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

by Sean-Paul Thomas

  From the top of the hill we could clearly see the ferry port and the fishing harbour way down below, so we waited until nightfall before making our descent towards it. I suppose our plan was to find an opportunity to sneak our way back onboard one of the big ferries that were about to return to the mainland, or even to just try and sneak into the back of one of the cars or many lorries that were queuing up to board.

  We stuck close, moving through the shadows of the old town as we made our way closer towards the main port. We hid behind stationary cars, bins, and lorries, well out of sight of any nosy and annoying people walking by, until it was safe to move on once more.

  When there were too many people around, we took a detour side-trek down some dark and old little alleyways just off the main street, trailing along their grim and murky old stone walls and filthy pillars until we emerged back into the light again like little vampires still afraid of the fading sunlight.

  It was so much easier to move freely around after sundown and not be discovered and questioned by strangers, even though we were still painfully slow in approaching our target destination. But then, in one careless move, we ended up giving two old men a bloody good fright of their lives along the way.

  They were standing around, smoking and sipping a pint of beer outside one of the murky, hidden harbour pub-caverns that looked more like an abandoned old shack at first glance. We weren’t paying the slightest bit of attention to what was in front of us when we walked right out in front of the old timers from down another dark alleyway from the opposite side of the building.

  We were both too busy glancing back the way we’d came after stumbling across a drunken tramp urinating against one of the back-alley walls. When he turned to leer at us, he didn’t say a word, just half smiled and nodded before turning his attention back to the dribbling act of nature’s call. We were still a bit worried that he might try and follow us when we bumped, smack-bang, right into the two, grumpy old drinkers.

  When they saw our ghastly ghost faces, they jumped and shrieked, worse than any scared little kids I knew, before dropping their cigarettes and half-full pints of beer to the cobbled stone floor, smashing them to smithereens. We took flight immediately and were long gone from their sights by the time they’d gathered their courage and wits to shout curses and dog’s abuse in our direction.

  When we reached the rear side of the dock, we snuck behind a large block of seemingly unused trailers. It wasn’t too far away from where a long and narrow row of trucks and cars were still queuing up to board one of the huge docked ferries in the port.

  After a few minutes of waiting around and working out our next move, we finally saw an opportunity that had been sitting right in front of our very eyes. We’d heard some sheep bleating out from inside the huge trailer we’d been hiding behind. We didn’t think too much about their cries at first, and it wasn’t until my sister turned to gaze at me with another of her sly winks and mischievous grins—like she had everything under her full control - that we swiftly realised our next plan of action.

  My sister pulled me by the arm and led me swiftly towards the gated end of the trailer. Lucky for us, the gate wasn’t sealed by any padlocks, keys, or chains. It was just bolted shut. That was it. It took a fair bit of force to loosen the three bolts, which were all stiff and rusty as hell, but we managed to wiggle them free before pushing the huge gate all the way open.

  Inside, the sheep ran nervously from us as fast as their little legs could carry them and huddled up against the far side of the trailer pen. So, my sister grabbed me by the hand again and made me run with her, at full pelt, right into the heart of the foul-stinking trailer, to growl, howl and roar at the sheep like we were a pair of mangy, starving wolves, scaring them half to death before fleeing outside for their lives.

  It worked like a charm and, within seconds, most of the sheep had all charged out of the open trailer and into the main dockyard. My sister and I cautiously followed them out, but instead of following the sheep into the open port space, we ran and hid behind the next trailer and watched with bated breath and mischievous humour in our eyes as the whole entire dockyard came to a chaotic standstill.

  Every single worker on the harbour front, along with most of the security guards, were now sprinting and clambering around after the escaped sheep and trying their best to contain them. It was going to be a long night for most of the workers there for sure. Even better, the crazy event started a chain reaction of car drivers and truck drivers all exiting their vehicles, some of them to help, while others took pictures and had a good chuckle to themselves and each other as the sheep continued to run amok.

