The Marked Wood

I needed to breathe air that had not been recycled through office air conditioning. After months of staring at spreadsheets and sitting through meetings that should have been emails, my shoulders felt as tight as climbing rope. The Black Mountains had always been my reset button, an escape valve for whenever life pressed too closely around me. The car park at the edge of Bannau Brycheiniog National Park was empty when I arrived early that Tuesday morning.

Perfect.

I shouldered my rucksack, checked that my reusable water bottles were secure in the side pockets and took my first step along the familiar earth footpath. The weight of my responsibilities stayed behind in the car. Birdsong followed me through the first mile of well-maintained woodland.

The rhythm of my walking boots against the packed ground became a kind of meditation. Left foot, right foot. Every step carried me farther from civilisation and closer to the version of myself I preferred, the one who did not need mobile reception, meetings or appraisals.

Two hours in, I reached the fork I knew well. To the right, the marked footpath continued towards a series of popular viewpoints. To the left, there was nothing official, only an unmarked deer track that was barely visible unless you knew where to look.

I had explored part of it on previous walks, but that day I intended to push deeper. I adjusted my rucksack and turned left.

The track narrowed quickly as I moved away from the maintained route. Branches hung lower here, occasionally brushing my shoulders. I ducked beneath a fallen Scots pine suspended between two mature sessile oaks, then stopped to mark my position on my handheld GPS receiver. The signal was weak but present, enough to record my route for later.

The woodland thickened around me. Sessile oak and birch towered overhead, with rowan and scattered Scots pine filling the gaps. Their dense canopy filtered the sunlight into shifting patches across the forest floor. In the perpetual shade, the temperature fell by several degrees, a welcome relief from the August heat that had baked the exposed stretches of footpath.

I stopped to drink from one of my bottles and eat an energy bar, leaning against a trunk furred with vivid green moss.

The silence there was different from urban quiet. There was no distant traffic and no drone of aircraft, only the occasional snap of a twig as some small animal moved through the undergrowth. The first rumble of thunder was so faint that I almost thought I had imagined it.

I glanced up, but the canopy obscured most of the sky. What little I could see through gaps in the leaves had changed from clear blue to threatening grey. I checked the weather app on my mobile. It had lost reception.

That was odd. I had been able to fix my position on the GPS receiver twenty minutes earlier.

Another rumble sounded, closer this time. The sensible choice was to turn back towards the maintained footpath, but I had experienced mountain storms before. They often passed quickly, especially in late summer. Besides, I had already covered a fair distance along this unexplored track. Turning back felt like wasting the opportunity.

I pressed on, increasing my pace.

The deer track vanished into a dense tangle of invasive rhododendron, forcing me to make my own way through the natural gaps between the trees. My mental map kept me moving eastwards, parallel to a familiar ridge that I could occasionally glimpse through breaks in the woodland.

The forest darkened as the clouds gathered, casting everything into premature twilight. Moisture weighted the air, accompanied by the distinctive pressure that comes before a downpour. Wind tore through the canopy and set the leaves thrashing.

The first lightning flash bleached the forest white before dropping it back into shadow.

One thousand. Two thousand. Three...

The thunder cut across my count. Too close.

I moved faster, searching for shelter. Rain began lightly, then intensified within moments into vertical sheets that hammered through the canopy. Water ran down my face despite my hood. Beneath my boots, the ground became slick mud, threatening to take my feet from under me at every step.

Another flash split the gloom, close enough for me to feel the charge prickling through the air. The following thunder did not roll. It exploded above me, a physical blow that struck through my chest.

The air filled with the sharp smell of ozone. At the thunder's peak, the world went absolutely dark - not merely storm-dark, but lightless, as though the forest and sky had been extinguished together. It lasted no more than a heartbeat. Then the bruised daylight returned.

Through the curtain of rain, I saw a dark projection ahead, a shelf of stone jutting from the hillside. I made for it, half running and half sliding down the increasingly treacherous slope.

The granite overhang formed a shallow recess. It was not deep, but it offered protection from the direct downpour. I pressed my back against the cold stone and tried to catch my breath. Water dripped from my hair, waterproof jacket and trousers. Everything seemed saturated despite the promises made by the labels on my gear.

Lightning continued to flash, illuminating the woodland in violent, strobing bursts. Roughly 180 metres away, a sessile oak took a direct strike. The crack was deafening. Its trunk split and hurled splinters through the rain before the upper half crashed into the surrounding trees.

I shrank farther beneath the overhang, suddenly conscious of how exposed I was. This was no ordinary summer storm. Its violence felt personal, as if the mountain itself had chosen to remind me who was in charge.

Water streamed down the hillside, running beside my shelter and pooling around my boots. I drew up my knees in a futile attempt to keep some part of myself dry. The temperature dropped sharply as the storm intensified. My wet clothes clung to me and stripped away my body heat.

I removed my rucksack and found the foil survival blanket. The thin metallic sheet was not much, but it would help retain what warmth I had. I wrapped it around my shoulders, its crinkling lost beneath the roar of rain and thunder.

Time stretched while I waited. My watch told me that only forty minutes had passed, although it felt like hours. The ceaseless assault of rain, wind and lightning exhausted me. I rested my head against the rock, intending only to close my eyes for a moment.

The thunder receded into a lullaby. My eyelids grew heavy. I knew that falling asleep while cold and wet was foolish, but exhaustion won.

I do not know how long I slept. When I opened my eyes, the world had transformed.

The storm was gone. Not a single drop of rain was falling.

The wind had died completely. The forest stood motionless around me, with water still dripping from the leaves but no breeze to disturb them. What struck me first was the silence. No birds called. No insects hummed. Even the ordinary background noises of woodland - the movement of small animals, the creak of branches - had vanished.

The quality of the quiet felt wrong, like a held breath or a recording placed on pause.

I stood, my joints stiff from sleeping in such an awkward position. The survival blanket slipped from my shoulders as I stretched, and every small movement sounded unnaturally loud.

The light had changed as well. My watch showed that it was still early afternoon, yet the forest appeared more deeply shadowed. Its colours were muted. The summer greens had darkened towards the blue-black of wet pine needles.

"Hello?" I called, more to break the silence than because I expected an answer.

My voice fell flat, as if the air had swallowed it. No echo returned.

I folded the survival blanket, put it back into my rucksack and shouldered the damp load. The rain had found its way into almost everything despite the overhang. When I stepped out, I saw that the route I had taken down the slope had nearly disappeared beneath the mud and debris washed across it.

I took out my compass. The needle turned sluggishly, taking far too long to settle. When it finally stopped, it indicated a direction that did not agree with my mental map or with the known orientation of the ridge.

I shook it, wondering whether the storm had affected it. The result was the same.

The GPS receiver was no better. According to its display, I had somehow moved several miles from my last recorded position, an impossible distance when I had spent the storm beneath one slab of rock.

I looked through the canopy. The clouds had thinned but still covered much of the sky. Their movement contradicted the compass's version of north.

Something was very wrong.

I drank from my water bottle and ate another energy bar while considering my options. Retracing my route to the main footpath was the sensible choice, but with my navigation equipment malfunctioning and the track erased by water, going back was no longer straightforward.

I could still see the ridge through the trees. Before the storm, I had known its orientation, so for the moment it offered something solid against which to judge the compass. I also remembered passing a distinctive dead tree with three bare limbs. If I could find it, I might be able to work backwards to the maintained path.

Decision made, I began climbing away from the overhang. The saturated ground squelched beneath my boots. Mist rose from the woodland floor as the day's remaining warmth met the sudden flood of rainwater.

The trees seemed different from those I remembered passing earlier. They were taller, older and more contorted. Their bark was darker and more deeply furrowed. Moss lay thick upon the sides that I believed faced north, judged by the ridge rather than the compass.

I walked for twenty minutes without recognising a single landmark. Either the forest had changed during the storm or I had become profoundly disorientated while asleep. Nothing looked familiar.

What troubled me most was the continued absence of sound. In all my years of walking in the Black Mountains, I had never experienced such a complete lack of wildlife. Even after severe weather, birds usually returned quickly. This silence felt watchful and patient, as if the entire wood were waiting.

I stopped for another compass reading. The needle had become steadier but still did not correspond with the terrain as I understood it. The ridge I had known before the landscape altered should have run east to west. Its position and the compass could not both be right.

I unfolded my paper map and tried to reconcile it with the ground around me. Nothing matched. There should not have been a granite overhang anywhere in that section of woodland.

The realisation settled heavily in my stomach. I was lost. Not merely a little way off the footpath, but fundamentally disorientated in mountains I had walked for more than a decade.

I forced myself to breathe slowly. Panic was an enemy. I needed to make a reasoned decision rather than wander at random. From higher ground, I ought to have been able to see a recognisable summit or spur, so I chose the rising slope and began to climb.

The undergrowth caught at my clothing with peculiar persistence. Slender branches seemed to bend towards me instead of away.

It was an illusion created by the light, I told myself.

The woodland grew denser. Trunks crowded together, twisted into shapes unlike the oak, birch, rowan and pine I knew. The leaves were too dark, touched by colours that did not belong in August.

After an hour of climbing, I reached a small clearing. I stopped there to recover my breath and tried the compass once more. It now indicated a third direction as north. The GPS receiver displayed nothing but an error message.

From that higher ground, I could see farther through gaps in the canopy. What I saw made no sense.

The mountain peak that should have been visible was gone. In every direction, an unbroken sea of treetops extended to the horizon. The landmarks I had used for years had vanished, replaced by an endless forest I did not recognise.

Even the light filtering through the canopy felt unnatural. It was not the warm green of a Welsh summer woodland but something cooler and bluer, like daylight seen through deep water.

I sat on a fallen log and tried to understand. Had I walked much farther than I realised during the two hours before the storm? Had I crossed into some neglected part of the mountains I had never explored?

