‘And what if they got sent there ‘cos they did actually kill someone but it was an accident?’ he asks, and waits. He carries on walking but wonders if they will die in these woods.
Pete’s quick to make up stories and Drover usually welcomes them. But this feels different; this feels like Pete knows something and is hovering around an issue. Or is it Drover’s guilt?
Pete thinks, but only for a moment. ‘If it was an accident and you get sent to hell then…yeah, okay. You find the way out eventually as well. ‘Cos you didn’t really do anything wrong, did you? Well, you might have been doing something wrong when it happened. Like in that film.’
‘What film, Pete?’ The dryness of Drover’s mouth has now crept into his throat.
Pete turns and walks backwards, his face big and round in Drover’s vision as he faces him, his eyes wide and his eyebrows high. His fingers work the air like he is playing an invisible instrument as his mind works hard to remember.
‘There’s this ordinary man and his boy gets taken by the bad guys and unless the man holds up the bank the boy will die. So while he is doing this he accidentally shoots a guard, but he gets sent to prison anyway, and he got killed there by the bad guy’s mates who were already in gaol, ‘cos they had to keep him quiet. That man would have gone to hell but then found his way out through the ghost train. Get it?’
Drover’s heart is pumping. ‘Are you sure this was a film, Pete?’
‘Yes Drover, I saw it once on DVD with my dad.’
‘What happened to the boy?’
‘Don’t really remember.’
‘Okay, Pete, save your strength.’
Pete stumbles in his backwards walking but Drover catches his arm so he doesn’t fall.
‘Sorry, thank you,’ says Pete.
Drover passes him and hears him fall into step behind. Drover doesn’t want to look at him right now. He doesn’t want any more reminders.
‘How far to the next town?’ Pete asks, eventually.
‘Dunno, a long way though.’
‘Why didn’t we take the bus?’
‘Money, Pete, no money.’
‘Oh, yeah. And we’ll get a job there, will we? You sure?’
‘Like I said, Pete, I have friends there.’ A lie. ‘And they said there should be work.’ Another lie. ‘And they will let us have a place to stay ’til we get sorted.’ Lies seem to come in threes.
He can picture Pete smiling now and he feels even more rotten. But he has to give the guy hope. There will be another town, there will be work of some kind, and they’ll find a place to sleep at nights. It might just take some time.
‘What we going to do when we get there, Drover?’
Now it is Drover’s turn to make up fanciful stories. The sunlight has shifted. It’s now starting its fall from afternoon and is heading towards evening, but Drover knows they have some daylight left yet. He knows which way they are going. He knows there will be something to shoot at some point. The bag of cartridges hangs around his waist, the gun is over his arm, loaded, ready to be cracked together and aimed, and his water bottle is light on its string around his neck.
Pete is heavy on his mind.
‘I fancy a farm job, don’t you?’ he asks. ‘Living in a barn, making tea on a fire outside, looking after animals, digging the ground. What do you reckon, Pete?’
‘And there would be a fat farmer’s wife who cooked pies, and they’d have a daughter?’
‘That’s the kind of thing.’
‘And you would live in the house and we’d get the farm and we could grow sheep and horses.’
‘Yeah, well, you don’t actually grow sheep, but yes. And you can marry the farmer’s daughter. Would you be in love with her, Pete?’
‘If I had to be, I would,’ he says, and it sounds kind of regretful. ‘I suppose we’d have a wedding?’
‘That you would, a fine one.’
‘Well, only if I had to, and only as long as you were my best man,’ Pete says, glumly, and then cheers up instantly. ‘But I won’t work on the farm. I want to work in a fairground. On the ghost train.’
‘Ah, you can do that if you want. I am going to get rich, wear gold rings, have sexy girls hanging off my arm, and, well, I’ll own the fairground and you can work for me. How’s that?’
‘That’d be good, Drover. Or can we own it together?’
‘Shush, listen!’
Sudden stillness, abrupt quiet. Just two young men breathing and dreaming. And then the sound of water trickling somewhere nearby.
‘This way.’ Drover is off at a run, down a slope, slipping on sickly leaves fallen from the canopy, snapping twigs and sliding towards the sound of water. The thought of it excites his dry mouth.
The stream sparkles in the light as if someone had sprinkled a tube of glitter across it. Clear water, not deep, over stones, fresh, cool, surrounded by green, and guarded by dragonflies.
Drover and Pete slide to their knees. Drover gulps using his hands, Pete fills his water bottle and then drinks. They both drink, and gasp, and laugh.
The water tastes of moss or grass or something, but Drover swallows it down desperately. He feels his throat calming, not so claggy, not so painful. He feels the cold water in his chest, feels it appease the tightness of his stomach, for now at least. He gulps more. It washes away some of the pain but he knows, as he watches Pete beside him, that there are some things that even this gift of a stream cannot wash away.
He fills his water bottle and wishes they’d brought more. Wishes they’d not left the squat in such a hurry. He should have planned more, should have thought things through.
‘I feel better, Drover.’
‘Me too.’
