by Dan Thompson
“Hey, wait up,” Tristan called. He sidestepped the tables, jogging almost, but he looked totally uncoordinated. He stopped in front of Abbey, an enormous cheesy grin glaring right at her. “My name’s Tristan.”
“Erm, I think you already told me,” Abbey said, trying not to giggle like a little child.
“Oh, well. There’s no harm in saying it again. Is there?”
“I guess not,” Abbey stuttered, her voice elevating slightly, before feigning a smile. “I’m Abbey,” she mocked and continued towards the door.
For a few minutes, all three teenagers remained in silence, and Abbey felt somewhat uncomfortable. She had the impression that Tristan kept edging closer to say something, before losing his confidence at the last second, tucking his hands into his burgundy slacks. Ryan was unfazed by her presence, off on cloud nine somewhere, daydreaming of much better lands, or so Abbey presumed. He was hard to read and she couldn’t quite make out if that was his normal look, or in fact he was deep in thought.
Tristan obviously noticed her line of thought. Was she so transparent? “Don’t mind about Ryan. He’s carefree and quite animated. He can be a bit extreme at times, but he’s harmless.”
Abbey nodded in response, feigning that same smile again. She quickly realised how she would look and tried desperately hard to think of something to say. “Are you brothers?”
“He wishes,” Ryan exclaimed without turning to face them.
“Oh, no. We’re best buddies. Known each other for such a long time now.”
“How many years?”
“How long’s a piece of string?” Tristan mused.
Abbey suddenly felt herself become rubicund as she realised her senselessness. With the blue haze constant and unending, and no way of knowing how to interpret how much time had passed, whether it be minutes, days or even months, how would they know how long they’d been friends? Abbey was so used to her father clarifying length of time for her. A habit she would have to shake, although she wished now that she had asked how he managed to tell the time.
“Sorry,” she tittered, trying to shake the embarrassment. “I’ve been thinking of my gran a lot recently and she always had the knack of knowing how old I was. I’m sure she knew how to read time, but I never discovered her secret. My father could too.”
Was that too much information to give someone she’d only known for what, a few minutes? She rolled her eyes as she realised the irony of her own thought.
“Hey, that’s cool,” Tristan replied. “So, how old are you?”
“Seventeen. Or so my gran said.” She flicked her hair out of her face.
“I bet it’s nice knowing your age,” Tristan said, smiling at her as if in awe, as if she was lucky. Now her grandma had passed away, Abbey thought it was irrelevant. It’s not as if she knew how to accurately predict when her birthday was. She’d be seventeen forever, and she was just fine with that. Seventeen was a good number, a good age, she thought. Not too old to be considered an adult, but on the other hand, not too young to be treated like a child. Although that was also a redundant thought, as despite her gran passing, Abbey would still age, so she wouldn’t be seventeen forever after all.
Stefan loitered inside her mind once again. She may be seventeen, but he had stolen her innocence. Abbey cringed.
All this thinking was making her head throb more. She coughed and continued further down the darkened corridor. It had the smell of age, musty and malodourous as if something had died in there a long time ago. Despite being quite dim, Abbey could see the dust floating and hovering in unnatural directions; spectres of when the building was in use. Ryan had vanished; he obviously wasn’t going to be slowed down by her sluggishness.
“Not too far now, I promise,” Tristan said as he passed her, leading the way.
The corridor seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Whatever building this once was, it was enormous. Stefan’s grounds were tiddly in comparison, yet yesterday, his house - Abbey’s prison - seemed to loom over her and trap her within its greasy walls. They had passed a few doors, but their handles had been missing, shutting their wares away out of sight. As they rounded a sharp corner, Abbey stretched and tensed her eyes, not really taking in the sight before her. Was that a hole? In the floor?
“What is that?” she exclaimed, pointing to the shadow on the ground.
“The floor must have caved in some time, leaving this hole. Don’t worry, me and Ryan, we use wooden planks to cross. Look, Ryan’s already laid it, we just have to go steady. Probably best to go one at a time.”
