by Ryan Casey
“Hmm,” I said.
Sarah turned around and looked right at me. “What was that?”
“What?”
“That noise right then. It sounded like you weren’t really listening. A ‘hmm’.”
“I’m just tired.”
“What happened today?”
When Sarah said those words, my stomach tensed and my body froze.
I closed my eyes, which were burning. “Nothing happened.”
“I know you’ve done things. I don’t want to know what. But I know… I know you’re not the man you used to be. And if that’s what you have to do in order to keep this place safe, then I guess it’s what you have to do. But don’t forget who you are, Alex. Don’t fall over the edge. Please.”
I swallowed a sickly lump in my throat and prayed for sleep to catch up with me. But somehow I didn’t think I’d be experiencing it soon.
Then I heard the creak and the footsteps.
My eyes opened. I lifted myself off the pillow. “What was that?”
Sarah sighed. “That was our son.”
I frowned. “What?” I started climbing out of bed. “But he should be sleeping—”
“He’s going to sit outside the front door, where you like to stand at sunset. He’s going to stare up at the stars for a while. Then he’s going to go back to his room a lot calmer and fall asleep.”
I shook my head. “How do you know this?”
“Because he does it every night, Alex.”
I immediately felt guilty for not knowing the habits of my son. But as I listened to him walking down the corridor, part of me wanted to go out there, to sit with him, to tell him he was okay, that he was safe.
“Just let him sit with the stars,” Sarah said. “We all have our ways of making ourselves feel better. Right?”
I stood by the door, so tempted to go out there, to get Bobby back inside, back in his room.
Then I sighed and I turned around and returned to bed.
Sarah leaned over towards me. She looked at me, beautiful brown hair dangling onto my chest.
“You should try letting people off the hook more often,” she said, before kissing me. “It suits you.”
I kissed her back and I got a flash of the warmth I’d felt on my hand just earlier today.
The sound of the gargling.
The feel of the struggling.
And then it was gone, and Sarah was on her side, her back to me.
I wanted to put my hand around her. I wanted to hold tightly onto her. Because she was my stars at night. She was what made me feel better.
But instead, I watched her as her breathing got deeper, as her exhalations got louder.
“I love you,” I said.
And then I leaned over and blew the candle out as fear tickled at my stomach—the same fear that I did all I could to quash in Bobby.
I didn’t sleep immediately.
But when I did, I slept to stormy dreams of stars and doorways and windows and…
Chapter Four
Jon wasn’t sure how much further he could walk before collapsing with exhaustion.
But he knew he was going to have to try. Because if he didn’t… he knew what he might well be tempted to do.
It was dark, the middle of the night, always the worst time. The weather was cool. Not as cool as winter of course, which made a pleasant change. And before long, summer would be here to further take that edge off things. But it still wasn’t exactly ideal walking conditions, especially when you were exhausted and just wanted to get back to camp.
Jon looked around at the mass of trees. They were the only things he could make out, as well as the stars above. He had no idea whether he was on the right track, to be honest. He’d got lost trying to make his way home a long while back. But he knew he had to make his way through these woods. They all did, if they wanted to stand any chance of getting home, and of surviving.
It’s just that time bomb was ticking on survival. And if it exploded… Jon didn’t dare even think about what it might mean.
He listened to the footsteps of his companions as they crunched against the stick-covered ground. Underfoot, he could feel twigs himself, but mostly the blisters running up his ankles. Sometimes they made him want to collapse to the ground and give up. But instead, he could only do one thing—bite his lip, hold his breath, suck it up.
The air was ripe with the smell of the sweat of his people. And that sparked something strange inside him. He started salivating. He felt guilty for it right away, because he knew what it meant. He knew what he was thinking back to, being reminded of.
But they didn’t talk about that. None of them talked about that, ever.
“So are we gonna just walk aimlessly for God knows how long or are we actually gonna figure out a plan of action here?”
Jon stopped as soon as he heard Michael’s voice. He didn’t like Michael. Never had. Always undermining his standing as leader of this group. Always questioning every decision. Sometimes, he wondered why he’d let Michael stay with their group at all. The world would certainly be a better place if he just let him die like the disobedient little dog he was.
But he couldn’t make any rash decisions right now that could threaten to turn the rest of the group on him. He had to be authoritative. Diplomatic.
It was a tough balance to strike.
But he’d strike it.
He turned around. Walked over to Michael. “We keep walking. We’ll be home soon.”
“Home soon?” Michael said, walking closer to Jon. There was a slither of disbelief in his voice. “Jon, listen to yourself. I respect you. Hell, I even like you. But we’re walking nowhere right now. We’ve been going round in circles, probably. And you expect us to just believe we’re heading home? That you know exactly where we’re going?”
“I’m asking you to have faith.”
“I’ll have faith when you show me some proof that we’re on the right track here. When you can do that, I’m all behind you.”
