Authors: Colin Griffiths
It was a nice night as the trees swayed against the still night, and the moon shone through the trees, a perfect evening in another world, a perfect setting for a romantic evening, he thought about the man who had just escaped 10 lashings, he seemed a strong man, but more importantly he appeared to be a man of strong character, and that’s what would be needed if they were ever going to survive. He sipped his homebrew, ‘
maybe we may see some light at the end of the tunnel’
he thought.
He went and got another bottle of homebrew and sat back in his chair, staring at the night, staring at the trees, recalling distant memories and trying to forget the ones that hurt the most, just like he had done for as long as he could remember, and like every other night he tried not to shed a tear as those hurtful memories returned, most nights he failed and the tears flowed, but not tonight, he allowed himself a wry smile, he thought things might be about to change.
The four new residents of a Town Called Underwood, a town hidden somewhere in the woods of South Wales, settled into their new three bedroom semidetached, concrete built home in a close they called Hawthorne, there cases had now been delivered and it was nice to have a change of clothes ,as they unpacked their cases, hanging them up in the wardrobes of the bedrooms did not seem real, they somehow thought there stay was not going to be a short one, Peter showered first, he felt dirty being stuck in that filthy cell, he fiddled with the shower head, the temperature was warm and the stream of water was weak, but he let it flow over his naked body as if it was washing the memories of today away, but he knew it would take more than just Luke warm water to do that, he was still trying to come to terms with what was happening, he still couldn’t believe the phenomenon that they had experienced had actually happened, it was like he was in the middle of a comic book about some paranormal activity, he was still trying to convince himself that there was a road out of here somewhere, or a path through the woods, the woods couldn’t just go on forever but every time he mentioned or thought of the woods, there was a sense of fear, he didn’t understand that, how that had been instilled in him, but he would have to find out why the woods were so sacred if they were ever to get out of here, he kept recalling the sign he read when they first come across the place, the letters that were crossed out, ‘
there’s got to be a way out
’ he told himself
‘there got to be’
the water soon grew cold and Peter barely noticed.
‘What’s happening mum’ asked Lily for what was probably the tenth time that day, she lay in her single bedroom, having showered and changed into her night clothes, the room was adorned with pink curtains and cushions, a pastel coloured flowered wallpaper set on the walls, a white dressing table and mirror, with a single white wardrobe, Eileen sat on the edge of the bed, still unable to give her daughter the answers she craved,
‘I don’t know sweetheart’ she answered ‘but your dad’s here now and he will sort it’
Lily screwed her face up, she sat up in the bed, ‘they were going to fucking whip him mum’ Eileen hugged her, ignoring the bad language on this occasion, she guessed she was entitled to swear,
‘No they weren’t, it was just one man, the others didn’t want that’
‘I bet if the vicar was there he would have wanted it’ she instantly shot back, ‘and that sheriff’ she spat out the words, ‘I don’t want to be here mum’ she cried, Eileen held her until she fell asleep, and when she knew she was definitely asleep, she left her room and let the tears flow, cry was all that she seemed able to do at that moment.
She looked into Nathans room, he was fast asleep, but she could see his sleep was restless as she watched him turning in his bed, he was sweating and she pulled the duvet from him, it was a hot evening, she went to open the window, but paused with her hand on the handle, she left it closed, she didn’t want the windows opened to a world she did not understand, she wondered how they came to be in a place where you were too scared to open the windows, she also wondered what it was they were scared of.
Peter had sat with him and held him until he had fallen asleep, stroking his head and trying to help him find assurance as he did so, he knew Nathan was having difficulty dealing with this, his young mind failing to take it all in, he wondered how any child could, because he couldn’t take it all in himself.
Peter and Eileen come downstairs and sat in the living room, watching the television that showed no TV programmes, it just showed videos of Underwood, over and over again, even if there was something on, neither of them would have been able to watch it, they had so many questions to ask each other, but neither did, as they knew no answers would be forthcoming, and as they both looked at their mobile phones, without any signal and the battery life draining out of them, and no suitable electric socket to take their adaptors, they knew it was useless, the outside world did not exist to those that lived in this town, all there was, was a place called Underwood.
And they were there.
‘What do we do’ asked Eileen as they both sat on the sofa, buried in their thoughts, a question her own daughter had asked so many times.
Peter didn’t have to give it much thought ‘tomorrow we have a medical and I go to work’ he told her, he turned around to stare at her and their eyes met, but neither set of eyes told anything other than fear.
And at that time it all sounded so normal.
The medical centre was situated just behind the Underwood Social, it looked newer then the concrete buildings in the town, it was built of brick and looked modern in its construction compared to the other buildings he had seen, Peter guessed at one time Underwood must have had a brick layer, then he wondered where they would have got the bricks, and then the cement, and then he was wondering why he was wondering at all, he just wanted to find a way home, he didn’t care what buildings they had.
They were pleased to note that as they walked the 10 minute walk to the medical centre, they were acknowledged by the everyday people going about their normal business, and still it appeared so surreal, they all thought about the previous night and how many of them had turned up to watch the flogging, Lily caught the eye of a lady in her thirties, she appeared to be crying as their eyes met, it was one of the saddest things Lily had seen at that moment, she knew the tears were meant for them, but she didn’t know why, she wanted to run over and asked the lady but she was to scared, instead she raised her arm and gave a little wave, the lady smiled, wiped her eyes and waved back, then she turned and walked away, Lily wondered where it was she was walking to as her shoulders were slumped and even her walk looked sad.
