by David James
And then the front room came into view and he watched as two grotesquely dressed figures were standing over Sarah.
He sat back in his chair and gasped.
‘No!’ he shouted and clasped his hands to his head.
The image changed again.
He found himself twitching with exasperation as he waited for the image to return.
And then the front room came into view. He must be mistaken.
He placed his face closer to the monitor and then the figure came into full view as it came closer to the camera until its face filled the camera. It barely looked human, and its eyes, its eyes almost appeared to glow in the dim light and seemed to reach through the camera and into Ben’s mind.
He screamed out loud ‘Sarah!’, stood up and virtually flung himself out through the window.
He landed heavily on the ground, but he didn’t care. He started to run wildly back to Sarah’s house. He fell repeatedly, each time standing up in a more dishevelled state that the last time.
His mind was filled with horrific images. That was probably why he didn't notice the figures in the woodland as he ran and stumbled across the grass. He felt his pace slowing slightly as he tired.
This was a mistake.
The figures emerged from the woodland and started towards him.
He noticed them just in time to have the chance to start running faster. The house seemed to suddenly be a long way away.
He caught sight of the figures pursuing him.
They looked a strange mixture of shambolic and menacing. Their clothes had seen better days, but through the threadbare nature of their clothing Ben could see traces of former smartness. But the look in their eyes was the most shocking to Ben. Some of them looked wild eyed and almost deranged as they pursued him.
The house was still a hundred yards away.
The figure nearest him was shouting something towards Ben, but he couldn't quite hear what it was. And then they were much closer to him than he was to the house and he knew the game was up. He tried to run but his body was beginning to give up and he slowed fractionally and they were onto him.
He felt arms grab him and everything suddenly went black.
Chapter Seventy Two
Sarah's morning had been busy, there was so much to do. Preparations to make.
She missed having Ben around, but the children had told her it was for the best.
The children had helped with the preparations, in fact they had helped so much that she wasn't sure who was running things.
She had spent the morning in her own room, but now she had left the children upstairs to get ready. They didn’t want to be disturbed. Besides they said they would take care of her as well. It was how she imagined the preparations before a war would be, the heady mixture of excitement and a little trepidation.
And the goal, oh the goal was so magnificent! The children would be released from their problems, the world would change for them. And for Sarah too.
She was hunched over the chess table in the front room. It was a tough game; she was waiting for her father to make his move, but he hadn’t done yet. It was worse than waiting for him to make his move back at home.
Thinking about that made her think of the institute and the world outside. She half shuddered. She was better off here, she had everything she needed. Her father’s memories, the children and soon they would all be free.
Things were about to get much, much better.
It was getting darker in the room now, but she resisted the temptation to switch a light on, she liked the feeling of darkness.
There was a sound from upstairs and Sarah turned to look at the stairs just in time to see the children begin to descend. Their faces and bodies became visible in the gloomy light.
She gasped.
She was at once in awe and at the same time a little frightened. They looked magnificent in her eyes. She doubted any parent could be prouder than her at this moment in time.
Ben could feel himself being helped along, supported either side of his arms. He wondered if he started struggling whether the ‘help’ he was receiving to walk would turn into something more sinister.
He opened his eyes, but he could see nothing.
He realised that the darkness was due to the hood they had placed on his head.
As he stumbled along he felt the ground underneath his feet become more rough and uneven and he knew he was entering the forest. He staggered a couple of times before he was hoisted upwards again.
He tried to calculate how far he was being taken into the forest; the information might be useful at some point. He estimated about half a mile, give or take.
And then they stopped suddenly and as the hood was slowly removed from his head he had no idea what he might begin to see.
What he saw as his eyes began to adjust to the near darkness was like a scene from a war film. Any feeling of relief at being able to see again was immediately replaced by cold fear.
The darkness was illuminated in small areas of light where the flickering torches were held aloft. It gave the person holding the torch an ethereal glow around their face that accentuated every curvature in their faces. It made their faces seem almost deformed.
As far as he could tell there were a dozen or so people, but he couldn’t be sure. They were dressed in a mixture of faded white uniforms that he had seen before and somewhat tattered civilian dress.
No one spoke.
For a moment he wondered if they didn’t speak English.
But suddenly a voice appeared out of the gloom.
‘Are you with the institute?’
Ben couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the darkness.
‘Or are you with them?’ said another voice.
It was disconcerting to Ben not to be able to see where the voice came from. He found himself trying to answer to thin air as he said ‘I’m not with the institute.’
He hesitated, should he really announce that he was a journalist? He didn’t think it would help so he decided not to.
He was trying to think of a reply that would cause him the least amount of trouble. He wondered about saying he was just out for a walk in the area. But then he thought about how it was almost impossible to find this place. They would see through that.
