by Dan Clark
You need help! the internal voice snarls.
“No, I know what I saw!” Carolyn says aloud.
“Carolyn?” Jeanette says, knocking on the door and stepping inside with two mugs of tea in her hand and a fresh pair of pyjamas under her arm. “Who were you speaking to?”
Carolyn doesn’t answer. She just shakes her head.
“Change out of them dirty clothes will you, love? They’re full of mud. And get this down you too, you’ll catch a cold. You must have been freezing standing out there!” Jeanette puts the mugs of tea down on the bedside table before taking a seat at the foot of the bed. “I know what you’re going through must be hard. I’ve never lost a child myself, so I won’t say I know how you feel, because I don’t, but—”
“Mum, I know what I saw. Something is going on around here.”
Jeanette reaches for her cup and slurps her tea. “You’ve just lost your little boy, Carolyn.” She begins stroking Carolyn’s knee with her free hand. “That must be hard enough, never mind losing your husband too.”
Carolyn picks her own tea up and holds it in two hands, enjoying the warmth of the mug on her fingers. She opens her mouth to speak, but Jeanette carries on.
“I know you’ve lost a son and a husband, but I’ve lost a grandson and a son-in-law. It’s hard for us both. Please let me know next time before running off. I was worried sick. I didn’t know what to think.”
“I’m sorry. I think it’s the pills taking their toll on me.” Carolyn forces a laugh.
“I understand. Why not come over the church tomorrow? Get stuck in with some chores and take your mind off things.”
“We’ll see, Mum.”
“Ok. It’ll do you good though. Concentrate on something else for a change.”
“Have you heard of Silvis Primary?” Carolyn asks.
“Silvis? Yeah, sure. It’s a small primary school over on Black Lane. Why?”
“The uniform, do they have green jumpers with a crest on the chest?”
“Well, yeah. Why?”
Carolyn nods, she finishes the last of her tea and hands the empty mug over before picking up the new pyjamas. “I just want to go to bed. I’m shattered.”
Her mother says goodnight and leaves her to change.
In bed, she thinks of Simon and Ryan, wishing she could be with them, wishing that she too had been in the car that day. She puts what she had seen earlier down to the drugs, or possibly a simple case of an over-active imagination. The stress of losing her family has taken its toll on her mind.
The green school jumper and logo is an easy explanation – on their way through town earlier she must have seen a child wearing it, and the logo with the S had managed to creep up in her mind. She will forget about it, and try to apologise to the police and the firefighters.
Guilt is resting in her stomach. She knows what the cost would be if there had been a fire or a police matter somewhere else, and they were busy dealing with the woman who’d cried wolf.
Chapter Seven
That was close, too close, the man thinks. He steps from his car and looks around. It’s quiet, of course. He opens the boot of his car and pulls out the body wrapped in bin bags.
The stench is sickening. He’ll have to leave the windows open for a week just to air it out. Climbing down that well earlier was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do. He’d almost vomited twice.
The man doesn’t know why Carolyn hadn’t simply called the police, instead of racing down there herself. But he’s grateful. If she had called, the situation would have played out very differently for him.
He places the body gently on the ground, not that the boy would feel anything. It’s a sign of respect… or that’s what he believes. The man reaches for a spade and begins digging, using a small torch to guide him. He’ll dig for a couple of minutes, then check his progress before switching the torch off again. He can’t risk using the car’s headlights, not out here at this time in the morning.
He digs and digs until he’s standing in a hole three feet deep. He looks at his watch. 3 am.
“That’ll do,” he says, breathlessly.
He pats the last of the soil onto the grave and steps back, wiping his sweat-soaked forehead on the sleeve of his shirt. He places the spade back into the foul-smelling boot and rests against the car for a moment to catch his breath before heading home.