Silence followed. Jon could sense the eyes of the rest of the group staring at him, the wind blowing heavy gusts against the trees. He wanted to give them what Michael was requesting. He wanted to be able to provide solid, convincing answers.
But in the end he couldn’t.
He just couldn’t.
He looked down at the ground and a memory flashed into his mind. A memory of what happened the last time they’d been out on a supply mission only to find themselves caught up in trouble. They got captured by some rival group for attempting to steal from them. There were nine of them. And for a long time, as they spent their days holed up in a cell, it looked like they weren’t going to make it.
They were being left to starve. Only being kept alive by water.
And then Ronald died. Jon was the first to realise it. He saw him clutch his chest, poor old thing, and then collapse to his knees.
And when it happened, Jon felt guilty right away. Because he wasn’t a bad man. But the thought he’d had… the thought he’d had was bad.
The first thing he’d thought?
Whether human flesh was safe to eat raw.
That’s how starving he was.
He shook his head, eager to push those awful thoughts and memories from his mind. He couldn’t think that way. He’d done what he’d had to do. He’d done what anyone would do in order to survive.
It hadn’t been easy. God knows it hadn’t been easy.
But it had been necessary.
He looked up at Michael, right into his eyes as they glistened in the moonlight.
“You’re just going to have to trust me,” he said. “Because it’s when we stop trusting each other that things fall apart. You know that just as well as I do.”
He put a hand on Michael’s shoulder.
Then he turned around and carried on walking.
Part of him expected not to hear any footsteps walking after him. And maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe that would give him a good reason to kill one
of them, to solve the growing hunger in his stomach, to quench his desire to eat and eat and—
Footsteps.
They were following him.
His people were following him.
The desire inside him disappeared, right at that instant.
Or at least it hid away.
For now.
They walked further. Past more trees. Over more land. He saw the sky getting a lighter shade of blue above, gradually. It’d be daylight in a matter of hours. He wanted to be home by then. Their camp, it was a new place. They had people waiting there for them. And they would’ve been back a lot sooner if it weren’t for the trouble they’d run into on the road, which not only lost them the supplies they’d gathered, but the maps they’d had with them too.
Maybe this was what it was like to be banished. Because Jon had done his fair share of banishing. Much of which he felt guilty for. Especially Brian. Hell, he’d been half-hoping to bump into Brian again on the road, give him another chance. He liked him. Considered him family. He’d made a mistake where Brian was concerned. He hoped he’d get a chance to put things right someday.
As for being banished… maybe it wasn’t such an easy way out after all.
He was about to put his hands on his knees, collapse with exhaustion, give it all up, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned. It was Adam.
“Look,” he said.
Jon frowned. “What is it?”
Adam pointed ahead. “Just look.”
Jon lifted his head and looked where Adam was pointing.
It took him a few seconds to see it at first.
But when he saw it, his body was re-energised.
There was a farm up ahead.
A farm, with animals.
And someone was sat outside the door, staring up into the stars.
A kid.
“What do we do?” Adam asked.
Jon swallowed a lump in his dry throat and he smiled. “Looks like we’ve found our shelter for the night.”
Chapter Five
I saw the window above me and I felt a sense of dread fill my body.
I didn’t know where I was. Trapped somewhere, that’s all I knew. It was dark, so dark, darker than I’d ever experienced. The air was so cold that I could feel it frosting as I exhaled. I tried to move my hands, but with no luck. Tried my legs, the same outcome.
All I could do was stare up at this window and wonder where all my dread about it was coming from.
I knew there was something bad about it.
I felt like the stars coming through the window were like eyes, burning down onto me, watching my every move.
And no matter how much I tried to breathe, I felt like I was drowning, my lungs being crushed under the weight of something.
A knowledge.
A fear.
I saw something, then.
Something emerging right above the window.
A hand.
A bloodied hand.
And I knew what that hand was. I knew who it belonged to.
That was the hard thing to process.
The hard thing to take.
The—
“Dad!”
When I heard the voice I woke up right away.
I shot upright. I was covered in sweat. The room was dark, but not as dark as the one in my dreams.
I’d heard my son’s shout and it had sounded so real. It’d cut right through the dream, so loud that it had awoken me.
And as I sat there on the bed, my wife beside me, I found myself reaching for my face, trying to understand the dream I’d just had.
That was when I heard it again.
“Dad!”
The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end.
My entire body froze.
I’d heard that voice. No doubt about it.
And there was no denying who it was.
“Bobby,” I said.
I threw myself out of bed and over towards the bedroom door. Just before I left, I grabbed the Becker BK2 blade from the side of my bedroom door, then made my way out into the hallway that led directly to the front door.