A hole. An abyss more like.
“You can’t be serious?” Abbey gawped, looking down and behind her, worried that more of the floor could cave in any minute. She edged closer to look down. All she could see was black, as if the blue haze left the underground realm to fend for itself. Abbey imagined subterranean ogres frolicking and gambolling down there.
“What?” Tristan questioned. “It’s easy, you just hop onto the plank and steadily walk across. I’ve done it a million times. You won’t fall, the trick is to keep looking ahead, at the other side. It’s easier that way.”
“Thanks,” Abbey growled.
She eyed the plank, following it to the safety of the floor on the opposite side. What must the hole be, twenty feet? Maybe. What didn’t help was that the plank was placed on raised bricks, meaning she would have to step up first before crossing. Her nerves were alarming her, raising the signal to flee. Abbey had never had brilliant balance, she didn’t need it. Why would she need to learn to cross wooden planks?
“Why do you even need to go over there? Isn’t there another way?”
“Our room is over there. It’s where we keep our food. No one can reach it unless they discover the planks and cross. It means we don’t have to worry about anybody stealing it.”
Tristan put his hand gently upon Abbey’s back. She felt warm tingles rush up her spine. No one had ever touched her that delicately. Least of all Stefan. Abbey bit her tongue in annoyance of thinking of that monster again – she couldn’t get rid of him. Should she trust this young man, these two boys? What was their agenda? Perhaps he wanted to push her into the gaping mouth of the abyss, the darkness swallowing her whole. She backed up, horror clearly written on her face as Tristan abruptly raised both of his hands into the air.
“Whoa! I didn’t mean to freak you.” Tristan stood on the plank and turned to face her. “Look, I’ll go first, prove to you it’s safe. C’mon, you said you were hungry and we’ve got food.” He started to walk casually over the plank, but Abbey could swear she heard a ripping sound, as if the wooden plank was really made of rope, and with the boy’s weight bearing down on top of it, the ends were beginning to untether, threatening to collapse underneath him.
“Why are you helping me? Wouldn’t you rather keep the food for yourselves? Where did you even come from?”
Tristan sighed and turned to face her once more. He was stood directly in the middle of the bowing plank. “We live here,” he swung his arms out to gesture the abandoned building. “Me and Ryan, we’ve been here a while. We have enough food to get us by. We take it in turns to gather food. We look out for each other. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Abbey didn’t reply. He’d hadn’t really answered her questions.
“Look. Come across, don’t come across. It’s your choice. I just thought it would be nice to, you know, have someone else around. Life isn’t necessarily brimming with opportunity is it?” Tristan reached the other side as he finished saying his words. He opened his arms out in gesture.
God, am I really doing this? Abbey steadied herself as she stepped up onto the slat. Don’t look down, don’t look down, she told herself. Abbey raised her arms to her side, but she wasn’t sure why. Her brain had taken charge to automatically control her body whether she liked it or not, as if she was just a bystander on the highway that was Abbey. Perhaps the urge for food was too great to miss. She nearly stumbled as she took her first step forward.
> “This is supposed to be easy?” she yelled, wobbling from side to side. “Well, you made it look easy.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Tristan chuckled.
Dust flitted down off the edges and into the abyss, and it made her feel sick. The wooden plank had an almost springy feel to it, which also didn’t do her nerves any good, but after what seemed like an age, Abbey had reached the middle. It now felt firmer, steadier and despite its small incline, Abbey trotted quickly and jumped onto the other side, Tristan catching her as she landed. Her touchdown echoed along the corridor, unsettling her as the resonance struck her ears. Dust caught in her throat, but it took a moment to realise, she was holding Tristan in some sort of embrace, hugging him, holding onto him for safety.
Discomfiture and awkwardness settled in fast. She abruptly took a step back and looked down to the ground, the dust clinging to her nostrils.
Tristan shook his head and laughed. “Come on, Ryan will have some food ready for us. Don’t want to keep it waiting, it’ll get cold!”
