Darkest Minds

by Bacon, Stephen

  5

  Quite suddenly the rain came.

  I heard the sound in the trees before I actually felt the drops. Huge, strong, splashes of rain that drenched us in seconds. In a way it was a relief; hopefully it would herald an end to the oppressive heat. Above us the heavy clouds glowered.

  I drew my hood over and continued trudging, noticing that David’s hood looked far more substantial than my own.

  Soon we were descending into the crest of trees that lined the edge of the valley. The rain caused movement all around. A broad canopy of foliage sheltered us from the downpour, and I was grateful for the respite. In the deepening darkness of the afternoon, shadows seemed to press against us.

  Our trek took us through the heart of the forest, where trees watched silently, obscuring the light. David insisted we break after about forty minutes. The air almost hummed with misty heat. From somewhere above, thunder rumbled a sinister growl.

  We sheltered beneath a vast cam-wood tree. I tried to scrutinise the darkness of the forest floor, where I had the impression that things slithered and scuttled around my boots. Just before we set off I spied a huge black bird perched on a bowed branch. So intent was its gaze that I felt compelled to grab my camera and snap a photograph. It was an enormous crow, its feathers oil-black. But I must have been mistaken; when I had the pictures developed many months later, once the eventual horrors had faded, the photograph showed only a bare branch, exposed in its isolation. Perhaps the bird was just a product of my frenzied mind.

  The weight of the Nikon around my neck was comforting so I tucked it beneath my rain protector, a light nylon poncho. As I strode it counted beats with my pace like a pendulum.

  Eventually our progress through the forest - which so far seemed haphazard and meandering, although I had the utmost trust in David’s navigation skills – took on a more resolved aspect as we came across a man-made trail that crossed the edge of the trees. Dewy shafts of light penetrated the periphery of the forest, illuminating the tangle of vines and broad leaves that inhibited our progress.

  David turned to me, his voice low. “We’re here.”

  I peered anxiously through the gap in the vegetation.

  A large square building stood conspicuous in the basin of a shallow clearing. By its basic structure and the abandoned agricultural tools that stood in the yard, it was clear that the building had originally been a farmhouse. A makeshift fence surrounded the compound, though I could see several spots where the barrier had been breached. A sense of fear settled on me as I noticed several prone bodies scattered on the ground. Everything was ominously silent. We watched for several minutes but there was no movement from the site.

  “Let’s have a look.” David stepped out of cover of the trees, moving with an assuredness that was startling. I hesitated for a split-second and then followed, catching up with him at the foot of the incline. He was carrying a vintage-looking pistol. I gripped my camera for support.

  Puddles of rain speckled in the continuous downpour as we approached the fence. The wire had been flattened, one of the posts almost uprooted from the soil. We carefully made our way across the twisted fence. My heart was hammering.

  A dead male Rwandan lay on his back, staring unblinking into the falling rain. Death had left his skin looking unnatural. There was a gaping wound in the man’s chest, from which flies buzzed and swarmed. His hand was closed around a rusty machete.

  As we drew close to the door I noticed the ground around the building was deeply scuffed and disturbed; strange undulating waves patterned the soil like ripples. David cocked his pistol and approached the open door.

  I could see partway inside. There was a wooden rack standing just inside the threshold, cluttered with various implements. David flicked a switch on the wall and shrugged when nothing happened. The power was out. He began rooting through the tools on the rack. I noticed another machete half-buried in the disturbed soil and, on impulse I picked it up. David grunted in satisfaction and held up an electric torch. He clicked it on, and the strong beam sheared through the darkness.

  We were standing in a small ante-chamber, not much more than a storage room really. Ropes and candles were stacked on the shelves, alongside a crowbar and some spare batteries. I poked around and was pleased to uncover another torch. My relief turned to dismay, however, when I realised the batteries had run out, so I quickly loaded another set from the storage supplies. My own beam pierced the darkness.

  “What’s happened here?” I peered along the corridor. “Maybe we should just move on?”

  David shook his head. “No, this is what we’ve been looking for. This is the compound.”

  My instincts told me something was not right. I’d been in quite a few tricky situations over the years, some of them potentially life-threatening, but the sense of remoteness took away any control I pretended to feel. I wondered whether it was better to cut our losses and head back. Before I could vocalise my doubts, David made the decision for me.

  “Come on.” His whisper echoed along the corridor. He crept into the darkness.

  I followed cautiously, sweeping my torch around. My beam suddenly played across something on the ground and I knelt to examine it.

  A pool of shiny mucus lay on the floor, like a huge snail-trail, extending for about four or five feet. David probed it with his finger and strands of the slime spanned the gap like glistening threads. He shrugged and we moved on, our progress sounding clumsy and conspicuous.

  Pale light diffused through a window of opaque glass as the corridor opened into a small inner room, with a door ahead. I pressed my ear to the wood and I could hear a distant moaning coming from somewhere further inside the building. David opened the door and we stepped into what appeared to have originally been a kitchen. Oversized tins lined countless shelves that dominated the room from ceiling to floor. It was obviously now used as a food store. I took a couple of photos, hoping that the flash wouldn’t overexpose the pictures; the light filtering through the grimy window was meagre. I was struck by how much food was stored here; before coming to Rwanda we’d heard stories of starving people and militia-controlled rationing. This stockpiling seemed absurd.