It seemed impossible, but no more so than the familiar landscape changing around me.

The log felt strange beneath my palms. Its bark was too smooth and the wood beneath it oddly warm. I snatched my hands away and stood.

The silence had changed. It was not broken, but its character had shifted from emptiness to expectation.

I was being watched.

The feeling crawled over my skin and raised the hairs on my arms despite the damp warmth. I turned slowly, studying every tree around the clearing. Nothing moved. No branch swayed and no leaf stirred. Everything remained perfectly, unnaturally still, yet the sensation of eyes upon me intensified.

"Is someone there?" I called.

My voice sounded thin and insignificant. There was no reply, but the pressure of unseen attention did not fade. If anything, it grew heavier, bearing down from every side.

I seized my rucksack and left the clearing. Finding the correct route mattered less now than putting distance between myself and whatever was watching.

The forest appeared to close around me. The spaces between trees narrowed, branches hung lower and the undergrowth thickened. Every step required more effort than it should have, as if the wood resisted my passage.

The light dimmed although my watch showed mid-afternoon. Shadows lengthened into shapes that did not correspond with the objects casting them. Tree shadows bent against the direction of the hidden sun.

This was no simple failure of navigation or memory. The forest itself had changed, or I had crossed into a part of it that ordinary walkers never reached. The ridge was no longer visible, and I could no longer claim to know which way it truly lay. Compass, GPS receiver and map were all useless.

All I knew was that I had to find the maintained footpath, my car and the world that still made sense.

I climbed for what my watch measured as another hour, though it felt much longer. Thin branches scraped my arms, leaving red lines that stung in the humid air. My boots crushed the leaf litter, each step offensively loud in the total quiet. I listened desperately for birds, rodents or even insects, but heard nothing except my own movement and breathing.

The trees became older and more massive. Their enormous trunks formed cavernous spaces, with roots rising from the earth like ancient buttresses. In other circumstances, I might have found them magnificent. Now they only deepened my unease.

These were not merely mature trees. They looked impossibly ancient. I could not understand how such a wood could exist in the Black Mountains without appearing on a map or being known to every warden, forester and regular walker in the park.

I stopped when one of my bottles was half empty and took a careful drink. That was when I noticed the smell.

At first it was faint, merely something wrong in the still air. I continued forwards, and with each step it grew stronger. I tried to persuade myself that it was fungi or sodden vegetation, but it soon became too potent to mistake.

It was rot. Not the earthy decomposition of leaf mould and fallen timber, but the sickly sweetness of decaying flesh.

I slowed. Every instinct urged me to turn away, but a darker curiosity pulled me onward. What animal could produce such a stench? How large would it have to be?

Through a gap between the vast trunks, I saw something pale against the wet browns and greens. I moved closer, trying to understand its shape.

The realisation struck like a physical blow.

It was not an animal. It was a person.

The body had been fastened to a huge sessile oak about twenty metres ahead. Even from that distance, I could tell it had been there for some time. Hand-forged iron nails had been driven through its limbs, fixing it upright against the trunk in a grotesque display.

My mind rejected what my eyes were showing me. I wondered whether exhaustion and disorientation had caused a hallucination, but when I forced myself closer, the details became more real, not less.

I could not tell whether the dead person had been a man or a woman. Decomposition had advanced too far. Flesh hung in rotting strips from exposed bone. The face had collapsed beyond recognition, leaving empty sockets in a skull still patched with leathery skin.

What struck me most was not the ordinary decay but the evidence of what had happened before death. Deep cuts crossed the torso in deliberate, methodical patterns. A mustard-green resinous paste had hardened around the wounds like congealed sap.

I backed away, my hands shaking uncontrollably. This was not an accident or a random death. Someone had done it deliberately. The positioning of the corpse and the care taken over its display made it a message. A warning.

My stomach convulsed. I stumbled behind another tree and vomited onto the forest floor, gripping the trunk while I retched until only bitter bile remained.

When the nausea eased enough for me to think, I pulled out my mobile with trembling fingers. I needed help - police, national park wardens, mountain rescue, anyone.

There was no reception. I could not even connect an emergency call.

I looked back at the body. Details lost in my first shock now stood out. Walking boots remained beneath the decomposed legs. A tattered rucksack, much like mine, lay at the foot of the oak with its contents scattered through the leaf litter.

Another walker. Someone like me who had left the marked paths and gone too far.

Ice seemed to spread through my veins. Whatever had happened to that person could happen to me. Perhaps it was already beginning.

The feeling of being watched acquired a far more sinister meaning.

I retreated without turning my back until several trunks stood between me and the corpse. Then I turned and moved as quickly as the terrain allowed, taking a downhill line simply because it led away.

Questions chased me. Who had done it? How long had the body been displayed there? Were there others? Most urgently, was the killer still in the wood?

The silence remained absolute. No birds gave warning at my passage. No squirrels fled through the undergrowth. The lack of wildlife no longer seemed merely peculiar. It felt ominous, as if every animal knew to avoid that place.

I checked my compass one last time, desperate for any scrap of reliable guidance. The needle still contradicted the landscape, but any direction away from the corpse seemed preferable to standing still.

Where the ground permitted, I broke into a jog. Branches whipped my face and arms, leaving stinging cuts, but the pain barely registered beside the image burnt into my mind: a body fixed to a tree as a trophy, or a boundary marker.

I needed to find the main footpath. Other walkers. My car. Civilisation.

Every step felt as though it carried me deeper into danger rather than towards safety.

As the slope steepened, I half ran and half slid, catching at trunks to control my descent. Wet leaves shifted beneath my boots and nearly sent me tumbling more than once. After ten minutes of reckless movement, I stopped to recover my breath.

The vast, cathedral-like trees had given way to younger growth. Birch and rowan crowded among thickets of rhododendron, making progress slower. I listened for voices, the movement of walkers or the distant sound of vehicles. Nothing answered except my laboured breathing.

I drank cautiously and tried to calm my thoughts. Panic would make everything worse. I needed a plan.

Downhill usually meant water, and water often led to farms, lanes or settlements. It was not much, but it was better than wandering without purpose. I continued down at a more controlled pace, following the natural fall of the land.

The pressure of unseen eyes followed me. Every few minutes, I looked over my shoulder, half expecting to see someone slipping from tree to tree. The woodland always appeared empty, yet the sensation only intensified.

My thoughts returned repeatedly to the corpse and the mustard-green paste in its wounds. It looked less like bodily fluid than some resinous compound applied deliberately. Whatever its purpose, I wanted no closer acquaintance with it.

I pushed on until my lungs burnt and my legs trembled from exertion and the fading rush of adrenaline. When I stopped again, I leant against a trunk and forced myself to organise my thoughts.

People walked these mountains every day. Civilisation could not be far away. I could not be the only person for miles.

My watch showed 4.00 pm. I still had a few hours of daylight, though beneath the canopy it already seemed much later. I took a few careful sips from my bottle. I had to conserve what remained because I no longer knew how long reaching safety might take.

"Think," I said aloud. My voice sounded hollow. "What is the most logical direction?"

Downhill. Keep going downhill.

An hour passed, then another. The terrain altered subtly around me. The younger woodland yielded once more to those ancient trees, their massive trunks standing farther apart. Branches met high overhead like the rafters of a great wooden hall. Under any other circumstances, I would have stopped to admire them. Now their scale only emphasised how small and vulnerable I was.

My shadow lengthened as afternoon edged towards evening. Hunger reminded me that I had eaten nothing since the energy bar. I stopped long enough to take an oat flapjack from my rucksack, washing it down with a precious mouthful of water.

I tried my mobile again. Still no reception. The GPS receiver remained useless, displaying coordinates that bore no relation to any place on my paper map.

Daylight was fading unnaturally fast. Shadows pooled around the huge trunks. I needed shelter before nightfall.

I quickened my pace along a shallow depression that might once have carried a stream. Water meant life, and life might mean people.

Then, through a gap ahead, I saw straight lines and right angles where there should have been only natural curves.

A building stood in a small clearing.

Its weathered walls had faded almost to the colour of the surrounding trunks. It was a ruined nonconformist chapel, the sort that might once have served a remote Welsh community. A broken bellcote rose above the front, its upper stones partially collapsed and a jagged hole torn through the roof. Most of the tall windows had lost their glass.

My heart lifted at the first sign of civilisation, even abandoned civilisation. A chapel meant that a community had once existed nearby. A community meant tracks or roads. Roads meant a way out.

I approached cautiously, scanning the tree line for movement. The chapel had clearly been derelict for years. Vines climbed its walls and moss covered the surviving roof slates.

As I drew nearer, relief curdled into dread.

The same mustard-green paste had been smeared across the exterior walls. The marks were not random stains left by weather. They formed crude, deliberate symbols that might have been letters from an alphabet I did not recognise.

I stopped about six metres from the building, caught between the need for shelter and every instinct telling me to keep away. Sunset was close. Remaining exposed in the forest after dark seemed no safer.

"Hello?" I called towards the chapel. "Is anyone there?"

Nothing replied. The old timbers gave a low creak as the structure settled.

I circled the building at a cautious distance. The only proper entrance was through double doors at the front, one hanging crookedly from its hinges while the other had disappeared. The rear wall offered no exit, only a line of narrow, empty windows.

The light was failing quickly. I had to decide.

Reason told me that a building, however neglected, offered more protection than the open forest. Instinct said that anything marked with the same substance as the corpse meant danger. A cold breeze stirred at last, promising a bitter night.

That decided it. I would look inside, but remain ready to run at the first sign of trouble.

I climbed the warped wooden steps. The porch boards groaned beneath my boots. At the threshold, I paused and peered into the dim interior.

The chapel consisted of a single nave. Rows of wooden pews faced a communion table at the far end. Dust drifted through the last shafts of daylight entering by the broken windows and the hole in the roof.