***
Carolyn tosses and turns. She’s already missing Ryan’s bed. She’s missing his army of teddies that usually surrounds her. Restlessly, she’s dreaming of being in the passenger seat of Simon’s car again, and, as before, her family vanishes and the car veers into the concrete slabs of the motorway’s hard shoulder. She wakes. Her hair is stringy across her sweaty face, and the collar of her pyjama top is damp. She wipes at her face before pushing herself upright and turning over the pillow to feel the benefit of the cold side. Reaching for her phone, she presses the Home button. The brightness of the screen burns her eyes. 3:11 am.
The image of the young corpse she had seen a few hours earlier returns.
The pictures flash in a cycle through her mind. Grass, yellow flowers, well, decaying body.
Resting against the headboard, she can hear the quiet rumble of her mother’s snores through the wall. She draws in a deep breath, hoping the images will recoil to the back of her mind.
She asks herself again: Is it possible I imagined the corpse? Did I sleepwalk to the well and hallucinate the body?
In the three months since Simon and Ryan’s death, she hasn’t once hallucinated. Nightmares, sure, but no hallucinations. Especially so vivid. And if it wasn’t her imagination, what the hell is going on? Who would leave a corpse down a well for somebody to find, then remove it again like some sick prank?
Carolyn closes her eyes tight and shakes her head. She feels like screaming to make the images disappear, but she can’t. It would give Jeanette a heart attack. She’s already caused enough trouble with the police, and she hasn’t even been in Llanbedr for twenty-four hours.
The room is lit only by the light in the hallway, shining round the edge of the door. She can make out an old desk at the bottom of the bed. It has an old television on top, plus a DVD player, bin bags full of old clothes, and a couple of spare pillows. The clutter on the cabinet has taken a new shape. Carolyn’s psyche has manipulated the items into something else, something much less innocent. When Carolyn looks to the end of her bed now, all she can see is the silhouette of a monster sitting and waiting patiently for her to fall back asleep so it can devour her soul and chew on her flesh.
She turns her attention away from the monster and towards the window above the bed, moving one of the curtains aside. Peeping through the window, she watches as the bushes and flowers blow from side to side. The remaining fence panels move in and out as if breathing with lungs of their own. She concentrates on the large gap at the bottom of the garden, the black nothingness.
She watches it carefully, waiting as if at any moment a face will appear from the darkness and meet her gaze. The face will have an evil look and a sly grin, the type that a deranged killer might have. The killer would probably be in partnership with the binbag monster at the bottom of her bed.
She chuckles at the ridiculous thought and watches the dark gap for another moment before dropping the curtain back into place and slouching down onto the cool pillow, grabbing her phone from the bedside table. She presses the Home button, and the screen lights up the room. Her heart pangs as she admires the faces of Simon and Ryan, which are acting as her wallpaper. After a few seconds, the screen darkens, and then the room falls back into blackness. She presses the button again and repeats this for the next few minutes, before falling back asleep with the phone in her hand.
Chapter Eight
Carolyn wakes, her head pulsing with a migraine. The house is in complete silence. There’s no mumble of game show chatter coming from the TV in the front room, and no noise from Jeanette doing housework. The bedroom door is ajar
, probably from when her mum checked in on her earlier.
In the kitchen, a note is resting against the toaster.
Gone to pick up the car from town. Stay in and relax.
Won’t be too long.
Love Mum x
Pouring herself a glass of water, Carolyn reaches for the tub of pills. They were still where Inspector Richard Williams had left them last night. Last night’s events are fuzzy, apart from the judgemental eyes of the rescue party all looking at her for an explanation. The feeling of guilt returns, causing Carolyn to feel once again like a crazy woman; a crazy woman who turns up at a police station dressed in pyjamas and her mother’s slippers and wastes everybody’s time.
She unscrews the cap and tips two pills out into the palm of her hand. She stands there examining the red and blue casing, remembering the disturbing image of the young boy’s face.
“Nope, not today,” she says, throwing the pills (along with the tub) into the bin. She forces them down deeper, hiding them out of her mother’s sight, under the old television magazine. If the pills have something to do with what she saw last night, then it would be best to stop taking them immediately, even if this goes against her GP’s wishes.
Carolyn dresses and looks out of the window. Her mother’s car is back, parked on the driveway. Father Joseph’s white Volvo is at the church. She guesses her mother will be too.