  A door on the far wall opened into a wide hallway, with spindled stairs leading off to our left. It was clear that we were within the old farmhouse, and the prefabricated corridors and supplementary rooms that surrounded the original building had been recently added. Skeletal shadows swept across the walls as my beam touched on the spindles of the stairs. The moaning we’d previously heard was louder now, a low groan that seemed to come from both everywhere and nowhere.

  I noticed David crossing the hallway to where a row of doors led away, feeling a sudden sense of alarm at his disjointed movement. It took me a few seconds to realise that his progress was hindered by fear, and I hurried close behind and let my beam support his own, which penetrated the darkness ahead. Then, instinctively, I gasped.

  Beyond the climb of the stairs, over in the far reaches of the hallway, several figures watched us, motionless. The light bleached their features, casting a deathly pallor to their skin. I heard David’s anxiety in the ragged exhalations of his breath.

  Several seconds passed as I wrestled with the dread that was threatening to overwhelm me, before David let out a relieved laugh. I peered at him, incredulous.

  He approached the figures and I saw him reach out and touch the face of the one nearest. “They aren’t real.” He looked at me. “They’re statues.”

  I frowned and approached them. Up close I could see that it was true; there were four figures in total, all in different positions. I gazed in wonder at the lifelike detail, and my fingers felt the rough, cold shape of the stone. Something about the precise detail unsettled me, though. David poked around in the darkness while I examined the bizarre formations.

  It wasn’t just the detail that unnerved me, but the fact that it was inconceivable anyone would ever fashion a sculpture in such a way; one of them had a tongue lolling out of th
e corner of his mouth, stone spittle lining the contours of his lips. Another one had an open gash stretched across the extent of his back, from where his torn clothing stuck to the implied wetness of the wound. One was sitting with his head bowed, elbows resting on his knees. The final figure was frozen in the act of cowering back into the corner. A thin tear furrowed his neck. Were these things simply pieces of art? Did they illustrate what was happening in Rwanda in the same way I hoped my photographs would? I took several shots of the eerie stone formations.

  David suddenly opened a door to our left, allowing the moaning suddenly to increase in volume. A short corridor ran away into the darkness, but an open trapdoor several feet over the threshold caught our attention. David stood and peered down, shining his torch into the hole.

  A short metal ladder bolted to the edge of the pit descended to the corridor below, which appeared to run parallel with the floor passage. The groaning was coming from somewhere along there.

  I swallowed and tried to catch David’s eye but the light was too poor. I could just make out the square angle of his jaw and the determined nod of his head.

  “Come on,” he said.

  He descended into the pit. The sounds of his boots on the metal rungs made me cringe, and I threw a quick scan around before hurrying after him.

  The ladders were slippery. I felt my feet trembling on the rungs as I climbed to the bottom. Shining the torch onto them I noticed that much of the vertical wall was coated in the same slimy residue we’d seen upstairs.

  The tunnel ran the length of the house for as far as we could see, eventually curving out of sight. It looked like it was originally built as a storage alley, though the heavy presence of dust and the emptiness of it now hinted that it hadn’t been used as such in a long time. I noticed emergency lights fixed to the ceiling at intervals, and they flickered intermittently, throwing a sinister throb of shadows into the passage.

  Just out of view, beyond the bend of the passage, someone moaned. The sound was unnatural and stark in the confines of the narrow tunnel. I felt the hairs on my neck stand on end.

  David stepped forward, gaping at an angle so he could see round the bend. His approach obscured my own view of the curve, and I felt a surge of panic. I swallowed, and fought the terror that threatened to claim me.

  The next few seconds were a blur of intense activity; movement and sound roaring at us all at once. Something rushed out of the shadows ahead of David, screams spiraling around us. Almost in slow motion, I winced. Instantaneously a shot rang out, halting the inhuman screeching. The gun’s report sounded ugly in the narrow tunnel.

  A man sat on his backside, staring at us in surprise. The light was enough for us to notice the crimson stain blooming across his chest. A thin ribbon of smoke drifted into view from the barrel of David’s revolver, where it remained pointed at the man. The man’s eyes followed the smoke for a moment before fading into milky, sightless beads. He dropped onto his back.

  David turned to me. “I just pulled the trigger in surprise.” He swallowed. “I didn’t mean to shoot him.”

  I nudged the machete that was still gripped in the dead man’s hand. “Lucky for us you did.” Before we moved on, I took a couple of photographs. The squeal of the flash recharging added an element of alarm to our mood.

  We edged further along the tunnel. I sensed there was now a degree of apprehension to David’s movement. The moaning that had infused the house could now be heard more clearly, just ahead of us. As we approached a bend in the passage ahead I spotted the kid.