I took a breath and stepped inside.

The musty smell of old timber and mildew reached me first. Beneath it lay the same sweet-sour stench I had encountered in the forest.

Decay.

As my eyes adjusted, shapes emerged from the gloom. The first human figure stopped me dead.

A body lay spread-eagled on the floor near the communion table, its arms and legs extended in a star. Iron nails had been driven through its wrists and ankles, pinning it to the floorboards like a specimen.

My stomach lurched. I stepped backwards involuntarily and struck the doorframe.

More horrors resolved themselves from the shadows.

A woman sat in the front pew on the left. Her long hair and dress remained, but her head was gone. Her hands had been folded neatly in her lap in an obscene parody of prayer. The stump of her neck was sealed with the mustard-green paste, hardened like old candle wax.

A droning sound reached my awareness. Hundreds of flies moved around the bodies. Until then, the pounding blood in my ears had masked them.

I wanted to run, but my eyes kept finding more details.

Three smaller figures had been arranged around the nave. Children.

One knelt in a corner with its hands clasped as if in prayer. Another was propped against a wall, holding what appeared to be a toy. The third hung from exposed rafters, suspended on wires wound around its limbs like a marionette.

Five victims. Two adults and three children. An entire family murdered and arranged with deliberate care.

This was no eruption of random violence. It was a display.

My mind struggled to contain what I was seeing. What kind of person murdered a family, then spent time arranging the bodies into a grotesque tableau?

Bile rose. I stumbled back onto the porch, doubled over and retched until nothing came up except acid. My whole body shook with revulsion and fear.

When I wiped my mouth and looked up, the woodland had grown much darker during the few minutes I had spent inside. Night was falling, bringing a new terror with it: being outside with whoever had created the scene in the chapel.

I was trapped between nightmares. I could shelter among five murdered people or wander an impossible forest in complete darkness, perhaps straight into their killer.

Neither option seemed survivable.

I backed away towards the trees, my mind racing. Could I climb one and wait for dawn? Find another rocky shelter? Keep walking in the hope of reaching a path or lane?

A loud crack sounded inside the chapel.

I froze.

Something, or someone, had moved near the communion table.

I spun towards the doorway, every muscle tensed for flight. The movement came again from the shadows beyond the arranged bodies.

"They made such interesting sounds when they died."

The voice cut through the stillness, casual and conversational, as though commenting on the weather.

I stared into the darkness. A tall figure stepped from behind the communion table with the confidence of someone on familiar ground. In the last light entering through the broken windows, I saw a man with long, matted hair hanging past his shoulders in tangled ropes.

His clothes might once have been ordinary walking gear, but they were stained dark and smeared with the same mustard-green paste that marked the walls and bodies. His weathered skin stretched over sharp features. His eyes were pale, alert and entirely detached as they studied me like an insect beneath glass.

"Most people run straight away," he said, gesturing towards the dead family. "You stayed longer than most. Curious sort, aren't you?"

I stepped backwards. My boot caught on a loose porch board, and his eyes followed the movement.

"I'm Gareth Pritchard," he said, as if we had met beside a friendly campfire rather than in a house of horrors. "And you've wandered somewhere you really shouldn't be."

My mouth was too dry to speak. I swallowed, trying to buy myself a few seconds.

"I'm only trying to find my way back to the main footpath," I managed. My voice sounded thin in the hollow nave.

Gareth laughed, but there was no humour in it.

"There is no path back to where you came from. Not any more."

He took another step towards me, running one hand along the back of a pew.

"This is our territory now. Has been for a long time."

"Ours?" I asked, glancing around the chapel.

"Mine and the boys'. We've made ourselves a decent little home out here, away from all the noise."

His hand moved to the headless woman in the front pew. He patted her shoulder with disturbing familiarity.

"We don't much care for visitors."

I edged backwards, trying to keep some distance between us while moving closer to the door.

"The family," Gareth continued, nodding towards the arranged bodies. "They came camping about a month ago. Nice equipment. Expensive stuff. The dad was a consultant anaesthetist from Bristol."

He spoke as though recalling old friends.

"They ignored all our signs. The marks on the trees, the warning symbols."

My back struck something solid. A damaged pew blocked my direct route to the door. I would have to go around it.

"We watched them for two days," Gareth said, his voice becoming more animated. "Owain wanted to frighten them off, but Rhys said we needed to send a stronger message. Can't have people wandering in whenever they fancy it."

He drifted sideways, placing himself between me and the exit. The casual precision of the movement made it clear that it was no accident.

"The little ones went quickly. That was Rhys's idea. Said it was more merciful. I didn't much care either way."

He shrugged.

"The parents took longer. We wanted to know whether they'd told anyone where they were going, whether anyone would come looking."

Nausea rose in my throat. My gaze flicked towards the exit as I calculated distances and angles.

"You're wondering whether you can reach the door before I catch you," Gareth said, reading my thoughts with unnerving accuracy. "You can't."

His hand went to his belt. He drew a bushcraft knife with a worn wooden handle. The blade caught what little light remained in the chapel and glinted dully.

"See, now we've got a problem," he said, still conversational. "You've seen things you shouldn't have, and I need to know how you found this place and who else knows you're here."

A broken length of timber lay near my boots, part of a collapsed pew. It looked solid enough to serve as a weapon.

"Nobody knows I'm here," I said, trying to keep him talking while I worked out what to do. "I lost my way in the storm earlier this afternoon. I've been trying to find the footpath ever since."

Gareth tilted his head and considered me.

"You don't look as though you've been out here long."

"I sheltered beneath a rock overhang and fell asleep for a while," I said, edging to my right, trying to clear a path to the door. "I found this place by accident."

"Happy accident for me." Gareth's lips drew back in what might have been a smile. "Not so much for you."

He moved suddenly, crossing the distance between us with startling speed. The knife rose as he lunged. I dropped, seized the broken timber and swung upwards with all my strength as I stood.

It struck the side of Gareth's head with a sickening crack.

He staggered sideways and crashed into the wall beside the communion table. Blood immediately poured from a gash in his scalp and ran down his face. I did not wait to see whether he would recover. I vaulted the fallen pew and raced across the dusty floor.

I had almost reached the exit when something slammed into my back and sent me sprawling across the warped floorboards. Gareth had recovered faster than I expected and tackled me from behind. The knife flashed in his hand as he drove it towards my face. I caught his wrist with both hands and strained to keep the blade away.

His blood dripped on to my face, hot and sticky. Then his smell reached me: an unwashed body and something else, something chemical and wrong.

"You'll look good beside the others," he grunted, forcing the knife closer to my throat.

My arms began to shake with the effort of holding him back. He was stronger than he looked, his muscles hardened by whatever life he had lived in these woods.

I remembered the small folding knife in my pocket, the one I carried for cutting cord or opening packets. It was not much, but it was all I had. I released his wrist with one hand and fumbled desperately in my pocket, using every scrap of strength in my other arm to hold his blade back.

My fingers closed around the knife. I dragged it out and struggled to open it. The small blade sprang free with a click that Gareth noticed too late.

I drove it into his shoulder as hard as I could.

Gareth howled and reared back, momentarily forgetting his own knife as he clutched the wound. I scrambled from beneath him, lurched to my feet and staggered towards the door.

He came after me, blood flowing from his scalp and shoulder, his face contorted with rage. We collided in the doorway. His hands clawed at my jacket and rucksack, seizing anything that might hold me. I swung wildly, striking his jaw, his chest, whatever I could reach.

We tumbled together down the rotten entrance steps and landed hard outside the chapel.

The fall separated us for one vital moment. I rolled away and forced myself upright, gulping air into my burning lungs. Gareth rose more slowly, one hand pressed against his bleeding shoulder. His eyes found mine in the gathering darkness.

What I saw there was worse than anger. It was a calm, deliberate hatred that promised suffering.

"You're dead," he said quietly. "You just don't know it yet."

I turned and ran into the forest, branches slapping my face as I forced my way through the undergrowth.

Behind me, Gareth's voice carried unnaturally far through the silent woods.

"Owain! Rhys! Iwan! We've got a runner!"

Fresh terror surged through me. There were more of them out there.

I ran harder, no longer caring about direction or landmarks. All that mattered was putting distance between myself and the chapel, between myself and Gareth with his casual cruelty and his knife. The forest darkened around me as night settled completely, but I did not slow.

Answering calls came from the darkness ahead and on either side of me. Other men, moving in from different directions.

I was being hunted.

My chest burned with every desperate breath as I plunged deeper into the trees. I could see no more than a few metres ahead in the near-total darkness. Branches whipped across my face and snagged my clothes. Each blow stung the skin already scraped raw during my earlier flight.

Only occasional gaps in the canopy admitted fragments of moonlight. It was not enough to navigate by, merely enough to turn the forest into a maze of blue-white shadows that shifted whenever I looked at them.

I ran without direction or purpose beyond escape. Away from the chapel. Away from the five bodies arranged inside. Away from Gareth and his bloodstained knife.

Male voices echoed between the trees behind me.

"Where?"

"East side. Got movement."

They were communicating and coordinating. They were not simply chasing me. They were hunting methodically.

I veered sharply right, hoping to confuse them. My boot caught in a web of roots and I stumbled, nearly falling, but managed to catch myself against a tree. The impact drove the remaining air from my lungs.

I paused, dragging in breath and trying to quiet myself enough to listen.

The forest had fallen silent again. No voices. No footsteps.

That silence frightened me more than their shouting. They were being careful now. Listening. Tracking.

I moved on more slowly, trying to pick my way through the darkness with some semblance of stealth. I held my hands before me, feeling for obstacles before I struck them.

A twig snapped somewhere to my left.

I froze.

Then came the soft crunch of leaves beneath a careful footstep, closer this time. I crouched, trying to make myself smaller. My hand found a stone roughly the size of my fist. It was a poor weapon, but better than nothing.