They sit back, and, for the first time in a couple of days, Drover starts to feel happier about things. They are moving on, moving away from that place, and they have found water. They will survive and they will start again when they get to the next town. But what if the next town is not far enough? How far will he have to go to get away from the past? As far as the sea, he thinks, right across the country to the edge of it. He knows he will never get away from what is following, not all the while it is kept a secret.
A sudden snap of a twig, the rustle of a bush. Overhead a wind darts through tall trees, and leaves fall as if thrown by an invisible hand.
Pete and Drover freeze. Was that a shadow through the trees downstream? Was that another deer? Drover snaps the gun together, ready.
‘What was it?’ Pete is whispering.
‘I dunno. It looked tall.’ Drover had seen a dark movement from the corner of his eye and he’s not sure what it was. But, whatever it was, it looked wrong.
‘It scared me, Drover,’ Pete says, as if there was something Drover could do about that.
‘It was probably a deer,’ Drover says. ‘It’s gone now.’
‘It could be one of the Missing,’ Pete says, and he has that tone to his voice; belief.
‘The what?’ Drover drinks some more. This stream is welcome but they can’t follow it. It’s cutting across their path, not leading them towards where he wants to go.
‘The Missing? That’s what they are called in this forest.’
‘What do you know about this place, Pete?’
‘I listen.’ Pete is copying Drover, now, drinking more while he can. ‘There’s a story.’
‘You making this up?’
‘No. I listen. In the street, in the park. When I am waiting for something to happen I listen to people. I hear their stories.’
‘And what did you hear about these woods, then?’
‘That people get brought here and don’t get seen again.’
‘Well, we’re not getting ourselves lost, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘I ai
n’t worried, Drover. It’s true though. They say that when gangsters want to get rid of someone…’
‘Gangsters?’
‘Yeah, bad people. I dunno what to call them, except gangsters. People what wouldn’t find their way back up from hell to the ghost train. Bad people. Well, mostly. I heard someone say that the police do it too, when they want rid of someone for good.’
Drover laughs. ‘Yeah, right. And you’re not making this up? You really heard this story, eh? Go on, then.’
Drover sits back to listen. He puts his hands behind his head and lies back on the edge of the stream. He stares up to the white sky beyond the trees.
‘Honest. They want to get rid of someone so they brings them into the woods. And then they’re not seen no more.’
‘What, they bury people here?’
‘No, it’s worse than that.’
Drover waits to hear the rest, but it looks like Pete is waiting to be asked. He likes telling his stories, Drover knows, but he likes people to ask him to tell them. It’s some kind of security thing.
‘Go on, then,’ he says, settling in for a good tale. ‘What’s worse than being killed and buried in the woods?’
‘Being eaten.’
‘Eaten?’ Drover starts to laugh. ‘You’re a crazy boy, Pete, you are.’
‘I ain’t crazy now,’ Pete says, and he certainly sounds serious. ‘And I ain’t lying. You know me, Drover. I can’t tell a lie. Never been able to lie. Got that from my mum and dad. It’s a real story and an old story. You want to hear it?’
‘You up for walking?’
‘If that’s what you want.’
They stand, feeling slightly stronger but still hopelessly empty inside.
Drover checks that both water bottles are filled, and then they step across the stream.
‘So what’s the difference between telling a lie and telling a story, then?’
‘That’s easy, Drover,’ Pete replies immediately. ‘I know when a story is just a story and I know when something is true. This story is true.’
‘But it’s still a story?’
‘Hey, you’re confusing me now.’ Pete smiles for a moment and trudges up the slope to level ground. ‘But this is true, Drover, and that ain’t a lie. I don’t lie. It’s not built into me.’
‘Yeah, I know, mate. Come on, this way.’
There’s no path, just the sun ahead to follow, the rise and fall of the forest floor, the maze of trees to weave through, and the shadowy bushes to keep an eye on in case they are hiding something to eat.
‘So,’ Pete goes on, ‘when they want to get rid of someone, like an informer, maybe, or an enemy, these gangsters, they drive out here into the woods and then they drive back. Car boot’s got someone in it on the way in, and no-one in it on the way out.’
‘But they don’t bury them?’
‘No, Drover, they feed them to the Eater.’
‘The heater?’
‘The Eater! The monster that lives in the woods and eats bad people’s victims. Bones and all.’
‘Don’t make me laugh, Pete.’
‘You like it when I make you laugh.’
‘This ain’t one of your best stories, mate.’
‘Honest, Drover. It is a legend. I heard it.’
‘It’ll be a furnace somewhere, I expect. They bring the people they want rid of out here and burn them. That leaves no trace.’
‘Ah, but that would, you see. You can’t burn teeth and there are bones and DNA. You can’t really completely get rid of a body. Unless…’
‘What?’
‘Unless you eat it all. I mean, everything.’
‘Teeth and all?’
‘Teeth, fillings, bones, insides.’
‘Like the giant in Jack and the whatsit?’
‘No, he ground bones to make bread. The monster in these woods eats the person. All of him. Or her. No evidence left, see?’
Sometimes, Drover thinks, Pete makes some really strange sense. And sometimes his stories are just too far-fetched.
