by R. A. Casey
We’ve argued before. But I’ve never seen him get truly mad. Nothing we can’t solve with a nice dinner and some passionate sex, anyway.
But this. This is different. And it upsets me.
“How dare you,” he says. And he sounds more upset than annoyed. And that hurts me so, so much. “I stand by you. I stand by you when you’re up in the night, claiming you’re hearing people in the house. I stand by you when you’re tearing up the newspaper sheets claiming Charlie’s staring back at you. And I stand by you when you disappear to fucking who-knows-where instead of the doctors’?”
“I—I met Cindy—”
“Cindy? Cindy, your best friend who I’ve never fucking met myself?”
“She’s… I…”
“I don’t know you, Sarah,” he shouts.
And it hurts me. It cuts me. Really, really deeply.
Because he’s right.
He doesn’t know me.
The one thing he’s wanted from me is the exact same thing I’ve wanted to hide from him.
And it’s only now I begin to see it’s tearing us apart.
“This move was supposed to be a fresh start,” he says, looking away from me now. Hands clenching the steering wheel. Tears in his eyes.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You know exactly what I mean by that, Sarah. You’ve been getting distant for the last few months. Even before we moved in together.”
“That’s… that’s not true.”
“Don’t give me that. Don’t—don’t give me that bullshit. You know, I wasn’t even going to tell you about the rat last night. I didn’t want to fucking freak you out. But you know what? Fuck it.”
I frown. First, confused. Because all this talk of me drifting from him for months. It isn’t true. Is it?
But then tension wells in my throat about the second thing he said.
“The—the rat?”
“Yeah,” he says. “The rat. The one I found on the kitchen floor when you went to the front door.”
It hits me like a punch to the gut.
The way he was acting so weird last night.
Like he’d seen a ghost.
“What?”
He looks at me with tired, bloodshot eyes, and he sighs. “I found a rat. Only it wasn’t in a good way. Bleeding. Right in the corner of the kitchen. Bleeding out of its mouth and its ears. Tail gnawed down. Had to put the poor thing out of its misery. That’s why I was a while last night. Didn’t want to upset you. And I guess that’s why I’m even more tetchy today. It shook me up. Can’t get it out of my head. But… but the weirdest thing was its eyes.”
I hear his words, and I already know what he’s going to say, and it fills me with complete and utter dread.
“Its eyes,” he says. Sounding a little bothered again. A little panicked. Like this was what had been bothering him all along, right since last night. “They… they were gone. Gouged away. Like—like someone had done it to the poor thing.”
I hear Freddie’s words.
I see myself in those maize fields again.
A teenage girl again.
And I know, for a fact, once again, that this is not in my head now.
Someone is after me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I am thirteen years old, and I am staring down at the bloodied, mutilated body of a rat.
It spins around on the spot. Chases its tail. And I remember feeling sad for it. Because it’s in such a horrible state. Its fur is all tufted, all matted. Blood trickles from its ears.
But its eyes.
Its eyes are what stick with me the most.
Or rather the place where its eyes should be.
Those blank spaces, swollen and red.
I am in the middle of the maize fields, and someone has their hand to my back.
He has his hand to my back.
“It’s suffering, Sarah,” he says. “Look at it. The longer you leave it suffering like that, the longer you deny it the chance for peace.”
I look down at it, and I feel sad. Because I don’t want it to suffer. I don’t want it to feel pain. I want it to be okay. Because it looks like it’s in pain. Like it’s in so much pain.
But at the same time, I don’t want to hurt it even more.
I don’t want to harm it.
He pats the back of my hand, and I notice the shovel between my fingers.
“Go on,” he says. Father, we call him, but he isn’t my dad. He smells fresh. Like flowers. Like he always does. So fresh. So comforting. So… nice. “One strike, over the head. That’s all it’ll take. One strike, then it’s done.”
I sense them looking at me, the rest of them. The ones who think I’m weak. The ones who tease me for being a scaredy-cat. I sense them snickering at me as they stand there, dressed all in white in the searing heat of the mid-afternoon sun.
I am hot. Sweaty. So, so sweaty.
And I just want to walk away from here. I just want to go home.
But I can’t.
I can’t, because this is home.
I hear her laughing, and it makes me feel even worse about the whole thing.
I look up. See her standing there, blonde and beautiful, and I know I’m the ugly one of the two of us. The ugly duckling. The sister who is never quite good enough.
I know she’s going to go far. I know Mum and Dad expect the best of her. Dad says she reminds him more and more of Mum every day.
And Father, well… he’s got high, high hopes for her.
But they never say that stuff to me.
They say I’m sweet and that I’m cute and that I’ve got a heart of gold, but never anything like that.