  With every man, woman, and child’s attention in that ferry port firmly focused upon the rampaging sheep, my sister and I had no problem whatsoever in sneaking aboard the nearby ferry. Which, in all fairness, could have been sailing to anywhere in the world that night, for all we knew. All we could do was slip aboard and ride our luck with the journey.

  It was turning into quite the exciting adventure though, no matter where we ended up. Keeping low and crouching cautiously in-between cars, vans and lorries, we watched as another large but jolly-looking truck driver exited his vehicle and made his way to the back of the ferry so he, too, could have a quick sneaky peek outside at what all the fuss was about.

  It looked a great big truck the one this large, jolly-looking man was driving. The largest of all the trucks we could see on board the ferry by a country mile. My sister wanted to have a quick little glimpse inside the front cabin, just to see if it would be a decent place for us to hide. It looked spacious enough from the outside, but she wanted to see if there might be any good hiding spots within before we searched elsewhere.

  It was hard work to say the least, but we managed to climb up the steep-laddered, steel steps and into the huge front cabin compartment. At first glance it looked so cosy and warm inside and, to me, it felt absolutely thrilling to be so high up and off the ground, so imagine how it felt to actually sit up front and drive the bloody damn thing.

  There was a massive William Wallace mural curtain behind the main front seats too, acting like a blanket barrier between the front and back of the cabin. When my sister pulled the curtain to one side, well, you could have blown me away like a feather in the high winds. It was like a tiny studio flat back there.

  There was a chair, a table, a single bed that doubled as a couch, a small stove, kitchen worktop, a kettle, and a fridge—a well-stocked one at that, with all kinds of various processed foods that we were never allowed to snack upon back home in a million years. It all looked so amazing and not like the inside of a lorry at all. I could imagine myself living there for the rest of life, it felt so snug and cosy.

  My sister pointed down to underneath the makeshift couch and bed. There seemed to be plenty of room for the two of us to fit underneath. We both smiled and nodded. We’d found our own little, personal, warm, and cosy hiding place for the duration of our stay on board the ferry.

  An hour later and the ferry finally left the harbour. My sister and I were still hiding underneath the couch bed, while the big, jolly-looking truck driver was back sitting in the front seat of his truck. He was watching some comedy tv show or movie on a portable laptop and laughing so hard at almost every single word being uttered by the actors, that it made me want to giggle and laugh aloud with him, too, even though I had no idea what on earth he was watching.

  My sister wasn’t laughing though. She desperately needed to use the bathroom, so was pretty much cursing the large, jolly truck driver for every noise and breath he made, a constant reminder to her that he was still inside the truck and wouldn’t be going anywhere for quite some time.

  Another hour passed and the driver finally fell asleep. His laptop was still on but he was snoring like a constipated walrus. It was impossible for my sister to move past him in order to make her way outside and find a bathroom somewhere. So, while I kept an eye on him through the half-drawn curtains, my sister grabbed a hold of one
of his small pots from underneath the sink and worktop. She then placed the pot on the floor and proceeded to squat over it to do her business.

  When she’d finished, she picked up the pot and poured the contents down the little sink and drain, before placing the pot back where she’d found it—regretfully unwashed since the noise of the running water might wake the sleeping driver. The driver hadn’t moved or twitched in the slightest though, just the sound of his loud monotonous snoring continued to fill our ears.

  While I kept a further eye on him, my sister went for the fridge. Quiet as a mouse, she took out some ham and cheese and passed some to me too before eating a little for herself. She placed the cheese and ham back inside the fridge compartment and took out some chocolate yogurts next. We couldn’t find a spoon without making a decent amount of noise, so we used our fingers instead to scoop the chocolate goodness out of the plastic carton before shoving it into our mouths like we were babies. We kept the empty yogurt pots stashed well underneath the bed though and out of the driver’s line of sight.

