‘Lucy put down the knife.’
Lucy looked at the knife in her hand. Surprise filtered across her face. Her fingers went slack and the knife fell onto the kitchen floor, stabbing the lino then falling on its side.
‘Lucy, go upstairs and leave us alone. I thought we’d put this attitude behind, I thought we’d turned a corner so we could all work together to get through this. Clearly, I was wrong. Now get out of my sight before I do something you’ll regret.’ He made no emphasis on the word regret. He did not speak it unnaturally as part of the sentence syntax nor did he alter his tone throughout. He said it coolly and with direct promise. He glared at his daughter. She got the message.
‘I . . .’ she stalled, looking down at the knife at her feet. She now fully grasped what she’d come close to doing.
‘Go,’ again, coolly, efficient even. ‘I don’t want to see or hear you.’
Lucy huffed once, flaring her nostrils like a mardy piglet, then stomped out. Dylan picked up the knife and placed it on the counter top then moved down to his wife, who he now noticed was holding her arm.
‘She burnt me with the water.’
Dylan looked at the red raw scold on his wife’s arm.
‘Christ! She did this?’
Kirsty nodded.
Dylan grabbed a fresh Jay cloth from the drawer and dipped it in one of the remaining pans of water on the counter top, and then he applied it to Kirsty’s arm. Naturally, she winced. He crouched down next to her, so they were both sitting in the thin puddle of water that lay like a glistening skin on the kitchen lino.
‘What happened?’ He asked.
‘I came down stairs and she was boiling the water like you asked. She asked “What were you two up to in the loft?” So I told her, I said we needed to make love. Then she screamed at me and threw the pan at me. Luckily, it didn’t quite have time to boil, but I jumped out of the way, knocking over the pans we had on the top. I’m sorry Dyl.’
‘You had no choice, don’t worry about it.’
‘All we have is the bottled stuff.’
‘We’ve still got plenty; you’ve only knocked over a few pans. The bath’s still full and if it rains again we can fill up the pans.’
A puffing noise came to his ears, he turned and looked over to the hob. The flaming blue ring that Lucy had turned on was now choking the last remnants of gas from the pipes. The flame hissed and puffed once more before petering out. Dylan walked over and turned the knob. He knew the gas wouldn’t come on again, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Not today, not the way his luck was going.
‘What are we going to do with her?’ Kirsty looked into his eyes, she was shaking.
Dylan sighed, ‘I don’t know, maybe feed her to them things outside, it’s clear she’s the one they want.’
‘You can’t be serious?’ Kirsty said aghast.
Dylan ignored the question; instead, he leant down and held his hand out. ‘C’mon, let’s sit on the sofa. It’ll be comfier.’
Kirsty nodded meekly and took his hand with her good hand. Dylan pulled her out of the puddle and to her feet. Leading her to the living room, he sat her down.
‘I’ll get you a drink and some tablets.’
Dylan returned to the kitchen, poured a half a glass of water and popped out two Co-codamals. They still had plenty left from when he jarred his back last year. They were still in date, not that it would matter anyway. His wife was in pain, he would’ve given a shot of heroin if it took away the sting from that horrific burn his daughter had caused. Back in the living room, he gave them to his wife.
‘Knock these back, they’ll take the edge off, then I’ll make you some breakfast.’
‘Cheers, Dyl.’ Kirsty did as she was told, dropping the tablets into her mouth, then sipped at the water. Dylan sat down next to her.
The curtains were open, the crowd outside staring in like glaring visitors at a zoo.
We’re animals, Dylan thought, nothing but trapped rats to these still monsters.
Pieces of Lennon’s head and brain remained stuck to the front window where the rain hadn’t quite washed the remnants away. Flies gathered around the morsels, their tongues probing the grisly mess. It had become part of the scenery now, Dylan didn’t want to dwell on it, but he had no choice.