Minutes passed in taut silence. The few night sounds this strange forest possessed gradually resumed around me. Perhaps they had gone past. Perhaps I had evaded them.

I began to move again, inching in what I hoped was the opposite direction from the footsteps.

A torch beam sliced through the darkness ahead, sweeping between the trees.

I dropped flat, pressing myself into the dead leaves and cold earth. The beam passed over me, then swung back and fixed on my position, blinding me.

"Got him!"

The voice was not Gareth's. It sounded younger, tight with excitement.

I scrambled upright and bolted, abandoning any pretence of stealth. The light followed, jerking wildly as its owner ran after me. More shouts rang out. More torch beams appeared between the trees, converging on my position.

I could not outrun all of them, not in the darkness and not in territory they knew.

A fallen tree appeared directly ahead, visible only at the last instant. I tried to jump it, but my boot caught a branch. I hit the ground hard enough to empty my lungs.

Pain shot through my ankle as it twisted beneath me.

Before I could rise, they were upon me. Three torch beams converged, pinning me in their glare like a specimen beneath glass. I raised one hand to shield my eyes, the stone still uselessly clenched in my fist.

"Drop it," a deep voice ordered.

I let the stone fall.

Three men emerged behind the lights. One was broad and powerfully built, with a shaggy beard and cold eyes. Another was lean and wiry, his gaze constantly sweeping the surrounding forest. The third remained slightly behind them, holding a side-by-side shotgun with casual expertise, both barrels aimed at my chest.

"Well now," said the broad, bearded man. "What have we got here? Gareth said you put up quite a fight."

"Please," I said, my voice cracking. "I'm only trying to get back to the footpath. I don't want any trouble."

The lean man laughed without humour.

"Bit late for that, wouldn't you say? Gareth's shoulder looks pretty bad."

"It was self-defence," I said, sitting up slowly and wincing at the pain in my ankle. "He came at me with a knife."

"In our chapel," said the man with the shotgun, speaking for the first time. His voice was quieter than the others, and more controlled. "On our land."

"I didn't know. I was lost. The storm earlier today..."

"Shut up," the bearded man said. "Turn around. Hands behind your back."

I did not move quickly enough. He seized my shoulder, wrenched me around and shoved me face-first into the earth. My cheek ground against the cold dirt as he dragged my arms behind me.

"Owain, got those ties?"

The lean man stepped forwards, pulling something from his pocket. A moment later plastic cable ties bit into my wrists and tightened until they cut into my skin.

"That's too tight," I protested. "My hands will go numb."

"That's the idea," Owain said. "Can't have you trying anything else with those fingers."

The bearded man hauled me upright. At close quarters I could see how weathered all three appeared. Their clothes were worn but practical, chosen for a life outdoors. They carried themselves with the confidence of men at home in the woods, but there was something else in their posture: the constant alertness of predators.

"I'm Rhys," said the man with the shotgun, gesturing with the barrels. "That's Owain, and the big ugly one is Iwan. You've met Gareth already."

"Look," I tried again. "There's been a mistake. I'm just a walker who lost his way. If you let me go, I swear I won't report any of this. I only want to get back to my car and go home."

Iwan shoved me forwards, making me stumble on my injured ankle.

"Start walking."

"Where are we going?"

"Camp," Owain said. "Gareth wants a proper chat with you."

Rhys kept the shotgun trained on me as we set off. Iwan held my arm in a crushing grip and steered me through the dark forest. Owain led with his torch, following a route invisible to me.

"How far?" I asked after several minutes.

"Far enough that nobody finds it," Rhys said from behind me. "Not that anyone's looking."

We seemed to walk for the best part of an hour, although I could not see my watch to be certain. My ankle throbbed with every step, and the cable ties sliced deeper into my wrists whenever I moved my hands.

The men rarely spoke. Gestures and nods were enough for them, evidence of long familiarity. Their route appeared random to me, weaving between trees without any discernible track, yet they moved with complete certainty. They never hesitated at a fork or obstacle.

"You live out here?" I asked, trying to gather anything that might help me later.

"Going on three years," Iwan replied, surprising me. "Best decision we ever made."

"No rent, no council tax, no nosy neighbours," Owain added from ahead. "Just freedom."

"And the occasional walker to murder?"

The words escaped before I could stop them. Iwan's grip tightened painfully.

"Only the ones who don't respect boundaries," he growled.

"Like that family in the chapel?"

I regretted the question as soon as it left my mouth. Rhys prodded me with the shotgun barrels.

"They got what tourists get when they ignore warnings."

"What warnings?"

"The markings," Owain said. "The signs. That mustard-green stuff you saw. That's our mark. Means keep out. Most people are clever enough to turn round when they see it."

"I never saw any markings."

"Then you weren't paying attention," Iwan said. "We mark the boundaries clearly enough."

We continued in silence. The ground gradually levelled and the spaces between the trees widened. At last we entered a small clearing, and I saw their camp.

It was more established than I had expected. Three patched bivouacs and a larger tarpaulin shelter surrounded a central firepit where embers still glowed red. Rainwater butts, tools and supplies stood neatly around the perimeter. Weapons rested within easy reach, and a folding solar charger leaned against a tree.

This was not a temporary camp. It was a settlement.

Gareth sat beside the fire, his shoulder wrapped in a blood-soaked makeshift bandage. The dying embers lit his face from below, sharpening the menace in his expression. When he saw us enter the clearing, he stood.

"You found our guest," he said, fixing me with a look of cold hatred. "Excellent work, boys."

He walked towards me. I instinctively tried to retreat, but Iwan's grip held me in place.

Gareth stopped directly in front of me and drove his fist into my stomach.

I folded around the blow, gasping for air. I would have fallen if Iwan had not held me upright.

"That's for my shoulder," Gareth said calmly, flexing his hand. "Though we've only just started balancing the books."

When I could breathe again, I straightened and faced him.

"Those people in the chapel. That family. Did you kill them?"

Gareth smiled. It was more frightening than his anger.

"They were trespassing, same as you."

"They were innocent people. Children."

"They were warnings," Gareth corrected. "Messages telling others to stay away. Didn't work too well in your case, did they?"

He turned to the others.

"Tie him to that oak for the night. We'll have a proper talk in the morning, when I can see his face better."

Rhys and Iwan dragged me to a large sessile oak at the edge of the clearing. Owain fetched a length of rope from the supplies. They forced me to sit with my back against the trunk, then wound the rope around my chest and the tree several times, binding me tightly in place. My hands remained cable-tied behind me, crushed against the rough bark.

"Try to get some sleep," Gareth said with mock gentleness. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day for you."

The men returned to the fire, where Gareth spoke to them in low tones I could not make out. From time to time one of them looked towards me before returning to the conversation.

I tested my bonds. The rope around my chest had a little give, enough to let me shift slightly against the trunk. The bark behind my wrists was ridged and sharp. While the men continued their discussion, I began rubbing the cable ties against it, hoping I could fray the plastic.

It was desperate, but desperation was all I had left.

Gareth sat down again. His shoulder was bandaged with what looked like part of a torn shirt, already saturated with blood. The wound I had given him was deeper than I had thought.

I shifted again, testing the rope. It yielded a fraction. The cable ties remained the greater problem. If I could weaken them without the men noticing, I might have a chance.

"How's the shoulder, Gareth?" Iwan asked, lowering himself on to a log across the firepit.

Gareth grimaced.

"Hurts like hell, but I've had worse."

His eyes met mine across the clearing.

"Our friend is going to have much worse before we're finished."

Owain threw several branches on to the fire. Sparks spiralled upwards, and the flames cast their weathered faces in flickering orange light.

"Want me to have a proper look at it?" Rhys asked, placing the shotgun within easy reach.

Gareth shook his head.

"In the morning. Too dark to see much now."

"So what's the plan for him?" Owain asked, nodding towards me.

Gareth leant forwards, his elbows on his knees.

"Same as the others. Find out what he knows and who knows he's here. Then make an example of him."

My stomach tightened at the casualness of his tone. These men had done this before, more than once, judging by the way they spoke.

"I'm not a threat to you," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I didn't even know anyone lived out here."

Gareth laughed.

"That's what they all say."

He looked at the others.

"Remember that couple last summer? Kept insisting they were only birdwatchers, right up until we found the surveying equipment in their rucksacks."

"What is this place?" I asked, partly to distract them from the movement of my wrists and partly because I needed to understand what I had found. "Why are you so determined to protect it?"

Gareth studied me for a long moment, then shrugged.

"Why not tell him? It's not as though he's going anywhere."

He picked up a metal mug and drank before continuing.

"It used to be just me. I found this place three years ago, when I was on the run. Had a disagreement with some former business associates. Let's say the law was looking for me with rather more enthusiasm than I appreciated."

"You're hiding from the police."

"From everyone," Gareth corrected. "That's the beauty of it. Nobody normally comes this deep. Owain joined me about six months later. He had his own reasons for wanting to disappear."

Owain gave a humourless grunt.

"Restraining orders don't mean much out here."

"Rhys and Iwan joined us during the following year," Gareth continued. "Rhys after a fight outside a pub went wrong. Iwan after some trouble involving his employer's accounts."

"So you're all criminals."

Rhys's hand drifted towards the shotgun.

"We prefer to think of ourselves as men who didn't fit the system."

"So you hide in the woods and murder innocent people."

Gareth's expression darkened.

"We established territory. Set boundaries. Made it clear the area was claimed."

He leant forwards.

"Not our fault if people ignore the warnings."

"What warnings?" I asked again. "I never saw any signs or markers."

"The mustard-green marks," Iwan said. "We put them on trees along the boundary. Most people see them and turn back. Something about them feels wrong even if you don't know what they mean."

I thought back to the hours before I found the separate hiker nailed to the tree. Had there been markings I had missed? Strange daubs on trunks that I had walked straight past?

