Chapter Sixteen

 

Amelia Spark felt good. She'd woken up early as she did every morning, put her jogging gear on and slipped out of the house. It was a good morning as her boy, who'd be three in a couple of months, hadn't woken. She had a long-standing agreement with her partner, Martin, that he'd take the early morning shift while she went for a run and then she'd be back in time to take over the morning routine and let him get ready for work.

She left the road she was jogging along and turned up a footpath. Soon, she entered a patch of woodland. The next ten minutes would be with leaf mould under her feet and trees overhead. She was relaxed – this was the same route that she'd run for years. However, when she rounded a corner, she stopped short. Something was wrong with her run.

Sat in the middle of the path was a man, who looked a bit like a tramp. She took a cautious step forward. Definitely homeless, she thought. God, why didn't they just get a job or something? Anything that would take them away from her route, her precious half hour of solitude before the day started.

The man just sat there, leaning back on his arms, legs out in front of him. She wasn't about to double back and ruin her morning. He was in the middle of a small clearing. If she was careful, she could skirt round the edge and stay out of arm's reach. Once she was past him, she'd put on some speed and get away from him and make up her time. She was irritated that he'd disturbed her and wanted to get back on track.

She took another step; she was nearly into the clearing now. Something was very wrong, he wasn't reacting at all to her presence. He was wearing a dirty raincoat with a ridiculous scarf wrapped around his neck. Despite his pose, sitting up, his eyes were closed and he hadn't moved. Was it possible for someone to sleep like that? Or be so drunk they'd passed out, she wondered. That was more likely, with a person like that with the pale skin and greasy hair. Maybe there was some new drug that they were using that made them do this.

She berated herself for being stupid and hesitating. She had already added precious seconds onto her time and would have to work hard to get home on schedule. She strode into the clearing, already angling herself to the left to skirt around him.

She was momentarily blinded by a flash.

A loud boom made her ears ring and her chest vibrate.

She took a step back, unsure of what was happening. Something fell around her, on her face, hitting the bare skin of her arms, it was in her hair.

Her sense of smell was assaulted. Blood, burnt skin, gunpowder. She immediately recalled childhood bonfire nights and that one time she'd burnt the roast. Wood smoke too.

Was she injured?

Her ears rang, but nothing else hurt.

Afraid of what she'd see, she looked down before opening her eyes. She blinked several times to clear the spots. Time to look up and see what had happened.

She stepped cautiously forward. The man was gone. He'd left his shoes behind but he'd gone, disappeared, literally in a flash.

Another step forward.

Her legs buckled. He had left his shoes, but his feet were still in them. And his legs. She got closer, unable to believe what she was seeing.

The lower half of his body was there as well – his hips and a short stump of spine stuck straight up. And there was a big red bowl of churned up meat. The inside of someone. His insides. Behind him were two hands, thrown aside. In between was a big charred area, a circle of blackened earth where all the twigs and leaves had been blown clear. The whole place was scattered with bits of flesh.

Bits of body that were now all over her skin, in her hair, on her clothes. She batted at her legs and flailed her arms. Her fingers got caught in the sticky mess that was her hair.

She screamed and ran back down the path, away from the horror. She continued rubbing at her arms and pulling at her hair as she ran.

When she'd failed to flag down the fifth car in a row, concerned residents had called the police about the woman covered in blood and shouting at the cars. Soon the whole circus descended and she was sedated by paramedics and helped to an ambulance.