The Hounded

by Simon Butters

  ‘No.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe it’s gone for good?’

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ she said.

  She turned her back to me, and disappeared behind a wall of blue smoke. She looked like some ancient witch on the moors, sitting by her cauldron, fixating on future kings. Or maybe it was the past she looked into, observing in the smoke images of days gone by. She’d replay these events over and over, watching out for the split second when her life was ruined forever. She relived the moment of destruction. She rejoiced in it, I was sure.

  Dad came home and found the chainsaw in the rain. I watched from my bedroom window as he calmly picked it up like an old friend and took it to the shed, turning on the light to look over the damage. He wiped it down and oiled it carefully. He unscrewed bits and laid them out in order, then put it back together with a comforted look on his face and started it. It purred beautifully, revving high and low. His job done, he turned it off and placed it back on a shelf. There. He’d performed his duty. The machine was taken care of. There was nothing else to do.

  He came into the house and I was sure he’d yell at me for leaving it out in the rain. He didn’t. I realised he’d forgotten all about that terrifying machine in the shed. Coming home to see it sitting in the rain was like meeting up with an old friend. It was odd. If anything, I thought he might thank me for reintroducing them.

  ‘You killed my roses,’ said the dog.

  ‘It wasn’t the roses I was after,’ I told it.

  The dog sat without expression, staring at me. I held its gaze.

  ‘I don’t think you should come to see me anymore,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t get to decide,’ it warned. ‘You think I should have told you about her mother? You think I should have laid everything bare for you? How would you have acted with her, if you had known?’

  I thought this through. I would have treated her with the same kind of humiliating comfort that most people would offer her. I would have been uncomfortable, knowing her suffering. I would have placated her.

  If there’s anything I could do … I would have said.

  How stupid. Of course there was nothing I could do. There was nothing anyone could do. People only made offers like that to make themselves feel better. Those words would have been a selfish act. Eliza neither wanted my help or needed it, that much was clear.

  ‘You see? She would hate you now if you knew.’

  ‘You don’t think she hates me?’

  ‘Not like she hates the rest of the world.’

  The rain continued all week. Summer gave way to autumn and Middleford began to take on a whole new charm. A lot of the new houses had cottage gardens, complete with trees that dropped their leaves in shades of deep red and yellow. It was all a pathetic attempt to make our suburb appear a little bit cultured, I guess. It didn’t really work. Underneath the bright autumn leaves, the dull, grey monotony of Middleford persisted. Still, something was different. The winds had changed; the hot desert northerlies had died away, replaced by a looming squall from the Southern Ocean. The cold was coming.

  I liked rain. It gave everything that fresh, green smell. Water pooled around my shoes as I walked to school. There were little cracks in the rubber of my soles and water had seeped in and soaked my socks. I’d squelch with every step for the rest of the day. This was a bad omen.

  During the Vietnam War, the American soldiers swore blind their enemy knew how to walk through the jungle without making a sound. These little Asian warriors knew the art of camouflage so well that they could happily stand two feet in front of their assailants without being seen. They could pick people’s blind spots and pass through a crowded room completely invisible. I practised this technique on a daily basis. It was a delicious insight. People were inherently selfish creatures. Not in the way that a two-year-old is selfish, although there are a lot of people like that. I mean in the way they literally see the world. People almost only think about themselves. Their concerns are about what affects them. And that is all. People’s brains seem to be hardwired to ignore everything else. A juggling chimpanzee in a party hat could walk right past you, but as long as you are more concerned about how much money is in your pocket, or what your hair looks like, you’d never see it. That’s how those sneaky Asian soldiers operated. They didn’t hide. They just made themselves invisible. They knew how to be ignored.

  It was a difficult skill to master. Even though people are selfish, they are still biologically hunters. Any sudden movement makes them snap to attention. The art of camouflage took patience and slowness. If you moved at the rate of a passing cloud, you could glide right past people without them ever noticing you were there. You’d be invisible. A ghost. This required utter silence. The hunter instinct was also attuned to the slightest sound. My squelching shoes were about to give me away.

