The Train To Nowhere

chapter 7 - "have you seen that person by the river?"

        "Guys?" I questioned Noah and Rosie that day during break. We'd decided to stay in school this time, and were hanging out by the beech tree next to the Science block. Noah raised his head from his coffee in response, and Rosie shifted around on the bench to tuck her fingers in her pockets. "I was just wondering..." I wondered how to put this to them. Would they think I'm crazy and laugh, or seem concerned and advise me to tell someone? I had to ask them. Just in case they'd seen it too. The memory of the figure behind the leaves across the riverbank flashed through my mind again. I hadn't managed to catch if it was a woman or man there. "Have you...um, noticed anything - weird, lately?"

"Depends what you mean by weird," said Rosie, already opening a bag of crisps to munch on. The bag made a loud pop as the air inside escaped it and she reached her finger in for one. Noah automatically reached his hand in after her and pulled out an impressive four between his fingers. Rosie elbowed him in the ribs. He laughed. They clearly weren't taking me seriously.

"Guys!" I repeated, losing my patience a little, "I'm serious. Not just about school-" Rosie slid further away from Noah down the bench to shield the crisps from him. Slightly irritated, he sighed. "There's..."

Eventually my silence signalled to them to pay attention, and they stopped messing about. "Have you - like, you know...have you seen that person by the river?"

"What?" Noah responded slowly. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I was going for a jog this morning and everything was cool until I got to that stream - you know, that eventually leads down to Calford?"

"Yeah?" said Noah.

"And I kept hearing this clicking noise. At first I just ignored it; figured it was my watch or a bird or something. But it was irregular, and eventually I got a bit freaked out. So I took a good look around me for a good few minutes to investigate, and then I saw this figure behind the reeds and shrubs on the other side of the river. On the riverbank."

"Did you see who it was?" asked Noah.

"No, I just - for a split second I saw a face out of the corner of my eye. But it was blurry and by the time I'd turned round the person had disappeared. Couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman."

"But you saw something?"

"Yes! I'm telling you guys, it wasn't just an animal or my stupid watch. It was human, and hiding out in the woods."

"So you think someone's stalking you?" Noah asked. Rosie had gone quiet.

"Yep. I mean they must've. I know it was a camera I heard. I'm not making this up." There was a short pause.

"That's fucking creepy."

"I know! I mean, what am I supposed to do about it anyway? It's not like I can call the police and say, 'hey, some random, faceless figure was taking pictures of me in the woods yesterday and I need your help finding them."

"Abel, you kind of have to," Noah answered, "There's some creepy little pervert out there who likes snapping sweaty teenage boys and-"

"I've seen her." Rosie's sudden interruption after staying silent shut us both up immediately.

"What?" Noah exclaimed, "You've seen-"

"Yes!" she replied, "In the woods. Around where Abel saw her too. It's a woman."

"When did you see her?" I asked curiously. This whole conversation was really giving us all the creeps but of course it was.

"'Bout a week ago," said Rosie. She'd put down her bag of crisps but Noah wasn't reaching for them anymore. "She was with someone that time though, and..." she drifted off into thought.

"And?" Noah pushed her out of a daydream.

"And it was where Abel was when he saw her. Well, roughly. It was about five minutes away from the stream. You know - where that bird poop covered carving of Isaac and Priya's initials in a love heart is"

"Yes!" I responded.

"I was walking down that way with Nina. We were just hanging out last Thursday, that oddly hot day. We decided to make something of it and were gonna go swim in the deeper part of the river down at the bottom of the hill. No one ever goes there so it's quite nice. Then I heard a clicking, like Abel described, near us. Not across the stream. Probably not the exact same place, but in that area."

"So I looked around. Nina had heard it too. We didn't see anything, but then we saw a woman. There was a camera in her hand. She didn't turn around though. Until she thought we were safely away from her. Then the clicking started again. Nina confirmed our suspicions when she pointed over at her. The camera was in front of the woman's face as she hid behind a boulder."

"Nina shouted at her, asking her what she was doing and who she was, threatening her to show herself. Then she just ran. Ran fast. I mean, really fast away, like she was running for her life. We didn't bother chasing her, but it was clear she'd been stalking us. We both went back home after that."

There was more silence, as we all sat in a mixture of perplexity and fear.

"What do you think..." I began, "What do you think she wants from us?"
"Maybe she really is just some creepy paedophile. Although the Woodeshire forest really doesn't seem like the place you'd find those types in. How old did she look, Rosie?" said Noah.

"Around forty I think."

"Yep, definitely a paedophile!"

"Wait!" I said, "Maybe there's more to it than that. I mean, you said it yourself Rosie. She ran like her life depended on it as soon as you realised what she was doing. And people like that don't generally hang out around Woodeshire. So?"

"So what?" said Noah.

"So, don't you think it could be something else?"

"Like what?" he said.

"I'm just saying," I argued, "You should dig a little deeper before you just assume things about people, Noah. There's usually more to something then what meets the eye."
"Yeah, well whoever that woman is, I'm bloody glad I didn't see her. Sounds like a right old creep either way. And whatever she was doing, I think it's more than some tourist blog of the town, don't you?"

Silence reigned down on us like a ton of bricks, as we sat in deep thought.