by Ryan Casey
‘The bag…’ Adam whispered, as he slumped further behind my back.
I found it trickier to summon that voice within me the second time, but once I had started to speak, the words seemed to come naturally. It was as if somebody were typing a speech into a computer, and I was imitating. ‘We saw you burying your daughter. And with Emily, hugging her, touching her. And all that stuff with Carla and the ring. You’ve been messing us around and now you’re going to kill us. You’re going to take us up to the house and you’re going to kill us and bury us and do what you did to Emily.’ I exhaled heavily now. Sharp waves of air shot in and out of my chest, which tightened up. Donald’s jaw sunk again and his smile disappeared. A soft frown grew on his head, and behind his thin glasses, his eyes misted over.
He shook his head and bit his lip, then spoke. ‘Boys, you’ve… I don’t think you get it. I’m… boys, you need to come to the house. We’ll talk there?’
I edged back a step, pushing Adam slowly as I did. If we were going to run, we had to do it soon. And with some sort of confession from Donald. Something we could take to the police. My heart raced and my legs began to rattle at the knees.
‘Did you kill your daughter?’ The words sneaked out from beneath the lump in my throat.
Donald shook his head some more and muttered under his breath.
‘Did you kill her?’
The flashlight turned towards the ground, limp in Donald’s hand. He continued to shake his head. Only the silhouette of his body was visible now.
I edged back further. The butterflies in my stomach turned to ants, nipping inside me. My legs shook, and I just wanted to run free, burst from this cocoon. Adam rubbed my arm and tried to slip his hand into mine, but my fists clenched tighter than a vice grip. I took another breath and readied myself one last time. ‘Did you kill your daughter—’
‘Yes!’ Donald screamed, projecting saliva towards us. He fell down to his knees, the bag in his right hand collapsing with him. ‘Yes, I did kill her, alright? I killed her, and it’s all my fault, it’s all my fault, and there’s nothing I can fucking do about it. I’ve tried to do everything, tried to fix things, and tried to be better, but she’s fucking dead, and I can’t do this anymore.’
The butterflies in my stomach receded and my fists opened. It felt like a bubble had been burst; a bubble that had been on the verge of popping for a while. But right here, in the low light of Donald’s torch, the bubble burst in silence. Donald’s glasses slipped off his nose as he buried his head in his hands, spluttering and crying, choking on his tears and inaudible words. I didn’t feel like running anymore.
Donald looked up at us from his hands. He looked different without his glasses on. He looked pitiful. I reached for the torch that had rolled towards us when it fell from his hands. The predator became the prey. But it felt horrible being in this position. Something wasn’t right about it. Donald looked… upset.
‘Boys, I swear. I swear to you. I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt anyone. I swear to you. You’ve got things wrong. I swear to you.’ He kneeled and parried towards us, and we shuffled back as he did. He opened his tear-drenched hands and threw them at us, eager for us to hold them, but we couldn’t. They were dirty hands. Hands of a killer.
I didn’t know what else to do, what else to say. We knew he’d killed his daughter. That was our mystery. Our mystery had been solved. And yet it felt so horrible. So wrong. Staring down at Donald in the light, his tears reflected into the night sky. This wasn’t the way it was meant to happen. He wasn’t supposed to be upset. It didn’t make sense. That’s what scared me the most about all of this.
‘Come on, Adam, we should go,’ I said.
‘No! No, boys, please.’ Donald kneeled like a monk, clasping his hands together. ‘I beg you. It was an accident. She said she needed her pills and… I guess I must have given her too much. Her mother, she was so good about it. But I… I couldn’t handle it, and I didn’t plan it. It just happened.’ Donald was tortured, tears rolling down his face and wet mud staining his corduroy trousers. He was a shadow of the confident, witty man who we’d played with in the woods. I almost felt sorry for him, as he begged and begged. And yet, I still could not find the words to speak to him. He was a murderer now. He was different, wasn’t he?
