report you.”
“Oh.”
Eve stepped away from Hugo and toward the car. She unlocked it, opened the door, and climbed in. It smelled like coconut. She glanced over and saw an air freshener fastened to one of the AC vents on the dash. “Nice touch,” she muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She turned the key in the ignition and felt the car come to life. The fuel tank was just over half full. “How long of a drive is it to Westfield Farm Campgrounds?”
When Eve had searched up the information earlier, she hadn’t been paying too much attention to the directions. She hadn’t thought that she’d be driving herself there that same day.
Hugo mulled it over for a moment before answering, “About 30 minutes, I think? You need directions?”
She did, but she didn’t feel like entertaining Hugo’s company any longer. She would pull over outside of town and look it up herself. “No,“ she told him curtly, “I’ll map it on my phone.”
“Service is a bit spotty out here. I wouldn’t rely on it if I were you. But there’s a map in the glovebox if you get lost.”
Eve looked dubiously at her phone, and then at the glovebox. “Alright, thanks for the heads-up.”
She was about to shut the door when Hugo added, “Try to be back in time for dinner!”
Eve flashed him a reassuring smile. She hoped it conveyed the gist of ‘yes, I will be back in time for dinner’. Then, she shut the door, buckled her seatbelt, and put the car into drive. As she pulled out of the Turners’ driveway, she adjusted the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of Hugo watching her. She thought that he looked perturbed by something, but he was a shrinking figure, a shrinking concern, and she decided to pay him no mind.
The driveway led onto the main street of Blackmoor, the one Eve had been unceremoniously dropped onto earlier that day. She remembered from her brief search earlier that the campsite was to the north, and she turned right onto the main road to follow a generally northward direction out of town. Within thirty seconds she’d left Blackmoor behind; it’s cobblestones and thatch and suffocating smallness. The road became a shoddily paved country lane and Eve pulled over at the next spot that had a modicum of a shoulder before the ground beyond the highway dipped into a nearby ditch.
With the car stopped and her hazard lights on, Eve pulled out her phone. She was thankful to see that she still had a bit of service, and she opened her navigation app and entered the campsite’s name in the search bar. An excruciatingly long moment later, the result popped up and she found her directions.
The estimated driving time was 23 minutes. It was a straight shot up the road Eve was on for about 20 minutes, and then a left turn for the final 5 or so. Easy as could be. Eve made a mental note of the names of the roads and then locked her phone and dropped it into one of the dusty cupholders in the centre console. She turned off the hazard lights and pulled back onto the highway.
As she drove, Eve found herself becoming a little more understanding as to why people would choose to live in a ghost town like Blackmoor. She had no particular love of the city and had always found small towns alluring, but five minutes in Blackmoor had had her ready to rescind that opinion.
The surrounding countryside, however, was gorgeous. Autumn colours had taken to the leaves, oranges and yellows canopied the parts of the road that were flanked by tall trees. For part of the drive she could stare out her window at endless rolling fields, some clinging to the green of summer, others yellow with harvest and hay. The sky above her was clearing up as the evening approached, a final show of shining blue against the horizon before the advancing sunset. Eve began to feel at ease, the knot in her stomach unravelling.
When she’d signed on to investigate Bill’s death, she’d been so motivated by grief and despair that she hadn’t paused to think about the act of investigation itself. The emotional exhaustion of asking people again and again if they’d seen Bill, what they might know, where should she look. The early lead with Hugo had helped. She hadn’t had to poke and prod at every local in town. She was worried it wouldn’t always be so easy, but with the countryside to calm her, she was feeling some of her anxieties lessen somewhat.
As she continued, the road wound its way through a small forest. Aspens and poplars and oaks surrounded her, their strong shapes solid and comforting. The forest wasn’t wide, Eve could still see the open fields in the distance, but the shelter felt enveloping. She felt that she enjoyed it as much as the wide, open road.
Before long, she had made it to the campsite. The forest ended where the campgrounds began and Eve pulled the Turners’ car into the main parking lot, which was little more than a patch of smooth dirt. Climbing out of the car, Eve took in as much of the campgrounds as she could, committing it to memory.