  ‘There you are, Monty. We’ve been looking for you.’

  It was Becky McDormond. She was one of Eliza’s friends. Eliza had lots of friends. People generally flocked around Eliza, to bask in her presence. They hoped her good looks and charisma might somehow rub off on them, I suppose. They would be beautiful by attachment. Becky McDormond was one of these people. Becky spent a lot of time preening and wore heavy perfume that smelt of artificial straw­berries. Her thick make-up and sculpted hair always looked like something out of a fashion magazine. Yet underneath all the glamour, if you took the time to look, was a plain and simple fifteen-year-old, just like all the other plain and simple fifteen-year-olds who tried their best to be liked. I never tried to be liked. I didn’t see the point.

  ‘I know about you and Eliza,’ she grinned.

  I was startled. Not because she had found us out. It was the idea that there was actually something between Eliza and me that was startling. Until then, the concept had never crossed my mind. Not for real anyway.

  ‘Amy saw you at her house. Didn’t you Amy?’

  Amy Fotheringham flanked Becky, looking eager to please. Amy was another hopeful, but more insipid and cowardly than the rest. A few years back, before she had discovered mascara, Amy was a champion chess player. Sadly, she was robbed at the state titles by a severe head cold. Amy Fotheringham never looked you in the eye when she spoke, always at some point far away over your shoulder. That confused me. On the few occasions when we needed to talk to each other, paired up by a teacher or something, she’d talk to this imaginary point across the room. I always found myself turning around, trying to figure out who she was speaking to. I wondered if she could see things I couldn’t. In the end, I realised she was just incredibly shy. I was wary. Shy creatures, when backed into a corner, can be extremely dangerous.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Amy. ‘You were there for hours. You stayed for dinner and everything.’

  I turned around to see she was directing this at the fire extinguisher on the wall. I was an idiot. Amy Fotheringham lived not far from Eliza’s, around the corner to our street. She had a perfect view of Eliza’s front yard and would have noticed me standing there in the street. Eliza had been right to be worried. We had been seen.

  ‘So what’s going on?’ asked Becky. ‘It’s alright. I won’t tell anyone.’

  Some people, I had come to understand, are very good at concealing what’s going on in their mind. Take me for instance. Most people thought I had the IQ of a dead cockroach. Maybe it was because of my scruffy appearance, or the fact that my body was often seen wandering around by itself, bumping into the furniture: I was generally considered to be a bit thick. Not many people knew I actually had pretty good grades. Despite not listening to most of what my teachers had to say, I found textbooks and study quite simple. I read fast and did the work in double time. That meant I could spend more time thinking about the things that needed to be thought about. Eliza was obviously a master at this type of concealment. She was the ultimate in mystery. Not Becky McDormond.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she said.

  Her intent rang loud and clear. Of
course she was going to tell everyone. I could see her eagerness, I swear. She was circling me, ready for the kill. Becky was second in line to the throne. In the girls’ hierarchy at school she would rule if, by some unfortunate accident, Eliza was deposed or horribly maimed. Being associated with me would be enough for that to happen. I could destroy Eliza’s entire social network. She didn’t deserve that, just because of a haircut.

  Years before there was a girl who suffered the ultimate humiliation at the hands of Becky McDormond. Her name was Fiona or Felicity, or something. I can’t remember exactly. And that’s the horrific thing. Even to me she became a shadow creature, a Tim Smith, once Becky decided her fate. Backs were turned, whispers flooded hallways, online rumours spread like viruses. Nobody really knew what this poor girl had supposedly done. It didn’t matter. Teenage pregnancy, a debilitating drug addiction, a secret affair with someone’s pet turtle, whatever; everyone knew the stories were false, but that didn’t stop them. Once Becky set the wheels in motion, all she had to do was sit back and watch. A once popular girl was reduced to a nervous wreck in a matter of weeks. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore and left. Nobody knew where she went, or cared even. She just evaporated. Gone. Forgotten.

