The Descent to Madness (5 page)

              His stomach, a knot of gnawing hunger, let loose a tumultuous and echoing groan.

             
With a cry of dismay, Stone leapt forwards, all his energy unleashed in one frantic exertion, but alas, his prey was faster. The rabbit took off like the proverbial bat out of hell, a flurry of snow in its wake as its long legs powered it from his reach and into the safety of the forest. Landing in a heap, Stone flailed about on the floor like a spoiled toddler denied a treat, the frustration of the last few days getting on top of him.

Suddenly he stopped, eyes staring off into space, mouth open. A distant crunch of snow underfoot that would have been imperceptible but for his recently augmented hearing. Slowly, crouching, he made his way back to his little bush at the base of the tree, thoughts of his hunger forgotten in the face of this new and unknown danger.

              For long minutes he waited in the silence, with only the gentle whispering of the incessant wind through the treetops to keep him company. Finally, a rustling of dry scrub and Stone watched, wide-eyed, as a great, grey wolf padded out into the clearing. Its bearing was noble, but its aspect fierce, with a long snouted muzzle and cold, blue eyes. Its fur, as opposed to being white like the rabbit, was a mid-grey. Obviously the wolf didn’t have much need for camouflage, Stone mused, preferring to use its speed to catch prey, or maybe its perseverance. Or maybe…

             
The wolf gave a brief growl and was joined by the sleek predatory forms of more of its kin. Two more wolves slunk out of the bushes. Three. Four. Until an entire pack of grey, lean and powerful looking beasts filled the clearing, noses sniffing the ground and air alike for scent of their next meal. Stone held his breath, willing the wolves to pick up scent of a deer, maybe even the rabbit from earlier. Anything but him.

             
Moments passed and, to Stone’s relief, the lead wolf turned to pad away in another direction. It stopped dead after only a few feet. Stone frowned in puzzlement, until a creeping realisation dawned on him that something was different, something had changed. The whispering all about him confirmed his worst; the wind had changed direction.

             
With a mighty howl, the lead wolf span about in his direction, five more pairs of ice blue eyes snapping round in unison to lock onto him. Turning to run, Stone could only spin about in confusion as the wolves, almost as if in accordance with some unspoken command, circled round to cut him off in both directions. A deep growl from his original direction and as he turned, Stone saw the leader streaking towards him at a full sprint, feet a-blur as they propelled it through the snow. With a graceful leap, it pounced towards him, jaws agape, ready to clamp down on his neck.

             
Time slowed to a crawl and as the beast sailed through the air, Stone wondered how, once again, he had time to take in all the details encapsulated in this single, lengthy instant. The rippling of the air through the wolf’s long fur, the cold, remorselessness of its eyes as they regarded its prey, the long tendril of saliva that trailed from its wickedly sharp, yellow fangs; he had time to take in every facet of the encounter before it could reach him. Closer the beast flew and Stone willed his body into action, his limbs once again feeling leaden, as though he were trying to move underwater. This time, however, they began to obey. Even as the wolf was a foot from his face, he twisted his body at the waist, slowly but oh so quickly, before time snapped back into life once more.

             
The wolf flew through the space where he was only a split-second ago and smashed into the trunk of the spiny tree, rebounding off with the same speed as someone who accidentally touches a hot pan, yelping with pain as it collapsed to the floor. Paws soothed in the cold snow, the beast rounded on him again, undeterred, just as other canine forms came bounding from all sides.

             
Stone ran.

             
The excited yelping of the wolves came from all around, with some pursuing behind, others fanning out to the left and right in an effort to cut him off. Stone wasn’t about to give them that chance. With a snarl of his own, he pushed himself, feet flying over the stones and roots, his footing sure despite the ice, the leathery soles of his long-since-healed feet denying entry to any sharp thorn or splinter of rock. His breath was steady and true and his heart hammered in his chest, not from fear, simply exertion. The wind rushed past his ears. He was exhilarated.

             
He heard laboured breathing close by his left shoulder. A fallen tree ahead. With an evil grin he ran towards it till the very last split-second, not giving any indication of seeing it, before leaping over with inches to spare. A sickening crack told him that his pursuer hadn’t seen it till too late.

              The victory was heartening but howls of rage from either side told him that he wasn’t out of danger yet. The beasts still had eyes for his flesh. Stone tried to summon on extra reserves of energy but he was running dry, his hunger betraying him. We have nothing, his flagging muscles said. His pace began to slow and the pack of wolves began to howl in triumph as they closed in.

             
Mind racing even as his legs pounded the ground, up ahead he saw another spiny tree amongst its many smooth cousins that flashed by. A desperate ploy in his mind, he raced towards it. The warm breath of his pursuers tickled the back of his neck and with a last surge of effort, he made the base of the tree and leapt with all his might. Scrabbling up the sharp thorns, his skin protesting but withstanding nonetheless, he didn’t stop till he’d passed not one, not two, but three thick branches, finally swinging himself up, full length onto a thick bough.

             
Chest heaving and heart racing, he looked down…

             
…and was shocked to see the frustrated wolves prowling around the base of the tree, some thirty feet below. He looked at his hands and feet in disbelief, the smooth skin unmarked; he’d just climbed the height of a house, with nothing to grip on to but razor-sharp thorns and managed it with nary a scratch. He gave out a nervous laugh, as the adrenaline from his sprint slowly drained away. One of the wolves below tried to leap up the tree itself, in emulation of his feat, pricking its paws on the bark and whining in pain. Stone laughed. The lead wolf walked up to the base of the tree, blue eyes shining with rage, and let loose a howl of challenge.

             
“Aaaawwooooooo, yourself!” Stone howled in reply, before cracking up into tears of laughter. He was still laughing five minutes later as the wolves slowly began to slink away, defeated, their tails, quite literally, between their legs.