Eventually he said ‘I’m here with Sarah,’ he deliberately didn't mention the children.
There was the sound of general consternation and he realised that he might have said the wrong thing.
‘So, them then,’ he thought he heard someone say, but it was difficult to tell.
He had the feeling that if he said the wrong thing then the situation could quickly turn nasty. He decided to take the focus away from himself.
‘And can I ask who you are exactly?’
The sounds of voices stopped. If the torches suddenly went out, Ben could imagine he was all alone in the forest.
‘We were here from the beginning,’ said a voice.
‘Some of us are the parents.’
‘We run the village now.’
The voices came out of the darkness again. Ben was playing for time, trying to think of a strategy. He had already guessed that these were the researchers brought in by Sarah’s father. But he was slightly taken aback at their use of the word ‘parents’. He wondered how the pseudo parents felt about their former charges now. He didn’t have long to wait for a reply.
‘Did they send you?’
‘Who?’ said Ben.
‘You know who,’ the tone was getting more aggressive. But he knew they were talking about the children.
He could at least answer truthfully though. ‘No, they didn’t send me here.’
‘But you have spoken to them haven’t you?’
Ben was puzzled by the question. ‘Bit difficult as they won’t speak,’ his tone was flippant and he immediately regretted it.
‘They’re still behaving like that are they?’
‘Hated it when they started that,’ there was a murmur of
agreement.
Ben had relaxed enough to realise that he was now in a stronger position than he had been in since he had arrived here in the village. He didn’t need Sarah’s cooperation, he didn’t need the institute, he could get all the information he wanted from these people here. He decided to up the ante and ask a question he had asked Sarah.
‘So what went wrong here?’
There was initially silence, then almost as if a dam had been holed the voices started coming at him from every direction until his head was spinning.
‘The little bastards just went mad!’
‘Couldn’t control them.’
‘Such fury, couldn’t have seen it coming!’
And then from another direction a new voice said ‘They’re still just children don’t forget.’
‘Children don’t act like that!’
‘They’re evil!’
Ben began to wish he had never started this conversation. The voices seemed to be spiralling out of control, the tone of the voices getting ever more shrill.
‘We need to finish the job,’ said one person, he couldn’t see who it was.
‘Remember why we came here,’ said a more authoritative voice and the others fell silent. ‘We have a chance to ask this person what is going on here. Now, you say you haven’t spoken to them, but you have met them?’
Ben was glad to just be talking to one person. ‘Yes, briefly.’
‘And what were your impressions?’
The tone of the voice was altogether more measured and Ben found himself relaxing slightly.
Ben thought of Sarah. He remembered the expression on her face, she seemed lost to him now. Maybe these people could bring her back.
‘The children seem to be in control of Sarah.’
‘She should never have come here,’ said a voice.
‘I don’t think she had much choice,’ said Ben, ‘it seems as if the children manipulated her into coming here. Although, I’m not entirely sure why.’ He remembered what Sarah had said, but he wasn’t convinced he really believed her.
‘We know why,’ said the senior voice.
There was silence now.
‘What were they doing last time you saw them?’ said the voice.
Ben thought about what he had seen on the monitor and shuddered slightly. ‘They were dressed up as,’ he hesitated unsure of the word to use, ‘monsters.’
There was the sound of gasps and then silence until the senior voice began to speak.
In a measured tone he said ‘It’s begun then.’
After a short pause he said directly to Ben 'You need to decide whose side are you on.'
Ben had no idea how to reply. So far everyone had seemed to be against him, the institute, Cynthia and her village, the children and latterly even Sarah. He had no idea who to trust, least of all the people now standing in front of him.
He tried to buy some time to decide and said ‘You shouldn’t have started the fire like that. Outside the house I mean. We were all inside you know.’
There was a short pause before the voice said ‘Oh no, we didn’t light the fire’.
Chapter Seventy Three
The preparations began to gather pace around Ben. Shadowy figures were moving all around him now, it wouldn’t be long before they were ready to begin. He was relieved that the focus was now away from him, but he still hadn’t made his mind up what to do.
He stood there as the torches began to move around seemingly randomly, until they started to slowly gather together into some formation and began to move away from him in what appeared to be a procession; as each torch joined the line the light around Ben dimmed even more. Soon he would be left alone in complete darkness.
It really was time for him to decide whose side he was on.
If he followed them he was abandoning Sarah to the children. And worse he would appear to be taking sides against her. The thought sent a shudder down his spine. But if he went back to Sarah, what could he achieve? Sarah was so in thrall to the children that she barely seemed to acknowledge that he existed. And if he just ran away and left them all to whatever was about to unfold, then what would that say about him as a person? Or even as a journalist?
