by Hall, Andrew
She cut across another path, and edged her way down a soily black slope. Past a tiny river further down the trees thinned out and the hill levelled off. Not long after that she reached a stretch of farmland, where tangles of sheep’s wool dotted a barbed wire fence. She took hold of the barbed wire and pulled it away without feeling a thing, and climbed over the fence to ramble on through the field. She even felt something close to peace, for a little while. The sun was climbing over the distant fields, and she wasn’t being hunted. The way things were now, it didn’t get any better than this. She tried to focus on her good memories of the Ghosts; their victories and summer days. Not the way they’d been torn away from her.
Tabitha sighed with relief at the sight of the village. It was a tiny place, surrounded by forest and tucked away from the world. The first building she came to was a stone church, nestled in the middle of a jagged graveyard ringed by a crooked old iron fence. Old spiralled handrails led up the wall to the latch door. The rounded stone steps were half painted in white lichen; centuries-old stains. She sat down on a bench for a little while, around the back of the church under the shade of a pine. The birds were the only sound here; sudden chirps and chatters and high sad songs. Tabitha closed her tired yellow eyes for a second, and felt her head dip. She forced her eyes open again. She couldn’t sleep here. She got up to walk down the graveyard towards the village. All the old gravestones here were coated in a rich green dust of age, glowing in the sunlight like nature distilled. Some of the gravestones were old. Very old. One had been crudely inscribed with the date 1702; another, 1616. The people buried here had long since found a peaceful sleep; a distant dream far from the new world around her. There was no one left to mourn for the ones who’d died now. No one left to laugh about an old tale, or to drink to their memories. It was all just a violent chaos now, she thought, and no one left to weep for the loss. But she was still alive, she told herself. And she intended to carry on living, even despite everyone and everything she’d lost.
‘Bloody graveyards,’ she mumbled, as she headed out through the gate.
There wasn’t any sign of spiders lurking in the village. Almost like they’d never come here. With it being just half a dozen houses and a town hall though, maybe the spiders didn’t see much point in sticking around. Tabitha had tried the doors of every stone cottage, but only the last one on the road would open. It was small, cosy. Ivy and flowers crowded the front garden.
‘Hello?’ she called quietly into the cottage, closing the front door behind her. The carpet was heavenly soft on her bruised bare feet. No one had been here in weeks. She wandered into the kitchen, and saw birds flitting between hanging feeders through the back window. The food in the fridge was mouldy and reeking, but at least the cottage doors had been shut and all the windows left intact. The spiders hadn’t been here. Every room seemed half the size it should be. Some old post on the table told her where she was. She’d never heard of the village before, though the post code was familiar. Pale and shivering, Tabitha was half tempted to light a fire. The old stone fireplace had a neat stack of logs beside it; no gas flame or broken electrics. Just good old fashioned firewood. Desperate for warmth, Tabitha rummaged in the kitchen drawers for matches. She paused as a thought crossed her mind. She thought better of lighting a fire then, in case the smoke from the chimney gave her away to anything hunting her. Instead she plundered the wardrobes upstairs for as many fleecy tops and thick winter socks as she could find. It wasn’t a cold day, but she felt a chill that ran right into her bones after last night. She binned the sodden hospital gown and her scorched belt, knotting the surviving half of her mum’s ribbon around her wrist like a bracelet. She pulled on her fourth jumper, and put on pyjama bottoms and a woolly hat for good measure. The soft warm bed was perfection; even better than the feel of the thick carpet beneath her feet. A heaven she hadn’t felt in weeks.
‘Jesus Christ, that’s good,’ she whispered, climbing in beneath the thick heavy covers. She stamped every thought down and fell into a sweet, sweltering sleep.