Mostly bad things, actually.
Like I’m trouble.
I look down again. Stare at the rat. Scurrying around, hobbling from side to side. I see now that chunks of its fur are missing. Big patches, painful skin underneath.
And I see now, as I stand with this shovel in my hand, that it stares up at me with those blank, empty eyes.
It gazes up at me like it knows.
Like it knows what is coming.
Like it is begging.
“Go on,” Father says.
And then I hear the rest of them standing around me. See them in the middle of these high maize fields. Smiles on their faces. Totally unfazed.
I see them chanting.
See them staring at me.
“Go on, go on, go on…”
My heart races.
I just want to go home.
I just want this to be over.
I look down at the rat. Hold my shovel, my hand getting shakier, sweatier.
I look down into its empty eyes, and I swear I hear it squeaking.
Begging.
But is it begging me to put it out of its misery?
Or is it begging me to let it go?
I stand there, and I lift the shovel.
The chants getting louder.
The air getting warmer. Thicker.
Everything around me spinning.
My only focus, this rat.
“Go on, go on, go on…”
I feel his hand on my back. Heavy. Warm. Reassuring.
And then I hear him. Just once more.
“Now, Sarah. Now.”
I close my tearful eyes.
Listen to the chanting.
Feel the heat against my skin.
And then I lower the shovel.
The chants slow down.
My heart stops pounding.
Everything seems to stand still, just for a moment.
I open my eyes.
Drop the shovel to the ground.
“I can’t,” I say. “I—I can’t.”
He moves his hand from my back.
I sense the disappointment in the air.
The feeling inside of being a disappointment. A failure. Again.
And I look down at that rat staring back up at me, and—
It all happens so fast.
She
steps over.
She lifts her foot.
And she stomps it down on the rat.
I hear its neck crack.
I hear it let out one last little, high-pitched squeal.
And then I look up and see her standing over it.
Her.
Of course, it’s her.
Who else?
She stands over the rat. Blood splattered over her white dress.
Smile on her face.
So beautiful. So perfect.
Like out of a photograph.
She looks at me as everyone around her laughs and smiles.
And all I feel at that moment is shame.
“Good girl,” he says, walking over to her. Putting his hand on her shoulder. “Good, good girl.”
I see her, and I see all this praise and adoration she’s getting.
I see the cracked skull and the bloody brains and guts of the rat on the ground.
I see all these things.
And then I see Charlie and hear the crying and see the maize fields and the water and the blood and—
“Sarah?”
I open my eyes.
I am in the passenger seat of the van.
I am back home. Sitting on the driveway.
Freddie is beside me.
He looks at me. A little pale. Not smiling. But calmer now, clearly.
“Are you okay? You zoned out for a good while there.”
I look back into his eyes, and then I nod.
“I’m okay,” I say.
“Are you sure?”
I want to tell him no. I am not okay.
But I fear telling him the truth is an impossibility at this stage.
Especially when he is fully convinced I am insane now.
I want to tell him the relevance of the rat.
I want to tell him why it is so important.
What it means.
I want to tell him everything.
I can feel it bursting out of my system.
Trying to crawl its way free.
“I… I haven’t been entirely… entirely honest with…”
And then I stop.
Because I see a man walking down the street.
Walking away from us. Off in the distance.
Looking over his shoulder.
And I go cold inside.
Because this man is the man who gave me the parcel.
The note.
I KNOW EVERYTHING
This man is Calvin.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Sarah? Are you okay?”
“It’s him,” I say.
“What? It’s who?”
“Calvin. The—the man who gave me the parcel. The man from Fairhawk Avenue. It’s him. That’s him. Right there. He’s right there, Freddie. See?”
I am sitting in the passenger seat of Freddie’s van, and I cannot move.
All I can do is sit there.
All I can do is stare.
Because the man walking away from us both.
Walking off into the sunny day.
He may be some way away, but it’s him.
There’s absolutely no doubt about it.
It’s Calvin.
The man who gave me the parcel.
The man who gave me the note.
And the man who went on to disappear without a trace.
“Drive,” I say.
“Sarah? What the hell are you talking about?”
“You think I’m insane. All this time, you’ve thought I was insane. But I’m not. And I can prove it. Drive. Drive right this second, and I’ll prove to you it’s him. I’ll prove to you it’s Calvin. It’s the man.”
Freddie stares at me. Hands on the wheel. A startled expression to his face.
“Freddie!”
“Sarah, no.”
“What?”
Freddie shakes his head. “I’m putting an end to all this, right here, right now.”
“But—”
“Out of the van, Sarah. And into the house.”
He holds out his hand.
Up the street, I see Calvin getting further and further away.
“Sarah?”
