My Sister And I: A dark, violent, gripping and twisted tale of horrifying terror in the Scottish Highlands.

by Sean-Paul Thomas

  The old woman began screaming hysterically like nothing I’d ever heard or seen before. The old man jolted awake too with a startling fright and I swore, for one frightful second, that they were both gonna have a heart attack or stroke and drop-down dead, right there on the bed where they both laid screaming their lungs out.

  The old couple continued screaming before throwing themselves into each other’s arms. My sister though didn’t even think about giving the game away and running like the wind, straight out of the place, which was exactly what I desperately wanted to do.

  No, she kept her cool and maintained her ghostly act to perfection, even when the old woman began making the sign of the cross and raving that death had finally come to take her away.

  My sister lifted her arm, painfully slow, and pointed, not at the old lady, but directly at the old man instead. Which made the old woman scream and howl even more. My sister then took me by the hand and, almost in slow motion, led me out of the bedroom, leaving the door wide open behind us.

  When we reached the kitchen, my sister burst out laughing. Then we ran. We grabbed our bag of goodies from the kitchen and ran like the clappers, jumping over the back-garden fence, over the surrounding fields and straight into the deep, dark woods up ahead.

  When we reached a small clearing deep within the forest, daylight was finally breaking through the patchy grey sky above. We decided to sit down in the clearing for a little while, just so we could catch our breaths and have a good munch from our goody bag.

  None of us said a single damn word. We just sat there and ate in total silence, listening occasionally to the sounds of the forest, the wakening, singing birds and the light wind whistling through the trees. What a fright we would have looked to anyone who might’ve stumbled upon us at that moment.

  A mile out from the forest and we came to another single-track road. It was tarred and littered with passing bays, so it appeared to be a well-used road. The sun was out, but we were surrounded by nothing but grey. Everywhere we looked, the sky was covered in a blanket of miserable dull. The only thing that could’ve made our morning any worse was rain but, strangely enough, for such a cloudy sky, the rain never made and appearance.

  Nevertheless, we followed the road eastward where we knew the rising sun would be hiding. We didn’t have a particular plan of action in mind but to walk until we reached the sea on the east coast or a large town, then assess our options once we arrived.

  We needed to get back to the mainland, first and foremost. So that meant a boat of some kind, or at least to sneak aboard one to make it back to the main land without drawing too much attention to ourselves. But with our faces still painted like little demons, that feat was going to be easier said than done. And for the time being my sister flat out refused to allow either of us to wash the face paint off.

  When the first car we’d seen, since our father’s car the night before, passed us by, my sister didn’t even glance up or try to wave it down, which I thought she might since she seemed to be the one who was much keener than I to make it back home in record time, just so she could impress father more than anything.

  But the car didn’t even stop or slow down, even if just to check or ask if the two strange little girls with the eerily, painted faces walking all by themselves in the middle of nowhere, on a downright cold and miserable morning, were both all right.

  As soon as the car sped by, I made a darting glance to the rear of the vehicle only to see a happy and smiley looking boy and girl, much younger than my sister and I, glancing curiously back at us.

  No less than ten minutes later, I heard another car fast approaching from behind. This one was slowing down though. I could clearly hear it. Then a small, two-doored vehicle pulled up alongside us.

  A handsome young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties or younger, was the only occupant inside. He wound down his driver’s side window and smiled warmly out at us. He asked if we were okay walking along the road all by ourselves. At least my thoughts and prayers had been answered and there still seemed to be some kind and caring souls left in the world who would go out of their way to check up on the safety and well-being of others.

  I’d already halted in my steps to acknowledge the young man just as soon as his car pulled over beside me. But only after he’d begun calling to us did my sister finally stop in her tracks and turn around to face him. She didn’t say a word though. She just morbidly stared at him without even blinking, which kind of freaked me out, especially with her ghastly-painted face.

  This chilling act didn’t seem to faze the young man in the slightest though. Even when neither one of us replied to his curious question. In fact, he didn’t seem to mind our cautious silence one bit and just shrugged it humourlessly off before skipping on to ask his next curious question: where were we going?

  He had a funny accent when he spoke. It was deep and friendly but not of this land. When he said the word ‘where’ he pronounced it more like ‘vare’ replacing his W’s for V’s.

  My sister still didn’t say a damn thing, so finally I took it upon myself to step forward and speak with the young handsome man. I told him that we were at a friend’s party the night before and were heading back into town to our home.

  “Is that vhy your vaces are all painted like ghouls’ little ones?” he said with a cheery laugh. “Halloveen is still zo many months avay, no?”

  I didn’t know what the hell to say to that, so I remained quiet like my sister. He asked why our parents hadn’t picked us up from our party? I said that our parents didn’t like to be bothered sometimes and that we do this walk home all the time, so it’s no bother to us or them.

  “I zee.’ he replied, pondering hard. ‘I think I like this liberal outlook on parenting in Scotland. It reminds me of my own liberal upbringing. Oh vell. Zo, do you vant a lift into town, scary ghost children or do you just prefer to valk the rest of ze vay?” he continued in his upbeat jest ways. My sister turned her attention towards me for a short moment before, without words, she nodded her head and motioned for me to get into the car with the strange speaking young man.

