For Rich, the dead stag on his car bonnet was the least of his worries. With the benefit of hindsight there were worse things to worry about at the present time than the hundred kilos of prime venison maturing slowly on his wrecked Volvo.

The whole incident had come as rather a surprise. It had resulted in a face full of airbag, some very sore ribs and had rather ruined Rich's chances of getting home that night as planned. Having made sure his climbing gear was safely stowed in the locked boot, he had shouldered his rucksack and had set off to find some help. He usually came to Scotland for the peace and solitude, but faced with a long walk in the dark along a quiet country road he had suddenly wished he was nearer civilisation, or at least somewhere with mobile phone reception.

The first farmhouse he found had been down a muddy lane lined with low fuschia bushes. There had been nobody home and when he had tried the door, with a view to making use of the house phone, he'd been surprised to find it locked. Obviously people in the countryside weren't as blindly trusting with their possessions as they used to be.

Trudging back to the road, Rich ran through his options. He could head back to the car and wait for a passing motorist, though he couldn't remember seeing another car in the glen since he'd arrived. His other option was carry on towards the nearby village and try to call the AA. It might be a bit of time before they got a man in a van out to tow him home, but there was probably a pub he could wait in. There was also the local estate to think about, of course. They'd want to know about the stag - it certainly didn't look well.

The lure of a pub won through and as a pale full moon hovered in the darkening sky Rich walked briskly down the road with half an eye on his battered old Landranger map. Lots of ancient features were marked - a shieling here, a standing stone there - but very few modern houses. The area had probably suffered in the clearances. Like so much of Scotland's north country the glen was wreathed in that subtle melancholy bred from the absence of a people from their land.

All this had taken place about an hour ago, before the last of the light faded. Right at this present moment, Rich could think of another good reason for the absence of people in the glen. Crouching in the cobwebbed recesses of an old outhouse he tried to keep his breathing steady and silent as his heart raced and sweat steamed gently from his reddened brow. Things like those... things. Things you read about, see on television. You never actually believe they exist until it's too late.

Regrettably enough there had been no pub, nor tearooms or village shop. The settlement at the end of the glen had been nothing more than a collection of small single storey cottages, clustered around an unkempt green. A set of goalposts stood unused at one end with an abandoned tractor rusting away on the penalty spot. It was no more than a hamlet and it struck Rich as either abandoned or just deeply unloved. He wondered what the Gaelic word for this type of place was. He could certainly think of a few words that were suitable.

"Who would live in a house like this?" he mused in a Grossmanesque fashion, before knocking at the door of the first cottage. Unsurprisingly there was no answer.

"Hello!"

Not a sound in response. There seemed little point in checking the other houses, which looked as devoid of light and life as this one. There wasn't even a public call box here.

"Typical," muttered Rich. "The only place for miles around turns out to be the Village of the Damned."

Rich trudged back across the green, kicking a stone in frustration which by chance struck the rusty tractor with a satisfying clang.

He began to walk back along the road towards his car and then noticed a light in the distance, amongst a dark coppice on the edge of the fields. Quickening his pace he saw the light came from a tiny kirk some way distant from the hamlet. Surely a church would be open to weary travellers, he thought.

As he approached the building Rich noticed the light came from a small outside fixture around which a festival of moths and midges danced relentlessly. It gave barely enough light to cast shadows from the lichen-spattered gravestones leaning precariously in the clumpy turf, but it held out some hope. Pushing at the door of the kirk Rich was overjoyed to find it open, but less than impressed when nobody seemed to answer his calls.

Wandering inside Rich found himself squinting to make out the interior in the faint light which filtered through the grimy leaded windows. The kirk was cold and unwelcoming and after failing to find a light switch in the gloom Rich decided to take his headtorch from his bag in order to hunt out a telephone. The kirk looked like it hadn't been used in some time; cushions lay scattered on and around the dark wooden pews and the large bible from the lectern lay open on the tiled floor like a resting butterfly. By the beam of his torch Rich noted the hymnal board announcing Psalm 23 and nothing else. That must have been a short service, he smiled to himself.

At the rear of the kirk there was a door, slightly ajar, leading through to the vestry. Pushing his way through with a faint creak, Rich immediately forgot his earlier good humour. The vestry floor was strewn with the contents of a large bookcase and wardrobe, which lay overturned amongst the debris. Even if there was a phone under all this detritus, Rich felt he would rather not be found in here looking for it, either by the minister or the burglar who had caused all this trouble in the first place. He beat a hasty retreat, back through the icy gloom and out into the pale light of the churchyard. A shiver ran down his spine as he walked briskly past the ancient stones and out of the gate, hoping to put some distance between himself and whatever had happened here.

