The Wild Hunt

The Wild Hunt - By Jonathan Evans

It was Sunday evening, and the dog had been missing for just over a week. How he escaped was a mystery to everyone in the family. We went to bed on a Friday night, with the dog asleep in his usual spot at the foot of our bed, and when we woke up on Saturday morning, he was gone. No windows ajar, no doors left unlocked - the dog had simply vanished!

"It's ok," I said to the kids, "we can make some signs this morning and put them up all around town. I'm sure someone must have seen him." But I wasn't convinced. How does a dog simply vanish from a securely locked house overnight? All the keys in the house had been accounted for. My wife and I would check them three-times each night before going to bed. We even checked the attic to be sure there was no way the dog could have escaped through to next door - Nothing!

A week had gone by, and each day the kids would run home from school, making sure to check each of the dog's favourite spots on the way. But each day they would return home empty-handed, crestfallen and ashen-faced.

"What if Aliens took 'im," said William, the youngest of our three children, as we sat down for dinner. His eyes lightened somewhat at the prospect.

"No such thing!" Snapped Elin, who was the eldest at nine years old. "Mr Roberts told us in school. He said, even if there was aliens, they would just be like worms or blobs of snot or something rubbish, like that."

"No! He's stupid, then," screamed William, never one to back down without a fight. "I saw it on the telly, they came down and stole a load of cows and sheep, and turned them inside out. It was great; you could see all their ribs and guts and stuff sticking out."

My wife shot me an unimpressed, side-eyed look that said, 'what have you been letting this boy watch' and rapidly changed the subject. "Charlotte, darling. Have you finished learning your lines for your nativity play yet?"

Charlotte, our middle child at six years old, didn't reply. Instead, she distractedly pushed around the contents of her bowl. Her face a mask of disconcertion under her tousled mop of thick, tight curls. She blew the hair out of her eyes and began to speak, "Mum if the dog doesn't come home. Can we get a cat?"

"The dog is coming home!" screamed Elin, thumping the table to emphasise each word.

"Yeah, we'll just have an inside-out dog," squealed William, mischievously.

After dinner, the children made perfunctory efforts at cleaning their teeth, whilst I wrestled them into their pyjamas and herded them to their beds. Once stories had been read and duvets tucked in, I returned back downstairs. Kathryn, my wife, was sitting on the sofa staring blankly at the TV. "Do you really believe he'll come home?" She asked.

"Not really," I replied, "you?"

"I dunno," she shrugged, "I mean, If I had even the tiniest clue how he disappeared in the first place, I might be able to answer that."

I knew what she meant. If only we could say: 'Yes, Buster disappeared up the chimney, of course!' At least we would have known he was out there somewhere. But, without that empirical link, not even William's alien suggestion could be discounted - All options were still on the table. From spontaneous combustion to alien abduction, all had to be considered. Buster has become Schrodinger's Dog; as of now, he both existed and didn't exist. Dead and alive, all at once. At this time, I didn't know that to lift the lid and find out which Buster was in the box would send my life of a course I wasn't expecting.

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Another week went by with no sign of Buster. The children continued their daily ritual of searching Buster's favourite haunts as we made our way home from school. No clues had been unearthed as to the exact method of his disappearance and the posters we had put up had returned no possible sightings from the local neighbourhood.

It was Friday night and, as per our regular Friday routine, Elin, Charlotte and William were sitting in the lounge watching a rented video from Blockbusters. Fish and chips, still in the wrapper, balanced on their laps, as they watched the trailers before the film started. I split the remaining bag of greasy chips onto two plates and began to walk up the stairs and let Kathryn know the kids were waiting for us to start the film.

Just as I set foot on the first step, the house phone started to ring, it's tuneless trilling filling the house. I sighed and picked up the receiver from the small table that sat next to the bottom of the stairs.

A gruff voice on the other end of the line announced themselves as, 'David, from the farm on top of Hen Gwm.' The gruff voice went on to explain that he'd seen our posters and had spotted a dog that matched Buster's description sniffing around his farmyard not ten minutes ago. Buster - if indeed it was Buster - had apparently been playing merry hell with his chickens for the last few nights.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," I said.

