I am The Wanderer.

Nobody else called me The Wanderer, just me.

I’m the only person I’ve talked to recently, since everything went tits up and some of the conversations I’ve had with myself have been . . . well, I suppose weird might be a good word for them. I never realised just how confused a person could get when they are alone. Especially when they shouldn’t be alone. I couldn’t explain what had happened and nobody else had been around to explain to me. All I know is when I woke up, just off the summit of High Street, my tent flapping in the stiff breeze when I unzipped the front, everything seemed to be the same as ever.

I walked over to the nearby tumbledown dry-stone wall and emptied my bladder with a deep and fulsome sigh of contentment and a stretch, then it was back to the tent to set up the stove for the first brew up of the day. Up on the tops it was cold. The wind was blowing in from the north-east with a bitingly icy chill to it so I got back inside my sleeping bag and sat on a rock by the stove while I waited for the pan of water to boil. The gentle hiss of burning butane wasn’t loud enough to drown out the sound of bleating sheep as they started their day of ceaseless wandering, looking for the freshest tips of slow growing grass or any stray sandwich crusts left behind by the previous day’s visitors to their elevated, windblown, glorious patch of earth.

I leaned back to reach into my tent and retrieved my woolly hat, an essential at these heights even then when the weather was starting to warm up down in the valleys. I opened it out and pulled it down tight over my head, immediately feeling the benefit of not having freezing cold ears.

I sat back up in time to watch a small group—I forget what the proper name for the group is now—of shimmering jet-black ravens as they displayed their incredible aerial prowess, swooping, turning, flying with joyful abandon, riding the wind which was now starting to penetrate my duck down cocoon with its icy tendrils.

Water finally battled its way to the boil.

Two mugs.

Two teabags.

Dried milk in Geoff’s.

None in mine. It tastes like shit and I’d sooner drink my tea black if there’s no proper milk.

Boiling water with rising plumes of scalding hot steam like a mini geyser before it explodes poured into the mugs, a stir, then sit back and wait.

“Geoff. Brew’s up, mate,” I said.

Nothing, just the gently undulating whistle of wind through clumps of hardy grasses and the arrhythmic flapping of brightly coloured nylon fabric.

I blew on my tea while my glasses steamed up, then took a first reinvigorating sip of life’s great reviver.

Geoff and I had been wild camping in the Lake District since we were eighteen. At least three times a year we would go, sometimes just for a few days like this trip, the longest trip had been a month, broken up one night a week by a stay in a Bed and Breakfast, mainly for the use of a shower but also to stoke up on fish and chips and a full English breakfast. Carbs, fat, and protein, every wild camper’s dream food.

I mean, I was used to eating rehydrated shite but after a while a bloke needs a decent meal and bacon, sausage, double egg, fried bread, plum tomatoes, mushrooms, and plenty of toast and marmalade fills the gap perfectly.

Not stinking like an old tramp helped.

A decent night’s sleep in a soft warm bed didn’t hurt either.

Back home we had been friends since we had been in the scouts as kids, it’s where we both got the camping bug.

Neither of us had married. Geoff had a girlfriend of sorts but although I had my fair share of relationships if you could call them that, I had always called time before anything got too serious. Sex is great. Dealing with emotions? Not so much. My friend with benefits, Alicia, took care of the sex part when I didn’t have a girlfriend and never, ever intimated she wanted anything more. I think, in many ways we were very similar.

She had always found it tough to talk about feelings, in fact we never had but it’s the impression I got. She had boyfriends on and off, never for long, so I figured, outside of those times when we both had partners, us hooking up together was no more than both of us using each other for our own mutual benefit.

“Geoff. Come on mate, we need to be back in Penrith by four to catch the train.”

Steam had stopped rising from his cup. I would have drunk it if it wasn’t for the bloody dried milk shit.

Despite the wind, it was a glorious morning to be up high on the fells. Far below, early pockets of mist shrouded the countryside. I’d seen it before many times but it always filled me with awe to think I was looking down onto it. The sun, just rising above the hills behind me was starting to warm the air and endless reflected diamonds of light from the Haweswater reservoir below caught my eye. Far below, at the near end of the reservoir I could make out the sunken remains of the village of Mardale Green through the still, crystal water.

Geoff was always a better sleeper than me. He’d been tall at twelve and by eighteen was a good six inches taller than me. Mind you, I was only five feet eight so most people seemed tall to me. I was just happy to be taller than Tom Cruise. When we camped Geoff always had to curl up in his sleeping bag but it never stopped him getting in a solid eight hours and I envied him as I tossed and turned, my mind full of all sorts of crap I couldn’t switch off. I even envied the gentle snores rippling through his tent.

