by Jess Ballard
“Pardon?” I wondered whether he was talking about the deer.
“Think about it. He’s not what he says he is.”
“What are you talking about? Where has this come from?”
“You and Peter. I’ve seen how you act together and… I thought I should make sure that you knew.”
“Freddie, you haven’t told me anything, you’re not...”
There was a sudden, immense boom, so loud the gun could have been firing right next to my ears. I whipped my head round to the deer. It wasn’t there. I stood up, peering round the tree to see whether it had fallen.
“Damn it! Fucking deer! Fucking stupid deer!” Peter cried out, crashing into the clearing, waving his arms. “How did I even miss that?” He dropped the rifle to the floor. “Did you see how close that was? Damn it,” he said, holding out a hand and looking at us, an expression of incredulity mixed with frustration on his face.
His flat cap was slightly skewed and wild curls poked out from either side of his head, and paired with his ravings, this gave him an unhinged appearance. He dropped his hands to his sides and kicked up the twigs and leaves on the forest floor, muttering to himself. The whole situation was rather comical, and I began to walk towards him, a smile forming on my face. A hand grabbed my arm before I could take a step, though.
“I mean it, Jenna.” Freddie was still crouching and looking at me right in the eyes. There was something in that look that told me there was more to share, but I tugged my arm away.
“I think I can judge him for myself, thank you.”
I ran over to Peter, and who was pacing and cursing himself. I touched his arm and he turned round. The look of dejection on his face was too much to bear. I burst out laughing. At first he looked confused and a little hurt, but soon that sparkle of playfulness returned to his eyes, and he was chuckling with me.
We didn’t find any other deer, and Freddie walked behind us for the rest of the day. Peter didn’t seem to notice though. He even seemed elated as we strolled through the woods, joking and playing around. Every now and then his shoulder would brush against mine as he ambled along beside me, causing my stomach to flutter pleasantly as if his happiness was rubbing off on me, despite the unease of Freddie’s warning which lingered in my mind.
I pushed it to the back of my mind. I just could not work him out. He had barely said a word to me and then all of a sudden, he had come out with that. But I couldn’t ask him what he meant when Peter was around. And I certainly didn’t want to mention it to Peter. It was inexplicable. It was mad. It wasn’t worth thinking about.
Why hadn’t he said something sooner? Why then? What was Peter not telling me?
But really, Freddie was probably just messing around, in his own special, serious way. It was a joke, or maybe he was jealous. Whatever it was, it was best kept between Freddie and me.
Our vigilance dropped as the day wore on, even as the wind picked up. There was a distinct hint of frost in the air when we turned back to camp. The sun had set before we could anticipate it, stealing the warmth and the light, and it was pitch black as we returned home.
The fire was comforting that night, against a sky that held no light, the far off stars and galaxies hiding behind the clouds. We didn’t talk much after our day of high spirits and laughs. Peter’s disappointment over the lost deer returned briefly as we cooked our dinner, but passed again, as surely as a child forgets the grievances of yesterday. We ate, a simple dinner of tinned beans and leftover rabbit, at which, Peter remarked softly:
“We should maybe think about going into town soon. Not many tins left.”
Freddie got up to go to bed almost immediately after we had finished eating. Not long after, Peter got up as well.
“You coming? I think Freds has the right idea, it’s kind of cold.”
“Sure.” He held out his hand, which I took, and he helped me to my feet. We quickly put out the fire, leaving us completely in the dark. Peter’s voice came out from somewhere in front of me.
“Jen? Where are you?”
“Right here, wait.” I put out my hands, which soon connected with his chest. He laughed.
“Careful of the log.”
“I know.” I lifted a foot to step forward, and stumbled when it collided with said log.
“Whoa, I’ve got you.”
“Get off of me, I can walk by myself, you know.”
“Sure, because you’re doing such a great job.”
I scoffed at him. His hands lingered where they were on my arms, steadying me. I brushed him off and made a point of finding my sleeping bag without faltering.