  We must have fallen asleep a little while after because the next thing I knew I was rudely awakened by two, huge stomping feet moving around the cabin in front. It was the driver. He was fully awake and making himself a coffee and a sandwich by the look of things. I watched him open and close the fridge door a few times, taking things out then putting them back in. He didn’t seem to have noticed at all that some of his food stash was missing – perhaps a curse of having too much stuff in your fridge anyway.

  When he’d finished his food preparation, he laid down upon the couch bed right above us. Thank Christ it was a pretty sturdy bed. I expected him to at least squash us to the floor just a little, since he was such a big hulk of a man, and maybe even wake my sister in the process, but the mattress hardly budged an inch, which was a much-welcomed relief let me say.

  I listened avidly to the sound of the man munching on his sandwich and slurping away on his coffee. When he’d finished, he placed the cup and plate – a plate with still some sandwich left upon it, down on the carpeted floor right beside me. As soon as he started snoring, I quickly reached out and ate the rest of that sandwich too before falling into a deep and blissful sleep myself.

  When I awoke a few hours later, the truck was moving. I could feel the vibrations of the wheels on solid ground right beneath us. It was daylight outside. The truck driver’s William Wallace curtains were about three quarters drawn so I could just about see the tip of some rugged mountain terrain through the main front window, along with a lot of grey skies.

  I received the biggest fright of my young life when I swiftly realised that my sister wasn’t lying beside me anymore or anywhere that I could see for that matter. In fact, she didn’t seem to be inside the truck compartment at all. Where the hell was she?

  I couldn’t make out the driver, but I knew he was there driving away. His entire body was blocked off by the huge curtain. The back cabin where I was still hiding underneath the couch/bed was still fairly dark, with the only light coming in from the driver’s window beyond the curtains. So, I decided to take a huge risk and gently crawl out from underneath the bed.

  I didn’t need to be too quiet as the roar from the truck’s engine and road below blocked out most of the clumsy sounds I made.

  Once sitting upright in the middle of the cabin, I did a kind of slow, 360-degree pan around. Where the hell was that sister of mine? All kinds of crazy scenarios started swirling through my anxious mind. Had the driver somehow caught her and dragged her out of the cabin, handing her over to the authorities somewhere? She’d obviously hadn’t said a single word about me and so here I lay, all alone in the back of some strange giant man’s truck that could be on the road to any part of the British Isles.

  Or had the driver found my sister and brutally butchered her, before dumping her body into the middle of the sea? Or since we were clearly not on the ferry anymore, perhaps my sister had snuck out of the truck at some point to fetch something or to have a look around, only she didn’t manage to make her way back inside the truck again. Jesus Christ, Dad was gonna be pissed if we got separated or lost. My mind was in all kinds of paranoid twists and turns.

  My worries and prayers were swiftly answered and all at once too when I glanced over at the upside of the driver’s couch/bed. The same one we were both supposed to be hiding under. I felt a little shocked but not totally surprised to find my sister crashed out on top of it.

  I crawled over towards her and whispered in her ear for her to wake the hell up immediately. When that failed to rouse her from her deep slumber, I took it upon myself to shake her into consciousness, gently at first then more violently. Jesus, she could sleep for Scotland this girl!

  Her ghostly-white face paint was still mostly intact, if not a little smudged on her cheeks, so when she finally opened her eyes wide, she gave me such a startling fright, making me jump and almost fall back onto the floor off balance.

  When I regained my composure, I asked her if she was all right and what the bloody hell she was doing on the driver’s bed all exposed and out in the open. She said that she’d woken up in the early hours, disturbed from her sleep by the movement of the truck driving away from the ferry. And once the driver had turned off the cabin light and begun driving along the main roads, she’d decided that it was pretty much a safe bet to move up to the free, comfy bed above and get a few more hour’s kip.

  I told her that she was absolutely crazy. What if he’d caught her? But she just shrugged her shoulders and nodded down to the handle of her hunting knife that she happened to be lying upon and hidden in plain sight. I had to bite my tongue at her arrogance and stupidity.