The rest of the day sloped on in silence. Lucy upstairs, her parents below, embraced, longing for a way out away from this madness that surrounded them. Trying not to move in order to conserve energy, they hugged long into the afternoon. Sometimes they heard Lucy crying above them. Her only sympathisers were the Starers outside, who gazed upon her like relentless followers of a charismatic and enchanting deity.
They talked about Lucy a little, deciding that something had to be done in order for them to survive as long as possible without tearing each other’s throats out.
Dylan didn’t feel sorry for his daughter. He’d brought her up by the best of his parental abilities, both Kirsty and he had. But sometimes you just couldn’t negotiate or reason with her. There didn’t seem much point in helping her along if this was the way she was going to behave all the time.
Dylan did however feel sorry for the folks outside. Clearly, they had no mind on the matter, they didn’t decide one day, as a group to come and stand outside his house. Other forces were at work here, a conspiracy against his family. These poor souls were lost, now mindless puppets, controlled by a force much higher than the human mind can comprehend.
Tiredness took over soon and the afternoon dragged on without the Keene’s consciousness bearing down on them, for they slept embraced in each other’s arms, the Starers staring in, the world turning around them all. Clouds mutated into new woolly forms, sunlight warming everything under her bright watchful eye. The world carried on as normal as it could, not much changed.
Until the fires started.
The Hot Promise
The fires had continued in the pit for some time. She watched as smoke billowed up like sleeping dragons’ breath from the crater that had been exploded, dug and gouged in the centre of the playing field. She couldn’t see the source of the heat or smoke as the sides were too steep to see the bottom. But Lucy watched on through her father’s binoculars on top of the roof, intrigued and scared at the same time. She considered informing her parents of the latest development, but decided against it. She didn’t want to face them right now and besides, if they were worried about it, they’d come and get her.
The pit had grown in size since yesterday. One side had partly caved in, bringing down one of the homes whose garden backed onto the playing field. Now the diggers diligently carried bricks and timbers as well as rock and soil from the expanse of the pit.
The guilt of what Lucy had done to her mother; the burn, bore down on her, marking her face with a concerned frown that cut thin red lines into her forehead. She wanted to apologise, but didn’t know how to start, shame had made her hide herself away for the day. She couldn’t face her parents, they just didn’t see that she lived here as well. Confusion raged within her. She wanted to say sorry, but at the same time, she was still mad at what they did. Fucking right underneath her nose! She didn’t need that. Didn’t they think that she’d hear them?
She’d overreacted, that was all. She’d calmed down, had time to reflect. Soon she’d go downstairs say sorry and hug them both. Hopefully that would be enough and things would be right again. It wasn’t like they could ground her, was it?
Her stomach churned with waves of hunger, but she couldn’t face eating a thing, for she was more entranced by what was happening in front of her.
Perched upon the ridge of the roof, basking in the delight of the sun’s glow, Lucy watched through the lenses of the binoculars; several pillars of smoke rose up from the belly of the pit, rising and interweaving into a single, fuming black band. She was sure that several times, she had heard broken screams; short, agonising bursts that sounded human, yet betrayed everything she had heard before.
Even up high, she could sme
ll the crowd. A collection of human vapours assaulted her senses, but she soon became accustomed to it. The still atmosphere held the foul ether in the air before her. She longed for even the slightest of zephyrs to carry the noxious fumes far away, but the hotness of the day offered no deals or bargains.
As night fell, she carried on watching the flow of diggers as they tramped down the sides of the pit, then they plodded back up with armfuls of rock, soil and brick. Some now had hands missing. Beating bare fingers into rock and soil would soon do that to an unprotected human hand, numbed to pain and the constant chafe of aggressive rocks. Harsh friction against the derma would soon tear away the thin veneer that makes us human and not just a hunk of articulate, thinking and bleeding meat.
Lucy watched as they went down and came back up like dutiful worker ants.
What she didn’t notice however was that less came up than went down.