Tabitha woke from her dreams with a terrified jump. She sat up and looked around at a chintzy room she didn’t recognise. It was the cottage, in the quiet village. She remembered now. She’d been a world away while she slept, dodging white eyes and flaming teeth in the frozen dark. She stretched her legs out in the glorious warmth of the big bed, and threw off the thick hot covers. The clock beside the bed said ten, but it wasn’t ticking. The looming grey skies out of the window made it feel like evening. It didn’t really matter what time it was, though. She wasn’t going anywhere.
She felt drowsy as she hobbled down the creaking staircase. Peeled off her hot jumpers along the way. Every muscle in her body was stiff and achy. She felt a faint hunger pang, but it passed while she sat down on the couch to rub her aching feet. Her dry mouth and her headache told her that it was water she needed most of all. The taps in the kitchen only offered up a spluttering brown sludge, as usual. Her search of the place didn’t turn up any bottles of water anywhere, but the kettle was almost full. She poured herself a glass from it, and gulped it down with all the desperation of a man lost in the desert in an old movie. She downed another glass and glanced nervously up at the ceiling over the kitchen side, just to be sure there was nothing lurking there. She hoped Mog was alright, all those miles away. Though she didn’t think he’d be sitting around in her kitchen worrying about her. The thought made her smile; that he might be sitting around on the window ledge fretting about her being gone. Her smile turned to tears, as her thoughts of missing Mog led to thoughts of missing everyone. What was she supposed to do now, on her own in the world? What was the point of fighting to survive if there was no left to care about, or to care about her? Tabitha hugged herself as she shuffled back into the living room, sniffling and sobbing as she hauled her sore muscles back up the creaking staircase.
She lay in bed and curled up under the warm covers, looking through the window at the darkening sky. Her eyes were pink with tears; crying had left her with damp clumped eyelashes and a subtle stiffness in the skin on her cheeks. The pale sky through the window felt as numb and dead as she did. Nothing in it, nothing happening. Only a bird, flitting by for a second. All she could do was nestle down in the bed covers, and try not be awake to think about everything.
The sun was rising on a new day when she woke up, and for one sweet second she was blissfully unaware until everything came back to her. The loss felt removed though, or maybe she did. At least for now. Tabitha stretched out in the bed, and felt the sting of stiff muscles. How could they be sorer today than they were yesterday? She sat up and coughed to the silent house, and stood up to stretch out her back. The stretching turned into a lazy yoga session, a piecing-together of everything she could remember from a couple of half-arsed lessons. Emma had been going through a heavy-duty fitness phase at the time, and persuaded Tabitha to go with her to the classes. Tabitha would have given anything to have Emma around again. To have anyone around again. The silence and the loneliness here only made her grief feel all the stronger. She stopped her yoga for a second and just stood there, halfway through a salute to the sun. She stared at the white wall through the door in the hallway, blank as her mind.
‘No,’ she told the silence; told herself. She couldn’t just get lost in grief. She pulled her frozen gaze away from the wall and looked around the room. How could she have made such a bloody mess after one day here? Tabitha opened the window for a breeze and straightened out the bed sheets. Scrunched-up tissues littered the floor like paper snowballs; she’d already cried her way through every tissue in the cottage. She gathered them up and stuffed them into the wicker bin, covering up the damp hospital gown in there. She tried not to think about the fake feel of the plasticky gown against her skin. She pulled on a thin jumper and jeans, both too baggy for her but infinitely more human than the gown.
‘That’s better,’ she told the room, which was looking much more presentable. There was a cool breeze blowing in
with the birdsong, with more a hint of autumn about it than the warmth of summer. It occurred to her then that winter would be on the way too, and winter would be tough. She hadn’t thought about the seasons this much before, not beyond the superficial aspects like dark mornings and rainy days. Come the dark winter days there’d be no heating, no light, no running water. Lighting fires would be risky. Well, everything was risky now. But a cold dark winter was going to make things much worse.
‘I wish you were here Mum,’ she whispered. Mum would know what to do.