It was rustic, little more than a wide, open field marked with an open gate and a bulletin board. The campground wasn’t quite empty, however, which surprised Eve given that it was getting a bit late in the camping season.
A wooden fence surrounded an area of what she estimated was about five acres of land. In the distance, she could see a farmhouse and barn, which she assumed to be the Westfields’. The campground itself was large and well-maintained. It was in one of the fields that still had vibrant, green grass in the middle of autumn. It was bordered by trees but otherwise mostly bare. About six of the campsites were occupied, with cars parked next to pitched tents. A few of them had campfires going, and Eve watched people mill about, enjoying the last bit of daylight before sundown.
The entrance where Eve had parked was marked by a large wooden archway. It reminded her of the driveway to a cattle ranch, the kind she’d seen on road trips during her childhood in America. Passing through it, Eve walked over to the bulletin board she’d noticed earlier. On it were faded instructions on proper camp check-in and set up, as well as a list of rules. Next to the faded sign was a newer one that detailed autumn camping protocols, hours of operations, and the date of the campground's closure for winter. Then Eve looked to the final notice pinned on the board: a police warning about a recent death in the area.
Reading it over, she was disappointed to find that it gave her no new information. The warning was vague at best, declaring that a man had been found dead in the area several weeks ago and that campers should take extra caution after nightfall. No names mentioned, no possible cause of death. Eve sighed and turned from the board, feeling her sense of peace from the car threatening to dissipate.
While the notice board had been a dead-end, she hoped that maybe she could gather a bit of information from the campers. She trudged into the open field and made her way to the nearest occupied campsite.
The people she approached appeared to be a young couple in their late 20s. A man and a woman sat next to each other in folding lawn chairs in front of a small fire. Their navy blue tent was pitched a few metres away next to their old, battered station wagon. As Eve approached she waved and called out a greeting. The pair looked confused but waved back as Eve closed the distance between them.
“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about the campground?”
The man, who had long brown hair and a rugged beard, looked up at her warmly. With his red and black flannel, Eve thought he looked like a lumberjack. “Sure, are you thinking of camping here?”
“Oh, uh, yes? Yes.” Eve went with it. It was easier than explaining what she was actually there for. She continued, “But I saw the sign as I came in- there was a death here recently?”
At the mention of the death, the man’s companion, a young woman with coiled, black hair and a cream-coloured merino wool sweater, frowned and spoke up. “Yes, there was. But someone insisted we camp here anyway, despite the fact that it’s creepy as fuck.”
“It adds a bit of mystery and intrigue,” the man insisted, turning from Eve to look at his partner.
“Only you would say that-”
“Okay!” Eve interjected, having zero desire to be pulled into some sort of dispute. “I didn’t mean to hit a nerve, I’m sorry. I was just wondering if either of you had heard anything about the death?”
The man turned back to Eve. “No, not really. Just that some guy was found dead in the woods nearby-”
“-You mean found mutilated in the woods,” the woman spoke up. She sighed heavily as she turned to address Eve. “The police weren’t giving out many details to the public, but I heard it was gruesome. The guy was all mangled. I think they said it might’ve been wolves.”
“If it wasn’t wolves then someone real fucked up is still on the loose,” the man added casually. Eve got the impression that he was nowhere near as concerned about the event as his companion was.
Eve was about to thank them for their help, however limited it had been, when the man spoke up again. “My guess is it’s some crazy from Blackmoor. That town is all kinds of weird.”
Eve dialled back in. “What did you say?”
“Blackmoor.” The man shrugged. “Have always heard that it’s a really weird town. Cursed or something. Haunted maybe? Anyway, my guess is someone from there finally snapped. Can you blame them, being stuck in a place like that all your life?” He looked first at Eve and then at his partner, awaiting some kind of agreement. When none came he shrugged and pushed out of his chair. “I’m going to grab a beer.”
As he walked off, Eve turned her attention back to the woman. “I guess I better be going. I am sorry if I caused you any trouble.”
The woman sighed. “No trouble that wasn’t already coming. You take care, and seriously, take my advice- look for another campground. This one isn’t worth the heebie-jeebies.”
