THE FOREST IS a master of playing tricks on the mind. There's a way about it in which it can make you hear things- see things that aren't there, or conceal the things that are, right up until it's too late. Nature is a cruel environment to be born into, only embracing the strongest of her children. Though, on occasion, she lends the helping hand of mercy.
All were hoping that hand was where Shazia had landed, guarding her from the ever-changing wrath of the elements, and from the creatures who inhabited the forest, not to be scattered in pieces for her rescuers to find. Jonah knew it was a vivid possibility that could be the outcome. To find a girl's mutilated flesh being feasted upon by scavengers, or her rotting corpse at the bottom of a ditch.
There are many different ways the forest can choose to break its victims, if the animals hadn't gotten to her first, like the weather. Maybe it would weaponise the daggering chills of the wind? Or infect her lungs with pneumonia, bestowed by the rain. It might even go for a more sadistic means, by breaking her mind. Starvation; hunger so great it would feel like her stomach was ingesting itself. Or the suffocating paranoia of the night, where every single rustle in the trees or crunch of a leaf would keep sleep at bay.
Or perhaps something far more ominous.
The chances of Shazia's survival were slim. To some, non-existent. However, it would be foolish to underestimate the human drive for survival. When faced with desperation, many would exceed limits never thought possible. Whether it was sacrificing another to save themselves, or forcefully taking what they don't have from the less fortunate, the human drive for survival shouldn't be underestimated.
There's a thin line between selfishness and self-preservation; both are equally powerful things. Jonah had seen it first-hand countless times over. The will to live is a difficult flame to extinguish, but not impossible. Even the smallest of embers have been responsible for the most destructive of wildfires. So as long as there was a spark, there was hope.
Elise had messaged him the location of the town hall earlier, explaining that's where they'd all be given the rundown on what was to ensue. After a frosty, ten-minute walk, Jonah found himself in front of a building that looked like more of a medieval castle than a town hall.
It didn't seem as old as some of the other structures in Bêtemont, having been recently renovated. Concrete steps led up to six grey stone, sculpted pillars, supporting the extended roof and a Juliette balcony, garnished with two poles in the middle, displaying the French flag and the banner of arms of Lozère. There was an abundance of people; primarily volunteers in high-vis jackets, as well as non-uniformed individuals, all hurrying past one other on the front lawn, while some hung back on the steps. Jonah was more surprised to see a group of men dressed in hunting gear preparing their firearms; a combination of shotguns and rifles.
Jonah didn't know hunters were joining them. His mother would surely be unhappy with this. Her voice inside his head demanded he leave, but then it begs the question as to why she moved them to the countryside, of all places. This region of France had many farmers, so it wasn't unusual for them to carry firearms for hunting purposes. He made a mental note to use this argument later on should the need arise.
Staring into the ocean of people, if Jonah had been a more optimistic person, he would have found the community's effort inspiring.
Jonah had never seen a real gun before. He'd seen plenty on television and he understood that in other parts of the world, gun laws weren't as strict as in the U.K., especially for people who lived in rural areas where hunting was a common and widespread practice, but even with his previous knowledge of this information, it didn't put his nerves at rest.
Mindlessly, Jonah found himself gravitating towards the gathering of men. He counted around six or seven of them, all in different stages of being middle-aged, but there was one in particular that grabbed his attention; a man who was almost identical to M. Darmoore.
He was sat on a bench further away from the rest of the men, loading maroon shells into a double-barrelled shotgun. From a distance, Jonah could make out the signature amber eyes, black hair and lean figure, but the closer he got, it became clearer how this man was older than he first thought, possibly in his early forties. His hair was tinted with wisps of grey, and he wasn't quite as muscular as M. Dartmoore, but Jonah imagined he probably used to be in his youth. Wrinkles of age pleated his forehead, partnering with a silver stubble on his jaw, but regardless, Jonah knew he was well-preserved. If he hadn't known any better, this man could have easily passed as Opal and M. Dartmoore's father.
The man raised an eyebrow. "Are you alright?" he asked, before returning his focus to the gun in his arms.
Now standing in front of him, Jonah recognised the man as the boy smiling at the camera in the photo with his father. Unsure of how long he had been blatantly staring at him, clearing his throat, Jonah hurriedly retrieved his composure.
"Are you Opal Dartmoore's uncle?" He internally cringed at how unsure he sounded. It reminded him of the one time he asked his mother to have a sleepover at his friend's house when he was eight.