When Abbey followed Tristan into what was evidently their living space, she stood agape, unsure what to make of it. It had to be the tidiest room she had come across in the building so far, but by saying that, she meant there was no rubble and waste on the ground. Instead, the room seemed to be segmented off into sections. An area for sleeping was littered with makeshift blankets, an area for washing was obvious too as she recognised a grey bowl full of water. Perhaps the most intriguing section was in the far corner, where small plants stood in ceramic pots and tubs; green fruits hanging still from their stalks. Even a vine-like climber was tied to hooks in the plastered wall. Abbey was speechless.
Tristan smiled at her, his face animated once again by his lively features. He ushered her over to the centre of the large room, where Ryan was crouched, stirring a large pot of bubbling water. In her amazement, Abbey had failed to notice the tiny fire that crackled underneath the pot. They certainly had a good operation going, and most importantly of all, they not only had food, and in abundance too, but they were also growing their own food.
She ventured over to the pot and warmed her hands over the inviting rising steam. Ryan appeared unnerved and uninterested by her presence.
“This is amazing,” she said in excitement, her words coming out a little too quickly.
“Yep.” Ryan’s reply was blunt and a bit harsh. Did he have a problem with her? Had she done something to offend him?
“I –” she started before Tristan interrupted her.
“This is what we call home,” he said, his arms out circling on the spot. “Great, isn’t it?”
“You can say that again. Who would ever have guessed that you have all this hidden in here?”
“That’s the point,” Ryan added.
“How have you both managed it?”
“Come, I’ll show you the plants,” Tristan called to her, already jogging over to the crops.
As Abbey neared them, the sweet smell of the fresh food made her mouth water. She had to stop herself from plucking one of the green berries. She brushed her hand over the leaves, their leathery exterior felt cool, yet smooth.
“Most people are only interested in eating the food, which is understandable,” Tristan said matter-of-factly “but somewhere along the way, they forgot that the seeds and pips they discard actually need planting. That’s how they grow.”
Abbey felt silly again. Of course that was how food grows. Why had she never thought to plant pips back at home? It was just routine for her father to travel to the market once a week and purchase the food from the sellers. She stood transfixed for a while, content with taking in the sights and smells of the produce. There were lemons, tomatoes, misshapen aubergines, and red grapes too that sprouted along the vine on the wall. She looked out the window directly behind the plants, but the blue haze was vaporous and fog-like, visibility extremely poor. It had stopped raining.
“What’s your secret?” she begged Tristan.
“Ah, well, that would be telling,” he teased, running his hands through his unruly hair. The gold specks sparkled in the reflection of the window like tiny fireflies seeking shelter from a miasma of smog.
“Food’s ready,” Ryan hollered.
Tristan raised his eyebrows and smiled, tilting his head back over towards Ryan. “Shall we?”
Abbey giggled and ran back to the pot. She crossed her legs snugly underneath her and inhaled the peppery aroma of the broth Ryan had concocted for them.
“It’s a good job we have an extra spoon,” Ryan said irksomely.
Abbey ignored him. At that moment in time, she was going to let his problem dissolve into the background. She was famished, the food all she was interested in.
They didn’t have any bowls to share the broth around, only the three dull and tired looking spoons that had certainly seen better days. Abbey was certain that Ryan had given her the most battered looking spoon, its head bent out of shape, but that was fine. If he wanted to play games, then for now at least, she was happy to let him think he was winning. Ryan had left the fire burning, its crackle adding extra warmth and cosiness to the atmosphere. He had placed the cooking pot on the floor and dipped his spoon into the watery mixture. Abbey took that cue to mean that she could begin too. She dug deep to restrain herself from repeatedly shovelling the spoon in, taking great dollops and devouring the whole lot. That wouldn’t be polite, although her stomach groaned and pleaded in defiance, continuingly trying to sway her resolve and give in. She quietly muttered to herself under her breath; gluttony wasn’t a good look on her.