Eve smiled and nodded before turning away and heading back towards the car. She shivered as, her attention no longer focused on the conversation, she realized that night had nearly fallen. The sun was almost done setting, the last rays of its light shining a faint glow in the sky. From the east, the black blanket of dusk was slowly creeping forward.
Eve checked her phone and swore under her breath: it was after 7 o'clock. With the drive still left ahead of her, she would be hard-pressed to make it back to the Turners before dinner. So much for making a good impression on her hosts.
Nightfall was rapid once the sun had fully set. Autumn was gorgeous in the daylight but quick to turn callous in the dark. Eve stumbled over uneven ground in the low light as she wandered back to the car, and by the time she reached the parking lot she was starting to see her breath, its pale cloud reminding her of ghost stories.
She wasn’t sure why but she was strangely relieved when she made it to the car. She opened the door hurriedly and shut it with equal fervour. At first, she couldn’t understand where her sudden fear had come from. Then she realized it must be something to do with Bill’s death. Searching around for clues by day was one thing, but being alone in the dark near the location of his possible murder? That was another.
Eve was about to start the car when her phone rang. It startled her so badly she nearly jumped out of her seat. The caller ID told her it was Kenny.
“Kenny, hi.”
“Hi, Eve. How’s Blackmoor?”
“It’s, uh-” Eve paused, unsure how to describe the village without making it sound too awful. If she made a fuss, Carolyn might request that she return to London. “You could say it has a certain charm.”
“Really?” Kenny’s voice came through sounding surprised.
“I said you could say that,” Eve clarified. “Are you just calling to check-in or did you have something for me?”
Talking about work felt good, especially talking to Kenny. She felt her tension subside slightly even as dusk settled around her.
“Mostly just to check-in. You’ve hardly been there half a day, I didn’t think you’d have made much progress yet.”
“Actually,” Eve balanced her phone between her ear and her shoulder and rubbed her hands together to warm them up. “I’m at the campground where Bill died.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. It’s the Westfield Farm Campground.”
“Right, right.” There was a pause, and Eve heard the sound of a clacking keyboard on Kenny’s side of the line. “Westfield Farm, established in 1865 by Jacob Westfield. The farm’s main business was the growing of wheat and barley until 1982 when the family cleared a 5-acre plot of land to open a campground.”
“That’s all great, Kenny,” Eve interrupted, grabbing the phone from her shoulder, “but do you think you could give me some more recent news? Something in the last month? Reports on Bill’s death?”
“Uh, hang on.” Another long pause. “Not much to tell, really. It’s so out in the middle of nowhere that his death didn’t make any major news cycle. A couple of local papers mention a man mauled by wolves in that area last month. May be referring to Bill?”
“Maybe.” Eve let the silence hang between them before asking the thing that had been on her mind since leaving Blackmoor. “Kenny, do you have any idea why Bill would even be out here in the first place?”
“The campground, you mean?”
“Yes.” Eve let out a sigh of exasperation. “I know he was investigating Blackmoor, but the campground doesn’t seem to be connected. Why would he have come out here?”
“I can do some digging if you’d like? Maybe there was something that got overlooked in his files.”
“Sure, Kenny, that’d be great.” Eve ran her free hand through her hair. “Keep me posted? I should probably get going. I’m borrowing my hosts’ car. Which, by the way, the Turner Residence and Guestrooms? Really?”
“It’s Blackmoor’s only hotel.”
“-’Hotel’ is a generous term-”
“Still.”
“Alright. Well, thanks again, Kenny.”
“No problem,” he replied, and then the line went dead. Eve dropped her phone into the cupholder and put the key in the ignition.
Before starting the car, she gazed out at the campground ahead of her. Through the windshield, she could see the dim lights of campfires and electric lamps dotting the field. She supposed that the campground would be quite beautiful in the summer, with late sunsets and starlight and more people to keep it lively. In autumn, however, and under the shadow of Bill’s death, Eve found something chilling in the way the lights flickered in the darkness.