I thought about that place that Sarah told me about. The place where Bobby sometimes went at night to stare at the stars. And all kinds of fears filled my body. I’d felt fear when Sarah first told me we should just allow him to sit outside. I knew I shouldn’t have let him do that. I should’ve used my better judgement. It wasn’t safe. We might have the illusion of safety, living where we did, but it wasn’t truly safe. Nowhere was. Not anymore.
I was about to walk down the hallway towards the door when I saw Peter was already well on his way.
“Heard him a few times,” Peter said. “It doesn’t sound good.”
He lifted a hand as I approached. Put it on my shoulder. And he looked right into my eyes.
“You sure you don’t want me to check it out?”
I frowned. “Check what out?”
He didn’t finish this time. Just let the silence hang. And I knew why it was. He thought something bad had happened to Bobby. He feared the worst.
I couldn’t let that be the truth.
I pushed past Peter, made my way to the door. I reached for the handle. Lowered it, slowly, not sure if I was prepared for whatever I was about to find, but knowing damn well that I had to be.
When I opened the door, heart racing, what I saw wasn’t quite what I’d expected.
Bobby was still here. He was standing by the door. He seemed… okay. Totally okay.
Except he was looking out at the front of the farm.
Looking at the people standing opposite.
I walked to his side and pushed him back, out of the way. Then I studied all these people, one by one.
There were seven of them. All men by the looks of things.
The man in the middle was stood a little further towards us than the rest. He had a smile on his face. Long, dark hair. Big bushy beard. Looked well wrapped up. I could just about see the shirt he was wearing underneath though, a little logo of a squirrel eating a nut, which struck me as curious. But underneath that bushy beard, I figured he wasn’t as ripped as his thick facial hair made out.
He looked at me and his smile only widened further. “We’re so damned lucky we ran into you guys. So goddamned lucky. You know that?”
I kept silent. Watched this man. I wanted to deal with him right away. Sort him out. Finish him.
I didn’t want to know his backstory.
I just wanted him to go away.
“My name’s Jon. These are my people. We’ve been travelling a long time. Went out on a supply mission that went sour. Been trying to get back home for a long time now. We… we’re hungry, mate. Really hungry. And we’re not asking much. Just a little food. I mean, if you’re offering hospitality for the night then that’s amazing but… I realise these things aren’t easy sometimes. We aren’t too far from our place, we don’t think. So yeah. I understand.”
I listened to Jon’s words and I wanted to believe he was genuine. I wanted to believe he was sincere. His story, it wasn’t all that hard to believe.
But the memory of what other people were capable of.
The threat that other people could pose. The complications they introduced.
I didn’t want to take that chance.
“There’s no room here for you. And there’s no food either. I’m sorry.”
Perhaps it was the way I said it. Maybe I could’ve made my words sound a little less insincere. But I could tell from the shift in Jon’s demeanour that he didn’t like what I’d said. And he wasn’t going to back down without a fight.
“Really?” he said, looking around at his people for support. “I mean there’s a perfectly decent barn you’ve got there. And you lot look well fed. So—”
“Keep walking,” I said. “There’s no room here for you.”
“Alex…” Suzy said. She didn’t continue.
Jon smiled and let out a nervous laugh. H
e walked closer towards the steps, and towards me.
I wasn’t willing to let him think he had the upper ground here, so I walked towards him too. Stopped before he could be level with me.
I looked into his eyes. He looked back at me.
“I’m asking you to show some generosity,” he said.
My heart pounded. The voice in my head told me to trust him, but I knew better than to listen to that voice now. “And I’m sorry. I appreciate your struggles. But you’re going to have to keep walking.”
Silence followed. And in that silence I wondered what was going to fill it. Was it going to be conflict? Stand-off? I didn’t want it to come to that, as I gripped onto the blade. But it would if it had to.
And then something happened. Jon raised his hands. He backed off, dramatically, smile still on his face. “That’s fine. That’s okay. Come on boys. Let’s go.”
They started to walk away. And it felt like it was all happening too easily.
And then Jon stopped.
“Oh. I should mention. The body I found. The one with the slit throat. He was one of our people. Brian, he was called.”
He smiled back at me and at that moment, I realised something. This went beyond asking for somewhere to stay. This sounded like… blackmail.
“Did you do that?” he asked.
I looked at Peter. Then I looked at Bobby. And even though I didn’t want to accept I’d done that in front of my son, I knew I had to do something.
“If you don’t walk away, you might find out.”
Jon smiled then. This time, a much more natural smile, lit up by the moonlight. He looked like he was relieved. Relieved that he had the truth. And I wasn’t sure how that made me feel.
He cleared his throat. “Well. Just wondered. He was a good man. Made a mistake banishing him. Shame what happened to him. Real shame.” He let the silence hang, just for a few seconds. “Come on boys. Doesn’t look like we’re welcome here.”
He looked back up at me.
“I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure. But it hasn’t. Good luck in the future.”
I stood and watched them walk away.
I waited. Waited until they’d gone into the darkness. Waited until they were totally out of sight.