‘Boys, you believe me, it was an accident. Stupid, stupid accident. You can’t understand, but it was. I’m not a killer. It just happened and it’s done. I love her. I loved her, my Patricia. Love her. She loved this place. It’s so long ago now. It’s why I couldn’t tell you about the ring. I just wanted her to be here.’
Patricia. P.S. Her name rang in my ears like a gunshot and echoed around my skull. She had died in an accident, and he had buried her ring here because she loved the place. It made sense. But it wasn’t as exciting as in the books or on the telly. It wasn’t as… evil. It made too much sense. It was an accident, and it had killed her. Beth Swanson was just a coincidence. It was an accident. Like Gran had told Adam about his mum and dad. Just an accident.
‘We just need to know what happened to Emily,’ Adam said from behind my shoulder. He sounded confident again, the croakiness of his voice nowhere in sight.
Donald looked as though he was in a trance, shaking his head against the ground. And yet, he was smiling. Almost laughing at everything, the truth of it all being out in the open for the first time. Adam’s words vanished into the night, unheard and ignored.
I took his place. ‘Donald.’
He jolted up, his head snapping back into place, and looked at me. ‘Wha—wh—’
‘You say your daughter… it was an accident. Right, but we just need… why have you killed Emily?’
He stopped whimpering and looked deep into my eyes. ‘What do you mean, killed her?’
Adam intervened, storming from behind me towards Donald. ‘We know, Donald. We’ve seen you messing with her, saw those knickers that you picked up back there. What have you done with her?’ I held Adam back as he bombed forward like an angry dog on a leash.
Donald squeezed his eyebrows together as he reached towards his glasses on the ground. He was silent for a few seconds, his mouth open, bewildered. ‘Boys… why would I kill Emily?’
I felt my arms go light. Maybe he was playing games again. Tricking us into a false sense of security before killing us. We had the upper hand, and we couldn’t afford to let it slip now.
‘We know you’ve got her, Donald. Done something to her. So tell us what it is,’ I said.
Donald laughed and shook his head. His smile was discomforting. ‘Sorry to disappoint but… I thought you’d figured it out. That’s why—boys, we’re going to see Emily now.’
A chill ran down my spine. She was in the house, of course she was. But Donald’s delivery was eerie. ‘We’re going to see her now.’ I scratched at my arms and pulled my neck round to face Adam.
‘What’ve you done with her?’ Adam asked. His voice was quieter than before. The aggression wasn’t there anymore.
‘Boys, she’s absolutely fine,’ Donald said. ‘And if you don’t want to take my word for it, look in the bag.’
I did not know how to react to this. It could be a trap. Donald rose to his feet as if he were reading my mind and threw the bag towards us. It was an old black sports bag, like one a tennis player carried all their gear in. I scratched at my wrist and looked at my watch. It was 2:30. If Granddad walked into our room now, he’d go crazy. I wish he was here.
I crouched down and looked between Adam and Donald.
‘Don’t worry, Liam,’ Donald said. ‘Your guard is keeping a close eye on me.’ He put his hands in the air and waved them from side to side, like a criminal caught by the police.
I pulled the handles out of the way and clenched the zip before tugging it along, my fingers weak. For a sickening moment, I expected to see Emily’s head in the bag, like on that film that Jay West had told me about before summer, where the murderer sends the policeman’s girlfriend’s head to him in a box.
But there was no head and there was no weapon. Just sandwiches. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. A snuggly pink blanket. And the knickers. I looked back up at Donald, who raised his eyebrows. He carried on smiling. My mouth and lips opened and closed as I tried to make sense of things.
‘Like I said—Emily’s absolutely fine, boys. Maybe you should come see for yourselves.’ He walked towards me as I gawped on the floor. He reached for his rucksack and slid the torch from out of my hand. ‘I think that’s mine,’ he said, before turning and striding towards the house in the distance.
Adam and I were stuck to our spots as he strode off ahead. What did all of this mean?
Donald turned round to face us again. He shook the flashlight at us to capture our attention, like a slap across the face. ‘I’m heading this way, boys. If you want to know what all this is about before you get any more wild ideas, I suggest you come along, too.’