It was as if they had decided to up and move to a new town and were getting to know the neighbourhood and the people in it, registering with the doctor seemed such a normal thing to do, yet it wasn’t normal, because they were not here by choice, for choices were few and far between in Underwood, you only had to look at the people’s faces to realise that.
They approached the reception at the medical Centre, Joanne James a pretty girl in her forties manned the desk, she smiled at them as they approached, but it appeared that she was making an effort to be polite deduced Eileen, Joanne pushed her long hair behind her ears which immediately fell back over her face,
‘Good morning’ she said, greeting them, ‘please take a seat the doctor will be with you in a moment’
‘She didn’t even ask our names’ said Eileen as they took a seat, she looked at the surroundings around her, it seemed pleasant enough, just like a normal doctors waiting room, with posters on the wall explaining symptoms, but they looked dated, what was clearly noticeable is that they were the only one in the doctors,
‘Don’t expect they get many gate crashers around here’ Peter replied, the bitterness in his voice showing, most of the night he had lay awake thinking about trying to get out of the place, he knew soon he would have to face the woods, he could see no other way, then he was going to blow this place wide open, tell the world how it is.
Lily and Nathan just sat still, still unaware what was really going on, Nathan thought that his father would sort it, and soon they would be home, he even thought about school and how nice it would be to be there, something he never thought he would hear himself say,
‘why had dad taken us here
’he would constantly ask himself, he could never find the answers, inside he was scared, he didn’t want to show it, but there were to many things going on inside his head, and he was scared of the woods, he kept telling himself
‘there’s monsters in those woods’
, that’s all he dreamed about the night before and probably all he would dream about in the nights to come.
Lily, her feelings in side were mixed between terror and anger, terror in what the future held, and the anger in the way these people had treated her and her family, she felt like she wanted to shout and scream and hit out at everyone she saw, she was also concerned for her little brother who had become withdrawn, her mother seemed on the edge of hysteria, and she couldn’t cope with that, she needed her mother to be strong, at least as strong as she was, she knew her dad was trying to find the answers, so she had to be strong for him, she had to help him find a way out of this shitty place, who else was going to help him?.
Dr. David Harris was in his treatment room, 4 forms in front of him, all to be filled in with the details of the people who were sat in the waiting room, Underwood’s only doctor, and luckily for him, because of that he was given lots of privileges and vouchers, other than those at the maternity he was the only one with medical experience, a good doctor, one with empathy, he had been the only doctor in Underwood for as long as he could remember, the years when his surgery used to be full were a distant memory, and for a normal doctor having a near empty surgery should be a good thing, but it wasn’t, the deal in Underwood seemed to be you were either fit or dead, nobody seemed to get ill but plenty seemed to die, he wondered why they needed a doctor at all, as empty as his surgery was he certainly didn’t want to register new patients.
He recalled the last new residents to underwood a few years back, and the sad ending that had occurred, and he chastised himself when he couldn’t remember their names, he remembered the faces, he could still see their faces, a husband, a wife and a son, but they were dead now, not even a grave to honour them, there were no grave yards in Underwood, you were either burnt or sent into the wood, their bodies were never found as they were sent into the trees of death, there was nowhere to mourn the dead kinfolk of Underwood, unless it was a memory.
David was fifty four, greying hair, a sturdy fit man with a kind face that people took an instant liking to, all his teenager years he trained for the job he loved, now he hated it, there were no real medicines in Underwood, pain killers, first aid equipment and penicillin was about the stock of it, if people got something more than a headache, a rash or a cut, then there was really nothing he had to treat them with, he could fill them up with dope as there was plenty of that grown in underwood, the fields behind the centre were full of it, that was the only pain relief he did have other than the paracetamol, they would have to die in pain or face the wrath of the woods, he had thought one time of ending it all, his life seemingly one long nightmare as people came into his surgery with ailment after ailment, and he had no treatment to give them, he wondered how many people had got hooked on cannabis as he prescribed it for pain relief, but in recent years things had got easier, it was as if the people of Underwood were becoming immune, the surgery was quiet now, sometimes not a single patient in one day, the population had decreased, but it was still an unlikely statistic, he looked again at the list of people he was about to see today, he scrolled his eyes down to Lily and his body shuddered as he thought about the worse part of his job, he had not done it for a while now, but telling an innocent 16 year old girl she was pregnant, when she probably can’t even remember having sex, cut him up inside, a time that should be filled with joy was replaced with tears and fear, every time he felt like taking the baby from the young girls body, but the consequences were too high, even if it was probably the better thing to do, one day he would do it, do what was right and dam the consequences, dam Underwood.
Nathan was first in, he didn’t want to go in on his own and clung to his mother, but when he saw the kind face of the doctor it reassured him a bit, it was the first friendly face he had seen since arriving in Underwood, then the doctor invited his father in with him and Nathan felt a lot better for it, the doctor took the height and weight of Nathan on scales that looked 40 years old, he asked Peter some personal details about the boy, just mundane questions, Peter answered him, thinking it was best to play along with the system until he can fathom how to get out, the Doctor never spoke to Nathan direct, but the doctor could notice and sense his vulnerability which concerned the doctor, he tried to give him a reassuring look and smile and sent him out into the waiting room to be with his mother and sister.
‘Make sure he eats well and build those muscles up’ the doctor told Peter as he filed the first of his papers,