by Tim O'Rourke
Unlike what the Elders had told me, the statue had said that if I wanted to push back and save my friends, I had to bathe in these Dead Waters. As I stood on the crest of the hill, I spied a thin column of black smoke spiralling up into the white sky. It looked like a pencil smudge on a blank piece of paper. Sheltering my eyes with my hands, I peered ahead and could see that the smoke was coming from a house in the distance.
My father’s house. I looked at it, then glanced back over my shoulder in the direction I had come.
Did I listen to the statue and go back, lead them and my friends to these Dead Waters, wherever they me be? Or, did I continue on towards my father’s house and make the choice which would ultimately set my friends free? With my head tucked down, and my long hair fanning out behind me in the wind, I set off in the direction of the house and the black spiral of smoke.
The house sat alone on an area of ground which was mostly surrounded by trees and brambles. The nearest road was about a mile or more away, which you could get to by following a narrow path which led away from the front of the house. I had been able to see this as I made my way down from the hill. Not far from the house, there was a small crop of trees. They offered some protection from the snow, as I stood and spied on the house. I’d already made up my mind; I would look at him from afar. There was a temptation, knowing my father was somewhere inside that house, to run towards it and find him. I was scared, though, now that I was here. What would it be like to see him again after all this time?
I just wanted to see his face again, to know that he was all right. I could hear Murphy’s and Potter’s warnings inside my head, telling me that this man wasn’t really my father. He was, though.
It was my father in a different when, that was all.
Now that I was so close, it was easy to push Potter’s and Murphy’s warnings from my mind.
The desire to see my father again, and knowing that he was so close, was overwhelming.
Concealed behind the trunk of a large tree, I watched the house, hoping to see some sign of him. I knew already that my father in this when was slightly different from the one I had loved.
My father had always liked towns. He enjoyed the convenience of it, and it was near to his work.
This place was remote, unlike anything he would have usually chosen. I could see several flowerbeds lying before the house on a patch of turf. I couldn’t tell if they were well-kept or not because of the blanket of snow, but I knew my father had never enjoyed gardening. Before the house stood what appeared to be crab apple and plum trees. Both were fruitless. In fact, as I stared at the house, it didn’t look as tranquil and well-kept as perhaps I had first thought. Brickwork showed through, where large areas of paint had been allowed to flake away. The roof was missing some slates in several places, and the front door, which at first sight looked grey, was actually just weather-beaten and dirty. This surprised me, as my father had always been rather meticulous about
how presentable and clean the house looked. Perhaps there were slight differences between whens? I wondered.
I rubbed my hands together, then blew warm breath over them. My fingers ached with the cold, but it was better than having them turning to stone. With my back hunched, and trying to make myself as small as possible, I peered around the edge of the tree trunk, and watched the house.
The snow had almost stopped now, and I could see that no one had approached or left the house all morning by the lack of footprints leading to and from the house. I knew that my father was home by the sight of the continuous stream of smoke that poured from the chimney. He was probably sitting before the fire reading a good book. Who in their right mind, other than me, would be out eating rats and watching the house of their dead father from behind a tree?
I’d almost given up hope of seeing him, when suddenly I saw the outline of someone at the window. Was that him? I wondered. Whoever it was, they had passed the front of the window too quickly for me to see. Perhaps there was someone else in the house. A wife, perhaps? Murphy and Potter had told me that my mother had died during childbirth, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t remarried. Who would want to live in such a remote place on their own? Not me, nor my father – not the one I had known. How did he get to work each day? He had been a pathologist and was pretty much always on-call. Havensfield was a good five miles or more away. Was my father a pathologist in this world? Perhaps he did something completely different? Did any of that really matter? I’d only come to steal a secret look at him, not find out his life story.
I stared at the window, but there was nothing. With the sky clouding over again and the light fading, I stepped from the trees and slowly approached the house. I walked hunched over, trying to make myself as tiny as possible. I knew that I was leaving tracks in the snow behind me, but I couldn’t bear waiting in the cold any longer on the off chance that my father might peer out of the window so I could sneak a glimpse of him. If the Elders had been right about what they had said, then I was meant to see my father again, and it would somehow lead to a choice that I had to make.
I stepped around the flowerbeds and approached the windows. They were arched at the top, their frames wooden and bare in places where the white paint had flaked away. Crouched beneath the windowsill, I slowly raised my head and peered through. They were dirty, and seeing through them into the room was difficult. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through. On the other side of the grime-smudged window, I could see a snug-looking living room. A fire roared in the hearth on the far side of the room, and there was a high-backed chair pulled up close before it.
Was my father sitting in that chair, warming himself before the fire? I couldn’t quite see. The back of the chair was too tall. However, to know that he could be just feet away from me felt surreal. When I had buried my father, not once did I ever imagine I would see him again. I felt sick with excitement and fear all at the same time.
What if he were to suddenly stand up and look back? He would see me. How would he feel at discovering his daughter peering at him through the living room window, knowing that he had only recently buried her?