I threw a small rock at the jumbled assortment of pans he had left outside his rig after we had eaten the night before. Final night meant no washing up, we take the pans home and stick them in the dishwasher. We always figured there was no point working when we didn’t have to.

After dinner, we’d settled down by the fire, sparked up a joint each and we smoked and talked. I can’t remember what about now. It must have been the usual weed-fuelled bollocks although I do remember him telling me about his latest conquest…again. It wasn’t his girlfriend. The last thing we’d talked about was getting up early so we could be on our way in good time.

Still nothing from Geoff’s tent. I was sure the rattling pans would have roused him. He never tired of telling me how much they cost.

I felt a five-minute warning movement in my gut so I walked back over to the wall, making sure nobody from the other tent which had pitched up the night before could see me, and squatted, a roll of toilet paper grasped firmly in one hand to stop the morning dew soaking into it.

I covered up the pile with a couple of flat stones and wandered back to the tents

Nothing.

Still no movement, pardon the pun.

I fumbled about with the zip on the front flap of Geoff’s tent and finally got it moving.

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“Come on, mate, we need to get going. Your brew’s gone cold. I’ve been calling you the last quarter of an hour.”

I could see his chestnut brown, scruffily curled hair sticking out of his sleeping bag but I could have sworn he’d lost weight overnight.

“Geoff? You OK?”

I crawled into the tent and knelt by his side. I slowly started to unzip the side of his sleeping bag, not too far, he always slept in the buff and I could do without seeing that first thing in the morning.

I pulled back a corner to check his face and if I hadn’t already had a dump, would have crapped myself there and then.

Every morning I wake up, even now, after all this time on the road alone, I see the top of Geoff’s head slip off the pillow and land on the pile of bones which occupied a fraction of the space his body should have taken up.

I scrambled out as quickly as I could, taking a step back, stumbling, kicking over the pans in a clattering, clanging, cacophony as they rattled and rolled over the grass.

Hand over my mouth, I stared at the opening in his tent. I looked around. I don’t know why, there was no chance of any help there and then.

Help.

Phone.

I came out of the trance and dived into my tent, dragging out my pack, frantically trying with shaking fingers to unzip the pocket I kept my phone in. I wasn’t feeling the cold anymore; the shakes were from shock I assumed.

I unwrapped the plastic bag I kept it in and pressed the power button. The screen slowly came to life and after what seemed like an age I managed to punch in 999 and make the call.

Nothing.

How many bars?

No signal.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

Geoff’s phone. In his pack.

I knelt by the front of his tent and leaned in, stretching out to grab his pack, not wanting to go right inside again.

I dragged out his pack and found his phone. Again, a screen, Again, no signal.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I said, muttering the words to myself.

You don’t run when you are out on the fells. Unless you’re one of those lunatic fell runners. It isn’t safe, it’s too easy to trip and fall and a thousand foot drop off a ridge and onto pointy rocks is something you don’t just jump up and walk away from.

I sprinted to the other tent. I’d seen them roll up the night before. Young couple. I’d waved a greeting and left them alone.

“Help. Fuck sake, help.”  I shouted.

Panic stations.

Nothing. No rustling, no rapidly throwing on clothes. No voices. Just windblown, sheep bleating, raven cawing silence.

“Oh, fuck.” I grabbed the zip, not caring if I caught them at it or woke them up.

I poked my head in through the inner flap.

“Oh—fuck—king—hell.” I said as I backed out slowly.

***

I can’t remember making it but I must have because when my brain finally got back to work rather than spinning weird dreamlike pictures around, I’d drunk half a cup of boiled water. Auto-pilot me forgot the tea bag.

Walking toward the edge of the wide ridge which was the summit, I could see the road winding its way along the edge of the reservoir, only clearing the cover of overhanging trees for the last half-mile before it stopped at the small car park.

Nothing moved on the road. One car was parked in the car park. I wondered if it belonged to the couple in the other tent. There was no way I was going back in there. No way. Even for car keys.

Further away along the road I could just make out the chimneys of Haweswater Hotel through the tree cover.

I had to get there. It was the only place for miles where there might be a phone I could get help with. The only place I might find other people.

It took me an hour to finally drag myself away from the top of the mountain. It was Geoff. How was I supposed to just leave him up there? How was I supposed to just leave the couple up there? I’d walked off to the start of the drop back down following Nan Bield Pass once, then walked back until I could see the tents again before finally starting the steep winding return to the valley bottom. I remember nothing of the descent other than thinking I needed to get help.

