The flicker of the campfire illuminates our circle of rapt faces, the wood popping and crackling in the dark as Dexter brings his tale to a climax.
"Terror!" he yells with the gravitas of a Shakespearean understudy. "That's how it reigns." He eyes each of us in turn, flicking his dark curtains away from his face and lingering a fraction longer on me before I avert my gaze. "It crawls from the lake, stalking and snaring anyone who dares venture too close to its shore. And then POW," he snaps his fingers, making me jump. "Gone. They're never heard from again."
Silence, save for the wildlife beyond the fringes of the clearing that contains our haphazardly positioned tents.
Niamh spins her attention over her shoulder at a scuffling near the tree line shrouded in the gradually enveloping mist. She turns back to the fire. "Thanks, Dex. Miles from anywhere with the lake so close. Just thanks."
To her left, Baggie grins, takes a swig from his beer and wraps a tattooed arm around her shoulder where platinum tresses cascade. "I'll protect you from monsters, girly."
She shrugs him off. "Yeah, wave your micro dick. They'll run a mile laughing."
Baggie's the only one who doesn't find that amusing. "Least I'm not makin' eyes at Major Thesaurus over there."
"Hey!" she whirls to face Baggie. "Leave him alone."
"Awww, protective much? Can't fight his own battles?"
"Drop it." She glares. "You know how he is."
Baggie stares back. Tilts his head a few degrees until his neck clicks, then bursts out laughing. "Banter, baby. He knows I don't mean it. Right, X?"
I lift my gaze from the dancing flames to meet his, then dart them back to the comfort of the fire. "My name," I pause, "is Xander."
"Then your folks shoulda learned to spell in this country. Used a Z." He makes a theatrical snoring noise. "Zzzzzzander." He guffaws. Drains his can and throws it in the fire where it spits and fizzes as the print blackens and metal curls.
"They could spell just fine. Xander is phonologically consistent with other words. Such as xenophobia, with which you're intimately familiar."
"Well ain't you just the life and soul."
I seethe but take a deep, practised breath. "When you have something so uniquely wrong with you that it doesn't even have a name, get back to me."
Baggie pulls a face. "What… everrr. I'm getting another beer. Anyone?"
Nine shakes of heads. Dexter's the only one who says yes, and claps his hands together as Baggie leaves the crude circle of fallen tree trunks we've laid. "If nobody else has a good story, mine stands as best. And I get to choose what we do tomorrow."
I continue staring into the flames. "It's a myth."
"What?"
"Your story's a myth."
"The fuck it is. It's legendary, passed down for generations."
I hold a marshmallow out ahead of me between thumb and forefinger, the lick of the fire intensifying against my skin. Almost welcoming in its power. To burn. Destroy. Consume the very oxygen upon which we rely, for its own selfish gain. "Have you ever played Broken Telephone?" The marshmallow deforms, pain registering in the tips of my fingers. "Stories whispered from person to person are rarely retold accurately. Everyone puts their spin on it." I withdraw the bronzed goo from the fire and pop it in my mouth, sucking fingertips to soothe them.
"So you're saying it's a hoax?"
Heat registers as I swallow. "It's probably based on some ancient truth that's been warped over time. The creature may be benign. Merely curious."
Dexter snorts. Says nothing.
Dani picks up our fire stick and pokes the flames, her nose ring glinting beyond the partial shadow cast from the dark wave of hair obscuring half her face. "How do you explain the body count?"
I watch her slender fingers around the stick, gripping it. Squeezing. The memory clears when I shake my head. "I can't. But who can? I have books on it. No bodies have ever been found. Only fragments of clothing. Don't you think that's… strange?" I glance around the circle. "Something isn’t right. How can thousands of people just vanish? I'm dying to know what's really going on out there."
Niamh tuts. "Jeez, do you guys not want me to sleep tonight?"
"Merely speculating."
Baggie returns and tosses a beer to Dexter. They bounce their cans at arms' length three times in unison and simultaneously pop the ring pulls. Baggie slurps the froth from his can and belches in Niamh's direction.
She scowls. "If it's sacrificial, I have a nomination."
Baggie flips her the middle finger as the embers spark under Dani's prodding.
I watch the perfect curve of her lips part, the same way they do when she begs, looking up at me from all fours with that ravenous expression before engulfing my hardness. "Has anyone lived to tell?"