"What is that stuff?" I asked. "The paste on the bodies in the chapel?"

Gareth smiled, apparently pleased by the question.

"Something special we make. Foxglove, yew sap and a few ingredients that are none of your concern. It preserves things nicely. Makes the warnings last longer."

The thought of them preparing that mustard-green, resinous paste specifically to preserve their victims made bile rise in my throat.

"The family in the chapel," I said. "Why them? They were only camping."

"They were persistent," Rhys said, stirring the fire with a stick. "Ignored the marks and pitched their tents right in the middle of a cluster of them."

"They even photographed the symbols," Owain added. "Thought they were interesting. Some kind of natural art, they said."

"We watched them for two days," Gareth continued. "Left more warnings during the night. They kept taking photographs and talking about putting them online."

"So you killed them," I said, my voice hollow. "The children too."

"Children grow up," Gareth replied matter-of-factly. "Grow up and come looking for what happened to Mum and Dad."

I could not comprehend the ease with which they discussed murder. These men had cut themselves away from humanity, from every sense of right and wrong.

"You're sick," I said. "All of you."

Gareth's smile did not falter.

"Maybe. Or maybe we're free. There are no rules out here except ours."

He rose and came towards me. In his hand was my folding knife, the one I had driven into his shoulder. He opened it and examined the small blade.

"Not much of a weapon," he said, turning it in the firelight. "But you made it count."

Without warning, he crossed the remaining distance and crouched in front of me, holding the knife close to my face. I pressed myself against the tree as the rope bit into my chest.

"We're going to have a proper conversation in the morning," Gareth said quietly. "About who you are, who knows you're here and precisely how you found us."

He drew the flat of the blade along my cheek, not cutting me, merely promising that he could.

"It's going to hurt. A lot. But that's the price of trespassing."

He stood, slipped my knife into his pocket and returned to the fire.

The men began discussing the morning. Their voices grew animated as they debated methods of interrogation.

"Fingernails first," Owain suggested. "Usually gets them talking quickly."

"No," Rhys said. "Start with the feet. Can't run if the feet are dealt with."

"I like working on the face," Iwan said quietly. "You can see the fear close up."

They spoke about torture with the casual interest of men comparing fishing techniques. I rubbed my wrists faster against the bark, desperation lending urgency to every movement.

"Got any family waiting for you at home?" Gareth called suddenly.

I froze.

"No."

"Liar," he said, almost kindly. "Everyone has somebody. Parents? Wife? Children?"

I remained silent, unwilling to give him anything he might use against me.

"Doesn't matter," he continued after a moment. "We'll find out tomorrow. People talk about what matters to them when they're hurting enough."

The hours dragged past. The men took turns tending the fire and watching the perimeter. They seemed to need little sleep, accustomed to the vigilance their lives demanded. Rhys was the lightest sleeper. His eyes opened at the smallest sound from the forest.

Whenever I could, I continued sawing the cable ties against the bark. The plastic began to fray as the rough ridges scraped my wrists raw.

I had no idea how much time had passed. My watch was trapped beneath the rope, but the moon had moved a considerable distance across the sky. At last Gareth wrapped himself in a blanket near the fire, his back towards me. Owain and Iwan withdrew to the bivouacs while Rhys took the first watch, sitting on a log with the shotgun across his knees and regularly scanning the edge of the clearing.

The camp quietened. Only the crackling fire and Gareth's occasional snores broke the silence. After perhaps an hour, Rhys's head began to nod, although every few minutes he jerked awake and checked the camp before drifting off again.

I kept working, ignoring the pain as plastic cut into my skin and bark stripped it raw.

Hours passed with agonising slowness. By what must have been the early hours of Wednesday morning, the tie around my right wrist began to give. It had not broken, but I could feel that the repeated scraping had weakened it. A strong pull might be enough.

Rhys had finally surrendered to sleep, his chin resting on his chest and the shotgun balanced across his lap. Iwan had emerged at some point to relieve him, but he stood on the far side of the camp with his attention directed into the forest.

I might not have another chance. Gareth's promise left no doubt about what awaited me at sunrise.

If I was going to act, it had to be now.

I braced myself, drew a deep breath and wrenched my wrists apart with all my strength.

The cable tie stretched and resisted, then snapped with a soft pop that seemed deafening in the sleeping camp.

I froze and watched the men.

Rhys shifted but did not wake. Iwan remained with his back to me, studying the darkness beyond the clearing.

My hands were free, but the rope still held my chest against the tree. I forced my aching fingers beneath the coils and searched for the knot Owain had tied.

It was secure, though not impossible. They knew their knots, but they had trusted the cable ties to immobilise my hands. Slowly and carefully, I worried at it. My fingers, stiff after hours behind my back, slipped more than once.

Every tiny noise made me stop. My heart hammered as I watched for any sign that they had noticed.

At last the knot loosened enough for me to work the rope down my chest. I eased it a fraction at a time, preventing it from catching on the bark. Sweat ran down my face despite the cold night air and dripped on to my hands.

What felt like hours was probably only minutes. Eventually I loosened the rope enough to slip my shoulders through. I held it carefully as I pulled myself free, making certain it did not fall against the trunk.

I was loose, but still in the centre of their camp, surrounded by four killers who would torture me to death if they caught me again.

I surveyed the clearing one last time. Gareth slept beside the dying fire. Rhys dozed upright with the shotgun in his lap. Owain was inside one of the bivouacs. Iwan stood at the far edge of the clearing, facing away.

This was my chance. Probably my only one.

I crept from the tree, keeping low and moving as quietly as I could. Every muscle tightened with the effort of silence. My twisted ankle throbbed, but the pain meant little beside the need to escape.

I had reached the edge of the clearing, about six metres from the oak, when Rhys shifted in his sleep. The shotgun slipped in his lap, its metal striking his belt buckle with a soft click.

I froze.

His eyes opened. For a moment he seemed disorientated, looking around as he gathered his senses. Then his gaze moved to the tree.

The empty tree.

I saw the instant he understood. His eyes widened and he sprang to his feet.

"Gareth!" he shouted. "He's gone! Gareth, he's gone!"

The cry shattered the night and jolted the whole camp awake.

I did not wait. I turned and ran into the forest, staying low and trying to gain as much distance as possible before they organised the pursuit.

Chaos erupted behind me. Gareth roared orders. Torch beams slashed through the darkness in frantic arcs as the men scrambled up.

"Get the lights! Check the perimeter!" Gareth shouted.

I crashed through the undergrowth, no longer caring about noise. My hands stung from rope burns and torn skin. My ankle screamed at every footfall, but adrenaline dulled the pain enough to keep me moving.

The forest was a maze of black trunks set against deeper blackness. Patches of moonlight filtered through the canopy, providing barely enough illumination to prevent me from running headlong into a tree. I had no idea which direction led to safety. I only knew I had to get away from them.

"Spread out!" Gareth's voice rang through the trees. "Owain, east side. Rhys, west. Iwan, circle round and cut him off."

They were using their knowledge of the terrain to trap me.

These men knew the woodland in a way I never could. They had lived here for years and hunted people like me. I veered left, hoping to defy their prediction. My lungs burned as I dragged in the cold air. Sweat ran down my face despite the chill.

I had been awake since early Tuesday morning, and the day of walking, terror and violence had stripped away nearly all my strength. Fear and determination were the only things keeping me upright.

Something crashed through the rhododendron to my right. One of them was closing in. I changed direction again, ducking beneath a low branch and forcing myself deeper into the thicket.

"I can hear you running," Gareth called, his voice unnervingly calm. "You're only making this worse for yourself."

I kept moving, fighting to control my breathing so I could hear their approach. The darkness was both enemy and ally, concealing obstacles from me while hiding me from my pursuers.

Torch beams bounced between the trees behind me, drawing closer. They were gaining ground, moving with the confidence of men who knew every root and stone.

"When we catch you, and we will catch you, what happened to the family in the chapel will seem merciful."

Gareth's voice echoed between the trunks, appearing to come from everywhere at once.

I stumbled over an exposed root and nearly fell, catching myself against a tree. Pain shot through my shoulder. I took one moment to look upwards through gaps in the canopy. Stars shone above, and a thin slice of moon hung between them.

If I kept the moon over my left shoulder, I might at least hold a consistent course instead of running in circles. I could no longer trust what direction that course represented, but any steady line seemed better than none.

The sound of men forcing their way through the forest surrounded me. They had spread out to flank me. A torch beam swept past about forty-five metres to my right. Another appeared on my left, farther away but moving parallel to me.

I ran again, demanding more from muscles that had almost nothing left. Each breath scorched my chest. Sweat ran into the scratches on my face and arms, making them burn.

"He's heading north!" someone shouted.

It sounded like Iwan.

"Cut him off at the ridge!" Gareth called back.

They were tracking me and sharing my position. I swerved sharply right, abandoning my line, hoping to confuse them. The ground rose beneath me, and every step became harder.

"I know these woods better than my own face," Gareth called. "There's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. You might as well make it easy on yourself."

I told myself he was lying. There had to be a way out. A road, a maintained footpath, some sign of civilisation beyond the trees.

The alternative was unthinkable.

The slope steepened. I caught at trunks and exposed roots to haul myself upwards, my legs trembling with exhaustion. If I could reach higher ground, perhaps I would see lights from a town, a road, anything that might lead me to safety.

A sharp crack split the air. Wood burst into splinters centimetres from my head.

The sound reached me before its meaning did.

A gunshot.

One of them had fired at me.

"Next one won't miss!" Rhys shouted from somewhere below. "Stop running!"

Fear gave me fresh strength. I scrambled up the incline on hands and feet, climbing rather than running.

A second shot rang out. This one struck a tree several metres away.

"Don't kill him, Rhys!" Gareth shouted. "We need him alive!"