"Peter." The man propped the gun against the bench, proceeding to pull out from the front pocket of his jeans a vintage, metal cigarette case, engraved with the initials 'P. D', and an antique golden lighter. They looked expensive.
Slipping a cigarette from beneath the silver clip of the case, Jonah watched the roll of tobacco come aflame, balancing between his lips. "Whose asking?"
"Jonah." He held out his hand for Peter to shake; he glanced at it. "...Chevalier. I believe you knew my dad, Armand Chevalier."
Jonah watched his face morph into something of disbelief. Quickly, Peter mirrored his nephew's strong handshake. "Well, that's not a name I thought I'd ever hear again," he mused, switching to English. "It's nice to meet you, Jonah."
"Likewise."
"How come you're in Bêtemont? Are you staying long?" he quizzed, breathing a puff of smoke away from Jonah.
"I've just moved here with my family." He contemplated on saying the next part. "We're staying at my dad's house."
Peter nodded. "And how are Jade and Michelle? They're here, too?"
"Yes. My mum's working as a doctor and Jade is starting in première at high school."
He flashed Jonah a stainless set of teeth. "That's good to know. Your mother is a smart lady. I knew she'd get far."
He sounded genuine. Jonah decided he liked Peter.
Somewhat thrown off by his fondness, Jonah decided to change the subject. "Are you hunting the thing that killed Alain?" He motioned to the shotgun.
"The beast has had a taste of human blood. It's got to be put down," Peter stated simply.
Jonah remembered the newsreader informing how Alain's body was dragged out more than eight miles from where the animal had killed him, and to Jonah's bafflement, stashed him up a tree. As of yet, there was still no explanation as to how that came to be. Last time he checked, wolves couldn't climb trees. Jonah was no wildlife expert, but surely those were unusual lengths for any animal to go to. "Do you know what did it?"
Peter tapped the ash from his cigarette onto the floor. "A wolf; I have no doubt of it. I knew reintroducing them would only cause problems."
"But isn't that illegal? Hunting them?" Jonah knew the case was high-profile, and even before the attack, people were divided over the topic of bringing back the native wolves.
"The police think it has rabies, so regardless, it has to be put to an end- to make sure it doesn't spread the disease."
"Whatever it is, we're gonna kill it," a man from the original group of hunters, piped in. Jonah thought he looked more like an American trucker than a hunter with his baseball cap, moustache and dirty blonde mullet; quite a rough individual.
"Jonah! There you are!" Elise's voice rose above the crowd. She was bounding up the steps, heading his way.
"Jonah." He saw how Peter's demeanour had turned serious. He stood up, taking a step closer to Jonah. "It's best if you don't go around telling people you're a Chevalier."
His voice was barely above that of a whisper. He had murmured the words in Jonah's ear using a low tone, like it was something not to be spoken of; he didn't want people to overhear.
Jonah was caught off-guard, leaving him speechless. Out of all the things Peter could have said, that was not what he had expected. A million questions were racing through his mind, not getting a chance to utter a single one of them when Elise gripped his forearm and pulled him away.
____
"Why didn't you text me that you were here?" Elise's question meant nothing to him, for he was dealing with one much greater. She had dragged him along with Henri and another girl in tow, whom he assumed was Celine.
Once they were sorted into groups, the search had begun. The hunters had taken a different route, saying that all the people would scare away the wolf or would ruin the tracks, if there were any to be found, that is. Yet, some hunters stayed in the main party, just in case the animal had a more aggressive response and tried to attack. Jonah took some consolation in their presence. There was safety in numbers, so he wouldn't be straying too far from his group.
To Jonah, the forest was beautiful, but he quickly decided he preferred to appreciate its beauty from a distance. He was coming to see how easy it would be to get lost.
Today, the groups were covering whatever land they could before nightfall, and it wouldn't even make up a fraction of the forest. Searching the entire woodland would take weeks, and that was only the section on Bêtemont soil. Once they'd approach the Lozère border, there wasn't much they could do, if they even got that far. In that scenario, it would be up to the neighbouring authorities to call the shots.
Despite the possible murder scene he could stumble upon at any moment, at least the forest offered Jonah some peace to think, if he blocked out the repeated calls and shouts for Shazia. Other than the people trekking through it, the forest was silent, all the animals having been scared into hiding from the disturbance.
Why, was the primary question Jonah had identified once he had reassembled his mind after being put into disarray by a single sentence from Peter Dartmoore. Jonah was reciting and picking apart every realistic possibility he could think of, which was proving to be a lot more complicated than what he thought it would be, considering he didn't have much to go on.