She heads over.
Jeanette is kneeling next to one of the pew benches with a piece of sandpaper. She looks up and notices Carolyn standing in the doorway. She stands, resting her hands on top of her knees and grunts as she straightens, beckoning Carolyn over.
“Come to give us a hand?” Jeanette’s voice echoes off the walls around the quiet building.
Carolyn looks around. “Where’s Father Joseph?”
Jeanette doesn’t have time to answer. Father Joseph speaks up as he gets to his feet from being crouched behind the first row of pews, and he begins walking over towards them. The heels of his shoes clunk against the hard wooden floor.
“Ah, Carolyn. I’m glad to see you up. You look better today,” he says, stepping to the side of her mother.
He means that you’re dressed and not crying for help, the internal voice tells her.
“Thank you,” Carolyn replies, turning back to Jeanette. “Mum, can I borrow the car?”
Her mother looks down. There’s an uneasy look on her face as she reaches for her bag.
“What’s up?” Carolyn asks her.
Jeanette shakes her head and sighs. “I’d rather you just stay home. Why not put the telly on and watch a film? Or… or you could help out here? These benches need sanding and varnishing.”
Carolyn feels the eyes of Father Joseph burn into the side of her face. She knows they’ve been discussing her. Discussing her loss, her unstable mind, her crazy imagination.
Carolyn convinces herself that Father Joseph has already made his mind up about her. She’s the troublemaker, the sinner in this quiet town. Carolyn and Father Joseph have never been properly introduced. Whenever she, Simon and Ryan would visit, they never really had time to meet. Now they have, and his first impressions of Carolyn aren’t looking too good.
Carolyn turns to face him before the holes in the side of her cheeks burn any deeper. He snaps his glare away. His beady eyes now look towards the door, and he heads back in the direction he came from, clunking on the floor as he goes.
“What’s wrong, Mum?” Carolyn asks, feeling slightly annoyed and belittled.
Jeanette searches around the bottom of her handbag and pulls out the car keys with three colourful keyrings attached. “Father Joseph and I were talking this morning. He ran me into town to pick up my car, you see. You’ll have to thank him, Carolyn.”
“Why don’t you want me to borrow your car?” Carolyn asks, raising her voice, not caring if Father Joseph is listening. He’s probably watching from over his shoulder and reading her lips as she speaks.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to borrow the car. In town this morning I was getting milk and a few other bits. People were looking at me, some even ignored me completely.” Jeanette pauses for a moment and looks down at the keys, visibly embarrassed. “This is a tight community.” She leans against the bench. “News travels fast around here, you see. I like it here, and I don’t want you to cause trouble with people. I want them to like you as they do me,” she says with a pitiful face.
Carolyn nods, understanding her mother’s point. Jeanette has made a life for herself here, and with the people of Llanbedr. Even if she herself doesn’t like the place, her mother does. She wouldn’t want to destroy the friendships she has made. Carolyn takes the keys and heads for the door. “I won’t be causing any trouble. I just need a few bits. I’ll pick something up for dinner too.”
Out on the main road the radio is muted, giving her mind time to think. Maybe Inspector Williams was right, she tells herself. Maybe I was exhausted and tired. I have been for weeks, ever since the accident. Her mind wanders off and she begins to think about Simon and Ryan. Slowly she begins to feel less angry and frustrated about last night. She forgets everyone’s faces – the angry faces around the well, shaking their heads and tutting at one another.
“I made a mistake. Those tablets don’t help either,” Carolyn says as she takes the bend. She is so busy persuading herself that it was the side-effects of the tablets, she doesn’t notice the horrific smell coming from the Kings’ pig farm.
On the straight three-mile road leading into town, she examines herself in the rear-view mirror. The heavy bags under her eyes have grown deeper these past few weeks. Her skin colour, once a smooth and healthy glow, is now blotchy and pale, not to mention the weight she’s lost. She decides to let go of the last few weeks. She will begin by sitting out in the sun for a few hours a day, whenever the unpredictable October weather allows it. She might even dye her hair and hide the roots, take it back to the shiny brunette she once was.