  Becky looked at me expectantly, waiting for my brain to come back to the world.

  ‘Science project,’ I said. ‘We we’re meant to team up. But she’s going to do the rest on her own. She thinks I’m too stupid to help. Ugly too.’

  I added this last bit to make it sound more like something Becky would say. She seemed to buy it. Her disappointment was obvious.

  ‘Okay then. As long as you two weren’t, you know, hanging out together or something?’

  Or something. I used this term myself a fair bit because, to me, it could sum up an entire set of circumstantial events in two simple words. Or something could mean so much. Or something contained eons of time wrapped up in a neat little package. It could mean a whole separate existence, one that could be so much better. It was a universe of its own making. There, anything that could be, would be. I loved or something.

  ‘Everyone’s right. Talking to you is like talking to a zombie,’ moaned Becky.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I asked you a question, remember?’

  Her teenage sarcasm was pitch perfect; the heavy ­intonation, the roll of her eyes, the condescending tilt of her head asserted the natural order between us.

  ‘No. We weren’t hanging out,’ I said.

  My deflection seemed to work. She looked past me and saw some girls she’d rather make feel small. She headed off without saying goodbye, followed dutifully by Amy. In her wake, she left a scent of cheap perfume that made me gag. I hoped I’d done enough.

  Jeers filled the school. Amy ran through the hallway, her face covered by schoolbooks. She pushed her way through gangs of boys who called out luridly, blowing her kisses. Teachers hurriedly whisked her out of sight, into their offices. A scandal had broken out.

  I caught the screen of some boy’s phone. On it were a pair of coconuts, close up, out of focus, but most certainly coconuts. They were beautiful, on free display. The girl’s hands pushed them up into the screen. It was from Amy.

  For some reason, she’d taken a picture of herself and sent it to everyone. And I mean everyone: kids, teachers, parents, everybody had this picture of Amy pinged into their inbox. Nobody knew why she did it. The boys loved it. The girls were horrified. Parents were outraged. Teachers flew into action. The police came around to ask questions. The Principal, Ms Finch, lectured us at assembly. She talked about online safety. Acts like this not only damaged the child in question, but the school. In future, electronic devices were banned. Kids groaned in horror. Becky McDormond went into a complete meltdown. It all happened so fast. Amy quit school that day. Eliza stood in the centre of this maelstrom and smiled.

  I found Eliza by the old park. She sat on top of the train tunnel on the high, bricked ledge, her feet dangling over above the tracks. I climbed up to meet her. She blew some smoke my way.

  ‘Thanks. Just what I needed,’ I said.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  She puffed another one in my face for good measure. I coughed and looked out over the valley with her.

  ‘Who did your hair?’ she asked.

  ‘Just some hack. Not a bad job, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe. It could do with a comb though.’

  We sat in silence for a long while. Shadows crept up on us. A cold breeze drifted through.

  ‘Amy saw me come over,’ I said.

  Eliza didn’t look my way. She just crushed her cigarette on the ledge, letting the butt-end fall through the sky.

  ‘She was going to tell everyone about us,’ I continued.

  Eliza glanced over at me. I could see she was appalled by the suggestion.

  ‘I mean, not that anything is going on. Just that … she was going to tell. Right?’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Amy’s gone.’

  Eliza uttered these words as a cold statement of fact. Her slight smile was chilling.

  ‘I upset your father,’ I said.

  She gave me a tired look and went for another cigarette.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I told her. ‘About your mother.’

  ‘Right. You going to tell me you’re sorry for me now?’

  ‘Of course not. What good would that do?’

  She looked to me. Her crisp vehemence dissolved. Her lips involuntarily came together, soft and sweet looking. She seemed curious, hopeful even. I wanted to reach out and touch those lips. She quickly turned away to stare over the valley.