  When the young man saw that we had accepted his offer of a ride, he immediately opened his driver’s side door and stepped out before putting down the front seat and beckoning us to climb into the back.

  “I take it you are ze quiet one, huh?” he stated to my sister but she never uttered a single word of reply. Instead she just gave him a long, hard look of daggers. “Very charming. And you must be ze talker I take it?” he said, returning his attention back to me. I forced a smile and politely nodded before climbing in after my sister.

  While he drove cheerfully along the lonely country roads of the Island, he told us that he was a tourist from a country called Austria. Apparently, he was on some gap year from the University of Salzburg exploring Europe. In the more remote regions like Scandinavia and Scotland, he’d decided to rent a car and drive around the countryside instead of busing around or hiking it.

  He asked how old we were? I told him the truth, that we were both thirteen.

  “Zo, not quite little children anymore,” he said, not really a question but more like a statement. He asked us why our faces were painted that way? I told him it was to do with the party. He asked if it was fancy-dress and I said yes. He then asked us what our names were. I didn’t want to say, mainly because my dad had drilled it into us from an early age to never ever reveal our names to anyone that we did not already know. So, I kept very quiet on the matter.

  “You do have names, don’t you?” he insisted.

  I shook my head and said no, which seemed to amuse the young man somewhat and even made him chuckle.

  “Fair enough,” he continued. “I vill just call you little Ghost Girl One and little Ghost Girl Two. My name is Herman, by the way.”

  After that there was a long lull in the conversation. The young Austrian man, Herman, whistled out a tune every now and again, but he left the radio off. For a few blissful minutes it seemed like he had for
gotten all about us sitting there in the back of his car, hopefully bored from the lack of response to his questions.

  But then completely out of the blue, he looked at me in the rear-view mirror and asked if any of us knew what sex was?

  I was a little taken back by this comment at first, but then strangely eased up a little by the casual and harmless way he’d just come out and said it, like he was just asking us if we knew the name of that mountain lying in the distance up yonder.

  To keep the casualness flowing I said I’d heard some things about it at school. He asked, but not eagerly, what things I’d heard? I said, just things and pictures from friends and teachers. He asked what kind of pictures. I said just animals, like dogs and rabbits, and funny little stuff like that. Like when the dogs’ mate and their little hind legs and backsides go into a rampant, epileptic fit of overdrive. He seemed to like that answer and chuckled too.

  Next, he asked if either one of us had ever seen people mate like animals before. I said no. I’d never even thought about it before that very moment. I didn’t even think it were possible or that it was something that people did, if I were brutally honest.

  What I did know was that the young man was starting to make me feel a little uncomfortable now with all the mating and sex talk. But perhaps Austrian people were just bold and forward like that when it came to discussing things that, looking back, seemed very inappropriate to talk about with underage teenage girls that you’d only known for five minutes. But I didn’t know for sure at the time.

  My sister, on the other hand, didn’t seem that bothered by the strange tidal wave turn of conversation. I didn’t even think she was listening to a single word of it, to be honest. She appeared so focussed and transfixed on watching the passing scenery on her side of the car while seemingly lost in her own little world of thoughts.

  Herman stopped talking again, which I greatly welcomed. And seemed to be concentrating even harder on the road up ahead, which was fine by me. Even when he took his eyes off the steering wheel to look and stare hard at some dirt track turn-offs that passed us by, I still didn’t mind. I really enjoyed the peace and quiet. As much as people said that my sister was the silent type while I was the talker of the two, I still hated answering questions.

  All of a sudden, Herman pulled into an old, dirt track lane that seemed to satisfy his fidgeting. It was hidden from the main road by some thick towering bushes. I was beginning to feel a little worried as I didn’t think we’d be stopping again until we’d reached the next town, the one that he said he was heading. My sister was still staring obliviously out of her window, even when Herman switched off the engine and turned fully around to face us in this new, secluded spot. She still didn’t move or react one little bit.

  “Do you mind at all if I take off my trousers now?” Herman said with a big warm smile, like it was the most casual and natural thing to do in the whole wide world. Neither my sister nor I said a word, although my sister did finally scrape her eyes away from the window to give me the most surprised then queerest of looks. And the way she was seated and turned towards me now was completely out of Herman’s view.

  Herman then proceeded to pull down both his trousers and his underpants to reveal a very bushy jungle of pubic hair along with an almost completely hidden little penis in amongst it. He calmly sat back against his driver’s side door, while looking at me head on, before gently starting to stroke and play with his little thing, which strangely began to stiffen and grow larger as it gradually emerged from the horrific amount of bushy pubic hair it was hidden within.

  Neither my sister nor I had ever seen a male penis before, not on a man or a boy. We’d seen them in books and then for real on some dogs and cats a couple of times, but never on any real live person, especially our own father, who always seemed to keep himself well and truly covered at all times while around us. Even while out on our camping adventures, he always made a great effort to wash on his own or go out deep into the woods to do his private business.

