Inside Evil

Chapter 16 - Part II

*Inside Evil and its sequels are available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks* 

From his view from behind the wheel, Karl saw Roberta Arlington scoop a kitten from her front door. She buried it inside her pocket, before locking her home and hurrying down the street with her housemate. It was still early in the afternoon but the December winter was strong in its resolve and temperatures were hovering in the low Celsius. Periodically, Karl turned on the engine in an attempt to get some warmth to spread through the car, but any rising temperature was quickly sapped away by the cold outside. So, try as he might to warm up, Karl sat numbly frozen, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the recently elusive Roberta Arlington.

The previous day, Karl had taken leave from his daily stakeout to discover just exactly what was at the coordinates he'd discovered. Thrilled at solving the list of numbers which had been hidden for so long, Karl had prepared himself to have every answer to this mysterious puzzle solved. He was still surprised that he hadn't realised the coordinates sooner, especially as Harrow's hobby was so closely tied to tracking GPS locations and journeying through rugged terrain. But, having hidden the numbers away and then subsequently moving back to London, the mystery of the numbers had only recently returned to his mind.

The hike through the forest had not been as snow plagued as Karl had prepared for, and the snow tomb which surrounded Ridgewood had been unable to penetrate much of the canopy. It resulted in small snowy patches appearing amongst the needles, but the majority of the wood looked largely the same. Had there been any kind of phone signal in the midst of the trees, Karl's journey would have been made all the easier. On a whim, he had downloaded a GPS driven app which allowed him to plot in the coordinates and simply track his way towards the point. It had worked fantastically in the car journey to Ridgewood and in the short jaunt across the roughly kept woodland park, but as the towering trees obscured the sky, the signal was almost instantly obliterated. Karl had expected it of course, but he was irritated that the modern technology that was so regularly used during daily life ceased to exist in the ancient woodland.

As Karl made progress amongst the trees, he quickly worked up a sweat. There was no breeze in the forest and instead of being whipped off into the wind, the droplets of moisture that formed on his brow quickly began to stream down his face in slightly sticky rivers. His gloves and hat were quickly stowed in the backpack that he'd brought along for the trip, and Karl was soon marching along with his jacket tied around his waist and the front and back of his shirt showing signs of extreme exercise. Karl knew it was doing him good for he was far more portly than he'd ever wanted to be, but stumbling through the woods as fast he could was hindered by his overheating body.

Stowing his mobile phone back into his pocket, Karl pulled out the compass that he'd bought from a fishing and tackle shop in Mornington that he'd frequented a decade before. He was glad that they'd managed to survive the economic storm, though he wasn't too surprised as fishing was a popular pastime for the men, and many of the women, in the area. Now, he carefully used the traditional guiding device to track a course as closely to the coordinates as possible.

About two hours into Karl's hike, the irritation of rising sweat, the increasing hill gradient and his lack of water was starting to overcome him. Karl had packed two bottles of water, more than enough he had thought. However, he'd finished the first within mere minutes of disappearing beneath the trees and there was only a warm trickle in the bottom of the current bottle which he was gripping in his hand. The trees before him were rising like a ladder into the sky, and the needles beneath his feet made treacherous going as his limbs became tired, slower and more cumbersome. Though starting off the day feeling invigorated and excited about what he was to discover, Karl was quickly beginning to realise that freezing in his car whilst staking out Robert Arlington may have actually been the preferable option.

Ahead of him the rising trees seemed to become less dense, and the soaring columns of bark had more space between them and allowed more light to penetrate to the woodland floor. Increasing amounts of snow became present, having been able to fall through the canopy, and here and there patches of brambles had taken advantage of the extra light to try and find a foothold. The light between the towering pillars in front of him changed, and he looked through the tree line to see a bright blue sky ahead of him, its presence coming as quite a shock after the miles of uniform woodland that he'd been marching amongst.

Emerging through the trees, Karl found himself on a precipice. There were several metres between the tree line and the cliff edge, and glancing over the side Karl saw that there was more than a 100m drop to the bottom where several, snow covered boulders lay. The cliff itself curved away on either side of him, cut into the rock in a near perfect semi circle. Where the curve of the precipice finished, the cliff and forest gradually merged into one, with the trees descending to the lower level. Apart from the thin snow-covered rim along the edge of the trees and the boulders below, every surface was swathed in wiry looking firs which grew out of the ground like a sea of horsetails. It was a vast landscape which took Karl at least a minute to fully take in.

Looking down at the compass, Karl saw that he was only a few metres away from the exact pinpoint that the coordinates indicated. He walked to his left slightly, following the curve of the cliff and saw the arrows before his eyes quiver as they moved. He passed an area on the ground which was scorched, and Karl saw that the snow had melted away as if attacked by a vicious source of heat. The grass which had grown in the patch was black and dead, with several smaller patches nearby as if the ground had been splattered with some toxic substance. He walked further still until the coordinates showed the precise point at which Harrow's numbers had indicated. There was absolutely nothing there other than more of the stunning scenery before him. There was nothing in front of him other than air, and if Karl moved left or right from his position, the compass changed and the coordinates became increasingly skewed away from the point at which they had initially indicated.

Now, Karl sat back in his car, staking out Roberta Arlington's home in the same way that he'd done for many days. The hike through the woods had showed him nothing other than a surprisingly beautiful landscape. Karl had hoped for answers to Harrow's death, answers to Barry's disappearance and something that would have, at the very least, given him more clues to follow. Other than some extensive sweating, Karl had gained nothing from his trip through the woods. It was his last night in Ridgewood, and he was leaving with as many questions as he'd arrived with. 

*I will be posting one or two scenes a week as the story builds. However, if you can't wait that long, Inside Evil is available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks.

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