Looking back on things, crouching in the spidery shadows of the old outhouse, Rich wondered if he should have stayed in the church until morning. Would he have been any safer than he was right now? At the time he'd rather dismissed the four deep horizontal gouges on the fallen bookcase, but now they seemed a little easier to explain. As he sat and listened for noises in the darkness Rich felt for his St Christopher pendant, as if grasping for something solid in a storm. At difficult times it calmed his nerves and he thought it ironic at that very moment that people only seemed to turn to their beliefs in times of crisis. Maybe faith was the answer, when all other hope was lost.

Even with the bright silver glow of the moon the way back to Rich's car was very dark. He had to rely on his headtorch to avoid turning an ankle in one of the many potholes in the neglected road. The sight of the ransacked vestry had left Rich shaken and he tried to focus his thoughts on the bright beam of torchlight and the road ahead. Occasional scurrying in the undergrowth made him jump and the bruising on his ribs was causing him some discomfort.

Passing the little farmhouse he glanced along the fuschia-lined lane and was sure he saw something move. Rich quickened his pace and tried to steady his rapid breathing. His old maths teacher used to tell him that reciting something familiar could help focus one's attention in times of stress, so he tried Psalm 23. Unfortunately all that achieved was to bring back more thoughts of the creepy little kirk, which made him even more twitchy.

He was just about in sight of his wrecked car when the most blood curdling noise Rich had ever heard stopped him dead in his tracks. The howl was unmistakable, lasting for several seconds. It did not come from a long way away. The little furry creature response buried deep in Rich's brain froze him to the spot and, as the howl subsided, the secondary reaction kicked in. He ran.

Reaching his car, the realisation that something was badly wrong was hammered home with brutal efficiency. The stag, left bloody but intact from its tangle with Rich's car lay spread across the whole front of the vehicle. Its ribs were torn wide open, pointing up to the sky like some macabre sculpture. The rest of it, well... much of it was definitely missing.

Several moments of slack jawed gaping later, Rich knew he was in trouble. Another howl, this time closer, spurred him into action. Wrenching open the car boot he grabbed his ice axe and, flicking off the beam of his headtorch, ran as fast as he could towards the little farmhouse. Feet pounding, head thumping, heart racing. Whatever it was that was out there was close, and it obviously had a taste for fresh meat.
Shapeshifter
As Rich's eyes adjusted to the light he saw movement in the trees to his left. Large, dark shapes, running. No, sort of bounding, like creatures torn between a desire to run on two legs or four. He'd seen enough movies to know what he was probably looking at, even if the rational scientific part of his addled brain was telling him not to be ridiculous.

Onwards. Down the muddy lane, between the fuschia bushes, up to the farmhouse door. Rich banged hard with his fists and rattled the handle. The door didn't budge, locked firm from the inside. Possibly even barred. Rich looked around in desperation, and bolted round the side of the building. There, by the light of the moon, stood an old outhouse building, surrounded by rusting car parts and coils of fence wire. Sensing his only option was to lay low and still, Rich forced his way between the piles of scrap and through the heavy door into the darkness of his hiding place.

Yesterday, thought Rich as he fought the cold numbness in his legs and arms, I stood on the ridge at the top of this glen. The sun shone on the crisp snow underfoot and the horizon stretched in all directions across rocky pinnacles to the playful sparkle of the cold Atlantic. Now all the world was focused into one tiny spot, into a pale sliver of moonlight falling through the broken outhouse roof and onto the muddy floor.

There was a faint smell of sheep and spilt oil, and Rich wondered if it would be enough to mask the smell of his own blood and that of the stag, which lay in tiny spots across his face and clothing. Nothing to do but sit and wait. To wait and see.

Rich had never been one to pick a fight, but there was no doubt that if a fight came to him he'd be prepared. Even for one he couldn't possibly hope to win. The crunching, snuffling noises were closer now, and it sounded as if there was more than one creature prowling around the little farmhouse. With a shaking hand, Rich wrapped the silver chain of his St Christopher tightly around the tip of his ice axe and waited.

If there was truth in the old superstitions then they might also show the path to salvation. At the very least, he thought as the snuffling stopped at the outhouse door, I may get to take one of them down with me.