Something must have happened that may have directly or indirectly involved his father. Could he have fallen out with someone before he left? With Peter? That was believable and not far-fetched.
Did he wrong someone? Jonah couldn't remember much about his father's character, so that was a valid probability, also. The longer he thought about it, the more questions he ended up with.
It was dawning upon him that Bêtemont wasn't the slow-paced, quiet town he originally imagined. It's always the smallest towns that hide the biggest secrets.
"Elise, what do you-"
Jonah peered over his shoulder to see no one. Panicked, he stopped walking, rotating his body completely, only to see he was alone. He was too deep in his own mind to have noticed he could no longer hear people's hollers for Shazia or the muttering of conversation from behind him.
Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm.
Jonah started to jog back in the direction he came, in hope of retracing his steps to the group; the area was unfamiliar. He didn't recognise any of the trees, and he couldn't remember whether he was supposed to go uphill or not. How long has he been alone for?
Shit.
It was only a few hours until sunset. He didn't want to be stuck out here alone in the dark. It wasn't an option. If this was even a drop of the same fear he was sharing with Shazia, he couldn't bring himself to imagine what she was going through. Or went through.
A shiver clawed its way up his spine. Jonah wasn't sure whether it was from the cold or the fear. Instinctively, he clutched the sleeve of his coat closer, something he always did when he was nervous.
A beam of light from the sun breaking through the foliage blinded Jonah, and before he could begin to make sense of it, his foot was caught underneath one of the many tree roots resting on the surface of the ground amongst the bark and twigs. He tripped over, smacking his face against the tree on his way down, which caused a sickly crunch to emit from his nose.
"Fuck." Jonah wiggled his foot, dislodging it from the tree root, and brought a muddied hand up to his face. His nose pulsed in agony from the contact, eyes widening at the sticky crimson that now painted his hand.
Jonah used his palms to steady himself onto his knees, registering that the beam of light to cause his loss of balance was from a clearing.
A large, empty field stretched for a couple of miles with a lake cutting through the middle. Only several saplings made it past the treeline, giving the effect the plain was quite random to be buried in the forest.
Disoriented, Jonah crawled off the bed of dirt, and like a zombie, he drifted towards the field. He knew that if anyone saw him, they'd be none the wiser to think he was the next animal attack victim, judging by the amount of blood on his face and hoodie. And he might as well be, with the likelihood of his scent attracting every predator for miles.
Jonah's hand glided over the frost-tipped blade of grass, hauling at him all at once memories of the day his father died. Him walking to the lake was history's morbid, symbolic way of repeating itself- repeating the moments of when he was a young, naïve boy walking to the edge of that cliff, the same echoes of curiosity in his head begging him to find out what lies at the bottom.
Jonah saw his bloodied reflection in the murky water, grotesque enough to give anyone a heart attack, but that wasn't what he was looking at.
No, he was looking at the black shape behind him- and it wasn't human. Within the tree line, it lurked in the shadows, too dark for Jonah to identify the animalistic figure. It was poised upright, like it had just seen him, before barrelling relentlessly in his direction.
Jonah felt an icy hand yank on his wrist. With a splash, he lost his balance, and he came face to face with the freezing cold water.
The initial shock to his body made his muscles clamp up painfully. Opening his eyes, Jonah turned his head from side to side. The bubbles mixed with his blood made it impossible to see anything, until two embers and a cloud of black fog floated into his vision.
As the bubbles cleared, Opal's face was in front of his. She was like a Van Gogh painting, the way her hair parted for her face in carefully defined swirls. Tiny pockets of air attached themselves to the strands where gravity had no rule, acting as the stars to her underwater Starry Night.
Swimming upwards, Jonah's lungs were crying out for air, only to be pulled back down. He gave Opal a confused look when she pointed a finger up, and that's when the sun vanished.
A dark shadow loomed above, the water being the only boundary separating them.
The ripples in the current distorted the beast, but Jonah was sure its head hovered only inches away from the water. Seconds felt like hours and the lack of air made him feel like his skull would implode at any given moment, while pressure was threatening to crush his windpipe. He and Opal both had their necks craned up at the creature, eyes dilated with fear, before what he thought sounded like a gunshot penetrated through the trees.
The beast snarled before taking off, leaving the teenagers gasping for air when they floated back to land.
Their shivering bodies weren't the only things to make it back to solid ground. It was Jonah's newly found realisation that in Bêtemont lies far more than what meets the eye, and today was only the tip of the iceberg.