Faces of Fear by Graham Masterton Page B

was splattered with blood, and he could actually feel his arteries pumping it out onto the mud.
    Don’t panic don’t panic.
It’s bad, but it’s not terminal. These days they can do wonders with microsurgery. That policeman’s hand, they sewed that back on. That woman who lost her hands in a wallpaper trimmer, they sewed hers on too.
Don’t panic, think.
    With his free left hand, he reached out for his baseball bat. Aluminium, make a good lever, pry this fucking thing apart. But the bat had bounced too far away, and he couldn’t get anywhere near it without causing himself so much pain that he bit right through the end of his tongue.
    Tourniquet.
First thing to do is to stop the bleeding. With his left hand, he unbuckled his belt and tugged it off. After three tries, he managed to flip it over his wrist, and then buckle it up. He gripped the end of it in his teethand pulled it and pulled it until his veins bulged out. The flow of blood seemed to slow to a steady drip. He pulled even tighter, and it stopped altogether.
    Now,
think.
Try to attract attention. He picked up his torch and waved it wildly from side to side, but he couldn’t shout out because that would have meant releasing his grip on the tourniquet.
    Think.
What can I do now?
    But it was then that he heard a rustling sound, somewhere in the woods. A fast, relentless rustling, like something coming through the undergrowth with blood on its mind. Oh Jesus it’s the witch. It’s the witch and I’m trapped here the same way young Miles Greenleaf was trapped.
    The rustling sounded heavier and quicker, and Marcus could hear branches breaking and bushes shaking.
    There was nothing else for it. He scrabbled into his pocket and took out his scouting knife. He could bite his belt, that would stop him from screaming and from biting his tongue any more. He just hoped that he could cut himself free before the black-cowled creature came exploding out of the woods and tore him to pieces.
    He placed the blade of the knife against the teeth of the man-trap. Then he began to cut into his wrist. The first cut felt freezing cold, and hurt so much that he started to sob. But he could hear the witch roaming through the woods, nearer and nearer, and even this was better than a violent death.
    He cut through skin and nerves and muscle, but when he reached the wristbone he couldn’t cut any further. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and rolled himself over in the mud, so that his bones were twisted apart, and he was free.
    Whimpering, holding up the stump of his hand, hestarted to struggle out of the woods. Without his torch he couldn’t see where he was going, and every time the brambles caught him they put him off course. He staggered around and around, falling, climbing up onto his feet again, staggering, falling.
    He knelt on the ground, shocked and exhausted. A dark shape approached him through the bushes. It seemed to stand in front of him for so long that he thought that time must have stopped.
    Then a dazzling light shone in his eyes, and a voice said, “He’s here! Gordon, he’s here!”
    More footsteps; more lights. Then, “Oh my God, he’s lost his hand. Barker, call for an ambulance, would you, and tell them to bloody well step on it.”
    He was sitting in the waiting room at Roehampton Hospital to have his new hand adjusted when he thought he saw somebody he knew. An elderly, white-haired man, with a large distinctive nose. He was sitting at the opposite end of the waiting room, reading a copy of
Country Life.
His right hand was covered by a leather glove.
    Marcus frowned at him for a long time, but he couldn’t place him. It was only when the nurse came out and called “Mr Greenleaf, please!” that he realized who he was.
    He waited for him and met him outside the hospital. The traffic was so noisy that they had to shout.
    â€œMr Greenleaf? Mr
Miles
Greenleaf?” he asked