I spent awhile looking up at the roof of our shelter, which was so dark it could have easily been the night sky, if I hadn’t known it was only a metre above me. I got lost in the intensity of the darkness, both focused on what was in front of me and not, letting my eyes rest in the kind of stare that passes time.
After a while, I heard movement next to me, and then Peter asked:
“Are you awake?” I looked over to him, but couldn’t pick out his face in the dark.
“Yeah, it’s freezing.”
“Come a bit closer then.” I shuffled up beside him so his breath warmed the top of my head. “Better?”
“Not really. Isn’t there another blanket.” He sat up and searched blindly for a bit, before enveloping the both of us in a scratchy but thick blanket.
“Better?”
“Yes.” Peter put one arm around me, and there was a nice pause, a silence that didn’t feel empty. I thought about what Peter might be thinking about until I was finally ready to close my eyes, accepting the end of what had been a great day, in our bubble of quiet in a world that was screaming.
CHAPTER 7
“What…? Shit, wake up, Jen, get up.” I opened my eyes to see Peter fumbling with the zip on his sleeping bag, frantically trying to get out and pull me to my feet at the same time. Naturally, I was initially quite confused. Then I heard the moaning. And a scream.
“Go and get the rifle, Jen, go!” He pushed me away from the A, which was now sinking its broken, yellow teeth into Freddie. He was screaming, screaming so loudly that I could feel my ear drums vibrating.
“Jen, rifle!” I ran, without consciously deciding to, to the store next to the bedroom. All the time Freddie’s yells were getting more desperate. They were the shouts of someone manically reaching out for that last sliver of life, that last hope of survival, harmonised by Peter’s pained cries for it to stop, just stop.
I grabbed the rifle and rushed back, thrusting into Peter’s outstretched hands, shaking with anxiety and urgency.
“Stay behind me.”
Meanwhile, that thing that had somehow come across our camp was ripping flesh and I don’t even want to think about what else from Freddie’s abdomen. When Peter flicked the safety on the gun, it looked up, twitching with what looked like excitement, sheer euphoric joy, its eyes huge, black and bloodshot, blood and human tissue bubbling from its half closed mouth. It was gripping Freddie by his arms as he weakly struggled and kicked against it. Its claw like fingernails had drawn blood through the sleeves of his shirt.
The shot that followed was the most terrible sound I have ever heard. Even though I had heard Peter fire the gun only the previous day, the shot cut through me as if he had been aiming at my skull. Fortunately, unlike the previous day, Peter did not miss. The As head was thrown back as it took a bullet to the centre of its distorted face, letting go of Freddie as it did. It was done, it was no longer a threat, so we moved towards Freddie, as fast as our apprehension of the monster would allow.
If the shot was the most terrible sound I’ve ever heard, Freddie’s body in that moment was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. He was futilely trying to raise his head to look at his damaged stomach, but he could barely blink. I ripped off my jumper and made to press it against him under the pretence of stopping the bleeding, but really it was so I didn’t have to look at his concave abdomen. I needed to something. An
ything to help. Anything other than watching him struggle.
“No.” Peter’s voice sounded far away after the deafening report of the gun.
“What?” I asked, knelt by Freddie, not even looking up.
“Jen, get back.”
“Peter, he’s still… Look, we can help, we can get him help…”
“Jen, get back.”
“Peter, what are you doing? For fuck’s sake, just come and help me!” I cried, and turned to look at him.
He was standing over me, face expressionless, eyes fixed on Freddie.
“Peter, focus, he needs us.”
He kept staring at Freddie, only now Freddie had stopped trying to move, and was breathing shallowly, looking right back at Peter. It was if I wasn’t there. And before I could understand what was happening or do anything, Peter had aimed his rifle. He was still looking at Freddie, his face contorted as tears ran down his face, looking strangely unreal against the dirty pallor of his face. The tendons in his neck stood out, as if he were fighting a strong urge to turn the other way, to not witness what he was about to do. Freddie opened his mouth, like a silent cue in a well rehearsed piece of drama.