Dexter shakes his head. "Not that I know of. Imagine that. Being torn limb from limb and eaten till there's nothing left. Not a trace. Not even a hair that forensics can find."
"Makes you wonder why people go looking if they know the risks."
I hold her gaze a few seconds. "Knowledge. Truth. Recognition. Perhaps they're lured by promises of something greater? Who knows what happens after. Might only be the beginning."
Dani's eyes widen. "Now that would be a tale worth telling."
"Wouldn't it just."
The fire fizzes, ash particles dancing above it. Cameron stands and stretches, more like a broken ironing board than a math major. He runs his hand through neat Afro curls. "I got no better story. So what're we doing tomorrow, champ?"
After chugging a mouthful of beer, Dexter points. "Today's a warm-up. I say we hit Mount Drennan. Forecast's good."
Murmurs and nods all round, including Cameron. He cocks his fingers and fires at us. "See you bitches in the morning then. Seven sharp." Ambling into the encroaching mist towards his tent, his silhouette fades before the zip raises and lowers amid the swish of polyester.
The conversation flows, mainly debating various aspects of Dexter's beast yarn, the group peeling off to bed as the eerie mist rolls inward and threatens to shroud the fire itself.
I leave Baggie and Dexter talking shit, ever louder, and head towards where I think my tent is. The thickness of the mist is disorienting. It's not a uniform density, swirling and shifting like a thousand intertwined tendrils, and I swear it offers resistance against my leg as I pause in the gloom, lost. I shrug it off, but it's persistent, crawling across my feet. The cold penetrates my leather walking boots and a full-body shiver ripples through me.
Steeling, I turn left, then right in the greyish soup and pace in unsystematic directions until the shape of my tent mercifully materialises.
Undressing to my underwear and crawling into my sleeping bag, I only doze, despite being physically tired after the hike. Thoughts rage. I can't sleep even after the two jocks call it a night.
The trees rustle above the mist outside, hundreds – maybe thousands – of creatures of varying sizes sleeping or hunting beyond our little camp.
Hunting.
Maybe that's what the Bayswater Beast does. Slithers or crawls or… whatevers around the shoreline, searching for prey. The lake's only a few hundred feet away. Perhaps the beast prowls inland. Kills, then carries or drags the victim back to the lake. What happens then is anyone's guess. But with no DNA remains, it has to be gruesome, yet methodical.
I wonder, not for the first time, what it would be like to go with it. To find out for sure, even if it meant never returning. To become a footnote in a new edition of one of my books. Or have a whole chapter to myself. Immortalised.
I know what Niamh would call it. She'd say I was giving up. Leaving everything behind. The illness. The uncertainty. The cocktail of pills and injections that dull my senses when my behaviour grows too much for those around me to cope. Stuff that makes me normal, whatever that means. I rebelled today. Took nothing. Paid the price in elevated cognition; those left-brain thoughts untempered by right-brain compensation, threatening to consume me during the walk. But I resisted. It felt good to take control for a change. Alive.
A rustling outside the tent freezes my tumbling consciousness. I focus, listening, blood pressure spiking, thumping through my veins in the quiet as the zip begins to inch north. My mouth goes dry and nothing comes out, despite trying. The zip climbs. Accelerates. I manage to croak, "Who's there?"
The zip speeds up again and Dani peeks in. "Shoosh, dummy. You want them all to find out?" She crawls through the flap and squeezes alongside me in the cramped confines.
"Christ, Dani. You scared me witless. Those stories had my imagination in knots already. Especially–"
She silences me by leaning forward and fastening her lips to mine. Mint and the citrus lip-gloss she favours fill my senses as her tongue peeks into my mouth and slithers against mine. I respond, reaching to cup her cheek as the kiss heats.
When we disengage, I sit there dumbstruck a moment as she toys her tongue across her upper lip, nuzzling my hand, then reaches down and whips off her cami top. Flicking her hair from her eyes, the diffused moonlight catches her needy expression and erect nipples with equal draw.
Her whisper arrives when her hand clasps mine and guides it to her bare breast. "This was about where we were interrupted, right?"
I enclose her warm mound. Explore. Grasp the nipple from beneath my palm and squeeze. Her sigh fills the tent.
Leaning into her, I nibble her neck with lips, then teeth. Work my caresses to her ear. "Not quite."