The whole cottage was clean and tidy by the time she climbed back into bed. She’d dusted every surface, lifted every ornament. Cleaned things that didn’t need cleaning, just to take her mind off everything. Tabitha had never thought she could be capable of such mass hygiene. At least she’d been too busy to think about everything, and now she was much too tired to start. It could wait for tomorrow.
Tabitha felt less stiff and sore the next day. The sky was as grey and still as pencil shading. She’d always liked the blanketed feel of a grey day. Her gnawing sadness pulled the tears out again, and long sorry sobs. For a while she dwelled on the thought of Chris, and what she’d do to him if she ever found her way back to him. Maybe he’d shoot her again. Maybe she’d skin him alive before he had the chance. Her anger was only propping up her sadness though; once her hate gave way again the tears came rushing back. She dried her eyes a little later and sat down in front of the mirror on the wall, and combed her grey hands through her greasy red hair. Her fingers caught against something with a sharp tug; a stumpy little twig tangled up at the back. Once she’d teased it out from her hair she’d pulled out a couple of small leaves and a spiny beech nut too, and even shaking her hair rained down grit and dirt on her shoulders.
‘You’re disgusting,’ she told her reflection. The thought was enough to dig up some bad memories from school. It drove her down into the kitchen, where she unearthed an old bottle of whiskey and a bottle of wine from a cupboard. It was a sixth sense of hers it seemed, to find strong drink wherever it might be hiding.
‘To everyone,’ she mumbled with a dead tone, raising a big glass of whisky to the sunlight through the kitchen windows. It shone clear amber, warping the trees through the glass. She took a bigger gulp than she should have, and winced at the beautiful burning feel. She opened her eyes wide, coughed a little, and went back for more. This was going to be a morning’s work at least, she decided, and it was best to get started from the comfort of the couch.
The next day greeted her like a punch in the head, the most vicious hangover she’d had in years. She drew the curtains and the bright sun hurt. Opened the window, and the birdsong grated on her. She shut the window again, and peed in the bathtub as usual. At least that way the pee would drain away, she reasoned, rather than sticking around in a toilet that didn’t flush. Number twos were a distant memory it seemed, now that she could only handle a liquid diet. Wandering down to the kitchen, Tabitha popped some painkillers that she’d found in a cupboard and washed it down with a glass of funny-tasting water from the kettle. She swore never to drink again, just as soon as she’d had the bottle of wine this morning.
A little later the world had taken on a new brightness, helped along by the wine. It was a parched brightness, false and intoxicated, and served up with a dry mouth. But it was a kind of brightness at least. She needed that. She was sweltering in her jumper though. She sniffed her armpits, and staggered drunkenly upstairs to the bathroom to wash. The bath taps coughed and spluttered sludge.
‘Oh yeah,’ she remembered, intoxicated, smiling as she lost her balance. She swayed and semi-twirled against the edge of the bathtub, trying to steady herself. She fell down to the floor, paused, cried for a while. Then she climbed up again with pantomime drunken resolve, back into the spinning room that lurked above the floor. She grabbed the body wash from the shelf and headed downstairs. Staggered out of the front door and across the road to the brook through the trees. She stripped off by the stream and strung her clothes out in the tangling bushes.
‘Jeez,’ she gasped, walking down into the icy water. The stones were slimy beneath her feet, deep down in the tumbling river that reached her waist in the middle. She scrubbed her goosebumpy skin with body wash, and watched the suds trail off down the current while she shivered. Last of all she soaped up her face and hair, and ducked down into the water. She’d never known a coldness like it in her life. It was a good kind of coldness, wild and raw. And sobering, definitely sobering. It was much harder to climb back out again, and she felt much more vulnerable all of a sudden when she came to wrestle her clothes out of the bushes. She realised how risky it’d been then, wandering out drunk. An easy target. What a stupid thing to do, she told herself. Well, half of her told herself, anyway. The other half didn’t care any more. She could handle whatever might come for her, that other half said. She’d tear it a new one; she’d survive. She had a place in this world too.