He had to choose soon. He was almost surrounded by complete darkness as the last of the torches disappeared into the distance.
‘Are you with us?’ said a woman’s voice that suddenly appeared next to him and made him jump violently. For a second he thought it could be Sarah, here to rescue him from his own decision. But he dismissed that as fanciful.
She waited for a reply that he couldn’t quite formulate.
She held up a faint torch and he could see the outline of someone almost as young as him. He wondered what on earth she was doing out here in this crazy situation.
‘We’re not all bad,’ she said, as if pleading their case.
‘I’m sure you’re not,’ he managed to say, ‘it’s just that, well, Sarah.’
‘I understand, but she is lost to you now,’ she said.
He suspected she was right, but it hurt to hear what he had been thinking said out loud. Besides, he reasoned, perhaps he could protect Sarah in some way if he stayed with these people.
He felt his feet moving to follow the now dim lights.
‘I’ll show you the way,’ she said pleasantly. ‘My name is Emily.’
He stopped walking abruptly.
‘Emily?’ he said.
‘Yes, don’t you like it?’ she said defensively.
‘It’s okay, it’s just that, well, oh never mind.’
They started walking again and Ben decided to make good use of the time and put his journalistic head on again.
‘So how did you get involved in this then?’ said Ben.
Though Emily carried a torch, it barely illuminated her face as she spoke and Ben could only guess at the expression on her face.
‘Not long out of university, wanting something a little more exciting.’
‘I certainly think you managed that!’ said Ben. ‘How did you hear about it?’
There was a short pause before she started speaking again ‘Well, they found me really.’
It seemed an odd answer to Ben, so he said ‘Did you have some relevant qualifications?’
There was silence for what felt like an age. Ben wondered if she had not heard his question, he was about to repeat it when she started to speak.
‘I did have one qualification, which I guess they thought was important.’
She seemed to be choosing her words carefully.
They continued to walk as Ben tried to formulate his next question. He was more used to interviewing politicians, council officials and the like; people in power, so he didn’t feel he had to be so careful with his language. But this was different, Emily clearly wasn’t in a position of power.
‘Can I ask what qualification that was?’ he said gently.
Now the pause was very noticeable, but he waited patiently.
‘I guess you could call it a less than favourable childhood,’ she said.
He hadn’t really thought about the staff working here until he had met them now. Everything had been from the viewpoint of the children. In fact he had almost viewed them as the enemy before this moment. But he was being forced to view them as real people now.
Emily spoke again and said ‘Quite a few of the people working here had a similar troubled background. I guess they thought we would be able to empathise more easily with the patients, the children, if we had similar experiences to them.’
Ben nodded, he could see the logic of this, but he could also see the potential danger. What if the people treating the children are more disturbed than the children they are treating?
‘Have you been here since the beginning Emily?’
‘Oh yes, I even helped to build some of the houses. Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I am handy with a paint brush.’
It was now that Ben felt hampered by the lack of light. When he usually inter
viewed people he could judge their facial expressions; get clues as to what they were really thinking. But here he felt almost blind.
Ahead of him he could see that some of the torches had begun to gather together. They must be near to their destination. He knew he would need to get as much information from Emily as soon as possible. He wasn't sure if he would be able to speak to her soon. He started to walk more slowly.
‘Sorry Emily, I twisted my knee earlier, can we slow down a bit?’
‘Of course,’ she replied and she stopped walking entirely and he could now see more of her face in the static light of the torch.
‘So how was it at the beginning?’ he said.
‘Oh it was great, really thrilling. I mean everything was so new. And when the children first arrived, it was amazing. I mean the level of excitement was off the scale.’
She talked so excitedly and so positively that she swept Ben along with her enthusiasm. It was hard to believe that something that had started so well had ended up like this.
‘It sounds amazing Emily. So what went wrong?’ said Ben.
‘It wasn’t any one thing. Can’t point to a certain day or anything, but gradually the children started to spend more time with themselves. We thought that was only natural at first. No problem. But soon they barely seemed to be interacting with their assigned parents at all. And that was no good to us. We couldn’t help them if they wouldn’t talk to us. They pretty much stopped speaking altogether.’
Ben realised that he had a golden opportunity to get information about Sarah’s father. All the information he had, had come from Sarah. And as he pictured Sarah now, he wasn’t sure how reliable that was.
‘And the person in charge, how was he?’
Emily began walking slowly forward again. ‘We didn’t see much of him, initially anyway. He was around much more when it all started to go wrong.’
‘And what did the others think about it, when it all started to go wrong I mean?’
‘They seemed to form into different groups. There were those who were still idealistic enough to think we could still help the children; but there were less of them as time went on.’