Lost and Found

The car had been running on empty for the last five miles when Stephenson saw the woman dash out into the middle of the road. He pulled hard on the wheel and hit the brakes. The car swerved off the road and skidded a few yards before slewing to a halt. A plastic carrier bag brushed against the side window and then danced away on the breeze. Stephenson laughed with sick relief and knuckled the tired eyes that had so badly deceived him. He tried to get the car moving again. The engine gave an asthmatic wheeze and finally died.

Grimacing, Stephenson beat his hands on the steering wheel with frustration. All things considered it had been a totally dreary evening. First off, Shirley had been her usual outgoing self and flirted with every man at the dinner party, showing him up in front of the whole department. Then somehow they’d managed to take a wrong turn coming out of Ashburton and got hopelessly lost on the network of roads traversing the Dartmoor National Park. And now, to cap it all, the car had run out of petrol, leaving them stranded miles from anywhere, and of course he’d left his mobile phone at home in his briefcase. It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway; reception in this area was temperamental at the best of times. My life as a horror story thought Stephenson, and wondered what else could go wrong.

Shirley, who had the enviable knack of being able to sleep through almost anything, shifted in her seat and smiled at him. ‘What’s the matter darling? Why have we stopped?’

‘We’ve run out of petrol.’

She laughed and put her hand on his thigh. ‘Just like old times.’

‘We’ve no time for that.’ Stephenson glared at her and pushed the hand away, simmering with resentment.

‘There’s never time for that now,’ pouted Shirley.

Ignoring her, Stephenson got out of the car and shivered in the cold wind cutting across the moors. He found the sense of emptiness vaguely unsettling. They were on the eastern edge of Dartmoor, an area dotted with tiny villages and farmhouses, but apart from a few lights on the distant horizon there was no sign of civilization; they could’ve been back in the dark ages. It was hard to believe that he’d got so far off the beaten track.

‘Look at the stars,’ said Shirley as she joined him ‘Isn’t it romantic?’

‘Freezing cold is what it is.’

Of course it was Shirley’s fault that they were now in this mess. He’d asked her to fill the tank this afternoon when she’d gone into town, but no doubt she’d forgotten, distracted by travel agents, fashion boutiques and all the other things she deemed essential to her lifestyle. His wife was scatterbrained. Ten years ago he’d found that quality endearing, but now it irritated him intensely.

Stephenson unlocked the boot and pulled out their coats, handing Shirley hers, a cleverly cut piece of black leather that was more fashion statement than sensible winter wear, and slipped into his own. The cashmere lining was like a second skin and instantly he felt much better.

‘What’ll we do? Wait for a car to come along?’

‘It’s half past one in the morning,’ said Stephenson. ‘We could be here all night and I’ve an important meeting at ten tomorrow. I’ll just walk down the road a bit and see if I can find a garage or a house with a phone.’

Shirley shrugged. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘You’ll be warmer in the car and I’ll make better time on my own.’

‘I’m not staying here by myself.’

Stephenson sighed. ‘As you wish.’

He locked the car and set the alarm, then made his way over to the road without a backward glance, deliberately ignoring Shirley when she held out her arm for him to take. She fell in beside him and they trudged on in silence.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ said Shirley. ‘You don’t see the stars like this when you’re in a built up area. There’s too much artificial light.’

Stephenson looked up briefly, but said nothing. They’d been walking for nearly fifty minutes with no sign of human habitation and the romance of the situation was simply wasted on him. He felt bitterly cold. Shirley had to be freezing in that short coat and skirt. Well, it was her own stupid fault for not staying with the car.

‘Paul, why are you angry?’

‘I’m not angry,’ he said. At times he found her directness disconcerting.

‘You’re lying,’ she said.

‘This is not the time…’

‘Please.’

‘All right, if you really want to know, I’m upset because you were flirting at the party tonight and humiliated me in front of Mr. Porter.’

‘I was not flirting,’ said Shirley vehemently. ‘I was just being friendly. And Mark said all the other wives were stuffy. I was the only one with spirit.’

Stephenson sighed. Mark Porter prided himself on his droll sense of humour and by using the word ‘spirit’ he’d undoubtedly meant to imply that Shirley was drunk. He’d been putting her down and she hadn’t realised. Black looks in the office tomorrow. Taylor had to be the favourite for promotion now; his wife had been a model of propriety.

‘Office politics, that’s all you think about,’ said Shirley, as if she could read his mind. ‘You used to love me but now you only care about that bloody job.’

Stephenson went red in the face, stung by her accusation. She was being unfair. His job paid for the designer clothes and foreign holidays she prized so highly. Shirley had no right to resent his career. If she really loved him she’d want him to do well and make an effort to help him. It wasn’t much to ask. He opened his mouth to reply, but then thought better of it. He really didn’t want to get into an argument tonight. He just wanted to get home and go to bed.