That confirmed what I had suspected. They wanted to capture me before they killed me. They still needed to know who I might have told and whether anyone was searching for me.

As long as I remained ahead of them, they would be reluctant to risk a fatal shot.

I reached the top of the ridge and paused for no more than a second, dragging air into my burning lungs. The trees were thinner there, allowing more moonlight through. Below, torch beams crossed and recrossed as the men climbed after me.

"He's on the ridge!" Owain's voice carried up from below. "I can see him against the sky!"

I dropped into a crouch, breaking my silhouette, and hurried along the ridge. There was less undergrowth, and I managed to gather speed despite my ankle and exhaustion.

"Circle round!" Gareth ordered. "Iwan, go west and cut him off. Owain, stay on his trail. Rhys, with me."

They were using their numbers against me. I could not outrun all four for long. My only hope was to find somewhere to hide or reach civilisation before they closed the distance.

The ridge began to descend. I followed it down, half running and half sliding through loose soil and dead leaves.

At the bottom, the forest opened into a small clearing. I hesitated beneath the trees, unwilling to cross ground where I would be plainly visible, but remaining still was not an option.

I drew a breath and sprinted for the trees on the far side.

I was halfway across when a torch beam caught me.

"There!" Iwan shouted.

Another shot rang out. Something hot sliced across my upper arm. The shot had grazed me, and warm blood trickled towards my elbow.

"I said alive, damn it!" Gareth bellowed.

I reached the trees and plunged back into the forest, clutching my arm. The wound burned, but it did not seem deep. More worrying was how close they were getting.

"You can run all night," Gareth called, his voice nearer now. "But we live here. We hunt here. This is our home. You're only passing through. On your way into the ground."

His laughter echoed among the trees, joined by the others. The sound chilled me more than the night air. I kept moving, varying my course and trying to throw them off.

But they seemed to anticipate every turn. When I veered left, a torch appeared ahead of me. When I turned right, I heard footsteps keeping pace somewhere alongside me.

"We're only going to tire you out," Owain called. "Make you easier to handle when we get our hands on you."

My strength was fading. They were right about that. The hours of running, the injury to my ankle, the fresh wound on my arm and the emotional strain of everything I had seen were all catching up with me.

But giving up meant torture and death. As long as I could move, I would run.

I spotted a fallen tree ahead, its massive trunk forming a temporary barrier. I dropped behind it, pressing myself against the ground and trying to control my ragged breathing.

Perhaps, if they lost sight of me, they would spread out. Perhaps they would leave gaps in their line that I could slip through.

Torch beams swept across the woodland around me. I could hear the men moving, circling and closing in with methodical patience.

"He's stopped running," Iwan said.

His voice was alarmingly close.

"Clever," Gareth replied. "Conserving his energy. Won't help him, though."

I lay still, scarcely breathing, as a beam passed over the log behind which I was hiding. It paused, then swept back and lingered on the fallen trunk.

"Check behind that tree," Gareth ordered.

Footsteps approached my hiding place. I tensed, ready to run the instant they saw me. The beam climbed over the log and illuminated me where I lay.

I met Rhys's eyes beyond the torch and saw his mouth curve into a smile.

"Found him," he said quietly.

I rolled aside as he lunged, scrambled to my feet and fled once more into the darkness. His fingers brushed my jacket but failed to take hold.

"He's moving again!" Rhys shouted. "Heading east!"

I ran with renewed desperation, knowing they were directly behind me now. My foot caught on something, a root or a stone, and I went down hard. The impact drove the breath from my lungs.

I tried to rise, but my body betrayed me. It would not move quickly enough. Before I could regain my feet, rough hands seized me from behind.

I fought, twisting and striking blindly, but another pair of hands joined the first. They hauled me upright and pinned my arms.

"Got him," Iwan called, his beard scraping my cheek as he restrained me.

I thrashed wildly, but Owain seized my other arm and held me fast between them. Torch beams converged upon my face, blinding me.

"Well, well," Gareth said from behind the lights. "That was quite a chase."

He stepped into view, his face terrible in the harsh glare. Blood had soaked through the bandage over the shoulder where I had stabbed him. He held my pocket knife in one hand, its blade open.

"You made us work for it," he said, turning the little blade between his fingers. "I respect that. But now the real work begins."

"Please," I gasped, still struggling to catch my breath. "Just let me go. I won't tell anyone about you."

Gareth laughed, and the others joined him.

"That's what they all say. Right before they start begging us to kill them."

He came closer and raised the knife towards my face.

"Hold him steady," he told Iwan and Owain. "This is going to get messy."

I closed my eyes and braced myself for the pain.

Then a distant sound made all of us freeze.

Engines. The unmistakable noise of vehicles travelling somewhere beyond the trees.

My eyes snapped open. Gareth was staring into the forest with his head tilted, listening.

"That's a road," Rhys said, lowering the side-by-side shotgun slightly.

"How far?" Gareth demanded.

"Not far," Iwan replied. "Half a mile, perhaps less."

Hope surged through me. A road meant people, safety and escape.

Until that moment there had been no traffic noise at all. Now it seemed to pour through the woodland from impossibly close by, as if the forest had shifted around us once again and opened a route that had not existed seconds earlier.

I renewed my struggle against the hands holding me. I caught Iwan by surprise, and his grip loosened for an instant. I tore my arm free, twisted out of Owain's grasp before he could tighten it and ducked beneath Gareth as he lunged for me.

Then I ran towards the engines.

"After him!" Gareth shouted. "Don't let him reach the road!"

I ran with everything I had left, drawing upon the last scraps of strength and will in my body. The engine noise grew louder. It was unquestionably an A-road, and it was close.

The men crashed through the woodland behind me, their pursuit frantic now. They understood what I did. Once I reached other people, their advantage would be gone.

"If you make it out of these woods," Gareth called after me, his voice thick with rage, "we'll find you. We'll find your family, your friends, everyone you've ever cared about. This doesn't end when you reach the road."

I ignored him and concentrated upon the growing noise ahead. The trees began to thin. The ground sloped downwards.

Then I saw it through the trunks: a crash barrier reflecting the moonlight. Beyond it lay a road.

Civilisation.

Safety.

"Stop him!" Gareth's voice cracked with desperation.

Another shot rang out. This one had not been intended to miss. The pellet charge tore past my ear, close enough for me to feel its passage.

I burst through the final line of trees and emerged on a grassy embankment. Below me lay a dark, empty two-lane stretch of the A40 near Pont Cwm Du, about five miles west of Crickhowell.

Then headlights appeared around a distant bend, growing brighter as a vehicle approached.

I half ran and half tumbled down the bank towards the road, my legs nearly collapsing beneath me. Those approaching lights were my only chance of surviving the night.

"He's going for the road!" Gareth bellowed behind me, sounding like a man watching his prey escape.

My twisted ankle screamed with every step. Blood from the graze on my arm had soaked my sleeve and made it cling to my skin. Every breath burned in my chest, but the headlights gave me strength I had not known remained.

I stumbled on to the road surface and staggered into the centre of the lane, waving both arms above my head.

The headlights blinded me. The driver saw my sudden appearance and braked hard. Tyres shrieked on the tarmac as a battered builder's panel van skidded to a halt only a few metres away.

"Help!" I shouted, my voice cracking. "Please help me!"

I stumbled forwards and collapsed against the bonnet. Its warm metal was the first manufactured thing I had touched since entering that altered woodland.

Behind me, branches crashed as my pursuers reached the forest's edge. The driver's door flew open and a stocky man in his early fifties jumped out, his eyes wide with shock.

"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed as he took in my bloodied appearance. "What happened to you?"

"Call the police," I gasped, pushing myself away from the bonnet and staggering towards him. "There are men in the woods. They're trying to kill me. We have to go now."

The man glanced beyond me towards the tree line, then back at my face. He must have seen the raw terror there, because he immediately reached for his mobile.

"Get in," he said, hurrying round to support me. "I'm Martin. Martin Hughes."

I looked back over my shoulder. In the van's headlights, I could make out four figures at the edge of the trees. They were partly concealed, watching and calculating. The long-haired figure of Gareth stood at the front, unmistakable even at that distance.

"They're there," I said, gripping Martin's arm. "At the tree line. Four of them. They've been hunting me all night."

Martin helped me towards the passenger side, his arm firm beneath my shoulder.

As he opened the door, Gareth's voice carried across the distance between us.

"This isn't over. We know what you look like now. We'll find you. Wherever you go, we'll find everyone you care about."

A chill passed through me that had nothing to do with the night air.

Martin helped me into the seat, then hurried back to the driver's side, already dialling 999.

"Police. What's your emergency?" a call handler asked faintly as the call connected.

"I'm on the A40 near Pont Cwm Du, about five miles west of Crickhowell," Martin said as he climbed in and slammed the door. "I've got a badly injured man here who says people are trying to kill him. There are four men at the tree line watching us now."

He started the van and made a rapid three-point turn, pointing us towards Abergavenny. As we accelerated away, I twisted in my seat to look back.

The four figures had moved further on to the embankment and were briefly caught in the rear lights. They made no attempt to pursue the van, but the sight of them standing there and watching us leave sent another wave of fear through me.

"I need police and an ambulance," Martin continued, his voice remarkably steady. "He's bleeding and looks as if he's been through hell."

I slumped back in the seat as the adrenaline that had kept me moving began to ebb. Pain from my injuries rushed in to fill the void.

The call handler took Martin's details and precise location, then kept him on the line while ambulance control coordinated medical assistance.

"Gwent Police response officers are being sent from Abergavenny," Martin told me after listening to her. He put the mobile on speaker and secured it against the dashboard. "Paramedics as well."

He glanced at me. "Can you tell me what happened? Who were those men?"

I swallowed. My throat was dry and raw from running and shouting.