She thought about Daryl Teever, the boy she’d being caught with in the cupboard. He’d never shown any interest in her before, nor she him. But that day at school, she felt a burning itch within herself that just had to be scratched there and then. The most she knew about the finer mechanics of sex was what she’d seen on TV, and things her friends had confessed. She’d never really seen a boy’s thing before. Her father’s peeking from behind a towel when she walked into the bathroom by mistake didn’t count.
The urge had been an uncontrollable rush of vibrant emotion; Daryl Teever happened to be nearby and merely followed her lead. He was just a teenage boy; why would he say no. The rest had been on her. It was something that just needed to be done. She needed to be done. Even as she was taking off her school clothes during afternoon break, her thoughts never swayed from what she was doing or who she was with. Just a wanton urge that overtook her at that moment in time, regardless of the fact, she had English with the gorgeous Mr Brady last thing. One minute she was walking down the corridor to her lesson, next thing she realised, she was in the stationery cupboard door opening and the strangely hilarious, open mouth look on Mr Moor’s face with his eyes focused on the position of her hand on Daryl’s crotch.
Daryl had started to cry as Mr Moor led him away, while she pulled her clothes on in a hurry. Her tears, her shame, the letter; the rest was dire history.
The sun was close to finishing its warming of the day when her father’s head appeared from the attic hole. Earnest and solemn, he said quietly, ‘Lucy, would you come down stairs please, your mother wants to talk to you.’
‘I’m not interested,’ she answered from her perch of guilt, not taking her gaze from off the mesmerizing pit.
‘All the same, we’d still like you to come down stairs.’
‘They’ve started a fire,’ Lucy replied, steering the conversation away from her.
‘We’ve seen, we noticed when we woke up.’
‘What do you think they’re doing down there?’
‘I dread to think.’
‘We’re watching them now. They’re watching us watch them. He’s watching us watch them watch us.’
‘Who?’
Lucy pulled the binoculars away from her eyes and looked down upon her father, ‘the man from my dream, I’m guessing.’
A chill shiver flowed down her father’s spine, she visibly saw it happen. He rolled his shoulders to escape the spasm.
‘I’ll come down now.’ She managed a weak smile then climbed down off the roof and through the attic, following her father downstairs to where her already tearful mother waited.
‘Your mother and I have been talking,’ her father announced as she entered the living room. He stood; her mother remained on the sofa, arms wrapped around herself, her face raw with tears.
‘Yeah, and . . . ?’
Her mother let go a bout of tears.
‘We were thinking about letting them have you.’
‘What, who?’
‘The Starers. Clearly it’s you that they want.’
‘Them! You’re gonna shove me outside?’
‘It seems a possibility.’ The words didn’t seem to be coming from her father’s mouth. It was more like he was mouthing the words and somebody else was talking in time with the movement of his lips. But she was wrong. He was saying these things.
‘You’re mad, the two of you.’
‘It may be our only option.’
‘You’re being selfish. Why would you even think that? You’re my parents; you’re supposed to protect me!’ Lucy pleaded.
‘Just think about it. We don’t even know what they want with you.’
‘I’m guessing it’s something to do with that mighty hole they’ve dug out for me. They want to bury me. Maybe I’m a sacrifice.’
A moment of silence reigned whilst everybody contemplated what to say. Kirsty spoke.
‘It’s going to be all three of us that go. Or just you, Lucy.’
‘You can’t make me go.’
‘We won’t force you to go. It’ll have to be a sacrifice that you make,’ Dylan offered.
‘Are you being serious?’
‘Are you sorry?’ Kirsty asked her daughter. Tears had formed in both of their eyes now, quivering puddles that threatened to spill diamond drips down their red cheeks.
‘Of course I’m sorry Mum! I’m sorry I lose my temper sometimes. I see this red mist and then before I know it, I’ve done something stupid. I can’t help it! I need help, I’ll see a doctor, just please don’t give me up!’