I looked up at Adam, who nodded his head. We followed Donald from a distance, baffled by the events of the last few minutes. We walked hand in hand towards the towering derelict house up ahead, surrounded by the silence of the night.
Chapter Thirty
We were reluctant as we followed Donald’s shadow. Or at least, it would have been a shadow if we had kept hold of the torch from earlier. In a way, it gave us an opportunity. A chance to run if something went wrong. But somehow, everything felt strange and a little bit dreamlike. The way that Donald had begged, on his knees, tears rolling down his cheeks. Totally torn from his usual sense of dignity. Something about that had unsettled me, but it also reassured me. Yes, Donald was a killer. He had admitted that. But he was also sorry. He was human, still.
Wasn’t he?
And now we were following him to the derelict house to see Emily. ‘Emily’s absolutely fine, boys.’
‘Absolutely fine.’ What did that mean? How could she be absolutely fine? It did not make sense. And the food in the bag. Not weapons, axes, or anything like that. Just food. Food, blue boxes that looked like toiletries, and blankets.
As we approached the house, still clutching at each other’s hands, a sudden fear swept over me as the distant glare of the torchlight vanished from view. Shit. He’d hidden. He’d turned the light off and he was waiting for us to approach, waiting to pounce. Adam pulled his hand from mine and shuffled round, like a fly in a glass.
We were enveloped in light just moments later.
‘Sorry, boys,’ Donald called, ‘Couldn’t startle her. You coming in?’
He stood to the right of the doorway, which crumbled away, succumbing to the onslaught of moss. The once–beautiful grey brick had fallen prey to disease now. I pictured all the insects and animals hiding behind its walls. Worms dominating the ground. Rats feasting on them, and spiders decorating the window ledges with thick cobwebs.
The two of us edged towards Donald, who remained at the door, watching us. Somewhere behind us, I heard a crack and a shuffling. I turned myself round, startled, and followed Donald’s torchlight as it scanned the darkness like a police helicopter.
‘There’s all sorts of noises out here,’ Donald said. ‘Mind carrying this, Liam?’
He flipped the flashlight over in his hand and reached it towards me, offering it as if it were candy and I was a gullible kid. I moved towards him, reluctant, and made sure I kept my left arm slightly behind in case Adam had to drag me away from whatever Donald was planning to do with me. As I reached my arm out, Donald placed the torch in my hand, and pulled his arm back quickly as if to exit the exchange as promptly as possible. I shone the torchlight on him again. The mud painted his corduroy trousers. His wellington boots were coated. There were speckles of mud on his face, too, streaking downwards like wet makeup. He looked like Mum did when she cried. He smiled and held his arm towards the door, gesturing for us to go inside. I looked back at Adam, who nodded and curled his bottom lip backwards, chewing at its surface.
I didn’t feel comfortable going in before Donald. I wanted to see him at all times and make sure he was in the view of the flashlight. I was about to say something forceful, something like the tough guys say on the movies. ‘Lead the way, motherfucker,’ or something like that, but all that I could muster was a soft whimper. Donald must have caught on to my apprehension. He dropped his arm and led the way, entering the doorway. ‘I’ll stay in the torchlight, don’t you worry,’ he said.
I grabbed Adam’s lower arm with my free hand. He shook for a moment, then let it settle there. We were doing this together. And then, with Donald across the threshold, we took the first steps towards the cobweb-covered doorway, under the low arch that Donald had to crouch to get through, and into the dust-covered room inside.
Donald stepped aside, and I scanned the area. It was completely empty. A large rock sat towards the left of the room with a Union Jack flag perched on top. Broken sticks and pebbled stones carpeted the floor. In the corner of the room, there was an old staircase, wooden and covered with cobwebs. I heard it creak as I aimed the torch in its direction, and it saw light for the first time in years. No wonder nobody came up here except rough kids and, well, Donald.