  He was crouched in the corner, almost melting into the darkness that surrounded him. His chest was rising in shallow movements as the low moan escaped him. The eyes stared indifferently at the wall, unfocused and oblivious to our presence. He clutched something in the crook of his amputated arm, stroking it with trembling fingers. I peered closely and saw that it was a child’s toy, a dog-eared stuffed harlequin. The material of its diamond clothing was grubby and soiled.

  Over the previous few days my mind had been creating a powerful image of expectation based on the blurred polaroids we’d been shown. I was anticipating a mutilated monster wielding death and madness, but instead we saw a frightened kid cuddling a stuffed toy. There was something about how pathetic he looked, how utterly innocent he seemed, that made me feel bad about photographing him.

  “Fabrice?” My whisper sounded deafening in the silence.

  He flinched as I touched his arm. “Come on.” I helped him up. His eyes continued to stare into the darkness. “He’s catatonic.”

  Fabrice’s mouth was moving soundlessly. David cocked his head closer to the kid’s lips and listened for a second.

  The older man’s eyes glittered in the tunnel. “He said, “It came from the ground.” What does that mean?”

  I shrugged. “He’s delirious.”

  David began to lead him by the arm. “We’d better take him with us.”

  “Are you sure?” I was beginning to feel detached from reality. “I mean, he’s dangerous, isn’t he?”

  They moved past me. “Does he look dangerous?”

  Hysteria bubbled in my throat, and I fought hard to suppress a laugh. Where I’d been expecting a machete, the kid was carrying a soft toy. The situation seemed to be growing more absurd by the minute.

  Between us we managed to guide him back to the end of the tunnel and up the metal ladder. He seemed withdrawn almost to the point of stupor.

  The room with the statues had lost none of its weirdness. Fabrice’s eyes held not a flicker of recognition; I wondered whether he actually noticed them. I hesitated, staring uneasily at the shadowy figures.

  “This way.” David motioned to a door at the rear of the room. I followed, relieved not to have to pass through that bizarre exhibition. We entered a deserted lounge, dusty and silent in neglect. I could hear the rain pattering the window, from where weak light diffused through the closed blinds. I dragged them down with a clatter, yellow light brightening the walls instantly. I unclipped the handle and pushed the window open.

  David climbed out and I helped Fabrice through. His movement was vague and disorderly, the fingers of his right hand gripping the harlequin like a talisman. I clambered out of the window of the dusty farmhouse, breathing the damp air with a relief that edged towards hysteria.

  Eerie statues – similar to the ones that were huddled inside – lay in frozen depictions of death. I examined one in the daylight.

  The material was definitely stone; I scratched the surface of the thing with my torch, noticing the crumbling remnants that attached to the rubber. The actual detail was unreal; raised veins, skin blemishes, authentic touches of verisimilitude that increased the creepiness.

  “Come on.” David nodded to a jeep that was parked further up the incline. It seemed to shimmer in the rain like a beacon. I followed eagerly.

  David let out a gasp of triumph when he spotted the keys in the ignition. I almost wept. We helped Fabrice into the back. I jumped into the seat next to him. David started the engine. “We can get back much quicker this way.”

  “What are we going to do? ...” I nodded my head towards the kid, “…with him?”

  David stared into the trees as if searching for an answer. “I think they’ll look after him at the convent.”

  I nodded uncertainly. “What’s happened here?”

  David pursed his lips. “I don’t know. Something bad.”

  “What about the statues?”

  He shrugged and shook his head.

  The jeep spun in an arc on the grass and we were soon accelerating along the track that threaded around the perimeter of the farm. Lifeless bodies lay at intervals as we progressed.

  “Brace yourself.”

  I peered ahead and saw that we were moving at high speed towards a locked chain-linked gate. I put my arm around the indifferent boy and braced myself.

  We crashed through without fuss, bouncing over the struts of the gate. David righted the vehicle and we headed along
the track that skirted the woods.

  “It’s longer this way,” David indicated ahead with a nod. “But it would take ages trying to manage the boy between us.”

  I nodded, suddenly impatient to return to Karen and Joel. Darkness waited among the trees as we sped past, vague indistinct shapes huddled together under the canopy of leaves.

  6

  The kid rocked, continuing to stare into the distance. He looked to be beyond reach.

  The mud track we were on circled back along the banks of a river that ran parallel with the perimeter of the farm. The fence had been breached at various intervals; tracks on the ground indicated a frantic mass of bodies had escaped the compound in a hurry, the posts left twisted and in disarray. Once again I was left to wonder what had caused such panic.

  Rain continued to fall, disorientating me with its incessant patter. Constant drips from the overhang above reminded me that our shelter was transitory; that we’d soon have to brave the elements again.

  David negotiated the track with a degree of reckless caution. Every so often I spotted bodies lying in the grass, but I found it impossible to take any photos with Fabrice next to me. Instead I simply averted my gaze.

  Soon we were descending the track that ran into the valley. I knelt up as we emerged from the trees, studying the house.

  It was just as we had left it.

  We drew to a halt in front of the veranda. David and I managed to get the kid down from the back and up the steps. He was still catatonic.

  As we entered the house I knew straight away that something was wrong. The house had taken on a different atmosphere.