Nobody passed me going the other way. When I could see the road again no cars trundled along. When I could see the car park, just the one car remained.

When I reached it, the hotel was quiet. Locked up. I checked my phone and according to the screen it was eleven in the morning. The place should have been as buzzing as it ever gets during the morning but when I rattled the main doors there was nothing but darkness and silence. I finally got in through an open window in the kitchens. The place was deserted, my voice echoing around the cold building as I shouted. The phones in reception were dead and the only public phone I could find was the same.

I spent a pointless half an hour in a dead place trying to raise a living soul. There were none to be found. Just bones. I didn’t check the rooms.

Which is how the last weeks maybe even months progressed. I moved on to the next village. Nobody anywhere. Just bones where people were meant to be. I headed for the nearest town. Nobody alive I could find. I headed to Penrith. It was a ghost town where the train I was meant to take had never arrived. I tried cars but even after finding the keys from some poor unfortunate’s key rack, none of them would start.

So, I walked.

I became The Wanderer.

Heading vaguely toward home but slowly, trying to take in whatever had taken away the old world and dumped me in this new reality all alone, with no-one to talk to. So, I talked to Geoff as I wandered country lanes and urban streets. He never answered me, never replied, until one day when I saw strangers.

I don’t know where I was when I saw them, some town I never bothered to look at the name of. As I walked toward a corner of a street I heard a woman scream. I jumped and stopped dead in my tracks, suddenly afraid.

In all the time I’d wandered, and I now have no idea how long that is, it was the first human voice I’d heard. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to speak to anyone other than Geoff. Then I heard a man’s voice, indistinct, angry and the woman screamed again.

I walked up to the corner slowly, my shoulder pressed up against the shop front I was passing. Catching sight of my reflection made me jump. I had a serious case of the jitters. Who was this ragged, scruffy-bearded waif standing where I should have been? It took me a while to realise it was me, so profound a change it was from the image of myself I carried in my mind. I shook my head, hoping the reflection would be gone and the real me would appear but it didn’t happen.

The woman screamed again.

“Help her.” a voice from behind me said.

I swore, jumped again, and spun around to see who had sneaked up on me.

“Ohhhhhh. Fuck me.” I said, mainly for my own benefit and I must say the croak which emerged from my throat sounded foreign and more than a little weird.

Standing opposite me, five feet away, was Geoff. What was left of Geoff at least, which amounted to a skeleton, it’s head topped off with what looked like a curly wig. I’d recognise that hair anywhere.

“Geoff? Is that you?”

His jaw worked because he said, “Yes, it is, go on, go help that poor woman. Can’t you hear her screaming?” He lifted a bony arm and pointed a white finger in the direction of the screams.

“But … you … how … I.” I was jabbering, trying to formulate the words in my brain into a meaningful sentence which might emerge from my mouth, but I failed miserably, ending up gaping at him open-mouthed, like a gawky teenager being asked to talk openly about sex.

I eventually came up with one. “How are you here?” I said.

“I’m not, you berk. Not really. Think about it logically, mate. You and I both know the pile of bones you left behind can’t stay in one piece without ligament and muscle to keep it all together. I’m a figment of your tiny brain; you’ve invented me to tell you what to do next, and the next thing you need to do,” he hesitated for a moment as another scream rang out, “is to help the woman. If you don’t believe I’m not real just check out my reflection in the window. Wait. I’ll strike a pose.” A bony hand curled into a fist which he tucked beneath his chin, turning his head to the left, raising one bony knee. It was his thinking pose. I’d seen it a thousand times before but never quite like that. “Go on, check me out in the window.” He pointed his other arm at the shop window behind me.

I couldn’t drag my eyes away from him for a few moments but eventually the jelly legs which had started the second I saw him supplied the motion and I turned to look. Nothing. Just a dusty, rain-streaked piece of glass and my gaunt reflection looking at an empty street.

“Wait, I’ll swap, stay there a second.” I waited while the clacking sound of him moving around played out behind me. “OK, you can turn around now.” I turned back slowly, mouth drying out after having it open for so long. He was sitting on the cold solid surface of the road. “Look, lotus position.” He was too. Lotus position, legs crossed, white fingers resting on white knees. “Watch this though.” As I watched, the skeletal Geoff slowly levitated until he was a couple of feet in the air. “How cool is that?” he said and if he could smile, I’m sure he would have been.

The next scream was louder still, long and lingering, hanging in the air, echoing between the buildings long after its source had stopped making the sound.

Then I remembered. It’s a conspiracy. Of Ravens.