And yet, it wasn’t as dark as it could’ve been. Nightfall had come but the sky was cloudless. Eve peered over the steering wheel and tilted her head towards the sky. The moon was rising, bright and full. The sight of it, along with the knowledge that it would help light her way home, was comforting.
As she set her sights back to the campground, she turned the key and let the engine roar. The clock on the dash read 7:36. She muttered to herself about dinner before putting the car in reverse, turning to the highway, and beginning the drive back to Blackmoor.
As she pulled onto the highway, the openness of the campground disappeared behind her and she was once again surrounded by trees. Where they had been solid and comforting earlier, they suddenly seemed twisted and sinister. The headlights of the Turners’ car illuminated the narrow road and not much else, giving Eve only glances of branches and bark. The rest of the forest lay shrouded in darkness, the moonlight that shone through its leaves reaching only scattered patches of ground. Eve’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. She wondered about turning on the radio but decided against it. It felt offensive to the forest. She continued in silence instead.
She didn’t have much experience with nighttime driving in the countryside. It was nothing like the city, with its street lights and neon signs and the everpresent hum of traffic. The countryside was quiet and still and foreboding at night. Eve regretted leaving Blackmoor so late in the day.
She hadn’t been driving for very long before the deer jumped in front of the car. One second there was the highway, and the next, brown fur and wide eyes. Eve screamed and braked. The car screeched as it slowed. There was a definite thud of something, an impact around the hood, but it all took place so fast that Eve couldn’t be sure what had happened.
And then suddenly, the moment was over, and she was sitting in a stopped car, panting hard and feeling sick.
“Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit,” she swore as she unbuckled her seatbelt.
Eve climbed out of the car in a rush, leaving the door wide open and the car still running. As she came around the front of the car, she held her breath, half-expecting to see a scene of carnage splattered about on the roadway.
What she found instead was what looked to be a very minor collision. The car had taken minimal damage and the only thing that appeared to be affected was the passenger-side headlight: wrecked and not working, the light inside had likely shattered. As for the deer, she found nothing. It seemed she’d only clipped it, and she could hear rustling and pained huffing coming from the trees off the highway. A small blotch of blood stained the broken headlight but otherwise, everything appeared to be fine.
As for Eve, the image of the deer refused to leave her, its eyes wide and terrified. Her hands shook as she wandered back to her open door and she felt unsteady on her feet despite the solid pavement beneath her. As she reached for the door to steady herself, she heard movement in the forest around her.
The sudden snapping of twigs. Crunching leaves. Eve froze, paralyzed by fear and adrenaline that hadn’t yet worn off from the collision. And then suddenly, the night was quiet around her. The car hummed but its noise seemed to fade out of reality. Eve strained her ears, listening for another sound from the woods, trying to hold her breath inside her so that even it couldn’t be heard.
A moment passed in silence, maybe even several minutes. Moonlight shone down in ghostly rays that touched only smatterings of the forest. Eve let out her breath. A wolf howled nearby.
Too close nearby. Images of the injured deer flashed in her mind, and Eve’s heart jumpstarted her body into action as she pulled herself into the car. Another wolf howled, or was it the same? Closer this time, and Eve had no interest in seeing just how many were in the pack. She threw herself into the car and slammed the door shut behind her. As fast as she could, she had the tires screeching again as she stepped on the gas and sped down the highway.
Maybe the campers had been right, that it had been wolves that had killed Bill, and yet Eve found that hard to accept. Whatever the cause of Bill’s death, she wasn’t able to think clearly about it as she accelerated down the road. She was keeping her eyes peeled on the highway in front of her. She didn’t want to risk another collision with an animal, and with only one working headlight, she couldn’t see nearly as much as she would’ve wanted to.
Suddenly, a short distance ahead, a man stumbled out of the woods and onto the road. Eve screamed and braked again, her nerves frayed, as the car came to a stop only a few metres from the man.
He stood in the light of her one working headlight. He had long brown hair and a red flannel shirt. He was holding his hands up towards the car. Eve recognized him as the camper from the campground.
They weren’t far away from Westfield Farm, it was true, but they were still far enough that he shouldn’t have been out in these woods. He’d have had to run through the forest from the campground, in the dark, to intersect Eve on the highway. She thought he was incredibly lucky to have not been hit by her car. To have even found her car at all. Then she took a closer look and decided he might not have been so lucky after all.
