Chris ordered a large strawberry milkshake for himself too, along with two extra-large Scottish breakfasts. I’d never seen anyone eat so much before in one sitting in my entire life. He was a freak of nature for sure but in a good, fun and decent way.
My sister, as usual, sat in complete and utter silence, glancing out through the window, occupying herself with her own thoughts until her breakfast came. She sipped excruciatingly slowly on her milkshake before finally eating her breakfast even more painfully sluggish and slow as Chris and I chatted amongst ourselves. Well, Chris did most of the talking and I listened.
I liked the way Chris didn’t push us for answers for the most obvious of questions, like, where were our parents and why the hell were two little girls sneaking onto a boat and hiding in his truck in the middle of the night. You know, the usual adult, twenty question, interrogation. But the more I got to know him, the more I realised that he was just a big kind-hearted kid at his core, and so much more of a kid than my sister or I had ever been or could ever hope to be. And I really liked that about him.
I asked him why his head was so big, round, and bald for someone who seemed to be so young—early forties or, perhaps, late thirties. He chuckled hard at that. In fact, he chuckled after answering almost every single question I asked him. He said that he’d inherited the bald trait from his father and grandfather before him, who’d both gone completely bald at an early age, and then the large than life women of his family always had a habit of squeezing out big, giant-like babies. So, he had his mother’s genes to thank for his huge, bulky frame.
He commented too that his older brother was even larger than him, which I found extremely hard to believe until he took out an old picture from his wallet and showed me. I nearly spat out my milkshake when I saw the two of them standing side by side.
He told us some funny stories, about growing up in the Romanian Mountains, that kind of reminded me of my sister and I growing up here in the Scottish mountains. There was one story: while both he and his brother were out camping in the Carpathian Mountains—of their own free will and not forced to do so by their crazy lunatic father—when they were attacked in the middle of the night by a huge brown bear.
They were both in their late teens at the time, so had almost fully grown into their monstrous sized bodies, although the bear that attacked them was almost twice Chris’s size once it was fully up onto its two hind legs.
But with the two of them working together, they were able to wrestle and kill the bear with their own bare hands, which I thought was mightily impressive. I even imagined my sister and I achieving the same feat if we ever came across any bears here in Scotland. Although, we’d probably use sticks and knives and any kind of sharp weapons that we could get our hands on rather than our own bare hands.
In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that my sister could take care of the bear all on her own with her outdoor wits and skills, even without my assistance.
Chris told us about his driving job which took him all over the UK, and that driving around Scotland was by far his favourite thing to do in the whole wide world. He was in love with our stunning, scenic Highlands, our never-ending array of lochs, endless rocky cliffs, and white, sandy-beach coastlines.
He said he had the most perfect job he could ever wish for: doing something he loved, driving around such a beautiful country, and getting paid bloody damn well for it too. He said he couldn’t be happier and I believed him.
I asked him where he lived in Scotland. He said down in the Central Belt, just outside a little old town called Falkirk. He said he had a Scottish wife, along with a son and daughter a few years younger than us. Sometimes he took his kids with him on his long-haul driving jobs but only during the school holidays and if they really wanted to come along, which he said they usually always did.
He said he never forced them to do anything that they didn’t feel like doing. He enjoyed giving his children and wife the freedom and opportunity to make their own choices and decisions in life. Something that I couldn’t relate to, not even a little. But I never told Chris that.
Oddly, he didn’t ask us about our painted faces either for quite some time. Well, not until we’d finished our food. The waiter who’d brought our meals over gave us a queer look, which my sister took full advantage of by giving the waiter a sinister grin and a foul hard stare of her own. She must’ve looked like a right little psychopath. If only he knew the half of it.
When Chris did mention our painted faces, it was more in a positive statement about our appearances than a baited question.
“I like your painted faces,” he said with another chuckle. “You remind me of two little, wild warriors. Like those ancient and fearsome Scottish Picts, you read about in Scottish history books, you know. The ones who used to paint their faces all white and blue. Do you think I’d suit my big, round face painted like yours?” he said with another jolly chortle.
I told him, yeah, absolutely, he probably would. He said that he would sometimes let his own daughter draw and paint his face too, whenever she was feeling creative and wanted to experiment her creativity upon him. He said he even let her paint his face with a big Scottish flag one time. She made him promise not to wash it off either until he came back from his next delivery trip. Which, despite the odd looks from his clients and other drivers on the road, he was true to his word. He chuckled again and so did I. I didn’t think he was lying in the slightest. I could really believe that he would do such a thing for his daughter—a show of such affection from a father was something I could only dream about.
It made my heart swell with such pride yet burst with so much sorrow at the exact same time. Proud that there were some fathers out there like Chris, who could love their daughters unconditionally and, in a way that they were supposed to be loved and cherished. Sorrow, because it was sadly too late for me in this life to experience anything like that from my own father.