It was only as those thoughts rushed through my mind, I realised how crazy a situation I was in. Somewhere inside of me I knew that coming to see my father again had been a mistake. However much it pained me, Potter had been right. This hadn’t been one of my greatest ideas. How selfish had I been? I’d only been thinking about my own grief and not my father’s.
What if he were to look back now and see me? It would be like seeing a ghost. He didn’t have the understanding or the knowledge of what truly was going on. My father hadn’t the faintest idea that the world had been pushed. As far as he knew, his world was still running on track – he didn’t know of any other. So to see me would surely mess with his head, make him go half-crazy at the sight of his dead daughter staring at him through the window. My grief and the desire to replace those haunting memories of him, for however briefly, had blinded me.
Wishing now that I hadn’t come, I crouched again beneath the window. Then, just as I was about to turn and sneak away, I heard a familiar voice and it didn’t fill my heart with gladness like I had hoped – but fear.
“Kiera?” the voice said. “Kiera, is that really you?”
Slowly, I stood up, turned around and looked back at my father.
Chapter Eighteen
Potter
Knowing I had very little time to waste, I rocketed out of the sky, and headed straight for the front door. Still in flight, I shoulder-barged into it, sending the doorway flying inwards in a shower of splinters. Murphy, who I could see had been dozing in front of the fire and warming his feet, sat bolt upright. His pipe hung from the corner of his mouth as he looked agog at me.
“What the bleeding hell is going on!” he barked. Then seeing the door scattered about the room in a mass of fine splinters, he shouted, “You can fucking pay for that, Potter! I’m going to lose my deposit on this place thanks to you!”
“You’re goi
ng to lose more than just your deposit any time now!” I yelled back. “We’ve got berserkers at one, three, six, and nine o’clock.”
“Ah, just quit with all the o’clock-bollocks and speak English, can’t you?” Murphy grumbled, getting slowly out of the chair.
“We’re surrounded,” I warned him.
“ B y who?” he said, fumbling for his matches in his trouser pockets.
“About twenty of those shit-faced berserkers,” I told him again.
“Where?” he asked, going to the window and peering out.
Before I’d had a chance to say anything else, there was the sound of breaking glass as one giant paw shot through the window and grabbed at his face. Murphy lurched backwards, like a boxer ducking a punch.
“See!” I hissed at him.
Standing back-to-back in the room, we listened to the sound of the berserkers yapping and snarling from outside. Slowly unbuttoning his shirt, Murphy groaned and said, “You know what? I’m getting too damn old for all this shit. A man of my age should be settled down somewhere. Have a pretty wife, a nice garden and...”
“I’m sorry to piss all over your fantasy, sarge,” I cut in, “but can’t you just take your shirt off a little bit quicker and get your claws out?”
“Okay, okay, don’t hassle me,” Murphy complained. “You know I don’t like to spoil my uniform. I just hate those goddamn creases you get when you just rip your shirt off and...”
“Fuck the creases!” I shouted. “Claw up right now or we’re gonna die!”
No sooner had the words left my mouth when the first of the berserkers bounded through the open doorway. Almost at the same time, Sam entered the living room carrying another pot of boiling hot soup.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“What the fuck do you think?” I roared, pointing at the berserker with my claw. The creature stood up just inside the broken doorway and sniffed the air, as if momentarily distracted by the smell of the chicken soup.
“Want some of this?” Sam asked it, that crazy look suddenly back in his eyes.
The berserker looked down at him as Sam threw the burning hot soup into its face. The creature howled in pain and covered its eyes with two giant paws. Blinded by the burning soup, I lunged forward, dragging my claws across the throat of the beast. Its head rolled backwards on its neck as if attached by a lose hinge. Blood pumped from the wound in thick clots, as Kayla suddenly sprang from the top of the stairs and clung to the back of the dying creature. With her fangs glinting, she buried her face in the creature’s throat and began to eat. I had become accustomed to her wild and frantic feeding sessions at the first hint of blood, but she bit and tore at the berserker with a ferocity I didn’t believe I had seen her capable of before. Maybe the Lot 13 wasn’t hitting the spot anymore? I wondered. After all, there wasn’t anything quite like the red stuff – it was the real thing.
As the berserker staggered in a wide circle, Kayla attached to its back like a monkey, the rest of the downstairs windows blew inwards.
Back-to-back, Murphy and I circled the room, swiping and biting at anything which came at us through the window.
“Just like old times,” Murphy grumbled, as he lashed out at a berserker who dared to stick its snout through the window.
“You wouldn’t want it any other way, you old fart,” I said, burying my right claw into the eyes of a berserker which was scrambling through one of the broken windows. The creature yapped, snarled, and withdrew its head.
“We need to get to open ground,” Murphy barked. “We’re as good as dead if we stay in here.”
I looked back over my shoulder to see Kayla and Sam in the open doorway, as they fought to hold the berserkers at bay. “Got any ideas?” I asked Murphy.
“Not really,” he mumbled around the pipe which still dangled from the corner of his mouth.
“You?”