  ‘So when are you going to introduce me to this mother of yours?’

  Chapter Eight

  I had killed before. It wasn’t on purpose but that wasn’t the point; I had set a precedent, however small. I horrified myself and vowed it would never happen again. I was about eight I think, and I’d seen some kids in the neighbourhood with slingshots. I thought it was a fantastic idea, to be armed like that, and took to my dad’s shed. The other kids’ slingshots were pretty basic things, made out of twigs and rubber bands. I knew I could do better. First of all, I bolted two long pieces of metal together. Second, I replaced the pathetic rubber bands with a rubber tube from an old spearfishing gun in the back shed. I made a little pocket out of leather for the projectiles. Soon enough, I had a weapon that would strike fear into the hearts of all who crossed my path.

  Armed with a glass marble, I looked around for my first target. I couldn’t really find anything interesting until a little black sparrow sat on a tree about thirty metres away. It was a long shot. I didn’t really think I’d hit it so I aimed and let loose.

  The power in the spearfishing rubber was astonishing and the sparrow disappeared in a flash. All that was left was a puff of downy feathers floating around in the sky. I gasped and ran over. The body told the grisly tale. It had obviously died instantly: I’d shot its head clean off. I tried to find the missing skull, but it was probably on the other side of town by then. I thought of all its babies, lying in their nest waiting for food that would never come. I thought of all the other sparrows it knew, who’d sit on the wire wondering why there was a little bit more room now. What was worse was thinking that it wouldn’t be missed at all, that all the other sparrows would get along just fine without it.

  Eliza and I walked past Amy Fotheringham’s place. The curtains were drawn and the lights were off as if nobody was home. I glanced towards the house, waiting for the slightest movement inside. There was none.

  I searched Eliza’s face but her gaze was impassive. The threat had passed and she no longer wasted her time thinking about it. She caught my look. I was staring at her again, like a young pup admiring its owner. She rolled her eyes and moved ahead so she didn’t have to look at me.

  I knew she didn’t think of me the way I thought of her. But I hoped she thought something of me. I hoped she pondered what went on in my head, and why we were spending
time together. Why, out of everyone at school, and how completely opposite we were in every respect, there was something, however small, going on between us. I hoped she thought about that. Us. I hoped she thought about us.

  ‘There is no us. Okay Monty?’

  ‘Sure. Of course not,’ I lied.

  ‘There is only you and me. Nothing else.’

  ‘Then why are we here?’

  We stood on the front porch of my house, ready to meet the disreputable mad woman who lurked within.

  ‘Monty, don’t do this,’ she groaned. ‘Not now.’

  Her tone was exasperated. She didn’t want to confront me. She didn’t want to turn on me. If I pushed her too far she would cut me loose, I knew.

  But what was this all about, this skulking around on the outskirts of town? She’d made a companion of me, I guess. That was it. I was someone to pass the time with. Whatever we did, for good or bad, we’d eventually come to the same end. One day, we’d simply slip away and forget we’d ever existed. She was right. Whatever we felt about each other would evaporate forever. Eventually.

  ‘I get it,’ I told her. ‘No matter what we do, one day it won’t matter.’

  She looked taken aback, as if I’d spoken a refrain she’d heard some place before. Those words struck her somehow, I could tell. It wasn’t as if I was trying to be philosophical or anything, but it somehow made her relax. She knew I understood. No matter what she felt for me, I wouldn’t hold her to it.

  Eliza walked past the stumps where the roses once lay, moving around them like headstones in a cemetery. She saw the pile of thorns I’d made at the back of the yard. I didn’t really know what to do with their remains so I just put them to one side, to rot I guess. The vines had dried out into sharp sticks. If you went too close, they still had enough life left in them to tear the shreds off you.

  ‘I guess I won’t be getting flowers anymore,’ she quipped.

  The back door announced our arrival with a dull slap. My mother was sitting in the lounge room, as usual surrounded by a pall of smoke. Eliza and I moved up behind her.