My sister gave me an evil glare when she caught me smiling and giggling too much at Chris’s stories. I ignored her for the time being and asked Chris where he was heading off to next. He said he was taking a big delivery up to John O’ Groats, the furthest, most northern point in the whole of the Scottish mainland, then picking up another delivery on the way back down in Inverness before taking that delivery further down to Edinburgh.
My heart skipped a beat. John O’ Groats wasn’t that far away from Thurso. I hadn’t brought the book or the letter from the cellar, but I knew the address off by heart. I wondered and fantasised a little about making a pitstop there, tracking down the address and finding out exactly who this Margaret and Eilidh Brown really were. But then the more I thought about it the crazier and more daunting that little side adventure task seemed to be.
I felt pretty sure that my sister would be dead set against it. She loved dad more than anything, perhaps even more than she loved me, I sometimes felt. And going through with something like that gave me a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yes, nothing might ever come from it and the people staying at the address now might not have even heard of these people or have a damn clue what I was talking about.
But on the flip side. What if they did know something? What if they had known the female skeleton hidden away in dad’s cellar and had been spending all these years waiting on some kind of word, any word, of her known whereabouts?
I had a bad gut feeling that my dad could get into a lot of trouble for this if anyone ever found out about what was down in his cellar. Or the things he did to his daughters? How he abused and treated them? Even something so trivia like keeping them away from school. I could destroy our family and get rid of dad for good. I felt I really could. But then how would my sister feel about it? How would she react? How would she feel about me if I did betray father and her trust like that? And with such ease too, I really believed I could. Could she ever forgive me? Would she?
My stomach was in twists and turns. I didn’t know what to do. So, I decided to m
ake a cover story instead. And if my sister went along with it, then I’d make a decision nearer the time. Once we were close to Thurso. I’m make a decision about what my next plan of action should be.
So, I told Chris that I’d always wanted to see Edinburgh instead—that I’d heard so many good things about the gorgeous, gothic Old Town and seen so many great pictures too. He said it was just as beautiful in person as it was in pictures. Hell, even more so once you’d greedily seen it and taken it all in with your own two eyes. He sounded like my dad for a moment, while trying to explain the beauty of the place, but I didn’t mind. Beautiful things could also be gazed upon in the same light by black hearts as well as good ones.
As Chris paid the bill for breakfast, he asked if he could drop us off anywhere in particular. I asked him where we were, which hadn’t occurred to me to ask until that very moment? He said we were in a little place called Lairg. Kind of halfway between Inverness and John O’ Groats in the far north eastern part of Scotland.
I told him where we stayed. Well, the nearest town to us that he might’ve heard of… Arisaig, which was still a good bit away from our coastal home. Chris knew it and said he could drop us off there, no problem, but it would have to be on his run back down from John O’ groats and Inverness. If we weren’t in a big rush then he could have us there by the late afternoon of the following day. I said I’d have to discuss it with my sister first since she had the final say in pretty much everything that we did, which he completely understood.
My sister and I nipped into the women’s toilets to discuss this new side trek in our hectic adventure. There was nobody else inside the large toilets as far as we could tell, but we locked ourselves into one of the vacant cubicles anyway. I was still feeling anxious about being so close to Thurso and I told my sister that I’d like for us to travel the rest of the way with Chris.
I liked him and trusted him and really wanted to get to know him more. I felt safe around him and knew in my bones that he wouldn’t try anything dirty or insane or anything inappropriate or out of the ordinary, unlike the last weirdo, Herman.
For a brief moment, I wondered if he was all right or even still alive. Had he made it to some kind of hospital to get the desperate aid and medical attention he severely needed for the brutal wound my sister had inflicted upon him? How would he ever explain such a thing to the authorities? Would the doctors be able to sow his little penis back on and make it better and have it work normally again?
Secretly, I hoped not. I hated to think such a bad thing about someone, but it was the fact that he might try something like that again on another group of unsuspecting, innocent victims. But then again, perhaps he’d just simply bled to death inside that rental car. His body all hard, cold, contorted and soulless by now, still lying there undiscovered in the secluded layby. I guess I’d never know, and that actually seemed okay too.
My mind switched back to Chris and the debating conversation I was having about him with my stubborn sister. She said that she didn’t care for him at all. That he reminded her of some big, dumb, childlike retard, held back a few years from school. But she did feel in her bones that he was utterly harmless and seemed to be the best, easiest, and quickest option right then of getting back home in such a short space of time.
And if that was going to be tomorrow afternoon then it would still be in record time. I think a week, our father had said, was his best time going on foot. And that’s what my sister really cared about more than anything: to make our own good, decent father proud, to impress the man who treated his daughters like they were nothing more than animals to be trained and discarded, at his own will.
My sister finally gave in and agreed to let us travel with Chris. I was thrilled to bits and could have kissed her cheeks numerous times, but I knew how much she hated anyone touching her, even me, her own sister, unless she was the one who initiated the contact first.
She said that she didn’t mind sitting in the back while I kept Chris company up front. If he tried anything, anything shady at all, then she would be the first one to slash his throat, gut out his flabby belly, and feed his insides to the nearest farm animals. I completely took her at her word for that.
