Chapter 24 - Horror in Brampton Wood

I still had the food I had taken from the cupboard at home. I started to sing as I made towards the kilns in the far corner of the common.

“About time too,” called out Boxer loudly as I approached him.

“Tonka ran after you, Matty,” said Boxer, holding out his hand to take the food.

“I know, but it was OK.” I handed the bag of food to him. “There you are, my friend.” I sat down on the log. “The meat is for Tonka. I think he must be hungry,” I said, patting him on the head. “He was very frightened in our front room, Boxer; so was I.” I told Boxer in detail about my experience at the staircase in the empty house as I watched Tonka eat.

He stopped chewing when I reached the point where I saw the thing on the stairs. It was as if he knew something wasn’t right.

“Next time I will go with you, Matty, and we’ll solve the mystery of them stairs.”

Boxer had eaten his portion of the food I brought along.

“You can have mine, Boxer - I don’t feel hungry now.”

He tucked in to my share of Mum’s cakes as if he hadn’t eaten for days.

“I had better give Tonka the last bit to eat, Boxer,” I said, looking for something to put fresh water in as well.

A few minutes later he had eaten everything I had given him, and was lapping up the water from an old pie dish I found.

“I’m going for a lie-down, Matty. I’m full up now,” said Boxer, belching loudly.

Tonka looked up at him, ears pricked.

“Sorry, old boy.” He stroked Tonka’s head and ruffled his fur at the same time. “I didn’t mean to belch - it just came out. When I get up we’ll go back to your house and pick up the pigeons.”

I knew he wasn’t a well lad and I worried about it. I was wondering whether he would reach my house, or whether he would make it back.

Within minutes I too dropped off. I started dreaming of home when Dad was there with Mum and me.

“Get the pram, then go to Brampton Woods and fill it with fir cones,” Mum called out as she stood prodding with an old stick the inside of the copper boiler full of washing.

“Yes, Mum. OK, Mum. I’m going, Mum.”

“No need for sarcasm, young man.” She stopped at that point, turned round and said, “Now.”

“Yes, do as your Mum tells you,” Dad added as he read the newspaper. His head then peeped around the paper and he chuckled behind Mum’s back.

“And you can be quiet too,” she said to him.

Sometimes my cousin Tom came with me on the journey to Brampton Wood. Tom, fifteen years old, was a big lad for his age. He had jet-black hair and his dark-blue eyes were very startling. He was also a very good friend to me. I felt a bit sorry for him because he had just been told his parents were not his real parents and the whereabouts of his real parents was unknown. This made him an orphan boy, I thought.

From my house Brampton Wood was about six miles there and back. With the old pram I had collected the fir cones many times. The pram was kept in our backyard. A buckle in the wheel made it hard to push. The whole day was taken up collecting those fir cones, which Mum used to stoke up the fire. As it took so long to collect the cones, going out to play when I came back was out of the question.

I found Tom playing on the swings. He was surrounded by girls, as usual.

“My mum says can you help me to collect fir cones, Tom?”

“Why can’t you go on your own?” He carried on swinging up and down. “Anyway, I’ve gotta clean my mum’s grate yet.”

I pleaded again: “Please, Tom.”

“OK, I’ll go and get my coat. It’s on the island of the big house.”

“What were you doing there, Tom? It’s an evil place, and evil people live there.”

“Don’t tell yer mum, Matty - she might tell my mum.”

“Tell me, Tom: what were you doing there and how did you get back off the island?”

“I’ll tell you later - it’s a secret, the way to the island.”

Reaching Brampton Wood, Tom suddenly decided not to go where we had always gone in the past. We took a different path, but we both soon found that the ground was too rough for the pram.

“It’s better we leave the pram here and pick it up again later, don’t you agree?” said Tom.

“It was your idea, Tom,” I pointed out. “On our normal route we have a proper path to walk on.” I said as I began to cover the pram over with leaves to hide it.

I was slowly getting annoyed. Poor Tonka put his paws over his ears as the air began to thicken with our arguments.

“Why bother to hide that old pram? Nobody’s going to pinch an old thing like that,” said Tom.

I finished covering the pram. Fuming, I turned to face him.

“The only reason you’ve got a new pram in your family, Tom Parker,” - I raised my voice - “is because you have a new baby sister.”

“I won’t help you any more, Matty.”

He started to walk away in the direction we had come from, leaving me on my own to collect the cones.

“I don’t care if you leave me,” I shouted.

I walked towards the centre of the wood on my own. Tom made for home. I watched him disappear out of sight. Suddenly I realised I was on my own.

“I don’t care if you leave me! I don’t care if you leave me!” I shouted after him, but he was out of earshot. I really was on my own. Picking up a dead stick, I started to thrash the undergrowth. “I don’t care if you’re gone, Tom Parker! Who needs you? I don’t. I’ll tell on you for going on to the evil island of the big house. I don’t give a damn about you, and I’ll tell your mum you were with someone on that evil place. You wait and see - I don’t care.” Turning round once more, I shouted out, “I don’t care.”

