Ghillie Part 2: The Bird Is The Word

“Here owly owly owly.” he whispered under his breath, creeping forward to the pathetic clump of trees that the National Trust seemed to think qualified as a ‘forest’. He took off his night vision goggles, as they were giving him a pounding headache, and the swimming green colours were making his stomach churn like a washing machine. He pulled his bird book out of his bag in the process and clutched it in his hands, like it was a holy relic.

Within the forest’s murky not-so-depths, he could see a light dancing like a will ‘o wisp, and figured that one of the two men had a flashlight. He had already began to nickname them in his head, calling the one that light up the cigarette ‘Smokes’, and the one that tossed the body over the wall like it was a sack of rubbish, ‘Dumbo’. Both for obvious reasons really. In his head he was repeating the mantra find the bird, avoid Dumbo and Smokes, simple.

Simple in theory, but the execution would be much trickier. He shuddered at using the word ‘execution’, thinking that it would be something he would be undergoing if these men caught him creeping between the trees. He heard the voice of the two men drift towards him between the trees.
“Why can’t you help me dig?” A voice grunted, George could only assume it was Dumbo.
“Because I’m the brains, and you’re the brawn.” Smokes said slyly.

“Oh, I suppose that makes sense.” Not realising that he’d just been called stupid. It probably happened a lot, George figured.
“Exactly, don’t think too much, just dig.” He saw another dancing light appear in the darkness and assumed that another cigarette had been lit. George looked down on people for smoking, he thought it was disgusting. People looked down on George for a lot of other reasons but he was pretty oblivious to this.

“Boss, have you heard about this place?” Dumbo says quietly, fear and awe creeping into his sluggish voice.
“About how it’s dangerous to be here after dark and an ancient cult of druids used to hold midnight mass here?” Smokes, says, sarcastically.
“Yeah, that, I don’t like it.”
“It’s just a rumour, made up to scary little babies like you. Now keep digging, I’m getting tired just watching you.” Dumbo promptly obeys, his eyes darting around nervously, like a rat.

George disregarded this little exchange, as he heard hooting off to his left, and followed it like a bloodhound catching a scent. With his bird watching book suddenly gripped tight enough that it might rip to pieces between his meaty hands. He skirted the clearing that the men were doing their dirty work in, trying to be as quiet and stealthy as possible, but in reality making enough noise to make the two men thing some sort of monster was crashing through the forest.

“What the heck was that?” Dumbo grunts fearfully, wiping sweat off his face and planting the shovel in the upturned earth before him.
“It was just a fox or something.” Smokes says, feeling like he needed another smoke to calm his nerves. “Back to work, quick. This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Sure thing boss.” Dumbo picked the shovel back up with trembling hands. Digging while surveying the shadows around him, seeing dinosaurs, aliens, sasquatches – you name it – lurking in the twisting darkness his eyes playing cruel tricks on him.

Throughout this exchange, George had frozen, hiding behind a tree that was only about half as wide as he was. He held his breath in his throat like a parrot in a cage, and when the men went back to work, he relaxed, letting it out in a long sigh. And then cursed to himself.
“Did you hear that?” Dumbo practically whimpers. “There’s something out there.” He drops the shovel, his legs trembling beneath him, as if there was a tiny earthquake located exclusively below his feet.

“Jesus, don’t be such a goddamn baby.” Smokes mutters, hoping his voice doesn’t rise into a high pitch whine as it usually does when he’s practically shitting his pants in fear. Cold sweat coats his body, making his suit feel sticky and uncomfortable. “Just bury the body and get out of here.” Dumbo bends down to drag the body into the hole, and the head glares up at him, blank eyes accusing him of murder, a crocked finger seeming to point at him accusingly. You did this. It hisses. You will pay.

He blanches, his bladder emptying, running down his legs on the inside of his dirt covered trousers. “Boss, what if there’s a ghost out there?” His eyes locked on the body. I’m coming for you, it seems to say, no one can save you now.
“There’s no such thing as…” Smokes whimpers, Dumbo’s fear proving contagious, mixing with his own into a cocktail of irrational panic. Right on cue, the beautiful snowy owl lets out a long, lustful hoot into the midnight air. A long hoot that to a couple of wannabe gangsters in the middle of burying a body, in a lonely dark forest, sounds a lot like the wailing howl of a vengeful ghost.
Smoke finishes his sentence by screaming the last word, “Ghost!” Before prompting disappearing into the darkness as fast as his skinny legs would take him, skirting George’s hiding place by a few metres but having no idea he was even there.

“Boss?” Dumbo calls… well, dumbly, into the dark maze of trees around him. The darkness seems to press in on him, swallowing him whole. He hears a whisper in his ear, I’ll suck the marrow from your bones. And he swoons, collapsing like a sack of spuds into the grave he was digging for the unfortunate body. George watches all of this incredulously, but forgets his surprise when he sees the owl alight on a thick branch, on the opposite side of the clearing. He steps forward, walking carefully around the body and the unconscious Dumbo. The owl’s brilliant white feathers seeming to glow in the gloom, like the northern lights, like a lighthouse in the distance, like a…

A ghost? A voice says behind him. He turns to see the body of the dead man, with the head facing him, the jaw prised open in a broken imitation of a grin. Wasn’t it facing the other way a second ago? His heard sped up a few gears and his chest began to ache. Calm down George, he told himself, its dark; you’re seeing and hearing things. Mind is playing tricks. 'Tricks indeed, boy. It’s the dark hour'. The cold voice pips up again. He should stop watching so many horror films. Vacantly, he consults his watch, turning on the small light on it, almost in a trance. It’s not the dark hour, that’s midnight, right? According to his watch, it’s 3.33am.

'The true dark hour, my dear boy'. Behind him he hears the rattling of bones and suddenly he doesn’t want to turn around, he wants to look at the owl some more. Its eyes glow a fierce red, like the embers of hell, and behind him, in the hole beneath Dumbo, bones begin to surface, dragging them selves from the cold earth. The body of the man staggers onto half rotten legs and puts a hand on George’s shoulder.

The owl opens its gaping beak, and it seems to envelope George, it’s hooting sounding like a howl from the depths of Hades. A scream is cut off in his throat as bony fingers wrap around his neck in a lover’s embrace and choke the soul out of him. His book drops from his iron grip into the dirt and another skeletal hand wrenches free of the soil, grasping it. His watch briefly flashes 6.66am, then the battery dies. If George has seen it, he wouldn’t have believed it. The owl’s eyes change to cold, reptilian monstrosities, glowing orange and red with all the hate in the world.

Not so far away, Smokes heard the howl of the owl rise to a blood curdling cacophony, and along with it, a wailing joined in, like an unholy choir in a midnight mass. He reaches the car, his veins pumping battery acid and his lungs aching, the tar in them obstructing his breathing. He fumbles in his pocket for a cigarette and realises he must have dropped the packet while he was running. He turns to the forest, seeing a spectral mist hug the bottoms of the trees, curling tendrils of it reaching out to him like fingers, seeming to invite him into the trees.

“Need my smokes.” He says absently, his eyes suddenly losing all illusion of intelligence in them. “Can’t leave without my smokes.” And he walks into the otherworldly mist, like a child falling into the embrace of his mother.