The Big Haggis

Where is that boy?

Gail belonged to the generation that believed work started when your boss told you it did. Not five minutes after that or whenever it was you felt like turning up.

Terry was only sixteen, and she planned to break him of these silly modern notions regarding punctuality. If he ever arrived, that was.

Gail hired him to help out on the weekends. Ever since that video went viral, whatever that meant, the shop had gone from a couple of visitors a week to a few hundred on Saturdays alone.

Two little girls crashed through the front door with such excitement they almost pulled the bell from the ceiling. Gail smiled as they gazed in wonder at the stuffed toys, books, posters and stickers emblazoned with the creature's likeness.

"Girls, calm down." A flustered man shot Gail a look that said 'I'm sorry' before trying, and failing, to corral the children.

"Oh, don't be silly, it's good to see young people excited by something that isn't on a screen!" Gail lowered herself to the girls' eye level.

They were sisters if Gail had to guess, one slightly older than the other, but both just as in love with the magic of the place as she had been at that age.

"So you have come to see if you can spot a Haggis, have you?"

Catching the girls off guard, they stopped talking and sheepishly returned the plush Haggises to the shelves.

"Is this your first time visiting?"

After a few moments of awkward silence and glances at the floor, the girls father spoke for them: "Once Susan and Hannah saw the video, it was all over. We weren't going to get a moment's peace until we brought them up here."

"It's strange, you don't see very much and it doesn't do the Haggis justice."

"You've seen them?" the older girl said, without thinking, turning her cheeks scarlet.

"Of course, I wasn't much older than you the first time I saw one." All three of them hung on Gail's every word.

"I grew up on a farm at the far side of the woods and was always out having adventures and getting into all kinds of trouble. One day, I got lost. I don't know how; I knew the place like the back of my hand, or at least I thought I did. I wandered around for hours and hours, until the sun was too hot and I had to find some shade. Next thing I knew I had fallen asleep."

When one of the girls gasped, Gail gave the father a knowing smile.

"Something wet and sweet smelling brushed my face and woke me up. I opened my eyes and saw two big brown eyes staring right back at me. I didn't feel scared though, as the creature was smaller than me and didn't appear to have any claws. It had bright red fur, arms and legs just like a person but no ears that I could see. Its nose was flat and black like a dog's."

Gail glanced out the window for more customers or Terry cycling his sorry self up the track. Only to find the car park deserted.

"Now it didn't speak English and I didn't speak Haggis but we managed to communicate through gestures and spent the next couple of hours having the best time. We played all sorts of strange and wonderful games, I even shared some of my sweets with it. Eventually the moon came up and I had to go home. The Haggis could see in the dark and helped me find my way out of the woods. I crossed the field and was back in time for tea."

"Did you go back the next day?" the older girl asked.

"Oh yes, but the Haggis wasn't there. I searched and searched but found nothing. Even my parents thought I was making it up when I told them. But I never forgot my friend. Over the years I would catch glimpses of him between trees and down by the river, we would wave but if I ever got too close he would disappear."

"We need to go. Now." The girls told their father.

Gail laughed and led the family up to the till. She sold them a map of the best place to spot the Haggis and said if they got a good enough picture, then she would put it on the wall and give them a prize.

The family left and headed into the dense woods. Gail watched as they followed the well-worn trail up the side of the hill and vanished into the undergrowth.

At that moment a small queue of vehicles pulled in and filled almost every available space. Gail expected fights later on as visitors struggled to get past those who had abandoned their cars along the edge of the road.

Terry was responsible for the car parking, it was his job to avoid congestion, accidents and damage to the local wildlife. It was also his job to man the snack bar.

Gail sighed at the cold tea urn and the still-wrapped pastries and focused instead on giving advice, directions and maps. There was nothing beyond the forest except empty fields and pine farms. People could and had got lost quite easily.

Gail was always amazed how far people would travel to see the wonderful creatures. That morning she had spoken to a family from China, two American tour groups and a lone Australian.

Around lunchtime a group of men came in ready to hunt. Gail hated knowing the innocent creatures were being run to ground by bored business men with more testosterone than sense. It was only Scotland's strict gun laws which meant the fools couldn't just charge into the woods and start shooting. Instead they had to rely on setting all kinds of ridiculous traps.

"You will be wanting one of these." She threw a map at the nearest man.

"No..." He looked at the map confused.

"Probably a good idea to know where the children and old people are going to be before they wander into one of your bear traps."

Sheepishly the man took the map and left with his fellow hunters.