Once she’d dressed, Tabitha walked back to the cottage at a leisurely stroll. Panic gone. Bees buzzed between the flowers in the front garden. She closed the door behind her, and went upstairs for a fresh fluffy towel from the cupboard. She put on a clean vest top and trousers, and dragged the duvet downstairs to the couch. Pulling a couple of books from the shelf in the corner, she spent the rest of the daylight reading. Sleep came a little easier that night, despite her tears. She rubbed her mum’s ribbon tied around her wrist, unfastening it to wrap it around her hand and kiss it. Above all the grief, she felt even worse about the nagging feeling in her head – that she should have been crying more than she actually was.
Tabitha woke up on the couch the next morning with a gnawing hunger, and an intense thirst. The thirst she could remedy, drinking down the last of the funny water from the kettle. That was all the drinking water in the house gone, and she didn’t much fancy drinking from the river across the road. She’d have to go out.
During her village tour Tabitha found a big bottle of water in one of the neighbouring cottages, having broken in through the back door. There was no sign of anyone here either, just the ever-present stench of rotten food. Maybe everyone had up and left at the same time; just taken a bus and gone. There were only a couple of other houses to try for water, and they only offered up two small plastic bottles between them. She couldn’t ignore her hunger, though. And that wasn’t something she was going to fix around here it seemed, even despite her shouting and clapping to try and tempt out any hiding spiders. There was nothing here; just birds hopping about in the trees or dragging worms up from the village green. It was such a beautiful place to hide away, really. If only her survival wasn’t so tied to the spiders, she thought. The great gaping chasm of hunger she felt today was a solid reminder. It felt almost like a sudden parched thirst, an overwhelming urge to get what her body needed. Was this how it felt to have a drug addiction? It was all she could think about.
Tabitha curled up on the couch in her cottage and tried to read her book and take her mind off the hunger. But the thought kept lurking there in the back of her mind; the taste of that blood, the feel of it going down. The appeal was nestled somewhere between Sunday lunch and an icy glass of lemonade. A creamy-cold silver fix, a perfect thought. Tabitha cursed herself for thinking about it, and tried to focus on the pages of her book. It didn’t take long for the thoughts to come creeping back, though. Paired with the very real ache of hunger in her stomach, the need took a constant effort to ignore.
‘Oh my god,’ she growled at herself. At her messed-up appetite, like it was tugging at her sleeve. By evening she didn’t have the daylight to read by any more, but she felt too hungry to sleep. All there was left to do was lie there, and slide back into that same numb grief that had been hanging over her shoulders like a spectre. Worst of all was knowing that even despite her grief, the hunger for her next blood meal was struggling for centre stage in her head. She wanted more time to mourn and get through her loss, but more than that she wanted her fix. And for t
hat she felt like the worst person left in the world.
Tabitha couldn’t sleep well that night. Her thoughts bounced constantly between hunger, guilt and regret. By dawn she was walking from room to room, emptying the drawers and cupboards for things to pack. Her hunger outweighed her fear, and her grief. She was going out to hunt, and she didn’t think she’d be coming back. It was probably going to be quite a journey to find any spiders around here. She laced up her new hiking boots from the cottage across the green, after ages spent hunting for a pair that fitted. They were old and musty and cobwebbed, but at least they were the right size. She packed the book from her cottage, and anything else she could see in the dawn light that might be useful.
Tabitha closed the front door and put her hand on it as she left, thankful for her fleeting home. If only the spiders were close by to feed on, she thought. But she took the thought back. If the spiders were close by, this village wouldn’t be the peaceful little place it was. Better to keep it as a bright little thought. Locked away safe in her head, with the memories of her parents and the Ghosts, and the chained-up little toyshop she’d found before she met Liv. Tabitha touched the front door one last time, and imagined Laika sleeping on the couch inside. That’s where Laika’s memory could stay, Tabitha told herself. Peaceful and safe.