I look around at Freddie, and I sense he already knows exactly what I’m going to do.
“Come on,” he says. “No more of this. We need to get you inside. And you need to rest. You need to focus on getting better. On…”
I don’t hear what else he says.
Because before he can say a thing, I’m out of the van and onto the road.
“Sarah!”
I run down the street. I haven’t run in years. Not like this. Not out of fear. Not out of terror.
I can think of a time I did.
But I don’t want to think about that.
“Sarah!” Freddie calls.
But I’m not looking back.
I have to get to Calvin.
I have to stop him before he gets away.
I need answers.
I run off the road, onto the pavement. It’s warm, and I am sweating. But there is something strangely freeing, running like this. Something that reminds me of my childhood. Of my youth.
Of the maize fields.
Of the smell of freshly cut grass.
Of the laughter and the joy and the—
I see the rat explode before my eyes, and my memories turn sour.
I run onto the pavement. A little girl on a white-tired bike appears out of nowhere, and we almost slam into each other.
“What the hell?” her dad shouts.
But I am focused, and I don’t give a shit. Frankly, I don’t give a shit what anyone on this street thinks of me right now.
The man who came to my door and started all this is here.
The man who was there at the fete that day three years ago is here.
He’s right up the street, right ahead of me.
And I am not stopping until I reach him.
“Calvin!” I shout.
The man keeps walking. Doesn’t look back. Not once.
I grit my teeth. Clench my jaw. I want to throw myself at this man. I want to wrestle him to the ground and claw his eyes out. I have barely slept in days. I have had my boyfriend suddenly think I’m some nut job. My neighbours think I’m crazy. And my doctor… hell, my doctor knows things about me that I am ashamed to admit.
But all that aside—everything aside—none of it matters.
All that matters is Calvin.
“Wait,” I shout.
Calvin looks around. Glances at me. Frowns. And then he turns around and keeps walking. A little quicker now. Like he’s trying to get away from me. Trying to escape me.
Not so fast, you fucking prick. You’re not going anywhere.
I run further. My feet are sore. I have a nasty stitch already. Somewhere behind, I can hear a car engine, and I’m convinced Freddie is following me.
But again, I don’t care.
I am done caring what people think at this point.
This is the man who taunted me about my past.
And this is the man who I suspect must know something about Charlie.
The man who was there, three years ago.
Who made small talk with me the day Charlie disappeared.
The man who has followed me.
Terrorised me.
He’s right here. And I have a chance to prove my sanity, once and for all.
I am metres away from him when he stops and turns around.
I try to slow down in time, but I fail. I slip. Fall to the ground. Graze my palms on the warm tarmac. A small crowd of people are gathered in the park, all of them staring over at the commotion.
I look up at Calvin as he stands there. Rubbing his arms.
His wide eyes.
His slicked back brown hair.
And that onion breath.
That unmistakable onion breath.
“Are—are you okay, miss?”
I push myself to my feet, and I wrap my hands around the collar of his shirt.
Calvin’s eyes widen. “What—what are you doing?”
“You came to my door,” I shout. Tears streaming down my face. My voice cracking, breaking up. “You—you gave me a parcel without an address. You said you’d met my boyfriend. You said all these things. But they weren’t true, were they? They weren’t true.”
I hear people running over. People trying to stop me.
I see my hands around his throat now.
The fear in his eyes.
And it takes me back.
That maize field.
The dirt in my hands.
“No. Please. Don’t—”
“Who the fuck are you, Calvin?” I scream. “And what do you know about Charlie? Because you were there that day. I know you were there that—”
“I’m—I’m Cameron,” he shouts.
He yanks himself away from me. Rubs his neck. I can see specks of blood from my grazed palms on the collar of his white polo shirt.
He plants his hands on his knees. “I’m Cameron. Not Calvin. I came to service the boiler at yours a few weeks ago. A favour for your boyfriend here.”
I shake my head. I don’t understand.
I look around and see Freddie climbing out of the van. He is blushing. People around staring. Walking up. Closing in on the commotion.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s not true. You said you were called—you said you were called Calvin.”
“I said I was called Cameron,” he says. Angry now. The adrenaline clearly buzzing. “I came. Serviced the boiler. And I left. I don’t know who the hell you think I am, lady. But you need your head checking, love. ASAP.”
I can’t speak.
I can barely breathe.
All I can do is stand and watch as a small group of people gather around this man who calls himself Cameron, all of them keeping their distance from me.
“Sarah.” It’s Freddie. He grabs my hand. Squeezes it. Tight. “Come on. It’s time to go home now.”
I want to argue as I watch the man I know to be Calvin walk away.
I want to fight.
Because he gave me the parcel.
And he was in my memory of the school field that day.