The Child Taker & Slow Burn by Conrad Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

completely empty apart from him. Steve and Louise had disappeared into their tent. The coals on the barbecue smouldered and the smoke drifted vertically upward towards the darkening sky. The night was deadly still; not even a breeze moved across the waters of the lake.
    The child cried out again and the female’s cries for help became much clearer. Karl walked towards the copse of trees as darkness descended, and the sound of Louise gasping forced him to glance towards his brother’s tent. Her lovemaking was always loud and frantic, and that was one of the reasons why he couldn’t leave her alone. Karl knew that their affair was wrong in so many ways that he couldn’t believe it some days. Screwing your brother’s wife while your partner cares for your twins is about as low as a man can get. He didn’t love Louise, and most days he didn’t even like her as a person, but he did love screwing her, so much that he couldn’t leave her alone. So far, his brother and Hayley had no idea what had been going on, but Louise’s behaviour was becoming increasingly more obnoxious. Steve seemed blissfully unaware but Hayley was becoming suspicious, and Karl knew that he could be forced to stop the affair before Louise did, or said something stupid, that would lead them to be discovered.
    Karl’s thoughts were interrupted by a desperate scream. It sounded like an adult woman’s voice. The infant’s cries joined the female’s call and Karl broke into a jog as he approached the trees. He slowed down to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness between the trees, but the urgency of the infant’s cries was reaching fever pitch. Karl picked a gap between two trees and ducked beneath the lower branches. A sharp pain stabbed in the soft flesh above the hip. Another stabbing pain emanated from below his left knee.
    “Shit!” He said, as he realised that he had careered into a barbed wire fence. A trickle of blood ran down his shin. The woman’s voice screamed for help again but she didn’t sound far away any more.
    “Hello, can you hear me?” Karl cupped his hands together and shouted into the darkness. His question was answered by the infant crying. “Hello, can you hear me?” He shouted again. Reluctantly he climbed between the barbed wire strands, and was engulfed in the darkness of the woods. Karl stared into the darkness and tried to make sense of the shadows before him. Slowly but surely he picked his way through the branches and undergrowth towards the sound of the infant crying. A tree root protruded up from the soil and he stubbed his toes against it. He fell forward and scratched his face and hands on the low network of branches. Thick tendrils of brambles wrapped around his legs and the thorns pierced his flesh. His shorts offered him no protection whatsoever. He tried to stand but only succeeded in pulling the bramble tighter against his flesh.
    “Hello, can you hear me?” He called as he pulled the thorny plants away from his legs and ankles. The thorns scratched his hands and he swore aloud. “Bloody hell! Can you hear me?” He called again. Blood ran down his shins and clotted in his socks. “Hello!” He shouted louder and the infant cried out again. He stumbled on for another twenty yards or so and the female called out for help again. She sounded very close this time.
    “Hello, can you hear me?” Karl ducked beneath a thick branch and peered into the blackness. The infant’s cries were very close but the female had fallen silent. He wondered what they were doing in the copse in the first place. “Hello, I’m here to help, can you hear me?”
    The infant cried again, but this time it seemed that it was behind him. Karl turned and listened intently. The cries were no more than a few yards away. “Hello, can you hear me?” The crying was coming from below him, down to the left. There was a tree trunk barely visible in the blackness and Karl kneeled down and edged closer to the base of the