"They live in the woods. They've been killing walkers who stray into their territory. I found bodies. A whole family in a ruined chapel. When I tried to leave, they caught me."

Martin's eyes widened, but he kept them chiefly on the road as he accelerated.

"How long did they hold you?"

"Since this evening," I said. The events were already blurring in my mind. "They tied me to a tree. They were planning to torture me before letting me die. They wanted to know who knew I was walking there."

"Sir, are you still there?" the police call handler asked through the speaker.

"Still here," Martin replied. "We're heading east on the A40 towards Abergavenny, as quickly as I can safely manage."

"Officers are on their way to intercept you. Can you tell me more about the injured man's condition?"

Martin looked across at me.

"He's conscious, but badly hurt. Cuts all over him. There may be a gunshot wound on his arm."

"It grazed me," I said weakly. "They shot at me while I was running."

"Did you hear that?" Martin asked.

"Yes, sir. Continue towards Abergavenny. Officers will meet you on the road. Can the injured man give us any information about his attackers?"

I leaned towards the mobile.

"Four men. They've been living in the forest for years. Their leader is Gareth Pritchard. The others are Owain Rees, Rhys Morgan and Iwan Price. They've killed several people. There is a family - a mum, a dad and three children - murdered and displayed inside a ruined chapel. I don't know how far it is from the A40. There's at least one other victim nailed to a tree deeper in the woods."

My voice broke as the images of those arranged bodies flooded back.

"Can you remember where the chapel is?" the call handler asked.

I shook my head before remembering that she could not see me.

"I became lost during a storm. Everything in the forest seemed wrong afterwards. My compass and GPS receiver showed impossible things."

Martin gave me a worried glance. I knew how it sounded, but it was the truth.

"I can try to help you find it," I continued. "I remember parts of the route and their camp. They had three patched bivouacs, a larger tarpaulin shelter, rainwater butts, tools, weapons and a folding solar charger. It wasn't temporary."

"Officers will take a full statement as soon as they reach you," the call handler said. "For now, stay on the line and continue towards Abergavenny."

"All right."

Martin pressed the accelerator. Trees blurred on either side of the A40 as we travelled through the night. Every few seconds, he checked the rear-view mirror.

"Do you think they're following us?" I asked, fighting to remain conscious as exhaustion threatened to pull me under.

Martin shook his head. "Not in a vehicle. But I didn't like the way they stood there watching. It was as if they weren't worried that you'd escaped."

Gareth's final threat echoed through my mind.

"He said they'd find me. My family and my friends as well."

"Let the police worry about that," Martin said firmly. "Right now, we need to get you to hospital."

For the first time since leaving the forest, I looked properly at myself. My clothes were torn and filthy, smeared with earth, blood, pine resin and traces of the mustard-green paste from their camp. My hands were raw from scraping them against bark as I worked free of the cable ties. Dried blood crusted the wound on my arm. I must have looked deranged.

"Thank you," I said quietly. "If you hadn't come along when you did..."

Martin nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. "I wasn't meant to be out this late. I run a small building firm. We were finishing a kitchen refurbishment before a family celebration, but one of the fittings was wrong. I had to go and collect replacements, then take them back to the job. That's what delayed me."

The part played by chance was not lost on me. If the original fittings had been correct, if Martin had chosen another route home or if either of us had reached that stretch of road a minute earlier or later, I would probably have been dead before dawn.

"Do you do much of that sort of work?" I asked, partly from genuine curiosity and partly to keep myself awake.

"Mostly domestic building work," he replied. "Extensions, repairs, kitchen and bathroom jobs. Enough to keep me busy."

Such an ordinary conversation felt surreal after everything I had endured. Kitchens and family celebrations belonged to another world, not to the woodland in which I had spent the night being hunted.

"I can see blue lights," Martin said suddenly, leaning forwards over the steering wheel. "Several of them, coming this way."

I looked through the windscreen. A line of flashing lights approached in the distance, cutting through the darkness.

"That'll be the police and ambulance," Martin said. "The call handler said they'd meet us on the road."

Relief washed over me. Real help was coming. People who would search the forest and find what Gareth and his men had done.

As the vehicles drew near, Martin slowed and pulled on to a safe hard strip. Marked response cars approached from the other direction with an ambulance behind them. They positioned themselves around us, their lights painting the road in revolving blue.

Police officers emerged and approached cautiously, assessing the van and the dark verges beyond it. Martin lowered his window.

"I'm Martin Hughes," he called. "I made the 999 call. This man needs medical help."

Two paramedics hurried from the ambulance with a stretcher while one officer spoke to Martin. Another came round to the passenger side and opened my door.

"Sir, can you tell me your name?" the officer asked, shining a torch over me as he assessed my condition.

"Daniel Mercer," I replied, my voice sounding distant to my own ears. "There are killers in the forest. They've murdered people."

The paramedics reached me and carefully helped me out of the van and on to the stretcher. The movement sent fresh waves of pain through my battered body.

"He says four men in the forest have been murdering walkers," Martin told the officers. "I saw four figures at the tree line where I picked him up."

"We'll need full statements from both of you," the officer said. "First we need to get Mr Mercer treated and secure the area where you found him."

As the paramedics fastened the straps, I caught an officer by the sleeve.

"You have to search the woods. There's a ruined chapel with five bodies inside - two adults and three children. There's another victim nailed to a tree."

"Armed response officers will carry out an initial search around the point where you emerged," he said. "At first light, police search teams will work with mountain rescue and the national park wardens. But we need to make sure you're stable first."

They loaded me into the ambulance. One paramedic immediately checked my observations while the other cut away my sleeve to examine the graze.

"Blood pressure is low," the first said. "Pulse is raised. Clear signs of dehydration and exhaustion."

An oxygen mask was placed over my face. The cool air soothed my throat, but it could not wash away the fear gripping me.

Through the open ambulance doors, I saw Martin speaking to the officers and pointing back along the A40. He was describing the precise place where he had found me and where the figures had stood.

One of the officers stepped into the ambulance carrying a notebook.

"Mr Mercer, I know you've been through a great deal, but any details you can give us about where to find these men or the victims would help us begin the search."

I pulled the mask aside.

"I can take you there. Let me help you find them."

The paramedic gently replaced it.

"You need medical treatment first, Mr Mercer. You've lost blood, you're dehydrated and you have several injuries."

The officer nodded. "We'll take a full statement at Nevill Hall Hospital. My colleagues are securing the location and checking the woodland edge now."

I wanted to protest, to insist that they take me straight back into the forest, but exhaustion finally overcame me. The relative safety of the ambulance, and the presence of people taking control, allowed my body to begin shutting down after I had driven it beyond its limits.

The last thing I saw before the doors closed was Martin standing with the police officers, continuing to describe what had happened. He glanced towards me and gave a small, reassuring nod.

As the ambulance pulled away towards Abergavenny, its lights flashing and siren wailing, I closed my eyes.

Gareth's final threat repeated itself in my mind.

"We'll find you. We'll find everyone you care about."

They were still somewhere in those woods. I felt certain that they would not be found unless they wanted to be.

I woke disorientated in a room at Nevill Hall Hospital. The steady beeping of monitors had replaced the forest noises that had filled my ears throughout the night. Sunlight filtered through blinds on windows overlooking brick walls and air-conditioning units. A line ran from my arm to a bag of clear fluid hanging beside the bed.

A nurse noticed that I was awake and came over with a clipboard.

"Good afternoon, Mr Mercer. How are you feeling?"

"As if I've been dragged backwards through hell," I said. My voice was rough, my throat felt like sandpaper and every muscle ached. "How long have I been here?"

"You arrived early this morning. You've slept for about fourteen hours."

I tried to sit up and winced as pain shot through the arm that had been grazed. The wound had been thoroughly cleaned and dressed. My other cuts had also been treated, some with sterile closure strips and others with stitches.

"The doctor will be back to examine you shortly," the nurse said, adjusting the drip. "A police officer would also like to speak to you when you're ready."

"Tell them to come now. They need to find those men before they disappear."

The nurse gave me a look that combined sympathy with doubt. It was a look I would become familiar with over the next eight days.

Detective Constable Nia Vaughan arrived about an hour later, after a doctor had examined me and confirmed dehydration, exhaustion, a sprained ankle and numerous lacerations. The graze on my arm had been cleaned and treated. The doctor said I was fortunate that the shot had not struck a few centimetres closer to my body.

DC Vaughan was in her late thirties, with her hair pulled back in a practical style. She placed a notebook and an approved digital recorder on the table beside my bed, then showed me her warrant card.

"Mr Mercer, I'm Detective Constable Nia Vaughan of Gwent Police. I understand you've been through a serious ordeal. If you're able, I'd like to ask you what happened."

"Did you find them?" I asked at once. "Gareth and the others? Did you search the forest?"

"Armed officers searched the immediate area during the night. At daylight, teams from Gwent Police and Dyfed-Powys Police began a wider search with mountain rescue and national park wardens, because the potential search area crosses force and park boundaries. We need as much information as you can give us to direct them."

"They'll disappear," I said as frustration rose within me. "They know somebody escaped. They'll move their camp and conceal the evidence."

"That's why I need your help." She switched on the recorder. "Begin at the car park on Tuesday morning and tell me everything you remember."

So I did.

I told her about leaving the maintained footpath for an unmarked deer track, the sudden storm and the sessile oak struck roughly 180 metres from my shelter. I described the smell of ozone, the thunder's deafening peak and that impossible instant of absolute darkness. I explained that I had sheltered beneath a rock overhang for about forty minutes, fallen asleep briefly in the early afternoon and woken to a silent, altered forest.

I told her how my compass, handheld GPS receiver and the ridge orientation had ceased to agree while I could still recognise the ridge, and how, once the landscape became wholly unfamiliar, even that point of comparison was lost. I described the impossibly ancient trees, the first victim fixed to one of them with hand-forged iron nails and the mustard-green resinous paste smeared over the body.