  Again, we were both hungry. We didn’t want to risk opening the fridge since the light might catch the driver’s eye. There were crazy amounts of crisps stored in the bottom cupboard but, again, we thought the noise of the scrunchy bags and crunchy crisps might catch the driver’s attention. So, we munched on what was left of his loaf of bread instead.

  Once we’d filled our bellies, it was suddenly my turn to adhere to nature’s call. So, I did exactly what my sister had done earlier that night and peed inside the small pot. We then sat on the bed/couch together and watched the view of the scenic road out in front through the gap in the curtains.

  We tried our best to catch any glimpses of road signs so that we might find our bearings, but it was too awkward to get close enough to the curtains to focus on the outside without making ourselves known to the giant up front. After almost two solid hours of driving, he finally pulled the truck over into a secluded petrol garage and service station. My sister nudged me and told me to get ready to leave just as soon as the driver exited the truck and disappeared from our sight.

  The driver brought the truck to a halt right beside one of the big petrol pumps strictly to be used for lorries only. He switched off the engine. I waited behind the curtains with baited breath. My sister stood beside me, unemotional and unconcerned as she picked little tiny pieces of dirt and blood from underneath her fingernails.

  The driver was just about to exit the truck when he suddenly froze. After the most excruciating and intense pause, the truck driver called out into the back cabin, which sent the biggest of shivers right down the back of my spine.

  “I’m gonna grab some breakfast guys. A good and proper, nice well-cooked Scottish breakfast. Would you guys be interested in joining me or can I bring you something back instead? Will you guys even be here when I return?” the driver said, finishing with a wry chuckle.

  Both of us froze. Who the hell was he talking to? Was he talking to us? Surely not. Was there someone else inside the truck? Someone who we’d missed or who had climbed in while we’d both been sleeping?

  I was about to say something when my sister shushed me. I then watched in horror as she gripped her large hunting knife and pulled it out, just a little from her belt.

  “I know you’re hiding back there, girls,” the driver continued with another cheerf
ul chuckle. He had a funny accent that I couldn’t quite place, but much softer than the Austrian weirdo, Herman. “I saw you both sneak in, way back on the ferry, before we left Stornoway.”

  I glanced at my sister with wide, cautious eyes. Eyes like that of a deer trapped in full beaming headlights. She let out a deep sigh and took her finger away from my lips. I let out a deep breath too and, taking a hold of my sister’s hand, we both revealed ourselves from behind the curtain.

  Chapter 15

  The Jolly truck driver’s name was Chris. His bodily frame was huge and bulky, somewhere in between fat and muscle. Like a hulk wrestler. He was well over six and a half feet tall, with naturally tanned skin, a big, bald, shiny head, when he took of his baseball cap, and a larger-than-life beaming smile. He reminded me of that American wrestler one of my old friends from school had shown me a picture of once. The Rock, I think was his name. But Chris was a badly out-of-shape version of him. If Chris had a wrestling name, then it might have been something along the lines of ‘The Abnormal Potato.’

  Like I guessed, he wasn’t Scottish and had a strange accent, with a much lower tone of voice than you’d expect from someone of his sheer size and presence. His English was perfect, just a little bit funny to listen too. Like some bulky, freak of nature and hyperactive cartoon character with a high-pitched voice. He said he was from Romania originally, but had lived in Scotland for the past twenty odd years, first to work on building sites, then eventually as a truck driver once he’d saved up enough money to attain his HGV license.

  He told us this as we sat opposite him inside one of the dozen or so booths in the quiet, little, service station café where his truck was parked out front. He said we could order anything we liked on the menu. So, we did and ordered two, small Scottish breakfasts and two strawberry milkshakes. I knew that was twice in as many days that we’d ordered the milkshakes, but we honestly didn’t know when we’d ever get the chance to taste them again once we’d made it back home.