FOREST OF THE LOST

PART NINE

13.

It's not so much it feels as it were alive as it does perhaps feel we're among the dead, a multitude of lost souls coming together and going forward as one entity feeding off the energy of the gathered living and searching for a particular kind of energy the likes of which needs to be outsourced more than taken from what passes through.

Terrance wakes on his back in a bed within a room he is unfamiliar with. Before he has an opportunity to think ... he hears a voice speak.

'Good morning, Mister.'

He turns his head to his right to see Mary lying on her left side smiling right back at him. They are both almost fully covered by the bed linen. Terrence speaks his thoughts out loud.

'I am naked?'

'Yes.'

'You are naked?'

'Yes.'

'And last night happened?'

'Yes ... it most certainly did. Don't tell me you can't remember?'

'Oh ... I do,' he says propping himself up a little. 'I remember it all.'

'Good' she says moving in on him and planting a smacker full on and onto his lips.

'Oh my ...' he says when he gets the opportunity.

'Are you ready for round two? Or should I say ... round five?'

'Err, what about breakfast?' he asks slightly embarrassed but happy to be right where he is.

'Breakfast can wait; I don't think I can ...'

***

Breakfast is had together, and the trip home soon gets underway. Midday is about half an hour away when Mary pulls into her home's driveway. She and Terrance get out of the car at the same time, she moves towards him, and they share a brief kiss before parting company. Terrence moves out of the driveway, turns back and watches Mary enter her home.

'What am I doing?' he quietly asks himself once she has closed her house door.

Terrance crosses the street and begins to walk up towards his own house. Instead of stopping and heading inside, he keeps on moving heading towards the entrance to the estate, or rather the exit of the estate since he currently already is on estate grounds.

He begins to walk down the town and passes the turn that would bring him close to the park. He continues walking down towards town before turning onto then down along Main Street turning left at the end rather than heading straight towards the sea. Soon he approaches the street, from the other end, the street which would bring him back close to that park via the car park end.

Once again having a 'what the hell?' moment. Terrence follows the footpath through the car park area and soon makes his way into the park for what he believes is the first time doing so, and once again he questions his own actions, 'what am I doing?'

His heartbeat quickens as he counts the number of steps he takes into this park ... five ... six ... seven. Counting steps will do little other calm him slightly, if even it will do that. This park is a rather large place as Terrence is yet to properly find out. As those steps continue, so too does the counting ... eight ... nine ... ten ... and looking to his right he can see a canal which becomes more a river spreading to become more lake-like the further in he goes.

It is clear from what he can see already that there is nowhere a seven-year-old boy can go or could have gone in a matter of seconds so that he would not be seen by someone who went after him. There are trees behind which he could hide though he would at least be seen moving to them. A seven-year-old boy would also not get down to that canal and fall in within a matter of seconds without being seen. This place took Mary's little brother, it done something the instant the boy entered the park, and it may still have him.