Then I told her about the ruined chapel and the family from Bristol: the consultant anaesthetist, the other adult and their three children, all preserved and arranged inside the nave. I described Gareth's long, matted hair and weather-beaten face, and the mustard-green paste staining his clothes. I explained that the mixture, made from foxglove, yew sap and ingredients they would not disclose, served both as their boundary mark and as a preservative for their victims.

I described the other men carefully. Iwan Price was broad and bearded. Owain Rees was lean and watchful. Rhys Morgan carried the illegally held side-by-side shotgun. Gareth Pritchard was their leader. According to Gareth, he had arrived first, Owain had joined him six months later, and Rhys and Iwan had come during the following year.

I told DC Vaughan about their camp, the three patched bivouacs, the large tarpaulin shelter, the rainwater butts, tools, weapons and folding solar charger. I described being secured to a tree with plastic cable ties, my escape, the night-long pursuit and the moment when the forest seemed to shift and the A40 suddenly became audible.

Throughout my account, DC Vaughan took notes without interrupting. Her face remained professionally neutral, but I saw scepticism in her eyes when I spoke of the altered forest and the contradictory instruments.

"Can you give me any GPS coordinates?" she asked when I had finished. "Any landmarks that might help locate the chapel or the camp?"

I gave her the last coordinates I remembered before everything went wrong and described the rock overhang beneath which I had sheltered. I tried to reconstruct the direction and distance I had walked before reaching the chapel near dusk, and the camp's position relative to the road as best I could.

"I can show you on a map," I said. "When I'm fit enough, I can go with a search team. I may not remember exact coordinates, but I would recognise landmarks."

"We need to concentrate on your recovery for now," she said, closing her notebook. "The search teams know the Black Mountains well."

"They won't find anything without me," I insisted. "Those men have lived out there for years without being caught. They know how to hide."

DC Vaughan paused.

"Mr Mercer, I want to be honest with you. There have been reports of unusual encounters and unexplained disappearances in parts of the Black Mountains over the years, but no previous search has uncovered evidence of a permanent camp or anything resembling what you've described."

"So you don't believe me."

"I believe you were attacked," she replied carefully. "Your injuries are real. The wound on your arm is consistent with a shotgun graze, and Mr Hughes confirmed seeing four figures at the tree line. We need physical evidence if we're to identify, locate and prosecute them."

Over the following days, my frustration grew as reports came back from the multi-agency search.

Near the verge where Martin had found me, officers discovered disturbed grass, blood matching mine and broken branches consistent with somebody forcing his way out of the trees. They followed those traces back into the woodland, but after a short distance they ended abruptly on undisturbed ground.

The teams found nothing at the coordinates I had supplied. There was no rock overhang matching my description, no ruined chapel, no bodies nailed to trees and no ancient woodland of the kind I remembered. Searches with maps, dogs and specialist volunteers revealed no camp and no sign of recent human occupation beyond the ordinary traces left by walkers on recognised paths.

By the fourth day I could move about on two crutches, although the doctor wanted me to remain in hospital so that my injuries could be monitored for infection. I spent hours studying maps with DC Vaughan and trying to identify where I had been, but everything looked wrong.

The maps showed footpaths and familiar landmarks I should have encountered. None corresponded with my experience.

"This doesn't make sense," I said during one session, pushing a map away in frustration. "I know what I saw. I know what happened to me."

"No one is saying it didn't happen," DC Vaughan replied, although her tone was guarded. "But we need evidence."

"Then let me go with them. I can show them where to look."

"You're still recovering."

"I can move around the hospital. I can manage easier ground with a single crutch or a walking pole."

After further discussions, and despite the doctor's reservations, DC Vaughan arranged for me to accompany a limited search on my sixth day in hospital.

A police vehicle took me to the same stretch of the A40 near Pont Cwm Du where Martin had found me. I stood on the verge using one walking pole, with a single crutch available in the vehicle, and felt cold dread creep through me.

The trees looked normal in daylight: sessile oak, birch and rowan, with stands of Scots pine and invasive rhododendron. It was ordinary Welsh upland woodland within Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. Yet I remembered what had existed beyond that innocent boundary.

"This is the location Mr Hughes gave us," DC Vaughan said, consulting her notes. "The blood and other traces were found just there. Does anything look familiar?"

I studied the tree line and tried to reconcile it with my broken memories of bursting from the darkness.

"I came through that depression," I said, pointing between two mature oaks. "I ran down that slope."

Four police officers accompanied us, carrying search equipment, first-aid supplies and appropriate protective equipment. A mountain-rescue volunteer who knew the area walked beside me and watched my footing. Their manner was professional, whatever private doubts they might have had.

We followed the confirmed physical traces from the verge. There were broken twigs, a faint smear of my blood and disturbances at about shoulder height consistent with someone running blindly through the trees.

Then, less than 100 metres into the wood, the signs simply stopped.

Beyond that point the leaf litter lay unbroken. Moss covered the fallen branches. There was no track, no blood and no explanation for how an injured man could have reached the verge without leaving any further trace.

We continued in the direction I remembered, moving slowly because of my ankle. The traffic noise faded behind us, though never with the unnatural suddenness I recalled from the night of the hunt.

After a while I stopped and looked around.

"This isn't right. The trees should be older here. Much bigger."

"These are mature trees," one officer said.

"I mean ancient. Massive. Like cathedral pillars. And there should be a clearing nearby where they made their camp."

We searched for another hour while I tried to reconcile my memories with the woodland around us. When the slope steepened, the mountain-rescue volunteer stopped me from going farther.

"That ground isn't safe with your ankle," she said. "You can direct us from here, but you're not climbing it."

The officers went ahead to examine the area while I waited with DC Vaughan. They found nothing. When they returned, we followed an easier route and soon reached a narrow stream.

I stared at the water in disbelief.

"There was no stream. I never crossed water during the chase."

DC Vaughan exchanged a look with the others.

"Mr Mercer, this stream didn't appear overnight."

"I know that," I snapped. "It means this isn't the place I came through, even though the evidence at the road says it is."

We continued until late afternoon, but my involvement remained confined to ground that the medical and mountain-rescue staff considered safe. The wider teams covered miles of woodland in several directions from the place where I had emerged.

They found no chapel, no camp, no bodies and no evidence of Gareth Pritchard, Owain Rees, Rhys Morgan or Iwan Price.

"I don't understand," I said as we finally turned back towards the A40. "It was real. Every part of it was real."

"Your injuries and Mr Hughes's account confirm that you were attacked," DC Vaughan said. "But without evidence of where those men went, there is little more we can do tonight. The wider search is continuing."

I spent my final two days in hospital answering similar questions from different officials. Gwent Police, Dyfed-Powys Police, mountain rescue and park staff compared their maps and search records. I repeated my account so often that I began to doubt parts of my own memory.

Had the forest truly changed after the storm, or had I become more disorientated than I realised? Had the men been as organised and established as they appeared, or were they temporary fugitives who had cleared their camp with extraordinary speed?

The physical evidence resisted either simple explanation. My injuries were real. So was the shotgun graze. Martin had seen four figures watching from the trees. My blood trail began at the road and then ended where no injured man could simply have vanished.

The only things I knew with complete certainty were the terror of being hunted and the images of the six victims burned into my memory: the separate walker nailed to the ancient tree, and the family of five arranged like dolls inside the ruined chapel.

On the morning of my discharge, DC Vaughan came to see me one last time. She handed me her card with a direct number written on the back.

"The intensive search is being reduced after today," she said. "Local officers, park wardens and mountain-rescue teams will remain alert to anything unusual. If we find evidence, I'll contact you immediately."

"You won't find the place," I said, putting the card in my wallet. "Either they've hidden everything, or those woods can't be reached in the ordinary way."

"Mr Mercer," she said, her voice softening, "I've worked on missing-person cases in these mountains for years. People become lost in wild country, and sometimes they are never found. What happened to you was real. Your injuries and trauma are real. But we have to consider every possible explanation."

"You think I imagined it? That I did this to myself?"

I gestured towards my bandaged arm and the visible cuts on my face.

"No. But isolation, fear, exhaustion and dehydration can affect perception. They can alter the way events and places are remembered."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"You think I hallucinated an entire family posed inside a chapel? That I imagined four men tying me to a tree and discussing how they meant to torture me? That Martin imagined seeing them at the edge of the wood?"

"Mr Hughes saw four figures in poor light," she said. "That corroborates part of your account, but he couldn't identify them and didn't hear the threats you described."

She paused.

"I'm not dismissing what happened. I simply can't state more than the evidence supports."

"Without evidence, you can't do anything," I said.

"Not enough to make arrests. But the case remains open."

"Then let me be clear. Those men were real. What they did was real. And they're still out there somewhere."

I was discharged that afternoon. A hospital social worker had arranged temporary accommodation in Abergavenny until I was fit to travel home to southern England, several counties away.

As I was wheeled towards the taxi, I looked at the Black Mountains rising in the distance.

I had once loved mountains like those. For more than a decade, walking had given me refuge from air conditioning, spreadsheets, meetings and appraisals, from the exhaustion of office life and the ceaseless demands waiting at home. In the hills I had found peace and solitude.

I knew now that I would never willingly enter those woods again.

Whether the storm had truly carried me across some invisible threshold, or fear and exhaustion had transformed an ordinary landscape in my mind, the result was the same. The mountains that had been my refuge were tainted for ever.

I had escaped the marked wood, but I could not escape the feeling that Gareth and the others remained somewhere beyond the reach of roads and maps. I could not know that they were watching me, nor that they were planning another hunt.

But in quiet moments, when I remembered the mustard-green marks on the trees and the instant of absolute darkness beneath the storm, certainty still rose inside me like cold water.

The inaccessible wood was there.

And so were they.