"That's five disappeared now over the last week." He responded, his tone accusing and irritated.

"I'm more than happy to pay for any losses, of course. I'll be along straight away to collect him. If it is Buster, of course." And with that, we exchanged cordial goodbyes and hung up.

Kathryn was walking down the stairs, drying her hair with a towel, "Who was that, dear?"

"Oh, good news... I think?" I said a little unsurely. "Some farmer up on the mountain seems to think that Buster has been there, at the farm all week."

"That's great news!" Kathryn squeaked.

"Yeah, don't mention it to the kids just yet. I don't want to get their hopes up. The description the guy gave seems to match Buster - but, he said Buster's been killing chickens on his farm. Doesn't sound like Buster, to mee? He's so old he can barely catch his dinner plate, let alone chase chickens around!"

"I guess if you've been lost for a few days, you'll do what it takes to eat." Katherine shrugged. And with that, I grabbed my torch, gave my excuses to the children and set off into the dark night to Hen Gwm.

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I parked the car just on the boundary wall of the farm at the top of Hen Gwm. On one side of me sat the farm and its fields that stretched the full length of the valley side, right down to the shimmering lights of the town below. On the other side, black and silent forest fanned out across the horizon. I stepped out of the car and turned on my torch. The darkness of the cloudy, winter night intensified by the farm's position high above the lights of the town.

"Buster?" I called out and shone my torch around. Finding anything in this darkness wasn't going to be easy, even a bright white Siberian Husky, like Buster. At least if I could see him in the gloom, his old age and lazy disposition meant I at least had a chance of catching him. I continued to call out Buster's name as I skirted the crumbling wall that encircled the farm, my torch circling around me like a lighthouse in thick fog.

After five minutes of repeating this process, I was ready to give up. 'Maybe I should come back in the daytime and start again,' I thought to myself and prepared to head back to the car. As I turned, I caught a flash of white in the torchlight. The white streak disappeared behind a dilapidated and tumbled down building right where the road ended, and the thick pine forest took over. I hurried after it, careful not to lose my footing in the dark. I rounded the corner of the building, and there it was. The dog - if it was a dog - sat on raised haunches, head cocked, scrutinising me. It wasn't Buster.

"Hello, boy," I said reassuringly, as I stepped closer to the dog. The mystery dog was about the same size as Buster and shared the same brilliant white coat. However, that's where the similarities ended. This dog had bright red ears that stuck straight up to the sky. I took another step forward and raised the beam of the torch to get a better look at the hound. Its eyes shone, not the ghostly white you'd expect from a dog's eyes in the nighttime, but a burning red, they almost glowed. I stepped backwards in shock, uncertain as to my next move. All the while, the spectral looking dog kept its curious eyes firmly fixed upon me.

I wondered what kind of dog it was. It was certainly not a breed I'd ever come across before. It was slightly foxy in appearance but also had wolf-like qualities, too. But, the eyes... It was the eyes, the way they looked at me - there was an intelligence behind that red stare, and possibly something else, too. Like he was sizing me up and judging me.

Just as I'd mentally made the decision to back away, carefully, and return to the safety of the car, the dog cocked his head again and gave out a friendly sounding, 'woof.' It motioned its head toward the forest.

"In there?" I said to the ghostlike hound.

It gave another 'woof' and trotted past me and towards the treeline, stopping every few steps to turn around and check if I was following it. 'How strange,' I thought. 'Maybe he has a litter of pups that need help? Maybe he has some kind of strange doggy link to Buster, who's lying hurt in the forest?' A thousand different scenarios swirled in my head to try and explain this strange behaviour. The spectral mutt woofed again, dragging me back to reality.

I followed the ghostly hound right to the edge of the forest. It stopped to look at me as if it was beckoning me to follow it into the darkness beyond. I hesitated, my body felt like it was trying to escape from my skin. I didn't want to follow it; my mind was screaming at me not to follow it. I entered the blackness beyond.