I had already strayed far into the dense wood and I suddenly realised I didn’t know the way out. I didn’t like it - it gave me the creeps. I stopped for a moment to rub my legs with some dock leaves, having been stung with nettles, and I noticed two small deer feeding hungrily on some bushes. It unnerved me a bit to realise that dusk was falling, but two deer eating leaves, their antlers prodding the small bushes, was such a pretty sight that my fear started to leave me. I plucked up courage again. The deer were partly concealed from me. Slowly I crouched down to watch them and became fascinated. They looked at me while eating, but were not frightened.

‘I never knew deer roamed these woods,’ I thought. ‘Wait till I see Tom and tell him what he’s missed. He’ll be gutted - ha ha!’

I moved slowly forward, then stopped as I thought I heard a howling, screaming noise. My heart beat a thousand times a minute and it felt as though there were eyes watching me from the darkness of the thicket. Approaching a clearing in the wood, I noticed what appeared to be burrows. I was astonished at the size of the burrows. They were in keeping with the size of a large dog. I felt alarmed now. The atmosphere of the wood had started to change from friendly, as it seemed when I was watching the deer. It now took on a sinister feeling. I turned to look for the two deer. They had gone.

Only a few feet away from my foot, and the size of a dog, was an animal the like of which I had never before seen. The animal was caught in what appeared at first to be a trap. As I moved forward to help the stricken beast, it opened its huge mouth, revealing its large jagged teeth, and emitted a haunting, echoing scream. It was evil - something which would never leave me. It was hideous. I froze in terror, unable to move. The beast lurched forward to attack me. Rigid with fear, I was unable to move. I had frozen solid to the ground where I stood. The beast strained forward on the chain that held it, and its snapping jaws seemed to come closer. More of the creatures began to emerge.

At that moment a strong hand clutched me under the elbow and pulled me clear. It was Tom. He took me back along the track to the main path.

“How do you feel now, Matty?”

I could hardly speak. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t been there, Tom,” I said, still shaking from the experience. “There was something else inside those burrows, Tom. I could see something, I am sure. Whatever it was, that something was standing up and had arms and legs - skinny arms and legs - and horrible eyes, and it melted into the darkness of the tunnel.”

“The screaming rat,” he said in a chilling tone. “The scream echoes through woods and forests. You won’t find another animal for miles around when it’s about.”

“I am still shaking. I feel delirious and sick.”

“There’s more to the evil they bring, Matty. You mustn’t come here on your own again - I mean, never.”

“How evil are they, Tom?”

“I can’t say.”

“You must - you must tell me, Tom.”

“It was on the island of the big house where they were first discovered.” Tom stopped and put his hand up. “One moment, Matty,” he said, turning around and going back the way we had just come. Then he brought back the pram full of fir cones behind him.

With a broad smile he said, “I thought this might help you.” He had filled the pram with cones.

“Tom, Tom - about the island?”

“An old, old man lived on the island on his own. He drank a lot. One morning as no person had seen him about they went in search. Sure enough, they found him - or what was left of him.”

Tom went to step forward, to go, when I said again, “Tell me. I’m not scared now.”

“His legs were eaten away and most of his face. Only one eye hadn’t been eaten, they reckon.”

“Who’s ‘they’, Tom?” I had to ask.

“Those in the big house.”

“What else, Tom?”

“The bad bit: what the screaming rat does is eat you when you’re alive.”

“Eat you when you’re alive! Hell!” I said. “Hell!”

“Anyway, Matty, let’s get these cones back to your mum’s. She’ll need them for the fire.”

“Do you think one day we won’t need these cones to light our fires, Tom?” I said, relaxed now after the ordeal.

“They don’t cost anything, Matty. Our house would be lost without them. Anyway, we should sort out the coke from the gas station now.”

“I just wish Mum could have coal for once - or logs.”

“What do you use to clean your mum’s grate, Matty?” said Tom.

He shook a tin of Zebra Grate Polish he took from his pocket.

“Same as what you’ve got, Tom.”

“Zebra, Mum says, is the best - it shines the best.”

“It takes about half an hour. Do you do your mum’s now, Tom?”

“Nah, I’m past that now. I’m working at the Huntingdon Brewery with my dad.”

“I’m going to scrounge some coke for Mum now, Tom. Thanks.”

Tom headed off to clean his mum’s grate, shaking his Zebra tin and whistling.

“Could I have some of the coke lying on the floor, please?”

“No,” said the gas-station foreman. “Pay like everyone else does.” He pointed to a small shed in the corner of the gas station yard.

“Over there?”

“Yeah. Get in the bleedin’ queue, same as the rest of us,” called out a thick-set boy.

I knew who the lot were with him - the St Neots mob.

“Eh, ain’t you from the so-called Big Five gang - Rocks and them other kids?”

Just then a large chunk of coke hit me on the cheek. I reeled over, falling to the floor in real pain.

“Get out of here,” shouted the yard foreman to the mob. “Are you OK, mate? Here, let’s have a look at your face. Yeah, you will live,” he said, giving my face the once-over.