She tried calling Terry again but it just rang out. Gail missed house phones. She might not have gotten hold of the boy but maybe his parents would know where he was. Unless they were the kind who would lie for their kids, but those people did them no favors.

Gail enjoyed a cup of tea and a couple of minutes respite before the visitors returned to their cars. It was early spring and the days were still short. In an hour or so the sun would descend behind the tree line.

Tidying up the little shop, Gail returned the various books, aprons and tea towels her customers had discarded to their rightful shelves. She had personally approved every piece the shop sold, ensuring every image of the Haggis was an honest one. Not that everyone believed, even after that video, but she did.

One by one, the various Haggis seekers returned, each with their own tale: 'I think I saw one but Bert thinks it was a really big squirrel', 'We saw two playing together in the water, but they swam away once we got too near'.

The hunters' boasts of 'I was this close, I swear I winged the thing' made Gail as mad as it made her sick.

The family who had arrived first were the last to return. Each parent carried a suspiciously sleeping child into the gift shop, only for the girls to wriggle free once inside.

The two of them charged up to the till, a stuffed Haggis each in hand, and drowsy smiles etched on their faces.

"Did we have any luck out there?"

Gail tried not to laugh as the two girls told the same story at the same time. When they got to the right point in their tale, they summoned their father to show the picture they had taken that day. The girls beamed with pride as she viewed the image.

On the back of a felled and rotting tree two of the creatures walked hand in hand. It looked like something from a fairy tale. Even the lighting and composition were perfect.

Terry would have said it had been knocked up by the parents in advance to appease the disappointed children. That was if he had bothered to turn up. Gail could tell from the joy radiating off the girls, however, that they had experienced the moment first-hand.

She printed out the picture and stuck it up on the wall, beaming as the girls left clutching their new Haggis plushies.

When the car disappeared down the road, Gail turned the sign from 'Open' to 'Closed'. It had been a long day and she wanted nothing more than to go home but thanks to Terry she would still have to close up. If he showed up tomorrow he had better have broken both his legs, his arms and lost the ability to speak.

She cleaned up the shop and cashed out the till before switching out the lights and heading out the back door with the banking and trash.

This was the reason she had hired Terry. As an older woman in the middle of nowhere with a large sum of money, she never felt safe leaving alone. The small space at the rear of the building was smothered by terrifying shadows and anyone could jump out demanding her takings or worse.

Her breath steamed as she jogged over to the metal bin and disposed of the black sack. She tried lowering the lid as quietly as possible, but her grip slipped and it crashed down.

Gail jogged towards her car. It was unalarmed. She never put it on, so she could just pull the door open and jump in when the time came.

Something rustled at the edge of the woods and Gail's heart stopped. She was exposed, too far from the building to retreat and not close enough to reach the car.

Hand trembling, she fished her phone out of her pocket and turned on the torch. She raised the beam and illuminated the ferns and tall grass that was the demarcation line between man's world and the wilderness.

The shape that stood between the trees was enormous, well over seven feet tall, its breath turning to steam in the night air. As it slowly raised its left arm, she saw it was carrying something that looked like an old sack.

Gail stepped back.

"My children are not for your amusement. They have been chased, hunted and hurt." The thing spoke in broken English, each word growled rather than said.

"Close this house of lies and leave this place before I tell the rest how much better you taste than deer or badger." The creature threw what it was holding.

Gail closed her eyes, put her hands over her head and let out a scream. When she finally found the courage to open them again the creature was gone.

Her throat raw, Gail managed two steps before she crashed face-first onto the ground. Something heavy and misshapen had tangled her feet.

She pulled herself forward on bleeding palms until her shoulder hit the bonnet of her car. With what little strength remained, she reached up, opened the door and dragged herself into the driver's seat.

Gail could feel the tears running down her face and pooling against the plastic of her coat as she tried and failed to get the key into the ignition. She forced what little calm she had left into her hands and managed to get the engine to turn over.

The pale glow of the headlights illuminated the world behind the shop and she saw what the creature had thrown.

At first Gail thought it was some kind of animal carcass, half-chewed bones and flesh lying in a pool of blood. She wanted to be sick but couldn't take her eyes off the tattered mess. What little fur it had clung to the shattered skull.

On a ragged flap of skin there was a tattoo. It took her a moment to remember where she had seen it before. It was the logo of his band.

Gail forced herself to focus on the path down the side of the shop and away from that awful thing. Only as the car passed Terry's bike, padlocked to a nearby tree, did her sanity finally collapse.