The man, and she realized then that she’d never even asked his name, was bleeding from a wound on his temple and a gash on his arm. Eve could see patches of blood blooming across the knee of one of his pant legs. He looked awfully scuffed up, like he’d taken a bad fall in the woods in the dark, she supposed. And then she remembered the wolves.
Outside, the man was stumbling towards the car. Eve wanted to get out and help him, to take his arm and lead him towards the passenger side door, but again she felt immobilized by fear. As he hobbled closer he reached out and set his hand against the hood of the car.
“Hey-” his voice came out weak and hoarse, but he gathered his strength and tried again. “Hey!”
Eve flinched. She knew he could see her looking at him.
“It’s you, from the campground. Thank God. Please, please let me in. I had to run- I can’t- I”
Stories of axe murderers and hitchhikers flew around in her mind. Eve hesitated, her hand hovering along the handle of the door. The hesitation was enough.
Faster than she could process, a shape launched from the woods and crashed into the man. In the brief instant that she’d seen it, Eve registered black; something black, and large, and monstrous. She screamed, and the man screamed, and blood spattered across the windshield as the beast let its momentum carry them both into the underbrush. Loud snarling met shrill screaming and Eve knew, in the back of her mind, that she was listening to the man die. Listening to him be killed as the sounds of tearing and scraping and breaking reached her ears through the window of the car.
Paralyzed by fear, Eve checked that the doors were locked, turned off the car, and did her best to huddle at the foot of her seat. Her heart pounded in her chest. She wondered if the monster could hear it from outside. It was deafening in her own ears, a thumping rhythm reminding her of the danger that she was in.
A few moments later, the screaming stopped, and so did the sound of tearing clothes and flesh. Eve tried to hold her breath but it ached to burst from her lungs. She was fighting back the urge to scream as terror seized her body, digging its icy fingers into her chest.
Silence followed the end of the brutal noises in the woods. It could have been twenty seconds or twenty minutes until Eve heard another sound: heavy footfalls and the crunch of leaves in the underbrush. It was approaching the car. Eve cowered and fought not to let out a sound, even if the thing already knew where she was. She cursed her earlier cowardice; she should’ve driven as fast as she could as soon as whatever it was had taken the man into the woods. Instead, she was stuck, cowering in the darkness of the car.
After the sound of its feet, it was the breathing she heard next. Heavy, panting breaths that she imagined were making large clouds in the moonlight. Eve brought her fingers to her lips and felt them shaking against her mouth. The beast came up alongside the car, pausing occasionally to sniff at the cold air. It stopped next to the driver side door. Eve knew she was visible to anything looking inside but so long as she looked down at the floor beneath her feet she could trick herself into believing she was invisible to all.
She waited and waited. She had almost convinced herself that the monster had left until she heard a grunt from outside, followed by a slicing noise and a hiss. Then, as quickly as it had burst from the forest, the beast retreated away from the car and into the woods.
The hissing continued. It took Eve a few moments to realize it was air being let out from her tire. Whatever had killed the man had slashed her front tire. The urge to scream had passed, but she suddenly felt as though she might burst into tears, might succumb to a hysterical fit of sobbing.
Did it mean to come back for her? Would it try harder to get at her, to pull her kicking and screaming into the night?
Eve stayed put where she was, huddled on the floor of the car. She couldn’t move even if she wanted to, her body betraying her with its fear. The image of the man’s final moments played on a loop behind her eyes whenever she closed them. She shook her head to dispel the image and had the presence of mind to reach for her phone in the cupholder. She unlocked it and her heart sank. No service. It was only 8 o'clock, but it may as well have been midnight. The night was dark but for the scattered moonlight that managed to break through the canopy.
She wasn’t sure if the Turners had a spare tire in the back. She wasn’t sure if she could change a tire in the dead of night with everything that had gone on around her. She felt hopeless and afraid as she hunkered down in her hiding spot. She didn’t cry, but she shivered, and the night carried on indifferently around her.