A Scarecrow to Watch over Her (A Horror Novella)

by Saunders, Craig

  Nobody ever said she was a fair wife, he thought, sneaking glances at her as he drove. She was all hard angles. All the softness had been driven out of her.

  He wondered if he could persuade her to put a nip of whiskey in his tea when they got home. For the shock. But it was more of a daydream, really. A nice daydream to have, though, so he let himself drift in it as he drove. He’d had quite enough reality for one day.

  Him, in a bar fight, with fists and knives! And, the sheer speed of it! Life shouldn’t be like that. It wasn’t right. One minute they were having a pint, next minute there was blood and splinters. Bernard still couldn’t get his head round it. He wasn’t stupid, but his mind worked in much the same way as his digestion. It was a stately process. It didn’t have anything new fangled like a metabolism to get in its way. His mind, as his gut, rumbled on towards their inevitable conclusions.

  He was in this slow state of thought as he turned into to his pockmarked drive, long and straight, leading to the farmhouse.

  As he turned, he heard someone yelling at their receding Volvo. He craned his head around and saw the battered Nova that had followed them, unnoticed.

  A horrible, deviant looking ruffian stood at the top of the Rochette's drive, hurling insults at the top of his voice. Bernard couldn't make head nor tail of the man's guttural, uneducated blather.

  ‘I'm going to get you! Feckin’ cunt!’

  He understood that one.

  'Why are you slowing down, Bernie? For Jesus' sake, just get back to the house.'

  She was right, and on this occasion he was inclined to agree.

  'Think we should call the police?' he said. He was worried. A pub fight was one thing...some kind of vendetta was something else entirely.

  The man's voice faded as Bernie bounced the car closer to the house, his teeth clacking as they hit each pothole in the old drive.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Bernie. Probably just mouth. Don’t worry.’

  But Bernie did worry. He didn’t have the stoic nature of a house brick, like Margaret, to fall back on.

  He watched his rear mirror all the way along the drive, but they didn't follow. When he pulled up beside the front door, gravel crunching as he braked, he noted even Margaret was worried. Her mouth was pulled in a tight line a man could cut himself on.

  The Nova was gone.

  'Come on, Margaret...we should call the old bill, at least. Surely?'

  ‘Don’t bother, Bernie,’ she said. ‘They won’t do anything.’

  She remembered the policeman at the market...and she knew the police wouldn't do anything about it. Maybe if they got killed...but she wouldn't think about silly things like that.

  'No one's getting killed,' she said. She said this with such venom Bernard was suddenly more afraid of his wife than the gypos.

  Once inside, Bernie trailed around the house after his wife, as though she was some kind of comfort blanket. He shivered, like a sheet in the wind, and an old, worn one at that. The ordeal, no doubt, he thought.

  He helped as Margaret locked and bolted all the windows, which he supposed was to make him feel better. But the very fact that Margaret thought they ought to lock the doors and windows didn’t make him feel better. Not at all.

  The day passed. He snuck a whiskey into his tea from his stash behind the cistern in the toilet because Margaret didn't offer. They ate a dinner without enthusiasm. Chops, mash, squished cauliflower and cheese sauce. Bernie tasted none of it, but he went to the toilet quite a lot.

  ‘Nervous, dear,’ he told his wife.

  Better put a stop to it, he thought. She’s likely to smell it.

  So he drank some milk. Good for acid indigestion. Good for whiskey breath? Who knows?

  *

  Finally, they went to bed, each turning their ways, Margaret to wall, Bernard toward her. Bernie's eyes fell closed. He hadn’t been as tired or drunk in a good long time. Margaret leaned toward him when she was certain he was a good way under sleep's blanket. She smelled his breath.

  Drunk.

  There, in their marital bed, though, watching him shivering and shaking in his sleep, she instantly decided to let it go. Then, five minutes or so later when he was snoring deeply and soundly, she crept down the old stairs, avoiding the centre of each riser where the creak was worse, then across their stone floors and into the entrance hall. She put her hand in the blue vase her mother had left her, which she kept on a shelf next to her old school books. From within, she took a small key.