Carolyn comes to a stop at the lights on Baltimore Street before taking the left into Duke Street, and arrives at Llanbedr Convenience. She parks in the bay outside the shop and enters through the automatic doors, passing a group of lads in their late teens. They look at her in a strange way. She is the outsider.
Llanbedr Convenience is the only place in the town where you can get everything under the one roof, and today it’s packed with shoppers. Carolyn enters the first aisle, pushing her trolley, and ignoring the faces she’d seen standing outside The Red Fox last night. Two young college girls are smirking and chuckling. They’re probably laughing at a funny cat video on YouTube, but today Carolyn’s mind tells her they’re laughing at her. She keeps her eyes on the shelves, searching for what she came for. Perhaps she’ll make cottage pie tonight. She briefly lifts her head to make eye contact with people walking past, and they murmur under their breaths.
“News does travel fast around here!” she says to the facewipes in her hand. Down the cosmetics aisle she finds the hair dye, and places it in the trolley before moving on. She comes to an abrupt stop as her trolley crashes into that of another shopper. A scruffy-looking man is now standing in front of her. He’s wearing oily overalls and a thick mid-brown sheepskin jacket. His head is shaved, and he has a thick greying moustache with oil stains on his cheeks. Carolyn presumes he is around fifty-five to sixty years of age. His blue eyes are peering into hers with undisguised hatred. Carolyn remembers his face; he’s another one of the bystanders from outside The Red Fox last night. The woman standing next to him is smaller, though she’s roughly the same age. The woman’s dyed blonde hair is thinning, exposing parts of her scalp and showing her roots. It reaches down to the shoulders of her long black leather coat.
Long cracks run up the arms of the leather, proving it to be well-worn. Underneath, she’s wearing a white vest top exposing her belly, a short denim skirt which exposes her pasty bruised thighs, and black knee-high scuffed boots. Mascara is embedded in the deep cracks of her cheeks, and fresh tears
are rolling off her chin. Inappropriate clothing for a woman of her age, Carolyn thinks. She also thinks that she looks like a woman desperately trying to hang on to her youth – and failing terribly.
The people around Carolyn turn into a blur. They stop to look on and watch. She hears them chatter to one another.
“That’s the one who said she saw a body…” she hears.
The man in the dark overalls leans in closer. Carolyn can smell the stale scent of beer and cigarettes on his breath as he speaks.
“Are you the bitch that has been making lies up, saying you’ve seen the body of a young boy?”
Carolyn looks from him to his crying partner.
“I…” A rush of fear hits her. “… I haven’t made any lies up. I don’t know who you are or why you’re asking me.” Her voice is wavy and cautious.
The crying woman speaks out, but her voice is unclear, and the cries take over. Carolyn can’t make out what she’s saying, and the confusion must have shown in her face because the man repeats what she has said.
“She said you don’t even live around here. Why are you dragging up the past and creating lies?” The man stiffens his eyebrows and steps even closer.
“Now hold on, Frank!” says a whiny, high-pitched voice from behind Carolyn. The manager of the store is at his side. He’s skinny, and possibly just hitting five foot six. He looks tiny next to Frank. Carolyn’s face begins to feel hot and flustered.
“Don’t be causing any trouble in here. If you have a problem with this woman, take it up with Chief Inspector Williams!” the store manager continues.
“Was he wearing a green padded coat?” The crying woman is wiping her face with a tissue. She’s managed to calm herself enough to ask clearly. The two men stop talking and stare at Carolyn, waiting for her to answer, along with the rest of the shoppers that are standing by.
Carolyn’s throat feels dry. If she’s being honest, she really isn’t sure what she’d seen. The image in her mind is dark. She’d spent most of last night, and the drive into town this morning, convincing herself it was all her imagination, or that it was the Mirtazapine tampering with her mind and creating things that weren’t there. Now she’s uncertain if she even saw a body at all – or even the well, for that matter. She might have been sleepwalking. That sounds more of a plausible scenario, she thinks.