October skies

Ben closed his journal and tucked it away into his satchel. ‘Tell me, do you believe the Devil is out there?’ he asked quietly.

Hussein’s eyes remained on the wall of mist as he considered the question. ‘My book, tell of many evil. The most evil is Shaitan. But I believe is much more evil, is more haram in hearts of men,’ he replied, talking quietly. He turned to look at Ben. ‘And you?’

Ben looked out at the mist, managing only to detect the faint outlines of the tree tops surrounding them. ‘I don’t believe in such things, Mr Hussein.’ The image of Hearst’s gutted, suspended body flickered across his mind. ‘But yes, I think I believe an almost limitless evil can dwell in the hearts of men.’

‘You are think, is man did those thing? Kill woman and boy?’

He shrugged, unwilling to speak aloud the tangle of suspicions and thoughts in his head. Preston truly frightened him. There was a chilling ruthlessness in the man’s eyes on his last visit. And yet he struggled to imagine the same man, who’d been prepared to place himself between his people and the bear, being able to kill his own so brutally.

His own son, Sam, and Dorothy, his lover.

None of it made sense to him.

‘I honestly don’t know,’ he replied and looked at him. ‘I can’t believe in a Devil. I just don’t. But perhaps the evil we carry in our hearts, if it’s strong, if there’s enough of it, can take some sort of physical form?’ Ben shrugged. It sounded unconvincing even as he gave words to the thought. ‘It’s just an idea.’

Hussein’s eyes narrowed as he briefly struggled to make sense of what he’d said. ‘I see.’ He nodded after a few moments, considering the idea. ‘Shaitan is the haram of heart of man — evil in our heart?’

Ben nodded. ‘Perhaps.’

Hussein’s eyes suddenly widened. Ben thought that the man had a further thought on the subject, but then Hussein swiftly raised his gun and pointed.

‘Look!’ he said, a finger jabbing out of the camp towards the blank and pale wall of freezing mist before them.

Ben turned to look at where he was pointing and saw absolutely nothing. ‘What is it?’

‘I see… moving.’

Ben scooped up his musket, placed the weather-worn butt against his shoulder, slipped a percussion cap in place and cocked it. Then he continued to study the formless mist in the direction the man was pointing.

‘Are you sure?’ he whispered.

‘Yes.’

They watched and waited in silence. The only sounds Ben could hear were the thumping of his heart and the fluttering rustle of his breath. The mist was a deadening blanket wrapped around the woods, killing every natural sound beneath its weight. He only hoped the freezing moisture in the air hadn’t percolated down the barrel and dampened the compacted charge of powder inside.

His eyes picked out nothing. And then he heard the crack of a branch; its brittle snap echoed through the mist. Beyond the edge of the clearing, in amongst the trees, something was moving.

‘Do you see anything?’ he whispered.

Hussein shook his head. ‘Not see nothing now.’

He wished Keats was standing alongside them, charmless and vulgar with his revolting snorting and spitting, but unflinchingly steady with his gun. Even the rancid smell of his cheap tobacco seemed vaguely reassuring.

He heard more movement, further along to their right.

‘Did you hear that?’

Hussein nodded silently.

Something’s moving out there. Circling the camp.

He brought his gun up again, shouldering the butt and continuing to search for a ghostly outline of movement beyond its long barrel. Directly, he could pick out nothing, but then his peripheral vision detected the faintest flicker of movement to the right. He swung his aim in that direction, and for the briefest moment thought he saw the faint silhouette of some tall, lumbering, tusked or horned creature moving slowly between the trees.

Then it was gone.

‘Oh my God, did you see it?’ he hissed through clenched teeth.

‘See nothing.’

‘I thought I saw…’

Thought you saw what, exactly?

‘Damn… I don’t know what I saw.’

There was another crack of a branch, louder and closer — much closer, perhaps only a dozen yards away. Hussein grunted some foreign curse under his breath and his aim swung round towards where the noise had come from.

‘Is near,’ he said.

Then Ben caught an outline again, a darker smudge of grey that was moving directly towards them. His eyes struggled to discern the shape, but it very quickly became distinct. It looked vaguely crucifix-like — a short vertical and a longer horizontal cross bar that drooped and flapped as if broken in several places.

Ben lined his aim up on the thing and gently applied pressure to the trigger. With a clack the hammer came down. The percussion cap ignited, sending a puff of acrid blue smoke and a shower of sparks towards his face. A mere fraction of a second later, the weapon boomed deafeningly, punching his shoulder hard as it kicked upwards, obscuring his target with a thick pall of powder smoke.