  She was quiet, still, when she unlocked and opened the gun cabinet. She closed and locked the steel cabinet just as carefully, but this time with one hand. Steel has a habit of clanging if you’re not careful.

  With the door closed and locked again, she had her hands free to get the shotgun cocked and loaded.

  Then, upstairs again, Bernie none the wiser, she stowed the long gun safely under their king sized bed.

  Only then did she close her eyes, too, and let herself drift into a light, troubled sleep.

  *

  3.

  Saturday

  Bernard felt a hand go over his mouth and he tried to scream, he really did. A knife glinted in the low light of night in front of his eyes. Behind it there was a man. He wore a mask, but he flicked his eyes to the left and Bernard could see well enough to know he was expected to follow the man's lead. He rolled his eyes to his right and saw another man held a knife to his wife’s throat. The bastard held up a finger, made a ‘shh’ gesture, then ran a finger across his own throat. Just in case Bernie was slow.

  He was, but nobody was that slow.

  The man holding a knife to Bernie’s throat motioned for him to get up.

  Bernie pleaded with his eyes. Please. Please don’t hurt my wife. I’m begging you. Please.

  One man led Bernard from the bedroom. The other stayed with his wife. Bernard began to cry. His tears were silent. Terror held his shout in his chest.

  If he shouted, they would kill her for certain. He knew that without a doubt.

  If I don't scream, will they kill her anyway?

  That he didn’t know. Maybe they would. Oh God. Would they?

  They're going to kill us both.

  He knew, without them speaking, that these two men were gypsies. He didn’t need to hear their dirty language or slurry syllables to understand this. Who else would do this to him? He never made an enemy in his life, until the fight in the bar.

  We're dead...men don't break into another man's house with knives to talk about Our Lord Saviour, right?

  Run.

  He had one option, and only one: run, get the shotgun.

  He made a lunge for the door. The man’s hand came away from his mouth. At that moment, he could have cried out, he could have screamed, but his breath caught tight in his throat and he found that he couldn’t make a sound. The man had hold of the neck of his pyjamas, and they pulled tight against Bernard's fat neck. The man with the blade pulled Bernard back with such force that the buttons popped on his top. As if the point hadn’t been made, the man pricked Bernard's side with the cold knife, through his fleece pyjama top, and that rough hand slid back in place over Bernard’s mouth.

  This time he could cry out, his voice was ready, his thundering heart wanted him to scream, but the hand muffled it.

  Blood trickled down Bernard's back. His pyjamas were suddenly dripping and he sobbed against the hand over his mouth. It felt somehow both intimate and disgusting.

  ‘No sound, you fat bastard,’ the man said, whispering in his ear, ‘or yon bitch gets a new smile.’

  Bernard nodded, softly. He got it.

  The hand smelled of animal flesh. Horse, he thought, not cow.

  The man pushed Bernard hard through his own, open front door, out into the night.

  In the gentle rain that was almost mist, he shivered. The clouds were bright. Again, that hard strong hand went over his mouth and his tormentor forced Bernard forward, out into the field at the front of his farmhouse.

&
nbsp; It's just him, thought Bernard. Just me and him. He's going to cut my throat, out here in my own God-damn field.

  Just the one...

  With no one else but the two of them, now was his chance. Maybe he could overpower the man...save Margaret...

  Maybe die, he thought... you're fat, you don't know how to fight...this man's younger, quicker, and dangerous...

  But if he didn’t fight, they would both die. He'd never been as sure of anything in his life.

  Are we far enough from the house? Could the other man hear a...scuffle?

  ‘He hears just fine,’ said the bastard, just like he could read minds. His mouth was close enough to Bernard's ear for the farmer to feel the heat of the man's breath.

  But by then, it was too late. It's surprising, sometimes, how fast things turn.