             
Stone lay back on the spiny branch, as the sun slowly set, turning the mountain sky a radiant orange. The spines no longer troubled his skin, in fact, they seemed almost comfortable, pricking him in all the right places to relieve the tension in his muscles. From his vantage point in the tree he could see the trees sloping off down into the greener foothills beyond. Even from this distance the land looked more lush, less wild, welcoming. He resolved to  journey downhill tomorrow. Perhaps, finally, he’d be able to appease his growling stomach.

             
And with that, Graeme Stone fell asleep, firmly wedged in the y-shaped join between two

sturdy branches. He dreamt of sitting in front of a roaring fire, feasting on warm, roasted meats and chunky vegetables. He had a loyal dog sat at his feet, gazing up with soulful eyes for a scrap of food.

              He gave it not a sausage.

***

He woke some time later, unsure whether he had dreamt the noise. The forest was dark and the stars were twinkling in the sky. The three moons shone brightly, each in a slightly different phase. Three moons. Hmm. He hadn’t noticed that before.

             
There was the noise again; a subtle crunching, rustling noise from below. Curious, he carefully turned himself over, peering down into the gloom and that was when he saw it. Holding in his gasp, he watched the rabbit as it munched on the grass, confident that no predators were abroad.

             
It was oblivious to his presence.

             
The butterflies of nervous anticipation warred with the hunger in his belly as he braced his feet against the trunk of the tree and, his right hand grabbing firmly onto his branch, he held himself out, suspended in mid-air above his prey. His supporting arm shook a little, but held. His left arm he positioned above the rabbit, hand flared in a grasping posture. Giving no thought to the craziness of what he was about to do, he let go and plummeted out of the tree, leaving his stomach thirty feet up. He landed heavily in the thick snow, the impact driving the breath from his body but paying no heed to the pain. His attention, instead, focused entirely on the squirming, squealing ball of  fluff caught firmly in the palm of his left hand.

             
Picking himself up onto his knees, he reached over with his right hand and, with a sharp tug, snapped the neck of the rabbit. It kicked briefly, then died, its spasmodic twitching slowly fading. Like a madman he began ripping away at the white fur, revealing the soft, pink flesh underneath. Baring his teeth he clamped down on the still warm meat, chewing and tearing to break the skin, his teeth obviously not designed for the task. Finally, he managed to rip a chunk from the carcass, the blood and juices dribbling down his chin and staining the ground around him a bright crimson. Even as the meat slid down his throat he could feel his body absorbing the goodness, nutrients replenishing, systems which had slowed down to preserve energy springing into renewed life. A spreading warmth filled his mid-section as his stomach processed the meal with a speed and completeness beyond its original design, rendering the meal the equal of a three course feast.

             
In the clearing, between the harsh and prickly trees, the winter of the hills found a man on his knees. His form ravaged and filthy. His hands clasping the last remnants of a ruined beast. His face, unshaven, covered in grime, bore testament to the struggle of days in the wild. Tears flowed freely from tired eyes.

             
Tears of joy.

Chapter Four

The water was crystal clear and cold as ice and the fact that it ran at all was testament to how far down the mountains Graeme Stone had come in the last week. The trees were greener here, by far, and less prickly too - more conducive to a good night’s sleep away from the nocturnal predations of the wolves. Here the wolves were found in greater numbers, the ones he’d faced before having wandered high up in the mountains in search of uncontested territory. But the wolves no longer scared him; he was growing more confident in his new and improved body. However, all the speed in the world didn’t help if you were asleep…

             
Another salmon leapt clear of the water before landing in a splash, striving upstream in its quest to spawn. The fish here were strange; transparent like glass, rendering them almost invisible in the clear water. See-through Salmon, he’d named them in his head, two feet long, powerful and he longed to taste one, hence he was knelt at the side of the fast-flowing river by a little fall up which the fish had to leap.

His keen eyes picked out the tell-tale surge in the water as another shoal of fish came swimming upriver towards him and Stone readied himself. The last few days of hunting had taught him much about his new speed and he knew what to do.

With a mighty splash the salmon flicked their tails as one and began leaping up the fall, soaring through the air in a blur of wriggling motion. Stone narrowed his eyes and, as he concentrated, he felt a tug in the back of his mind, like the jerk of a locomotive as it made to move away with a train of heavy wagons. The fish, at first streaking past in a frenzy of foam began to slow, until they slowly wriggled past in a languid arc, as though swimming through invisible syrup rather than flying through the air. One of the fish came floating slowly past, closer than the rest and Stone reached out to grab it, his arm feeling heavy, leaden but practiced now at moving in this state. His fingers closed about the transparent, slimy scales of the salmon and he could feel the weight and momentum as though it were actually moving fast rather than slow. Because of course, it was.

A ripping, tearing feeling at the back of his mind signalled that he was losing grip on this moment, and with a great wave of relief as though dropping a heavy bag that he’d been carrying for a distance, he let the moment pass.

The momentum of the fish he’d caught bowled him clean over, its slippery form wriggling and writhing in his grasp, even as its brothers and sisters resumed their dazzling leaps in the background. Rolling around on the floor, arms wrapped around the fish in a desperate bid to prevent its escape, Stone pinned his prize to the ground with one strong, sinewy hand and, curling the other into a hard fist, halted its struggles with a single blow. He held the limp fish out in front of him, his hands clearly visible through the see-through flesh and eyed it greedily, a big grin splitting his features. He’d eaten many a beasty these last few days; rabbits, pigeons, even a snake that he’d found sunning itself on a rock, finding it easier every day to catch prey as his body seemingly adapted to its task. But this would be the first fish. Licking his lips he opened his mouth, revealing canine teeth long and sharp, perfectly suited to tearing at flesh…