Lucy tottered towards her mother and fell into her arms. They squeezed each other tight, all now crying. Dylan joined his wife and daughter, wrapping his arms around both of their necks.
‘Lucy?’ Dylan said.
‘Yeah,’ she sniffled.
‘We’re joking.’
‘What?’
‘We wouldn’t really send you out there,’ Kirsty confirmed, wiping a tear away with her sleeve.
‘You were joking?’
Her parents both nodded.
‘I should call you bastards.’
‘No. No you shouldn’t,’ her mother warned in a playful manner as she stroked her hair.
‘We just wanted you to realise that you can’t carry on the way you have. You needed a lesson,’ Dylan reasoned. ‘These deranged outbursts will split this family apart if you keep going on the way you have. You’ve got to be grown up about things. We’ve got to work as a team.’
‘I know Dad.’
‘You need to promise to calm down and not be so . . . damned explosive all the time. There’s no need!’
‘I know.’
‘Will you make an effort to change?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
They all looked into each other’s eyes. A team. Dylan felt a new sense of bonding between them. His heart glowed with joy, filling up and pouring out into a smile.
‘Good, if we’re going to get through this at all, we’re going to get through this together.’
Kirsty and Lucy nodded, sinking heads into one another, bumping noggins, the trio, the family.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes, sweetie?’
‘I want to go outside. Let’s try it. I want to see what they’ll do.’
‘But . . . ’
‘I’m tired of waiting. Let’s do or die. Let’s see what happens.’
‘You’re very brave, darling. I was joking, but it’s your choice.’
‘I don’t care. I just want to know what they want.’
‘Kirsty?’ Dylan asked.
‘We’ll be right behind you sweetie.’
‘You won’t push me out?’ Lucy asked.
‘We’ll be holding your hand.’
‘Okay, we do it now. While I’m all psyched up.’
They moved as one to the hallway. Dylan removed the screws that fixed the door shut and secure. He popped them all on top of the little set of drawers beside the front door that they used as a dumping ground for keys, old receipts and junk mail. He opened the door with a creak and the stench of the filthy congregation hit them akin
to a swarm of vile insects. Kirsty gagged with disgust, Dylan narrowed his eyes to the stinging vapours. Lucy however, steadied herself, bravely readying herself to face the audience that had gathered to meet her. She felt like she should smile as she greeted her ‘fans’.
Another odour wafted on the breeze, a rotten egg smell that crinkled noses and tested their gag reflexes.
The sea of faces stared straight into her, unfaltering, devoid of any sense of emotion except apathy. She didn’t dare take her eyes off them, even though her father held the edge of the door, ready to slam it shut at any sign of sudden movement. She still expected them to surge forward and rip the skin from her thin bones.
They didn’t.
They just stared.
And stared.
And stared.
The silence reigned for a disquieting minute, each tribe staring each other out, but the only blinks came from the Keenes’ eyes. The more they listened the more their ears became attuned to an underlying sound. Dylan recognised it as the Rice Krispy crackle from his dream and immediately remembered where he’d heard it before. Whilst delivering flat screen monitors to a power station, he’d passed under some thick, high voltage cables; the sound that the crowd emitted and the electrical fizz from the pylons were unmistakably the same.
Lucy searched behind for her parents’ hands; they gripped her fingers, holding on tight. Lucy swallowed before addressing the crowd, as she thought it was the next natural step.
‘What do you want?’
The electric silence hummed, the Keenes’ quiet, concerned breaths the only sound to dislodge the stillness.
‘Well?’ she said, a little louder, more confident this time, ‘tell me or go home. We’re sick and tired of you, if you’re not going to tell us, we’re going to start getting angry.’
The blood-stained little girl blinked once as if she’d been chosen to receive the single message. Her marigold dressing gown (which now as they looked closer, they could see had patterns of waddling ducks and ducklings on it) was now camouflaged with a crust of Lennon’s dark blood. They could just make out Lennon’s trainers. The standing crowd covered the rest of him with trampling feet.
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