Dani tips her head back as I bring my hand to her other soft peak, massaging both. Her breath leaves her body and she tenses as I split my touches. One hand slithers down over her taut abdomen beneath the waistband of her panties, tucking into the already wet folds I find. The other glides north and curls her neck, applying faint pressure across her throat. "This is closer to how we were."
Rocking the base of my finger against her shiny clit, my cock hardens in my underwear at her muted inhalation. I tighten my grip a fraction. Dip an exploratory fingertip into her entrance.
I rise to a higher kneel and bring my lips down on hers. The back of my head brushes the tent skin as we kiss furiously and I sink my finger deeper, curling it in and out of her drooling slit.
Leaning back, she rests on her outstretched arms, presenting herself to me, breasts upturned for my abuse. I nibble then bite the caps in turn and she hisses. "Harder."
I comply. The firm cherries rise with each graze of my teeth and I slither a second finger inside her. Dig deep, rhythmically with her escalating moans.
"Shhh," I warn.
Her eyes snap to mine, burning with intensity. "Make me."
I tighten my grip on her neck and she nods slowly, my buried fingers greeted with a fresh drizzle of nectar that flows beyond to stain her underwear. She draws her knees up and flops her legs open, folds spreading for my invasion. Her eyes never waver from mine and I swear they flash emerald in the gloom. "Tighter."
Digging my digits deep, I fill her silky insides, thumbing my way to her clit to increase the stimulation, pinching her pussy through its front wall. I rock my wrist and she grinds her hips against me.
As I squeeze her delicate neck, Dani throws her head back and gasps, "More. Make me yours."
Despite my reservations, I clamp her throat more firmly, fingering her hard without restraint. Her eyes roll, gurgled appreciation bursting moments before her thighs clamp shut around my hand and she freezes.
She quivers in my grip and I hold for a slow three count before losing my nerve and releasing, lungfuls of air rushing into her heaving chest. Her thighs shake as whatever dark needs she harbours become untethered. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't arousing.
When her sticky thighs free my hand, I withdraw and she breathes a laboured, "Thank you," as she uprights.
Grabbing my wrist, she brings my drenched fingers to her mouth and sucks her essence. Inhales deeply, pressing her other hand to my shoulder and overpowering me.
Pushing me backwards against the Therm-a-rest, she straddles my hips, reaches down to tug our underwear aside and sinks her slippery channel around my raging girth that springs free.
She's tight and hot. We remain stationary a moment, flexing internally, my fingers in her gently suckling mouth, cock buried in her glossy insides. Nothing but us in the canvas bubble that reeks of sex.
Dani's hips move first, rolling back and forth to make me repeatedly fill and almost vacate her exquisite pussy. My fingers stifle her moans, free hand gravitating to her waist, then her breast to squeeze in sync with her purring around my fingertips.
Raw need tumbles from her, unmetered. Every gasp, every flash of her eyes to mine, every indent of her fingers across my shoulders, cheeks and neck reveals fragments of the real Dani churning beneath the fiercely private enigma she portrays. It's magnetic. I adore watching her fall apart.
The excitement ramps fast – too fast – and I begin to lose control, groaning under my breath while the beauty on top of me rides hard, chasing her second orgasm. The rapture in her face overwhelms me. I stiffen, suck air through my teeth, and pump my seed deep into her spasming heat, clutching her incredible curves when she releases my fingertips.
Time ebbs as our hearts slow.
Still joined, I sit and we hug, stroking energised skin until our breathing normalises and my softening cock slithers out, pursued by sticky trails of our come.
We disentangle and lie side by side, holding hands. I caress the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. Turn onto my side and trace her contour, from thigh to breast, and up to rest against her neck.
"Why do you like that?"
Her larynx vibrates beneath my fingertips when she answers. "It's empowering. Existential."
"It's dangerous. For the record, I’m not entirely comfortable with it."
She swallows, throat rippling under my touch. "But you understand it. The trust placed in something outside your control. To yield to it." She turns her head to me.
I nod in the near dark. Exhale. My whole life is, in many ways, out of my control. Everyone doing their best for me. Family treating me like I'm antique china. A pincushion for specialists to publish academic papers on the miracle boy for advancing their careers. It's arguable whether any of the blood that circulates my body is my own: I'm the expensive sum total of selfless donors. Where do I begin and they end?