‘Sounds to me,’ he says, ‘that someone made up that story to keep people away from a place they didn’t want them snooping at. It’s your classic Scooby-Doo, ain’t it? Old janitor stashes his porn in the barn, invents a scary monster so no one comes near it, and there you go.’
‘They don’t have porn in Scooby-Doo,’ Pete says, hurt. ‘And, anyway, it’s true. There is a story and I ain’t lying to you. You’re my friend, ain’t you?’
There it is again, that need for reassurance.
‘Yes, Pete. I am.’ He stops walking and turns to the chubby guy beside him. He pulls Pete’s tatty old jacket closed slightly. They are standing in shadows and it feels colder now.
Suddenly, out of the blue, Pete grabs Drover and gives him a great big hug.
‘What the…?’
As he lets him go he gives him a present.
‘I got this for you.’
It is a metal cigarette lighter, not big, very scratched, but still with some gas in it.
‘I found it one time and thought I’d give it to you. Was meant to be when we got there, but now will do.’
Drover doesn’t smoke, but he does feel embarrassed. ‘Shuck it, Pete. You know I don’t like this kind of stuff.’ He walks ahead of Pete, up an incline.
There’s a moment or two of silence and then he hears, ‘Take it or I’ll tell the police.’
He turns back to Pete and stares at him.
‘What d’you mean?’ is what he says, but he is actually thinking, ‘What do you know?’
Pete starts walking up the slope. ‘Tell them what I know. About you.’
‘But you don’t know nothing, Pete.’
‘I know lots, Drover, lots about you.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like what they made you do.’
‘Who?’
Pete points to the shotgun as he trudges up the hill, his cheeks red. ‘Them travellers you owed the money to. Still owe. You owe a lot.’
That is no secret. Drover owes a huge amount of money to some people who hurt you if they don’t get it back. That’s one of the reasons he’s here. Running away from it all while he still has unbroken legs to run with.
‘So? Not criminal. Police won’t be interested. Why the police?’
Pete has almost reached him. ‘I know other things,’ he says with a childish nod of his head, stopping and folding his arms defiantly.
‘Like what?’ Drover’s heart is pounding.
‘Like why you are running away.’
‘I ain’t. I’m going to earn money so I can pay people back.’
‘Like why you don’t want the police to catch you.’
That sounds more like it. Drover’s skin feels tight suddenly. ‘Why’s that?’
‘It’s ‘cos you would be going away, innit? If they find what you did you would be away for a long, long time. I know.’
True. Nail on the head.
‘What did I do, then?’ His skin is crawling; thousands of tiny shivers of guilt are running across it, searching for a place to hide. He’s about to be found out, again. His secret blown wide.
‘I’m keeping a secret for you.’
Something in his voice tells Drover that, yes, actually, he is. His half-witted mate is relentlessly loyal. There’s something about this boy that Drover needs around him, and his silence is one of those things. Pete is right. If he goes back he will probably make up a story, like he does, and blurt something out. At least if they are together Drover can keep an eye on him, cover any story he might tell. But what does he know?
‘Tell me,’ Drover says. ‘Tell me what I did and I’ll keep the lighter.’
Pete’s face br
eaks into a great big grin and he shuffles up to Drover.
‘You robbed a bank,’ he says, and stands waiting for some kind of reward.
Is that it? The crawling lice of guilt infesting Drover’s skin scuttle for cover, away, off, they leave him instantly.
‘I told you that!’ Drover says, and laughs. ‘And, anyway, I didn’t rob it. I was with some others. They did it.’
True. The others he was with did get the cash, and then ran away leaving Drover struggling with a security guard. Pete doesn’t know the half of it, but he thinks he knows it all. Drover relaxes.
‘Okay,’ he says, and takes the lighter.
Pete throws his arms around his friend’s shoulders and hugs him. Drover is weakened by hunger and so feels the weight. Today, Pete’s bulk is too much for him and they fall to the ground, Drover caught off balance.
They fall backwards into mushy leaves and moss on the other side of the incline. The slope of the hill drags them down, rolls them towards a line of trees. It gets steeper. They are laughing and trying to stand up. Tripping and then falling again, putting out hands to stop themselves, but doing no good. The ground is steeper still. They slide, swearing now as twigs catch and damp leaves stick.
Until they finally slide to a halt, Pete on his back, Drover somehow on his front.
They lie there giggling and calming a while, and Drover thinks, ‘at least it stopped me feeling hungry for a minute.’ And then he thinks, ‘bloody kid,’ and sits up.
‘You okay, Pete?’
‘Will those people give us some food?’
‘Who’s there?’ Instantly alert, Drover’s heart races. ‘Who?’
‘Them.’
Pete is pointing towards the tree line and a small clearing beyond. Drover steps forward cautiously and squints into the sun to look closer.
A neat, red brick house, white window frames, two storeys, a pitched roof, a path of gravel around the building. He sees that it sits right in the middle of a clearing with tall trees closing in. It is like it was dropped there from the sky, scattering whatever trees it landed on and creating a small blast radius of a few feet all round. There’s a long window facing Drover, only a few feet away. He darts back behind a tree and pulls Pete with him.
Lonely House Page 3