Lost and Found

Lost and Found

The bike lay in the middle of the bridleway. Discarded; chain rusted, front wheel askew. The owner was nowhere in sight.

It hadn’t been there an hour before when Jo had walked past on her way to the reservoir. The path, as it always was on a weekday, had been free of people. No one seemed to walk for pleasure anymore...not unless they had dogs and, even then, they seemed to avoid this place. It’s why she liked it. That, and the way that nature was creeping over the ruined walls and seats of what had once been a carefully tended route. A small park was tucked away under the viaduct but, beyond that, the trees and moss consumed the valley with their earthy stench. Nature was taking back what had once been stolen from it.

The clock of a nearby church tower struck: eleven mournful chimes that echoed around the dense woodland.

Jo hesitated. Should she pick the bike up and rest it against a tree? Was the owner nearby, distracted by something? Or was this one of those social experiments she’d read about: was she being filmed to see what she’d do?

It was a lady’s bike, she noted. The crossbar at an angle, and a wide seat with springs underneath. The frame was blue, a deep blue like the depths of the ocean. The paint was chipped in places, the exposed steel dulled to red with rust.

Why was it here?

A dull thud came out of the gloom to her right. Her breath caught. Her feet started to move of their own accord: towards the noise with a magnetic pull of curiosity. She crept off the path, towards the soft gurgle of the stream. Her stomach muscles tightened, her arms tensed. This is stupid, she thought. You don’t know who’s out here.

Not for years had she been aware of her own vulnerability. A single woman, not five foot three. Her legs were strong from walking but her hands and forearms were weak, crippled from years of touch-typing. Now, she sensed danger but her feet continued to take her towards it. This was madness.

A blackbird screamed out a sudden cry. It flapped past in a blur of darkness. Blue Tits shouted in excited trills up in the canopy above. A warning.

Jo reached the stream near an old bridge. It was covered in moss and ebony-coloured slime. She stood on it, and looked at the water flowing past. There was nothing more to see, not beyond the trees, the water, and the muddy banks. Perhaps the thud had been a twig falling, or some woodland creature? She let out a sigh, and tucked a stray blond hair behind her ear.

The bike had been abandoned. Perhaps it had been stolen, and the thief discarded it once they’d become bored. Perhaps the rusty chain had seized and the owner had dumped it and walked away.

Jo stood on the bridge for a moment longer. The faint smell of wild watercress filled the air with a peppery flavour but then she began to notice another smell. A more metallic scent that she vaguely recognised. It seemed to be getting stronger..

It reminded her of when her mother used to take her to a butcher’s shop as a child: where perfect halves of pigs were hung up on metal hooks, and white jellied tripe had been displayed in trays next to glistening red cuts of beef. The hairs on the back of Jo’s neck bristled.

She turned back towards the way she had come.

Then she saw it. Off to her left. Pale against the darkness of the ferns. A woman lay naked, her limbs crooked as though broken. A red gash like a gaping hole in a silent ‘oh’ under her chin. Blood oozed out in a slow trickle where it had once been a gush. Worse, there was a glistening red around the woman’s abdomen. Intestines, Jo realised, as though someone was in the middle of butchering an animal. Blood soaked into the ground: a careless offering to nature.

A bloodied saw rested against a tree. She had disturbed him.

She noticed the woman’s eyes last. Ice blue, staring behind Jo’s shoulder.

Cold filled Jo’s body. Her heart hammered in her ears. Every muscle ached for flight.

There was the sound of a twig breaking. She turned. Too late.

The last thing she saw was the bright flash of steel heading towards her throat……

The End