Peter shot him. Only this time, I don’t remember the sound.
CHAPTER 8
We waited all day, but thankfully no others came. Peter didn’t say anything at first, just sat hunched over his rifle, staring. Sometimes he would cry, but he would never make a sound.
It was still unusually windy, eerily like the day before, but of course, it wasn’t. That day had passed, everything that came after it, and there was nothing to be done. Spring seemed to have dissolved as the gusts battered the surrounding flowers. The bluebells around our camp bent over in its wake, giving in against the invisible force. It was disheartening to watch.
I managed to get a fire started at around midday. At least it kept us a bit warmer.
I lit a small piece of wood and carried it over to the corpse of the A. I had pushed it away from our camp, its limbs tangled and carelessly thrown. I told myself I didn’t want to, but I could not help but study its face for awhile. It had shoulder length, tangled hair, the colour of it so dark that the congealed blood blended into it. The clothes looked like they had been worn for months, they had taken falls and been ripped and worn out in many places, so that bits of discoloured skin poked through. It was thin, bones poking through the patchwork of clothes, as if something had been eating it from the inside out. Of course, the face was unrecognisable, though I did wonder how I would have felt if I had recognised it.
I enjoyed watching it burn, watching the skin bubble and distort, watching the clothes disintegrate. I could endure the foul odour of the smoke just to see the destruction of the one who had killed him. When it was finished, I covered the site sparingly with leaves, hoping a fox or another wild animal would come and gnaw on its bones.
For lunch, I settled for a tin of peaches. I scooped half into the cleaned tin from the beans we had last night, and set it down next to Peter. He picked it up, but I didn’t see him eat anything.
Next, I washed my jumper, or as much as I could, in the stream. Then, I collected some water. Small tasks, things that I would have done on any other day.
When I returned, Peter was furiously digging a few metres behind camp with the branch of a tree. It was agonising to watch him, each stroke merely scraping the ground, only dislodging a few small clumps of mud. I thought about trying to stop him, telling him it was futile, he was never going to dig deep enough. Nevertheless, I found a decent sized branch and began scratching at the earth as well. It was hot work, but we carried on all afternoon. Peter looked gradually more dishevelled the deeper we went, the black of his trousers hardly visible underneath the thin layer of mud we had both acquired, his jacket thrown off carelessly. He also managed to rip his shirt sleeve at some point, grazing the pale skin below, his blood leaving a few red spots on the white of the shirt. He ignored it, though, and dug.
When the hole got deeper, we started a practical system. Peter would scrap lots of mud up and I would pick it up and throw it over the top of the hole, otherwise we would have just filled the hole with loose soil. We made good progress, considering the slow and tedious nature of the work. Of course, the creeping darkness meant we had to stop before it was quite finished, but we had to make do. We couldn’t leave him, wrapped up in his sleeping bag, just resting metres from the camp. We had to make do.
“I think that’s it,” Peter murmured.
“Hmm,” I agreed. We clambered out of the shallow grave, and I waited by its side as Peter went and picked him up. There was no dignified way of lowering him into the grave, and his body made a horrible dead thump as it hit the earth.
We filled in the grave slowly by the light of the fire. Irritatingly, it took considerably less time to fill then it took to dig. When we had finished, I again looked to Peter for an indication of what to do next. I didn’t know how we were going to mark the grave, or if he had been religious, or if they had ever discussed this or if Peter had a plan, and I had all these questions whirring about in my head, when Peter began singing. His head was lowered, and softly he began singing a song that sounded like it had come from long ago, from a different world. It was low and sombre and reminded me of a lullaby.
It was enough.
“We’ll find some flowers to put on it tomorrow,” I whispered to him when he had been silent for a few minutes. Peter half nodded in my direction, but walked absentmindedly off towards the fire as if he hadn’t heard me.
