Darkest Minds

by Bacon, Stephen

  Sometimes I find my thoughts are wandering, covering the miles in a second, travelling back to the place where we almost lost everything.

  My enduring image is not of the monstrous, bloated centipede that burned to death in its burrow, but the final look on Joel’s face as he realised he was trapped, and the lighter offered the only answer. I feel no guilt at what happened; he’d have done the same thing if the situation had been reversed.

  Occasionally I imagine someone nosing around in the tangle of vegetation – maybe a westerner, searching for riches to plunder – when he comes across those bizarre stone figures in the derelict farm. Perhaps instead he stumbles over the fire-stricken tunnels, and discovers the remains of that grotesque nest. What horror might that conjure?

  And often I think of Fabrice.

  He was the reason we went to Rwanda, after all. I no longer picture him as a fearsome warlord, mutilated by combat, wielding his machete in the scrabble for power. I think of him as I saw him last – just a young boy clutching a soft toy, terrified of the realities of life.

  Just as we’d neared the road that began its wandering approach back into Kigali, Karen woke in the back of the jeep. She was violently ill. We’d pulled over and tried to soothe her. That was when she’d pointed to Fabrice.

  He was lying in the back of the jeep, covered by the tarpaulin. I’d drawn it back and we’d stared at the stone image of the kid, frozen in the act of sleeping, his hand still grasping the harlequin to his chest. I’d examined the statue and discovered a rip in the calf of his trousers. A trickle of blood had leaked from the wound and pooled into his shoe. The gash looked consistent with the spike of the creature’s barb.

  David and I had lifted him from the back of the jeep and placed him on the ground, concealing his whereabouts with a screen of bushes. His face looked composed and relaxed. I like to think that he at last found peace in that short life of his.

  As we’d driven away, I’d ignored Karen’s hysteria. She’d wanted to take the stone thing with us, but I’d experienced enough madness to see me through the rest of my days; the last thing I needed was a macabre reminder.

  Maybe one day I’ll be watching some documentary on the Discovery Channel and see his serene face again, frozen in the act of eternal slumber, as some narrator speculates as to who created it. But I suspect that – like most of what happens in a country as steeped in mystical history as Rwanda – the only reminders of that horrific trip will remain forever in my memories.

  For Paul Wright, who was keen to know what happened next.

  Stephen Bacon's fiction has been published in magazines and anthologies such as Cemetery Dance, Black Static, Shadows & Tall Trees, Crimewave, and Terror Tales of Yorkshire, and has been selected by Ellen Datlow for her Best Horror of the Year series. His debut collection, Peel Back the Sky, was published by Gray Friar Press. He lives in the UK with his wife and two sons.