The berserker that Kayla had fed from lay in a crumpled heap at my feet. Breaking away from Murphy, I hoisted it up and dragged it towards the fireplace. I laid it over the fire. It was huge and easily smothered the flames. The smell of roasting wolf flesh filled the room and funnelled up the chimney. Outside the berserkers began to howl and yap as they detected the scent of cooking meat. Now, these creatures were ferocious killers, and like all pack animals they were driven by instinct, and more often than not, hunger. The first berserker through the door had been distracted by the smell of Sam’s chicken soup, so I was kind of hoping that the smell of roasting meat might just distract them some more, long enough at least for us to get out into the open.
These creatures, although powerful, looked thin and gaunt, like fur-covered men that had been half-starved, and I knew that their desire to kill and hunt was driven by hunger.
Excited by the smell of the cooking meat, the berserkers yelped and barked outside. As if understanding my plan, Murphy looked at me, winked, and said, “Well done, Potter – there’s hope for you yet.”
I looked back at Kayla and Sam, who were still by the open doorway as they fought with their claws and fangs to keep the berserkers from getting in. The smell of the meat wafting up through the chimney and out of the front door was only driving the creatures on even more.
“Get back!” I roared at Kayla and Sam as I raced towards them, knocking them away from the door.
The berserkers seized their chance and bounded and scrambled into the room. All of them headed for the fireplace where they greedily pulled the cooking carcass from the fire. With their huge, long snouts, they pushed and shouldered each other away, keen to get at the meat. The sound of tearing meat and chewing filled the room.
“Get out of the way!” one of the berserkers suddenly screeched at another.
To learn that these creatures could actually speak made my skin turn cold.
“Pleeeaaassee! It was my piece,” one of them whined, fighting over a scrap of half-cooked meat which had fallen from its snout and had been snatched up by another.
“Go! Go! Go!” I hissed at Kayla and Sam, pushing them out of the door. I looked back to see these half wolves, half humans driven mad by hunger and failed matching, fight each other for the meat.
Murphy sprang from the kitchen window, his slippers and shirt tucked under his arms . He dropped the slippers into the snow and wedged his feet into them and put on his white police shirt.
The sergeant stripes on his shoulders glistened.
“That’s better,” he sighed, then walked around the side of the house again towards the dilapidated-looking barn.
He
returned
just
moments later carrying two petrol cans. “Take one of these,” he said, thrusting one of the cans at me.
I watched him unscrew the lid, then splash the contents around the doorframes and window frames of the cottage.
“What you waiting for?” Murphy barked over his shoulder at me.
“What about your deposit?” I shouted over the sound of the feeding berserkers.
“Fuck the deposit,” he grinned and continued to douse the cottage with petrol.
I took the cap off the can that Murphy had given me and splashed the strong, smelly petrol over the front of the house. When I had shaken the last few drops from it, Murphy looked at me.
“Stand back,” he said, bending down and holding his lighter to what was left of the door frame. Within moments, greedy flames were crawling across the front of the cottage. Almost at once the heat was unbearable as the fire began to consume the building. The sound of burning wood hissing and snapping filled the air, belching plumes of black acrid smoke into the white sky.
We stood and watched the house rapidly disappear as it became engulfed by the flames and smoke. “I can hear them,” Kayla said, cocking her head to one side. They’re screeching and calling out for help.”
“I can’t hear anything,” Murphy muttered, turning and heading back towards the barn and the police van.
I stood next to Kayla and Sam, and I was sure that
over the sound of the roaring fire, I could hear those half human, half wolves crying and howling in fear and pain, as the flames and smoke consumed them. Then, the sounds of their cries were drowned out as the van’s engine rumbled to life. The thick, black tyres crunched over the snow as Murphy drove slowly towards us.
“What are you waiting for?” he barked at us.
Silently we climbed into the van, and before I’d even the chance to slide the door shut, Murphy was heading back across the field. In the wing mirror I could see some of the berserkers run, howling and screaming from the fire, pin-wheeling their long arms in the air as they fought desperately to put out the flames that ate away at them.
Burn, you fuckers, I thought with a smile and looked away.
Chapter Nineteen
Kiera
My father looked at me through the falling snow as it settled on his jet-black hair. It was like looking at a ghost in some way, except that he was really there. It was like he hadn’t died at all.
When I’d last seen him, his cheeks had been sunken, his eyes like two deep holes in his face, dark-rimmed, and faded. He had been nothing more than a skeleton; even his hair had thinned and almost fallen out. I remembered his skin had looked waxy and yellow. Now as he stood before me, he looked just how I’d wanted to remember him. Handsome, full of life, his eyes sparkling blue.
“Kiera,” he said sounding surprised.
“What are you doing here?”
Although I had promised myself that I would only watch him from afar, to see him once again, standing so close within reach, I rushed forward and collapsed in his arms. He wrapped them around me and I sobbed uncontrollably against his chest. He smelt just how I remembered him to. Aftershave and soap. I never wanted to let go of him, I wanted to stand in that spot, as snow fell all around us, and never let go. He was my dad and I loved him with all my heart. I didn’t care what anyone said, he was my dad. He looked the same, smelt the same, and held me the same. I closed my eyes against those terrible memories of him screaming out in pain as he begged the nurses for morphine. At least in this world, he would never know such agony. I wouldn’t let that happen to him.