As any residual light from the farm fell away, I leaned my arm on a tree while taking a moment to get my bearings. I squinted into the gloom to see if I could still see the hound. Just at the edge of my vision, I saw a flash of white and red and set off in that direction.

I'd walked for a little over five minutes, and the forest became pitch black. Neat, but tightly packed rows of pine trees had filtered out the last of the day's light, leaving my phone screen as my only source of illumination. I tried to keep a steady pace while ducking low hanging branches and avoiding tree trunks. A thick carpet of pine needles crunched like fresh snow under my feet, providing the only noise in the otherwise deathly silent forest.

Soon, the volume and the thickness of the trees started to increase. The frequency of low hanging branches had risen to the point where my gain had been slowed to a permanently hunched crawl, using the trucks to pick my way through.

I stopped to catch my breath; there had been no sign of the dog now since I first entered the forest, and without the crunching of needles under my feet, I listened intently to see if I could pick up any clues as to the whereabouts of the beast.

A thick silence permeated the air; the only sound was the occasional crackling of the trees as they cooled in the cold air of the night. Not a whisper of wind could make its way this deep, and a dense fragrance of pine and sweetly composting needle filled my senses.

In other times, in the familiar safety of daylight, it would have been serene and peaceful. At night, however, branches became bones in the blue light of the phone, casting their tangled and gruesome shadows on to other trees compounding the grim skeletal boneyard effect.

After some further gradual scrambling under the low branches, the trees started to space out again. My phone told me no more than 10 minutes had passed, but it felt like hours. Time passed differently in the middle of the forest as if stalled by the impenetrable pine odour.

The trees widened further and opened out into a small and circular clearing. Triangular piles of logs marked the edges of the glade hinting at some recent logging activity. In the middle of the clearing stood a giant oak tree. The moonlight the break in the trees had afforded, bounced off its gnarled trunk. I wondered how such a large tree - it looked at least a hundred years old - had come to exist in the centre of this forest. Stranger still, the tree had a full covering of leaves as if it was the height of summer and not a bitter winter night.

I looked up at the circle of sky above the clearing and saw the stars arranged in a neat spiral, unravelling out from the centre point. A cold and nauseating fear crept from my stomach. It surged upwards and into my chest, like the water in a sinking ship.

Momentarily I staggered backwards, caught between blind panic and a crushing existential dread that filled my senses and almost made me pass out.

I wasn't in Wales anymore - I was pretty sure I wasn't even in the world anymore. It occurred to me that I might have died, there, in the silent blackness of the forest and that this was the next life - but I didn't believe it. At the very least, I didn't think dead men felt like they were in the grip of a massive panic attack.

With one arm outstretched to the nearest log pyramid for support, I tried to regain control of my shrieking senses and forced some air back into my lungs with big rasping breaths. Something shifted in front of the sprawling roots of the oak tree.

The shimmering beast rose and padded over to me. 'Damn', I thought. 'How didn't I see it before?' The creature had led me here, and now it was going to end my life here. Wherever here was.

Hunched over the log, we were the same height. It looked at me with its yellow eyes. An intelligence burned deep behind those yellow orbs; it was studying me with interest.

Then, a horn; a rising note, emanating from deep within the forest, that paid no attention to the thick brush that had concealed all sound on my journey thus far. Its tuneless concord rushed through the opening, rising above the trees and forcing overnighting crows from their treetop slumber.

The hound pricked up its scarlet ears and turned, bounding off in the direction of the horn. I was again completely alone - in the darkness of that other world. I pulled myself together enough to remember the phone I held, clutched tightly in my fist, and looked for something to drag me back to reality.

In my younger days, I'd had a real fascination with lucid dreaming and had read an article that said one of the best ways of 'reality checking' if you are unsure if you are dreaming is to either try to read a book or look at a screen. The screen read '20:16 Oct 21st'. I was very much awake.

I started to fumble with the phone to call Kathryn. What would I say? How could I explain that I'd chased a spectral dog into the forest? And, I definitely couldn't explain that place, a hole in the centre of the universe. A place from which all the stars exude.