There were beer cans on the floor, crinkled together and giving way to the brown, deathly onslaught of rust. Everywhere the torchlight aimed, speckles of dust parried in the glow. Everything seemed dead here. This had once been somebody’s home. It was probably a nice place to live once upon a time. But now, as moss wrapped its jaws round the outside and damp and decay tortured the interior, nature had won the battle. It always did. It would win the battle against us, against Donald. Against Donald’s daughter. Against Emily.
Emily.
Donald looked at me and pointed the light towards the far corner of the room. He tilted the head of the torch in the direction of the old flag-marked rock. ‘Hold that there a sec,’ he said, before tiptoeing in its path, light-footed but speedy.
Adam began to follow him, but I held my arm out and stopped him. Donald could be doing anything. If Emily was ‘absolutely fine’ then where was she? I turned behind me. The arched doorway was wide open. Our only escape route. I saw something glint outside like a watch reflecting against the moonlight, but when I blinked, it vanished. My stomach began to churn again, and my legs went rigid. Just a trick of the eyes. Just a trick of the eyes.
When I turned back round, I noticed Donald perched down at the end of the tunnel of light, next to the rock. He placed the bag down and started to take out some of its contents. One of the items looked like underwear. Clean, white underwear. The other was a blue box of things. I didn’t know what they were, but I had seen them in the bathroom and assumed they were mum’s things. I wasn’t sure.
After he had gotten the items out, Donald muttered a few words towards the rock. Why was he speaking to a rock? Had he gone completely insane? He stood up and looked back towards us, summoning us in with a wave of the hand. My legs felt rigid again, uncertain of what lay ahead. I couldn’t move. I turned towards Adam and back towards Donald. Adam looked back at me, wide-eyed, and waited for me to make a move.
‘Come on!’ Donald mimed. He seemed too eager. Too happy. He continued to wave.
Without explanation, my feet carried me forward. It was the only way now. We had discovered so much, travelled so far. We needed answers, one last answer, even if it killed us.
I stumbled over piles of sticks and the odd broken glass bottle crunched against my shoes as I headed towards the rock. The little Union Jack flag was plastic and static. It was like the flag the Americans had put on the moon, only this place was probably more alien and more mysterious. The staircase creaked again from above in the night-time breeze, as the sound of birds chirping hinted at morning’s imminence.
Another step.
Donald edged to the side and folded his arms together, the rucksack blocking our direct path to whatever was at the side of the rock. I curved my path round it in advance so that I wouldn’t have to make any last minute turns. I looked back towards the door again
. The dim blue of the night was more distant than ever. Adam’s hands shook.
Another couple of steps.
Something started to become visible beyond the Union Jack flag, and just behind the rock—a mound of something wrapped in a swamp-green blanket. My neck elongated to get a better look before I jolted back to check that Donald was still in place. He stood, arms folded, nodding his head towards the thing behind the rock.
I saw an arm. My knees wobbled and my stomach felt like it was going to give way as I realised who it could be, static and cold in this house of death. But the arm raised gently. It was definitely moving. I stepped around the rock, arching my neck some more, and I saw her face. Her sweet, bony face, hiding beneath her hair.
Emily was tucked underneath the blanket, sucking her thumb, eyes closed.
Every single part of my body froze. For a moment, it did not matter that a killer was in the room with us. It did not matter that we were in a derelict old cobweb-infested house in the dead of the night, away from any sort of comfort. Nothing mattered. My eyes froze on her body. I looked at her face, her arms, saw her chest gently rise and recede underneath the green blanket. I saw the remnants of a purple bruise on the side of her neck. I could not speak. I could not think. It’s Emily.
Adam leaned forward, his legs rooted to the ground like a jack in a box. His jaw parted. He looked up at me and Donald and back at Emily. It was a dream. It could not be real. Any of it. Donald tried to smile at me. He blinked softly, like Gran did when there was something upsetting us.
After what seemed like a lifetime, Adam was the one to break the silence.
‘Is she…’ he said, stopping himself, looking at Donald for answers.
Donald’s smile widened. ‘She, is asleep.’
I looked at him watching over her. His eyes watered behind his glasses, which were slightly bent from the incident before.