‘Look at the mist,’ said Shirley a few minutes later.

For a moment Stephenson didn’t know what she was talking about, but then he saw it off to their right, a thick wall of billowing fog that the wind was propelling towards them. He swore under his breath. This was something they didn’t need. He had lived in the area all his life and knew all about Dartmoor fogs and how dangerous they could be.

‘Should we head back to the car?’

He shook his head. ‘We’d never make it. It’ll be on us in minutes.’

‘Paul, I’m scared.’

Stephenson saw the frightened look in her eyes and bit back the sarcastic remark he’d been about to make. Already thin tendrils of fog were curling round their legs.

‘Look, all we have to do is keep walking in a straight line and sooner or later we’ll get out of it. Be ready to get off the road if you hear a car coming.’

Suddenly the fog was on them, swirling in off the moors and blocking the stars from view.



‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing,’ said Stephenson. ‘Just the wind whistling in some rocks.’

‘It sounded like someone screaming.’

‘Your imagination’s working overtime.’

The noise came again, a howling that set his teeth on edge, like the sound of a lost soul in agony. He remembered the stories his grandmother used to tell him when he was a child, about people who got lost on the moors and were forced to stay there for all eternity, unless a traveller took pity on them. Suddenly the stories didn’t seem quite so silly.

‘Perhaps it’s wolves,’ said Shirley.

Stephenson shrugged. Were there still wolves on Dartmoor? He didn’t know, but thought it unlikely. Whatever was causing the noise had to be several miles away at least and was unlikely to bother them.

Somehow they had lost the road. The mud and stones underfoot had made a ruin of his expensive Italian shoes. His clothes were soaked through and he could no longer feel his fingers.

Shirley had lost her own shoes. The stones and gorse had torn her silk stockings to shreds and cut her legs, leaving them speckled with blood. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She hadn’t stopped complaining until now, when the howling wind had given her mind something else to focus on beside her own discomfort, for which small relief Stephenson felt grateful beyond words.

The fog hadn’t dispersed. If anything it had grown thicker, a dense amorphous mass through which they waded like deep sea divers. It permeated everything, freezing cold and ripe with the scent of vegetable decay. Stephenson could feel its clammy tentacles crawling down his throat and into his lungs, seeping through his eardrums and wrapping itself round his brain like a wet towel.

‘We’re going to die,’ said Shirley.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Her face was pale. She brushed away a tear and attempted a smile, but it wouldn’t come. And then the fog swirled in thicker than ever before and she disappeared from sight, like a shipwreck survivor carried away by the ocean swell.

‘Shirley!’

Stephenson reached out to grab hold of her, but he couldn’t see anything, not even the hand at the end of his arm. The fog had swallowed everything, obliterated the whole world.

‘Shirley!’ The sound of his voice echoed and reverberated as if he was standing in an immense cavern, a space as large and empty as the hollow interior of a cathedral, the walls and roof formed out of grey mist.

The ground tipped suddenly in front of him and he toppled to his knees, the hand he shot out to catch himself sinking up to the wrist in mud. His body ached and his throat felt raw, as if it was clogged with barbed wire. He coughed and spat out something grey and noxious, like a lump of congealed fog.

Somewhere off to his left a woman screamed. Wearily Stephenson pushed himself back onto his feet and stumbled blindly in the direction of the sound, flailing wildly with his arms.

His fingertips struck something, something that felt colder than ice. An object loomed up out of the fog in front of him, slowly taking shape before his eyes, like droplets of water vapour coagulating around a central core. As he watched it took on the form of a woman.

‘Shirley/’ He spoke her name, hesitant, unsure.

She stood in front of him and stretched out her arms. He stepped forward and she enfolded him in her embrace. At first she felt cold and clammy to the touch, but then warm and vibrant and alive, as if the contact with him was in some way restoring her to life and vitality.

‘Take me away from this place,’ she whispered. ‘Take me home with you. I’ll be a good wife. I’ll make you happy and always do what you want. Just take me away from here.’

Stephenson moved back and took hold of her hand, squeezing it gently. There were tears in his eyes. He felt happier than he had ever felt before, filled with an almost overwhelming sense of well-being.

‘I’m so glad that I found you.’ This was his wife, the woman that he loved more than the entire world. This was his true wife. How could he have ever doubted her devotion?

Something torn and bloody lay at their feet, but when Stephenson looked closer it proved to be nothing more than a gaudily coloured plastic bag emblazoned with the name of a fashion boutique. They circled it, hand in hand, and walked into the fog, which seemed to part before them.