  To be honest, I didn’t expect a male penis to look so bloody hairy and disgusting. It was like a dark, thick hedge with a strange little sausage thing poking out from the middle. I thought it looked absolutely ghastly and unnatural and completely uncivilised.

  The more Herman touched himself though, the bigger and stiffer his strange little sausage seemed to get. It looked so horrible that it actually made me want to throw up again.

  My sister had to cover her mouth in order to stop herself from laughing hysterically. When she started to shake her head with disbelief, I suggested to her with my eyes that we should at least leave the car and be on our way and leave Herman to his strange and inappropriate carnal acts. But she gently shook her head while unleashing the most wicked and devious of grins.

  “Do not be vorried… or alarmed little girls,” Herman said in between gasps of pleasure as if sensing my nervousness and unrest. “I vill not touch you. It is not my style. Just knowing you are zare is more zan enough for me. I svear it… And I svear to drop you off, vherever you vish to go… just as soon as I… ejaculate.”

  I had no idea what this ejaculate thing was that Herman seemed to be referring too, but I had no desire to stick around and find out. My sister saw the panic in my eyes and calmly put her hand upon mine. She gently stroked my cheek with her other hand and with a mischievous look in her eyes she gently whispered into my ear that everything was going to be fine.

  My sister then did something most unexpected.

  For the first time in the young man’s presence, she finally spoke. She asked him if she could climb into the front seat with him and take a closer look at what he was actually doing there. Herman looked a little stunned by her genuine gesture of curiosity. I was absolutely mortified that she’d suggested such a disgusting thing. And not surprisingly, he agreed.

  Without fear or hesitation, my sister leapt into the front passenger seat and proceeded to take a closer, eager inspection at Herman as he continued to rub and stroke his little bushy, frozen sausage right in front of us, but at a much faster pace.

  He looked so serious and in such deep concentration that it almost made me laugh too if I wasn’t feeling so downright anxious and nauseous. My sister couldn’t help herself though and began giggling and laughing at some of the more intense jerking and shuddering motions Herman was making.

  “Please. Do no laugh,” Herman cried, sounding a little frustrated and annoyed. “You are not supposed to laugh. I must concentrate here, very much… please.”

  But his intense, serious reaction, of course, made my sister laugh even harder. She asked what the hell he was doing and why he was making such funny and ridiculous noises and bizarre facial expressions. Like he was about to go into some fit or spasm.

  “Fuck you, little Scottish whore!” Herman cried in anger as his face, then his whole body, began contorting and turning shades of purple and red that I never knew were possible on a person. “I am trying... to ejaculate... here.”

  My sister shook her head again, but more in pity than in any kind of disgust or disbelief. She giggled, then asked Herman if he was sure he should be doing such a strange and unruly act in front of two little girls. Herman ignored her and began moaning out even louder, but he didn’t seem to be in any kind of pain that I could make out.

  My sister asked what would happen if she tried something. Again, Herman ignored her words and started rubbing and beating his little sausage even harder. I thought my sister was going to ask something even more disgusting, like could she touch it too, but what happened next turned out to be something even more shocking and horrific than I could ever imagine.

  My sister casually pulled out her hunting knife, still tucked firmly into the belt of her jeans, and while Herman’s eyes were closed tightly shut, looking and acting like he was in some kind of wild ecstasy, my sister sliced her knife right through the root of his stiff penis, cutting it completely off from the rest of his body like it were just a piece of hard butter.

 
The blood sprayed everywhere. I’d never seen so much blood spraying out from one single wound before in my entire life, even from the poor woman the other night. This must be an all-time record.

  For the first few seconds, Herman didn’t even realise what the hell had happened to him. Even when his sausage disappeared down the side of the seat and blood sprayed up and over him, he still had his eyes firmly shut while his hand continued to make that frantic up and down jerking motion with nothing but blood and thin air between his fingers.

  For the second time in forty-eight hours I threw up, and all over the back seat of the car. My sister just cried out with a playful disgust.

  Herman, coming to his senses, gradually began to realise that something was seriously wrong as the realisation began to sink in. He began howling in shock at first, like a badly injured dog left for dead on the side of the road, before roaring and screaming out to the high heavens.

  When he ran out of breath, he glanced in horror at my sister who, by that point, was covering her mouth again, not in shock or horror or disgust like me, but desperately trying to hold in her cruel, belly laughter at the man’s insane reaction and discomfort to her act of sick violence.

  Then he just fainted, I think.

  Or perhaps died with shock, right there in front of us. Either way, we didn’t hang around much longer to find out. Within seconds we were both clambering out of the car via the front passenger seat, my sister laughing her sick and twisted little head off while I puked my guts out again, this time while on the move and running through the long grass and thick bushes of the nearby fields. Running and moving as fast and as far away as we possibly could from Herman and his blood-soaked car.

  Chapter 14

  This time we stayed well clear of the roads and made our way through the never-ending array of fields, hills, valleys, and forests. And just as the sun had gradually made its way down towards its cloudy horizon bed, did we finally emerge over one last hill to be confronted by both the cold, dark grey sea and the wonderful sight of a small, sparkly fishing town that we pretty much guessed was Stornoway.