  They came from across the fields, out from between the trees around the field. Ten of them, then fifteen, then twenty. Even in the light of a stars and a half moon that hid behind the thin clouds, Bernard could see they weren't his people. It wasn't the cavalry, wasn't a crack team of policemen, here to take down a couple of psychopaths...

  As they got closer, he whimpered. They wore shirts, light or blue or checked. Some wore hats, like flat caps. They were dirty, greased-back hair or blackened spots on their bare hands or faces, like they worked fields or cars. A small, ugly dog bounded around. A couple of shorter ones were among the gathering crowd, too.

  Kids. Shit. Kids?

  They seemed to hold themselves in a way that spoke of family, even though their faces and clothes and builds differed.

  Family, thought Bernard, as far he was able to think anything coherent. It was happening, really happening. But even now, to Bernard, the whole situation seemed to occur deep below, underneath the gibbering terror that was sitting on top, suffocating him.

  I'm dreaming. Nothing more.

  'Margaret?' he said, hopefully. 'Wake me up now, would you?'

  ‘You shud'na hit ma boy,’ said the man behind, and cracked Bernard across the back of the neck with something hard.

  ‘You’s a sorry cunt,’ the man added, but by then Bernard couldn't hear him. His eyes closed. He slumped back against his captor, unconscious.

  'Fat fecker's pissing himself,' said a man through a yellow and sparse set of teeth. A couple of the men, some of the children, laughed.

  'Hey. Fuck off. Serious, now. Either way, don't need him awake, do yous?'

  One or two shook their heads, their faces suddenly set like men about serious work, at last. They started in.

  Bernard came around half way through to find there was nothing he could do. He was weak with terror, true. But he was bound, tight. No way he was getting loose. He could see, but he couldn’t move his lips. There was pain when he tried to scream. They’d glued his lips together. He could see them, the gypsy bastards, at the edge of his vision. Sometimes, they went away. When they came back they spat on him, cursed him, but they never kicked or hit him. They didn’t have to.

  They're going to leave me here? Like this? To die?

  He made as much noise as he could, but it was nothing but a muffled cry, no better than a scared dog in a cage.

  He felt something rough stuffed up his sleeves, until it itched from elbow to his hands. He screamed, because he didn’t know what it was, not because it was painful. The pain was constant already. Any more would just be lost in the landscape of pain that was his body.

  Straw.

  They were covering his hands with straw. Finally he understood.

  Then his view lurched. They heaved him from the floor. He lost sight of the sky for a time. They lifted him. It took more than one of them to do it.

  Then they planted him in the dirt, in the middle of the field. The field he owned. The field he worked. Facing his house.

  The little kid's dad filled his vision.

  ‘Ma’be she’s dead. Ma’be she’s living. You’s bin taught. Nobody fecks wit’ t’e Mulrones.’

  The gypsy patted Bernard cheek, but said nothing more.

  'Please...please...'

  Bernard thought the man understood, even beneath the sackcloth cowl he wore on his head, even though his plea was stifled behind his sealed lips. But he didn't stop, nor turn back and tell Bernard it was all a joke.

  'Just teaching yous a lesson, aye? No hard feelings?'

  He wanted to hear those words so badly, he almost convinced himself he actually heard them.

  But of course, he didn't.

  Dimly, footsteps, getting quieter as they walked away from him. All Bernard could see was the field, his house, and the rain. He couldn’t hear anything but the blood pounding in his head.

  His arms, held straight out from his sides, began to go numb after a few hours.

  Bernard didn’t care by then. Every shift in his weight tore at him, the barbed wire wrapped around his arms and waist and thighs. And then, even when his hands and arms and legs were numb, he could still feel the nails. Grinding, grinding, against his bones.

  Dawn came and night left. He remained. Still as a scarecrow.

  *

  Margaret woke as she did every morning; with a sigh. Another day. The house, the farm. Same thing, everyday. Sometimes shopping, sometimes cooking, but never anything new.

  And yet...something had changed.

  Not changed, she thought. Amiss...