Chris’s big, round, smiling face was already waiting for us back at the truck. He’d bought a huge goody bag of supplies from crisps and sweets to juices and fizzy drinks for us to snack upon. I stayed in the big seats upfront while my sister skulked off into the darkness of the back.
Chris eventually asked for my name, but I said I couldn’t tell him just yet. I’d known him for only a few hours and he was still practically a stranger to us, which he agreed, and completely understood. I also told him that once I was sure in the pit of my stomach that I could trust him, without any shadow of a doubt, then I would tell him my name, no problem.
I heard my sister snort and fake-gag at our words in the darkness of the cabin behind me. But I didn’t care. When I finally glanced back at her, she was already lying down upon the cabin bed again with her back turned fully towards me.
As we continued to drive along the quiet highland roads, I asked Chris why he hadn’t called us out when he’d first seen us sneaking into his truck or at least called the authorities on the ferry to come and take us away.
“It wasn’t my business,” he swiftly replied, more serious in his tone than I’d heard him thus far. “You both obviously knew what you were doing. You hadn’t been forced to get inside my truck. I thought maybe at first you were trying to run away from someone or something, but you didn’t look scared and you definitely didn’t seem to be under any kind of duress. In fact, you both seemed to be in total and complete control of your actions. Unless, do you wish for me to take you to a police station or a hospital or something?”
That was when my sister spoke out in Chris’s presence for the very first time. In fact, she yelled her answer out that we were to be taken to no hospitals and no police stations. We were just on our way home, that was all, and that our parents knew exactly where we were and what we were up to.
“There you have it then,” Chris responded with another of his big, beaming cheesy smiles, as wide as the river that was now stalking alongside us in the foreground. “Who am I to interfere with that, huh? You may look like kids at first glance, but inside you most bloody well are not.”
A long silence lingered in the air. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just nice and normal and welcoming. Then Chris spoke again, wearing another of his big cheesy grins.
“You guys didn’t have anything to do with all those rampaging sheep back at the harbour last night, did you?”
I desperately tried not to smile. I desperately tried to keep a strict, straight face for as long as I possibly could. But the way Chris was still grinning mischievously at me, I just couldn’t help but smile right back at him.
“I knew it!” he roared, followed by a belly laugh roar that was so loud I thought both his stomach and his face were going to explode at the exact same time. “You girls are so kickass crazy.”
Chris continued to drive further North while talking about himself and his life and all of his wonderful adventures in Scotland and back home in Romania. How his brother was a retired professional boxer back in his homeland. How they had both saved up and bought their own few acres of land in the countryside there, along the same mountain heartland where they had grown up as children. And how, when his kids were all fully grown and old enough to leave home, he would retire from his life in Scotland and return to Romania with his wife to start building a new home on that same land.
I was just happy to sit there and listen and take it all in, all of his crazy, wonderful tales and dreams, which always seemed to end on a happy, positive note. My sister was right; a big, happy, fun-loving dumb kid was the best way to describe the jolly giant of a man.
Chapter 16
An hour before sunset, Chris pulled over onto the banks of a stunning and picturesque loch. He said we could take half an hour there to stretch our legs, eat some snac
ks, and maybe have a paddle in the water too before taking on the last hour of the journey to John O’ Groats. Once he’d picked up his new load, he’d buy us a nice dinner at a fast food restaurant before grabbing a few hours kip in the truck; we could sleep longer if we liked, as Chris would then drive through the remainder of the night back down to Inverness and then to our home.
I was still undecided about what I wanted to do when we passed through Thurso. Could I just jump out and run off all by myself? Should I mention something to Chris about visiting an old family friend in the area? And how exactly was I going to break the little side trek to my sister? Who hadn’t mentioned anything about the events in the cellar or the stabbing of the woman down in Glasgow, since they’d actually happened? To her they were normal occurrences now. Just another valuable experience learned about dad to add to her arsenal of admiration for him.
So, I decided not to think about it anymore until the last possible moment. Even then, I kind of knew that the easiest thing to do might just to do nothing at all. To perhaps let it go for the time being. Do nothing. Say nothing. It was a big leap to take. And if it turned out to be nothing and if dad ever found out about what I’d done, then the consequences would be severe. Absolutely severe and horrendous for me. Was I brave enough to take that risk yet?
It was a calm, clear, and humid evening beside the quiet and peaceful loch, even though the sun was low in the sky and on its final descent into the horizon’s abyss, leaving nothing but a beautiful array of pink, red, and fiery orange trailing in its wake.
My grumpy sister was the last of us to leave the shelter of the parked truck, but the first of us to rush down to the pebbled, rocky shores of the loch, barging past Chris and I like we weren’t even there, on her way into the calm and cold waters without any fear or hesitation.
My Sister And I: A dark, violent, gripping and twisted tale of horrifying terror in the Scottish Highlands. Page 13