I followed him, and hovered as he sat down on one of the logs and put his head in his hands. I wiped my face with my sleeve, trying to get rid of the teary mess. Peter wasn’t moving. It was as if he had stopped breathing.
I took a step closer and he looked up.
“What?” he asked, his face wet but expressionless. I looked back at him, trying to form the question in my head.
“What, Jenna?” he said, louder this time. I was still looking at him, but his response had left me somewhat dazed, breaking through the solemn quiet of the day.
“Why did you shoot Freddie?” I blurted out. Granted, I could have prefaced this with something a little more light hearted, but sadness is straight talking and it was the kind of question I couldn’t leave unanswered.
“Are you angry?”
“You haven’t told me yet, so I don’t know. Damn it, Peter, just answer the question.” He looked ahead and sighed.
“We had a pact,” he said slowly. “The last thing he wanted to do was be killed by one of them, so we promised that if either of us was attacked and there was no hope, we would prefer to die at the hand of the other. However hard it may be, whatever it may look like, you have to understand that I did it because it was what he wanted. And I know he died happy, even if just for a second. I saw it in his eyes, behind all the pain and fear.”
“That’s quite a big promise,” I said after some time.
“Would you?” he said quite suddenly.
“Kill you?”
“If I had been attacked. If there was no hope.” I stared at him in disbelief, then shook my head.
“No, Peter, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t do that. I really couldn’t.”
“I’d kill you,” he said, with no hint of emotion in his voice. I wasn’t sure whether or not to thank him, but he carried on before I could say anything. “You once said that you’d always shoot if you ever found an A that you knew.”
“Peter, that’s completely different!” I cried, sitting down beside him. “As are different. There’s no helping them.”
“So, if there was some way that I could be turned into an A, you’d shoot me.”
“I’d shoot you before you could kill.” He nodded, and turned up the corners of his mouth in a way that wasn’t exactly a smile.
“It’s a slight variation on the original pact, I’ll grant you that.”
“Yes, but it won’t happen. It’s not possible.”
“I’m glad,” he said.
“It’s not an easy thing, killing a friend.”
He gave me a long, thoughtful look before getting up and walking over to the bedroom, not appearing to notice that it was still light, and not seeming to care that he hadn’t eaten anything. When I was eventually ready to try for sleep about an hour later, he signalled for me to come closer. He had evidently been lying there, unable to commit to sleep and was silently insistent, holding me close to him.
In spite of everything, or maybe because of it, his presence was not comforting, and every time I felt I was on the brink of sleep, the memory of Peter’s finger on the trigger jolted me awake before I could remember the sound of the shot.
CHAPTER 9
We drifted through the next two days. Perhaps drifted isn’t quite the right word, though. We stuttered. The periods of energy and feelings of worth came and went, as if a capricious external force was directing our lives. We would suddenly get the urge to collect water or make a fire, and before we’d even finished, the compulsion would have passed, leaving us bereft of emotion and willpower.
But Peter was worse. Whatever he was feeling, it went deeper than what I was. Peter had now lost everything from his previous life. A life that, admittedly, meant very little to this new world, but to him, it was hope. Things could have got better when Freddie was here, as if he was the string tying Peter to the world before, and now he was gone, there was nothing left. The past was past, and the future was ahead and daunting. He was lost. In some ways, I’m glad I was never under that illusion, that I never had that semblance of my former life to cling onto. So Peter must have been crumbling.
Freddie and I had not been close. He’d been practically hostile to me at first, and then extremely introverted, the silent member of our family. The only conversations we had ever had were born from necessity, if we had something around the camp that needed doing, or if Peter had been talking to us. But I missed him. He was a presence in and around the camp that had been wrenched from us leaving a pocket of cold air we would walk through every now and then and shiver, and feel our grief. We may not have understood each other, but our family in the woods was Peter, Freddie and Jenna, three sides of a triangle that couldn’t stand up without each other, or at least, couldn’t go on the same when one was missing.