Before I could dial a number, the horn blew again. This time it was followed by a distant ripple of sound - not one sound, a hundred whispered noises all swirling into one. I could feel a low rumbling below my feet. The whispers grew, and I could soon make out the sound of dogs barking and men whooping and squealing. I moved as quickly as I could to the rear of the log pile and hunkered for refuge as the sounds grew nearer.

It happened so quickly, a matter of seconds, in fact. First, as the cacophony sounded like they were reaching ever closer to the clearing, a figure stumbled out of the forest on my left. Dressed in pyjamas and barefoot, the apparition scrambled terrified to their feet.

I squinted and realised that I recognised the wretched figure. It was Mr Roberts, my son's teacher. He was sobbing uncontrollably, his wild eyes firmly fixed behind him at his unknown pursuers. His pyjamas torn, and blood oozed from a large cut on the side of his head. From the forest, a hundred voices shouted obscenities and screamed their otherworldly screams.

Mr Roberts had lurched and stumbled near to the central oak tree when the hound entered. The three ivory creatures, with foxy, bright red ears were upon the man before he could pass the tree. His ghastly moans gargled in his throat as they tore at his pyjamas. I shrunk back behind the log pile and tried to stifle my cries; my eyes shut as tightly as possible.

From the forest, I could see the rest of the hunt arriving. Streaming through the trees ran at least thirty men and women. They shone in the moonlight; some were clothed, some naked, some wore what looked light nighties or dressing gowns. I recognised them all. James Merry who owned the house just up the road from his parents; Jenny Fraser and her two children who went to school with my kids; our next-door neighbour, David; the whole grim and frightful party were from the town. But from the silvery auras that marked them out against the blackness of the forest, I knew they were not really there - not in any tangible form, in any case.

The horde fell upon the clearing from all directions, paying no attention to me, a lone spectator to their hideous play. They snarled and growled more than the dogs (one of which now had Mr Roberts firmly by the throat.)

The ghostly crowd parted, and an enormous grey mare trotted out. On the horse sat a large, thin man. He had a giant hunting horn slung around his neck and carried a long silver spear. While hard to gauge his height on the colossal steed, he must have been well over 6 foot. His face was blackened as if covered in a thick layer of soot.

Next to him walked a naked woman. She too was tall and slim. Her thin face and elfish features gave way to tumbling black hair. She spoke in a clear and measured voice, "Dormarth, bring the prize." The dog dragged the limp body of Mr Roberts to his masters. The figure on the horse pulled a large sword from a sheath on the saddle and stuck it right into the Mr Roberts chest. "Proceed," the figure rasped in a guttural growl.

The dogs tore ferociously at Mr Roberts, tearing flesh and sinew from bone, with each vice-like bite. The assembled hunt hollered and cheered their ghastly approval as they watched on, their moribund delight increasing with each bone-crushing bite.

I shrunk further behind my log and covered my ears to block out the unspeakable noises - the fevered delight of the townspeople as they shouted insults and goaded the dead man. The grey mare slowly trotted out of the clearing, followed by the woman. Gradually, the shadows of the remaining hunting party dissolved back into the trees and the nighttime air.

When I dared to open my eyes once again, the clearing was empty and unearthly soundless. The only sign of the last five minutes' horrific events was the ashen stained grass next to the oak tree and the trail of blood where the beast had dragged 'its prize' into the forest. I vomited violently and sobbed noisily into the irregular and uncaring night sky of that other world.

I awoke in the forest at around 1 am, the night was still in full flow, but something was different. The clearing was smaller than it had been. I looked around; there was no oak tree. I looked up at the sky, the stars dotted the black sheet of the night sky, as they should. I clambered to my feet and lurched my way back through the forest I had entered hours before.

The next day, many of the town's residents awoke having had strange and horrible dreams. The kind of dreams where daylight quickly burns away any details, or memory of events, but the feeling of the dream hangs around all day, cloaking everything you do.

One resident didn't wake up, however. Mr Roberts was found by his wife, lying stone-cold in bed. The doctor came and told Mrs Roberts that her husband had a massive heart attack and died in his sleep. "Don't worry," the doctor told her reassuringly but utterly incorrectly, "he didn't suffer at all."