Abbey cupped her hand underneath the spoon as she brought it up to her lips. The smells were fantastic, and the taste piquant and peppery, with just an ounce of bitterness, but that was OK. No matter how good or unpleasant it tasted, this would be the best meal she’d had in days. No, months. She took a small sip to begin with, before slurping the hot liquid completely. As she swallowed, it was a touch too hot, gently burning her throat, but as it went down, she savoured the feeling of her insides warming up, the heat surging through her body like a hot water bottle tingling against her skin.
Tristan was grinning, gratified with watching her eat instead of digging in himself. Ryan was too busy slurping himself to notice. Abbey felt a little weird; being observed as she ate was an odd sensation, as if she was some exhibit, but his hesitation to eat only meant more food for Ryan and herself. She was unsure of how often they ate, so Abbey knew to make the most of it.
Ryan had cut the vegetables rather chunkily, which added even more tastes and textures to the broth. Abbey had forgotten how much she’d loved potatoes. She wasn’t sure how he’d done it, but as she placed a piping-hot piece into her mouth, the buttery spud collapsed and melted on her tongue. Absolutely divine, she thought.
When the broth was all gone, Abbey cradled her knees to her chest, relishing the zesty aftertaste as well as the warm fullness in her tummy. Before she knew it, her eyes had closed, drifting momentarily off to sleep. That was before Tristan nudged her gently.
“Hey, Abbey.”
“Hmmm,” she mumbled, slightly irritated that she had been dragged away from the snuggest indulgence she’d had in a long time.
“Come on. I’ve made my bed up. You can sleep there for now.”
“Where will you sleep?” she slurred, struggling to stand. Her eyes were heavy and refused to cooperate. All she could process was her body being gently piloted a short distance, before feeling the soft, silky goodness of a pillow. The sensation was strange for a moment, not being used to the suppleness. She had thought to say thank you, but she couldn’t quite recall if the words came out.
Why was Tristan being so kind and caring anyway? They’d only just met. Especially since Ryan obviously had an issue with her being there. Was he just intuitively considerate? Was Ryan simply defensive?
All Abbey could remember before she drifted off into a heavenly slumber, was that he must have an agenda of some description. Tristan couldn�
��t possibly be that sweet. Could he? Perhaps Ryan had spliced the broth with a sedative? Poison? She tried to wake herself up, but her body wouldn’t have any of it. She was too far gone. Her mind rumbled around and around. What if they wanted her to sleep?
Boys don’t remain nice forever.
Chapter Seven. Curiosity Kills the Cat
Abbey groaned. The blue haze’s whirr roused her from a somewhat peaceful sleep. After all this time, why was that irritating noise still bothering her – surely her brain, and her ears too, would have gotten used to it, dispel it into the background? She growled, the sound vibrating in her throat. Sleep had crusted the corners of her eyes, it playfully scratched her skin as she rubbed at them vigorously.
The room was silent.
Tristan and Ryan weren’t around, which left an eerie air to the room that only yesterday had seemed snug and welcoming.
“Hello?”
Silence. Her voice didn’t even echo, diluted in the vastness of the room. Was it this large before? Abbey pondered. She didn’t like being left alone, feeling vulnerable and exposed scared her almost. When Rheanne had been taken upstairs, into Stefan’s lurid dungeon - the hell in which she wouldn’t return from alive - Abbey had known she was next. The fate waiting for her had sent waves of panic and grief through her body, keeping her awake, never knowing when the monster would return.
The haunting memory jolted her to stand. The group of blankets next to hers were strewn about. Someone had slept in them, the material still relatively warm to the touch. They hadn’t left that long ago. The cooking pot Ryan had used to cook the broth in was still left abandoned in the centre of the room. Despite feeling like a vagrant, Abbey scraped the tiny amount of liquid from the bottom and savoured the herby taste. Even cold, it was delicious.
Then it hit her. The memory of falling asleep, becoming drowsy suddenly came flooding back, as if she had been hit by a brick.