Paralysis gripped me, freezing me to the spot. The world around me seemed to slow, each second dragging on for longer than the previous.
I watched as the young girl ran into the bushes, seemingly melting into the tangle of branches. I watched as Paul let out a deep cry before charging in after her. I watched as the rain drops, heavy and fat, splashed around my feet. The water mingling with the blood and dirt, pooling into puddles of murky, rust red. I watched as the stricken deer looked at me one last time, as its body gave one final twitch before the last flicker of life vanished from its eye.
My mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions, each one tripping and tumbling over the next as they spiralled in my head. The horror of the dead deer before me, the words that the girl had muttered.
I snapped myself back to the present!
“Tom! Sarah! Paul!” My vocal cords scraped raw as I screamed the names of my family.
I was desperate for any reply, desperate to catch any sign of movement that might give them away. But there was nothing, just silence and stillness. I was alone.
Why had Paul gone blundering off on his own, chasing that girl? I had to find him. With that thought, I launched forward, hurtling in the direction that I had seen Paul go, diving through the bushes.
Low branches caught my ankles, tripping me. Thorns tangled in my hair as I forced my way through the thick undergrowth.
I could see nothing except for leaves and twigs. I’d lost all orientation, I had no idea where I was headed. All that I knew was that I needed to find my children and my husband.
Suddenly, the ground beneath my feet seemed to give way. A steep slope dropped away from under me. My boots skidded and slid on the loose scree. I tumbled, sharp rocks scraped my legs and arms. The world spun around me as I tried to grab anything to slow my descent, thorns tore my hands as I grabbed at branches which just slipped through my grasp, raking into my flesh like barbed wire.
A large boulder pounded into my chest. The air forced out of my lungs, a searing, white hot pain spread out from my sternum. I lay there on that boulder, unable to move, unable to scream, just gasping for the breath that had just been knocked so savagely out of me.
Eventually, as my breath slowed and returned to normal, I pushed myself up. My trousers were torn, I could feel the warm, tacky trickle of blood running down my leg.
Looking around, I could see that I had fallen into a valley. Steep, birch covered hillslopes rose up high above me on either side. There was a faint gurgling of an unseen stream coming from a thicket of trees.
Paul, I needed to find Paul!
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I pressed the little button on the side. The glass was smashed, random colours danced meaninglessly across the screen. I must have broken it on my fall. A desperate scream rose up from deep inside my core. As it burst from my mouth, I hurled the useless device at a nearby tree.
A guttural cry split the air. A scream coming from close by, from within the trees to the left of me. It was a man’s cry.
“Paul!” I shouted my husband’s name.
I leapt to my feet, searing pain stabbed instantly through my thigh the moment I hit the ground. My leg threatened to give way, but through clenched teeth I pushed the pain down. My family were in trouble, they needed me.
Screaming Paul’s name again I dashed forwards, into the trees, in the direction of the cries I had just heard. My leg howled at me in protest, every step brought a sickening jolt of agony. My walking trousers were sticky with my own blood, but I knew that I had to push on.
Movement in the trees, a manic rustle of the leaves before the branches parted and a lumbering figure came stumbling and staggering towards me. One arm swung lifelessly at its side, the other was little more than a torn, red stump, a mangled mass of flesh, bone and sinew that poked from the torn off sleeve of its sweater. A sweater that had once been white wool but now was stained a deep claret.
From a face that was covered in mud and smeared in blood, Paul’s eyes fixed on me.
“Jane, go!” His voice came, tautand raw.
“Paul! What’s happened?” Running forward, I threw my arm around his waist. His sweater was wet and warm, coating me in dark, cloying, gore.
My breath caught in my throat, my ears pricking at the sound of a twig snapping in the undergrowth behind us. Then came a soft sound, the sound of a young girl, laughing.
“Go, Jane! Just go!”
Together, with me supporting his weight we blundered forwards. He leant on me, but his weight was too much. My foot catching on a root, I tripped. With what felt like a red hot poker driving into my injured leg, I collapsed. Together we landed, side by side on the forest floor with a heavy, dull, splat.
Frantically, slipping and sliding in the wet mud, I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. My eyes instinctively finding my injured husband.
He lay there, his face white, eyes wide and dilated. His gaze, not focused on me, was fixed over my shoulder, behind me.
My head snapping around, I saw her. At the edge of the trees stood a young girl. Her head was down, staring at the ground. Her dirty blonde hair falling over her face.
“Kirsten?” I muttered her name with a voice that quivered and shook.
Her head snapped up, her eyes locking onto me. A freezing, suffocating grip seized my heart as I laid eyes on her face. It wasn’t the face of a young girl. Her sickly, pallid skin was drawn tightly against her skull. Eyes of pure white stared back at me, there was no life behind those eyes. Her lips pulled back, letting out a sharp and menacing hiss. With an unnatural speed, she lunged forward like a viper striking out at its prey.
She leaped onto Paul’s chest, her teeth tearing at his throat, ripping and shredding. I felt the warm splatter of his blood on my cheek. Screaming uncontrollably, I scrambled backwards until my back struck a large, solid tree.
I watched helplessly as she slashed at his chest with her nails, lacerating his body, cleaving him open, spilling bloody coils onto the ground around him.
His gurgling, bubbling cries had gone silent, his eyes now stared lifelessly forward.
Frozen in terror as I was, Kirsten slowly looked up at me. Those undead eyes meeting mine, her mouth widening into a horrific grin. Her teeth sharp, red and jagged, glistened.
“Hello, Mummy.” Her voice rasped from her throat.