Prologue
"Hey, Chrissy," Mes shouted. "Don't run off too far will you?"
She had taken her three children for a walk around Alton Water reservoir in the hopes they could let off some of that built up excitement they got when they were at home during the school holidays.
As children tended to, they had been fighting among themselves the majority of the time. She hoped the walk would calm them down. It would also allow her some time to clear her own head for a little while.
She looked back at her other two children who were following behind as they kept trying to push each other into the puddles. While they were shrieking with laughter as they did, the noise was not as grating out here as it was at home.
With a smile, she turned back to look at where Chrissy had run on and could see she was trying to climb a tree up ahead.
Reassured her daughter had not run on too far ahead, she took a few seconds to herself to look out across the reservoir and towards a strange looking house on the far side. It was a small church with a tower which had been converted to a small house many years ago.
It had been a house she had always wanted to live in since she had got married eighteen years ago. She imagined being able to wake up in the morning and look out at the view over the reservoir as she pulled open her curtains. However, she had spent most of her life living in the town, but deep down she was quite happy with that.
As she stood dreaming about owning the peculiar house, her attention was interrupted as two swans flew across in front of the house and landed on the water.
"Hey," an overly excited shout from ahead came. "Hey everyone, there's something in the grass. Who wants to come and look?"
As Mes turned her attention back towards her daughter to see what the fuss was about, she felt her other two children rush past to see what had got their sister so excited.
"At least they have stopped fighting now," she said out loud to herself as she slowly followed them.
Watching the children closely, she saw Chrissy jump back out of the tree, grab a large stick and disappear into the undergrowth by the path. The other two quickly followed her, still shrieking excitedly.
Before she reached the sport where the children had disappeared, a loud scream erupted from the undergrowth. The scream she recognised as Chrissy's, and she hurried her pace to get to her children.
The moment she reached the spot and turned to move into the undergrowth, the other two children emerged. Both were also now screaming as loud as they could and quickly moved themselves behind their mum.
"Where's Chrissy?" Mes asked them as she tried to step forward and look into the undergrowth.
She found she was held back by each child holding onto a leg. As she looked down at them, she could see their faces had gone ghostly white and tears were streaming down each of their faces. They were trying to say something, but between both of them speaking at once and the crying she was struggling to understand them.
Another loud scream from her daughter roared out but was abruptly ended by a sickening crunch. However, before Mes could react, the grass in front of her started to move frantically and additional growling joined in the commotion.
Her children had obviously been overcome with fear and had decided to run back towards where they had left the car, both still screaming loudly as the run.
Mes's attention was suddenly grabbed back as something began to emerge from the undergrowth. She instantly recognised it as the back end of a dog, and it was obviously trying to pull something with it.
Mes looked to her left as she spotted a large stick and stooped down to grab it. She thought she might need to use it as a weapon against the dog if it was attacking her daughter.
Before she had stood upright again, the dog in front of her lurched backwards towards her with a ghastly tearing sound as it did. She instantly recognised that in its mouth was a small but bloodied arm.
As Mes was about to wade into the undergrowth and rescue her daughter, a further two dogs emerged pulling what looked like the mauled remains of her daughter's body. She realised at that instant, there was nothing she could do to save her daughter now.
Before she could turn to run back towards the car and protect her other two children, the nearest dog has spotted her and turned his attention towards her. With a snarl, it leapt towards her, aiming straight for her neck.
As she fell under both the attack and the weight of the dog, she caught a glimpse of her two children leading someone towards where she was falling. She tried to scream out to the stranger not to bring them closer, but the pressure of the dogs jawing clamping down on her throat stopped her from doing so.
With her final gasp for air, pain ripped through her body as the other dogs joined in the frenzied attack, pulling her limb from limb. The final thing she saw was the salivating jaws sink into her face as she passed out.