  She rooted around in her mind, but it took no more than a second. No snoring, no weight. And that was wrong. She woke her husband every morning. She was like clockwork. A Rolex, maybe. He, too, was like clockwork, but the kind you got from Argos for £9.99.

  ‘Bernie?’

  She turned (she always slept turned away from her husband, he toward her) to find his side of the bed as she expected. There was a Bernie shaped dent in the soft mattress. A head sized dent in the down pillows. But no Bernie.

  Frowning, she pushed herself up and put on her slippers and dressing gown. She checked the bathroom – perhaps he had a hangover. She wouldn’t be surprised. She checked the bottle behind the cistern and pursed her lips as she found it only half full. It had been nearer the top before yesterday.

  If she didn’t let him keep the bottle he’d only stash it somewhere else. At least this way she knew how much he was drinking and could water it down without him realising.

  Still, half a bottle, and she hadn’t wanted to risk watering it too heavily…

  Could be he's dead somewhere...had a stroke in the night...a heart attack...?

  She checked in the kitchen, but there was no sign of Bernie there, either. She knew him well enough to know if he wasn’t in the kitchen or the bathroom or the bedroom, he wasn’t in the house.

  She made herself a pot of coffee. He must be out in the field, or in the barn; unusual, especially after half a bottle of whiskey, but not unheard of. She didn’t think about their fright the day before until her second cup of coffee.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ she said. Then she started to worry.

  Margaret didn’t even put a coat on, but stepped out of the front door – it was locked, as she had left it – and headed over to the barn.

  ‘Bernie!’ she called, over and over, increasingly desperate.

  She knew she was probably being foolish, but that instant of wrongness that had been there when she woke was growing stronger by the minute.

  She poked her head in the barn. No one there.

  She thought for a minute, not moving at all, but staring at the barn door.

  Sometimes on a Saturday there would be help about, but not with autumn a memory and winter nipping at the door. There was plenty of work to do, but nothing they couldn’t handle on their own. They weren’t so old they couldn’t run a small farm between the two of them. They both had their health.

  ‘Oh, Bernie,’ she said out loud and was surprised at the depth of worry in her voice. That sense of everything being slightly awry was all around her. Something had happened, something wrong, but she didn’t know where to start.

  S
he saw, out in the front field, that Bernie had finally put the scarecrow back up.

  Perhaps he is actually out and about.

  She knew him well enough. Not much could get him out of bed before her, except maybe her ire, and she'd been angry with him, hadn't she? Angry about the drink...

  Maybe with the shock of the fight in the pub…he was soft at heart, after all. He’d probably just gone for a walk out to the woods.

  Probably?

  She shook her head, still standing at the barn door.

  The hell he had.

  Bernie had never gone for a walk for no reason in his life.

  Some wives, some husbands, maybe they would have called around, called some friends, drank some coffee or something stronger. Gone about the business of waiting. Wasting time.

  Margaret wasn’t that sort of wife.

  She went back to the house and picked up the phone. The receptionist at the local police station put her through to the right man, after a short run around. Then she bullied them into sending an officer. Then, that done, she sat down to wait, drinking coffee, tapping her nails against the kitchen table, staring out the window.

  Worrying.

  *

  Margaret poured the policeman another coffee because she felt it was her duty, and she was a woman for whom duty was paramount...even if the man was clearly an idiot. He let her, because he was tired from a fight with his wife first thing in the morning, he was on an early shift, and he could do with an entire urn of coffee before he got back to the station. Plus, the coffee was really good.

  ‘Run me through it again, ma’am.’

  Margaret sighed. She had many subtle ways of showing displeasure, but she deemed the policeman too stupid to pick up on anything less obvious.

  ‘Officer, please. You’re wasting time. The gypsies have taken my husband.’

  ‘Please, ma’am. One more time.’

  Give me time to finish my coffee, he thought. Then he could get back to the station. Get some shut eye in the back cell. Not write a report. He was good at not writing reports. It kept the crime figures down and made the force look good. They didn’t want the real figures getting out.